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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Rewind Mainspring
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‘Hey, Status Window, you got something like a Room of Spirit and Time? It’d be *so* great if you could lock me up in one. Let me practice for a few days, and when I come out, less than an hour would’ve passed.’
[Correction. The proper term is the Room of Spirit and Time.]
‘What? You mean you have one?’
[No, but the proper term is the Room of Spirit and Time.]
‘Fuck, are you kidding me?’
[Joke number two.]
‘Are you crazy? …Forget it. If you don’t have one, just go away. Disappear.’
Yeah, that stuff only happens in comics. Even if my dream world and reality had swapped places and I was nineteen again, something like that probably didn’t exist.
Hye-sung taped up her joints, which were rattling like an old tractor, and resumed her practice.
“Ah, I think I’m gonna die.”
“I feel you. I seriously feel like I’m gonna die.”
As midnight approached, everyone slowly started to tire out. Just a few hours ago, the trainees had been full of fighting spirit, declaring they’d pull an all-nighter. Now, they were sprawled out all over the practice room floor, surrounded by empty water bottles.
“Hey, what’s with Hye-sung *eonni*?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s so tired she’s lost her mind. She was the last one here yesterday, remember?”
The Class F trainees whispered among themselves as they watched Hye-sung sitting cross-legged in the corner.
To say she was meditating to recharge would be a stretch; her head was tilted awkwardly, and her face, turned toward the ceiling, looked strange.
‘Dream vividly and it will come true… The law of attraction exists… Connect to the field of infinite possibilities…’
Hye-sung wasn’t meditating; she was deep in delusion.
Delusion was a habit Hye-sung resorted to whenever she faced a mental crisis. To put it nicely, it was mind control. To put it bluntly, it was a form of mental victory, spinning her happy little circuits.
‘Dream vividly and it will come true… The law of attraction exists… Connect to the field of infinite possibilities…’
Hye-sung had been intermittently repeating the core messages from self-help books about thoughts becoming reality.
She must have been *imaging* a very *vivid dream*, because scenes were already playing out in her head: surprising Jade and Kang Min-guk at the re-evaluation, getting praised by Minty, reuniting with Na Yeon-woo in the Ace class, and so on and so forth.
‘Mind control is a technique even medal-winning athletes use. I’m not being delusional; I’m practicing mind control. Anyway, dreams ★ do come true. Go, Korea! Go, us! People of Earth, accept the aliens. *Kkaerang-kkarang*.’
Only after her delusions transcended the scope of Earth did Hye-sung finally return to reality.
“*Eonni*. Are you okay?”
Na Yeon-woo, who had approached at some point, was crouched beside Hye-sung, looking at her with concern.
“I’m fine. More importantly, Yeon-woo, you’re already an Ace.”
“Huh?”
What kind of random thing was that to say? Na Yeon-woo’s eyes widened as she asked again. Then she pressed her forehead against Hye-sung’s and said.
“You don’t have a fever.”
‘H-holy cow! I just saw her from super close up! Ugh, my heart…!’
Na Yeon-woo was worried that Hye-sung’s nonsense might mean she was sick, but Hye-sung couldn’t care less; she was overwhelmed by having seen her favorite’s face from just three centimeters away.
‘This is crazy. Insane. I have to write this in my diary. It’s like her eyes hold the Pleiades star cluster or something; they’re sparkling brighter than my future. Even though she’s all sweaty and grubby from practice, her skin is so fair she’s practically glowing, like a hundred fluorescent lights are shining on her. And her nose bridge, I’m tired of even talking about it. It puts Mount Everest to shame. Her vibe is pure refreshment. Just looking at her cools my eyes. She’s basically a human summer. A human summer. Even her baby hairs and eyebrows are so handsome. What do I do with this baby-faced sculpture? She may be my kid, but she’s just too perfect. And her personality is so sweet… See more.’
“*Eonni*… why are you looking at me like that? Your expression is strange. You’re not sick, are you?”
“…My heart.”
“What? Your heart?”
The color drained from Na Yeon-woo’s face in an instant.
Hye-sung, whose heart had skipped a beat because of Yeon-woo’s face, had spoken so strangely that Yeon-woo misunderstood and thought she was seriously ill.
“What do we do? Shouldn’t you go to the hospital?”
“Ah, no! It’s not that, it’s… esophagitis! My stomach feels a bit sore, too. It sometimes acts up when I’m stressed. I’m fine, it’s not that bad.”
It was a total lie. Hye-sung, who couldn’t handle spicy food and was an ‘alcohol lightweight’ with a tolerance of one can of sparkling liquor, never touched irritating foods and had never had esophagitis or gastritis in her life. She had just blurted out a common chronic ailment of modern Koreans to reassure Na Yeon-woo.
“Still, being sick is being sick. What should we do… Should I go get you some medicine?”
“Huh?”
“There should be some first-aid medicine. I’ll go get it.”
“Oh, thanks…”
Unable to refuse, Hye-sung squeezed the liquid stomach medicine Na Yeon-woo brought her and downed it in one go.
“*Eonni*, you should rest until the medicine kicks in. I’m going to the vocal room.”
“O-okay.”
‘My sweet angel, how is she going to survive in this cruel world, being so naive and kind? I wish the world would be a little warmer to Yeon-woo…’
Since she was resting while pretending to be sick anyway, Hye-sung once again drifted off into the world of delusion.
Continuing from her earlier delusion, a new scene unfolded in Hye-sung’s mind: Na Yeon-woo’s name being called for the debut group at the finale.
‘It’s so moving…’
Watching Na Yeon-woo dramatically make it into the debut group after overcoming all hardships, tears welled up in Hye-sung’s eyes. To reiterate, this was not reality, but a delusion.
