Chapter 001

Isn't it the national rule that if I open my eyes and see an unfamiliar ceiling, then I am in a different world?

It was not like that for me. Why did I wake up in a moldy motel room.

"Ugh..."

My head felt like it's splitting open. I clutched my forehead and brought my body up. The musty smelling blanket fell off below my feet.

So... let's see, after I checked that I failed the civil service exam again, I think I fell asleep while drinking alcohol alone.

Does this mean I crawled from my one-room to this motel?

"That's crazy..."

I cursed myself as I entered the bathroom. I wanted to let out some fluid and check my drunk self. Though without checking, I know that I'm an alcohol wasted exam taker.

Then I fell down after I saw the mirror.

"Ugh!... F*ck"

I cursed on impulse in this unbelievable situation and clenched on my teeth.

With my shaking hand, I brushed off my face. Then I checked the mirror again.

In the mirror, I still could only see an unfamiliar face.

A quite skinny, good-looking young kid.

..I caught my breath to not fall into panic. I wanted to take a smoke that I had quit.

"... Huh."

I just realized that my voice sounded too unfamiliar.

I felt like biting my tongue.

Just what kind of situation is this?

Barely getting a grip of myself, I led my unfamiliar body to inspect the motel room.

I found a letter that looked like a will and an emptied medicine bottle. It seemed like this guy tried to kill himself by overdosing on sleeping pills.

Skimming through the will, the content was him being an orphan and high school dropout, that he felt lonely and unfair, so he wanted to leave the world.

I felt bitter. Even after switching bodies, I was still an orphan.

On the cheap dressing table, I found the wallet that he left. Inside were several banknotes and this body's identification card.

[Park Moondae 0X1215 - 3XXXXXX]

"The end row digit is 3..."

How young. Feeling discouraged, I checked the picture on the card. This looked better than the wasted face on the mirror earlier, but it still looked gloomy.

Even if it looked gloomy, his face was still handsome and youthful. Is he now 23 years old. I thought the face looked younger.

"...."

No, this is not the time to think about that.

I tried hard to calmly think about this situation.

Somewhat understanding the current situation, I calmed down. I needed to find the whereabouts of my original body and think of a countermeasure. Maybe this guy who tried to kill himself entered my body.

Taking the wallet, I opened the motel's door.

And I froze.

In front of me, I saw snow falling from the window.

...Before I got wasted on alcohol, it was July.

"What the hell."

I swallowed my spit. Then I rushed back inside the motel room and raised the calendar from the table.

[202X December]

...A calendar from 3 years ago.

My vision became blurry.

It didn't take a long time to calm myself. That's because, more than going back to the past, my body getting switched was more shocking.

I perched on the bed and took a breath. Why didn't I even remember any winning lotto number.

After that flash thought of such nonsense, I raised my head.

...Honestly, maybe this wasn't the past, but a whole other different world.

Even though that was a crazy thought, overwhelmed with this crazy situation, it became convincing.

It felt like this situation appeared often in the webtoons or webnovels that I sometimes read. Didn't they call it Hunter fiction?

I quietly mumbled a silly way of speech. I was sure of it, but it felt like it wasn't enough.

"Status window...?"

Of course it would be like this, but nothing came up.

Damn.

Out of shame, I punched my hand to the bed.

Of course it wouldn't appear. You idiot.....

[Name: Park Moondae (Ryu Gunwoo)]

Level : 0

Title : None

Vocal : C

Dance : -

Visual : C

Charm : -

Attribute : Limitless potential

It appeared?

I rolled and fell off the bed.

"Ugh!"

Even as I grunted because of my hurting back, I thought of this.

The content in the status window.. was different from what I expected?

* * *

"..........."

Now that the status window appeared, I became able to calm myself more.

This situation that certainly ignored the law of physics made me realize this wasn't a joke.

Now I came out of the motel and went to a nearby PC cafe. I wanted to check if there are other changes in this world other than I came back to 3 years ago.

Just to check, I asked the person on the counter to call my original phone number and got an unavailable number response.

I couldn't log in to my college account and the SNS account I made for coursework was gone.

In conclusion, it seemed like in this world, the original 'Me' didn't exist.

Not that I have a big regret about it.

My parents had died in an accident when I was in middle school, and I cut off all contact with my relatives when I entered college.

I didn't have any close connections too, and the human relationships that I had all disappeared as I continued to prepare for the civil service exam.

As I reminisce about my wasted time preparing for the civil service exam, honestly, it wasn't strange that I gave up on human relationships.

"The ham ramyun that you ordered is here."

"Ah, thank you."

Finishing my cold feedback of my life, I took the tray. Slurping the ramyun into my mouth, I looked at the search engine.

Um, the me from 3 years ago would be when I put myself in 'serious studying' mode.

That was when I cancelled my smartphone plan and turned off my internet cable, so these webpages were not very familiar.

But I didn't feel uncomfortable with it.

It just felt like 3 years ago. The things that were popular back then were very clear. Games, movies, songs... idols.