[Bonus Stat Delusional Power up! +1]
‘…What the.’
Just as she was basking in the afterglow of emotion, the mood-ruining status window notification popped up, and her good feelings were about to sour.
[Title ‘Delusionist’ acquired.]
Hye-sung, who had been so focused on dancing that she’d momentarily forgotten about the existence of bonus stats, snapped back to her senses as if doused with cold water.
‘Ah… right, there was this stuff. Delusional Power and Karma. Are you crazy, Hye-sung? If your Karma goes over 5, you die. No, you get trapped in a place where you’d wish you were dead!’
Fortunately, her Karma was still at 1.
‘I really need to not do anything. It’s probably best to avoid getting involved with the other trainees as much as possible.’
[You have acquired the exclusive skill for the ‘Delusionist’ title: .]
‘What’s that!’
The title ‘Delusionist’ didn’t sound very positive, but since it came with an exclusive skill, maybe it was a good thing? Unsure, Hye-sung rolled her eyes thoughtfully.
‘Explain what Delusional Power is and how it went up.’
[Delusional Power: An exclusive stat for user Yoon Hye-sung. You can raise your Delusional Power by filling the gauge each time you activate your delusion circuits.]
[Just like a moment ago, the more vividly you experience your delusions—to the point where you can’t distinguish them from reality—and the wider their scope, the faster the gauge will charge. Each time your Delusional Power levels up, you will acquire a title and be able to use an exclusive skill.]
In short, if she got overly immersed in her delusions and experienced them vividly, her Delusional Power would increase.
‘This is something I’m really good at.’
[The ‘Delusionist’ exclusive skill is a skill that rewinds a series of actions back to their starting point after they have concluded.]
[For example, after completing a full choreography once, you can use the skill to rewind back to the start of the choreography. Time and stamina will be maintained as they were at the starting point, while the experience accumulates.]
‘…This is amazing. I have no lingering feelings for the Room of Spirit and Time anymore. I’m gonna try it now. That skill.’
Suddenly feeling as if she had an infinite amount of time, Hye-sung’s eyes turned bloodshot as she eagerly moved to use the skill.
* * *
After using and repeating it 10 times.
‘I can do this much without the skill.’
After 30 repetitions.
‘Wow. I really don’t feel tired at all.’
After 50 repetitions.
‘It’s starting to get boring…’
After 100 repetitions.
‘…’
From the 100th repetition onward, Hye-sung simply repeated the choreography like a machine, her mind empty. After that, she didn’t even notice the count going up.
How much time had been repeated? With her stamina resetting to the starting point, her body wasn’t tired at all, but her mind was beginning to feel the strain.
‘This must be what Sisyphus felt like.’
She even felt a sense of kinship with Sisyphus, who was condemned to the eternal punishment of pushing a giant boulder up a mountain in the underworld.
It felt like five hundred million years had passed. Her mental fortitude had reached its limit.
She had repeated it so mindlessly that her judgment had clouded over, to the point where she forgot she could simply stop and use the skill again later.
‘Where am I? Who am I? Why am I even doing this?’
The moment she had been so happy about her practice time becoming infinite now felt like a distant memory from a past life.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, and she felt like she was about to forget why she was even doing this. Her mental state was on the verge of collapsing.
‘…I want to stop.’
Just as she decided to stop after this one, feeling like she was about to lose her sense of self, the choreography proficiency that caught her eye had risen to a surprising level.
[Choreography Chance! (Proficiency 99%) achieved!]
[ usage time: 14,367 minutes, 38 seconds]
The time she’d spent repeating with was nearly ten days.
‘99%…!’
Seeing the number in front of her, her mind cleared instantly. It was a shame she couldn’t reach 100%, but this was more than enough to be considered complete.
Hye-sung felt the result was worth the ordeal. But it had been so agonizing that she would never be able to do it again if asked.
‘…I don’t think I can use this skill for a while.’
It had become a trauma; now, just the thought of rewinding a mainspring made her feel like throwing up.
[Yoon Hye-sung (19/Female)]
Visuals ★★☆
Vocals ★★
Dance ★☆↑
Star Quality ☆
Her Dance stat had risen by one star while she was increasing her choreography proficiency.
‘I thought it would go up a little more…’
Hye-sung, who had expected her Dance stat to reach two stars, was a little disappointed. It seemed that practicing the same song over and over wouldn’t raise it any further.
“I’m exhausted. My brain’s gonna explode. I’ll just rest for ten minutes.”
Her mind completely frayed, Hye-sung collapsed onto the floor.
“*Eonni*, you only did it once.”
A nearby trainee commented. Though she had repeated it countless times, to others, it looked like she had just done it once before plopping down.
“I did it over 4,000 times. In another dimension.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There’s such a thing.”
‘Just go practice your own part, kiddo. You’re only at 30% proficiency.’
Having spent a repeating ten days in the same spot to achieve 99% proficiency, Hye-sung could now roughly guess the other trainees’ proficiency levels just by glancing at them.
‘Looking at them, there are only a few who are over 50%. I mean, I’m a total amateur, so it makes sense for me, but they’re trainees. Shouldn’t they be at a certain level by the second day?’
Perhaps because her own proficiency had suddenly skyrocketed, she wasn’t satisfied with the other trainees’ progress. It was even more so seeing them already exhausted and sprawled all over the place when it was just past midnight.
‘If this keeps up, Yeon-woo’s going to get scolded tomorrow during class for not making the others practice.’
“Everyone, let’s get up.”
Hye-sung stood in the center of the practice room, clapping her hands like a street peddler trying to draw a crowd, and addressed everyone.