Now that you say it, Idols.

"Hm"

I put the chopsticks in the finished ramyun bowl. Then I folded my arms.

That status window, no matter how you see it, the content was for the specialties of an idol.

I didn't know why I entered this body, but did the content of the status window have something to do with it?

Did the original owner of this body, 'Park Moondae', wish to become an idol?

....Or was it because of the past actions I did when I was in college?

Eh, I don't know. But I should use the things that I can use.

"Status window."

Even with a quiet mumble that's almost like just a breath, the semi transparent status window appeared again in my vision.

Vocal is C rank, Visual is C rank too. The rest were empty.

Was that because those hadn't been tried before?

I abruptly thought of that but let's put them aside first. There's no way I would want to diverge into Dance and Charm right in this situation.

I should look into the other content in the status window.

I remembered the karaoke signboard that I saw when I entered the PC cafe.

* * *

"Oh."

After checking my result, it seemed like C rank wasn't a low rank.

I could sing a song fairly well. First, my vocal color was good and my vocal volume was satisfactory. My vocalization was clear, should I say the basics were good. I would say I had the talent.

Something more surprising that happened was this window that appeared.

[Accomplishment achieved! ]

Level 0 -> 1

You received 1 point!

"Accomplishment?"

I just muttered to myself, but another window appeared.

[Ongoing accomplishment]

10 attempts (0/10)

100 attempts (0/100)

First experience (0/1)

10 experiences (0/10)

... ...

Below them, the scroll bar was endless. ...So you're telling me to work repetitively. Moreover, scrolling down, the amount of tries became ridiculously high. Half of them were also blanks that couldn't be identified.

I somehow became less impressed and closed the window.

But I received a point, so I should try using it just like a game.

I opened the status window.

In the bottom, there was a new display written. 'Point left : 1'

"Add 1 point to Vocal"

And the content of the status window changed.

[Name: Park Moondae (Ryu Gunwoo)]

Level : 1

Title : None

Vocal : C+

Dance : -

Visual : C

Charm : -

Attribute : Limitless potential

My vocal became C+.

Would this really show?

Right away I selected to sing the same song I sang earlier. Then I sang it the same way.

"...I was pretty good?"

There was certainly a difference. It became nicer to listen to, a more polished sound was produced.It felt like my vocal automatically acquired the technique to sing like that.

And the 'Attribute' that appeared in the status window.

"It says limitless potential"

Normally, one's innate talent changed the result more compared to one's effort. And with effort, there's a limit to it. The maximum that one could grow was the limit of their potential.

But in this status window, it showed that the efforts were ridiculously a lot and highly efficient and I have no limitation in growing.

And when I actually tried it, I confirmed my ability really did grow.

I stroked my chin and thought.

Idol...

Does this mean to follow the path of this new body?

And in that moment, above the status window, a pop-up appeared.

"...!!"

[Sudden outbreak!]

Status effect: 'Debut or die' arises!

Below the crimson red text, more words followed.

['Debut or die']

If you fail to debut as an Idol within the allocated time, you will die

Time left : D-365

"What?"

The content was outrageous but I had a foreboding feeling.

The situation was already crazy from when I woke up in someone else's body, but there wasn't a guarantee that other strange things wouldn't happen.

After I finished reading everything, the peculiar pop-up disappeared.

And sure enough, a strange clause was added in the status window.

[Name: Park Moondae (Ryu Gunwoo)]

Level : 1

Title : None

Vocal : C+

Dance : -

Visual : C

Wittiness : -

Attribute : Limitless potential

!Status effect: Debut or die

Is this for real?

"F*ck..."

As I spitted out swear words, I wiped my forehead. Cold sweats were running on my face.

I had checked that the status window was real. I couldn't ignore the probability that this f*cking text might become real.

Why did something like this appear? Because I thought of idols?

I laughed at this unbelievable situation. But at the same time, I thought of this.

"...Don't tell me this is punishment for selling idols' data (pictures and videos) so far in my life?"

Yeah, idols.

To be honest, because of my personal situation, this was a familiar field for me.

When I was in college, I earned a good amount of money for living by becoming a substitute to take idols' pictures and videos. In the process, I also did things that were more materialistic.

I saw everything and heard all kinds of rumors.

And they said that an environment made a person. As I followed to take pictures of them, that time, I unnecessarily became over indulgent in this field.

That time, I voluntarily learned about this and that, this was a field that I was quite knowledgeable in.

I rubbed my face and wiped my sweats off. Crossing my arms, I stared at the status window.

I didn't know what was what anymore. This was absurd and maddening.

But I had no plan of dying.

That's why let's think about it calmly.

Right, I had an absolutely worthless life and now they're giving me a chance to start a new life. And the conditions were this favorable.

Also, to find out the reason why I entered this body, I needed to use this unrealistic status window more and check how it worked.

"Hm."

I was done rationalizing my own situation. I grinned as if I was crazy.

Around this time, didn't one idol survival program become a hit?