Over the dark silhouettes of the participants on stage, the audience glimpsed some of the features of modern combat uniforms. It was the outline of a bulletproof vest or harness.

'Heoook'

The moment the excited audience screamed internally, a sudden electronic sound resounded through the hall.

It was a modified, neutral human voice.

To match the voice, all the classic game button sounds made up a new melody.

BBi BBi- Ding dong! BBibibibibiBBi, BBi, BBi--------!

Participants on the stage moved their bodies to the sound.

The unnatural movement of popping style dance reminded of a kind of doll or a robot.

And they instantly froze.

The lights were turned on above them after they stopped their short movements.

A clear human voice cut through the altered accompaniment.

Seon Ahyun who did a typical shooting pose, grinned at the end of the verse.

"Ahhh!!"

A burst of shouts filled the concert hall.

The participants began to move dazzlingly, as if responding to the shouts.

Kwon Heeseung sang after receiving the verse from Keun Sejin, who appeared to sweep through the floor.

Every time the vocalist hits the center, complex movements are added in between and the rigid movements of classic game characters disappeared. It felt like selecting a character to play in the character window of a video game due to the synergy with the stage costumes.

Although it was uncommon since he's a rapper, Kim Raebin was in charge of lead vocals, and bounced onto the microphone.

As they pulled their arms up as to shoot something, the dance with a large formation was somewhat uniquely composed as if they were made to follow the choreography

//TN: I didn't really completely understand the description of the dance so I'm just winging it with the translation.

And the chorus.

Park Moondae hit the high notes on the rising octaves.

And the beat that rose like crazy after the chorus temporarily dropped.

Boom!

The theme melody flowed out again from the heavy resounding bass. On stage, they began to stamp their feet in a triangular formation.

The choreography with powerful moves to match the heavy beats was spread on the stage. The strong and weak parts of the dance were distinguished enough so that a strange feeling of intimidation was felt.

With each moves of head brushing and angled movements, the audience watched the stage with their mouths open.

It was the same for viewers.

The comment window paused for a moment when the stage started, and then it was covered with short words such as 'crazy', 'ㅓㅓ', and 'wow'.

Even with the terrible camera work, the quality of the stage was felt.

And in verse 2, a new formation appeared.

The silhouettes on the stage moved to their own part first, and moved as if they were leading another team member while aligning themselves with the formation.

It was brutally difficult to sing live at the same time, but it was wonderful to look at.

In the bridge part, after Kim Rae-bin exchanged short but complex raps with Lee Sejin's vocals, the chorus appeared again.

Bang!

At this part, the same iconic shooting choreography appeared again to prevent any possible fatigue from doing too many different difficult moves.

And again, the sound which brings out the demo version of the melody and the tone that the viewers have been hearing everytime dropped.

This time, Seon Ahyun came forward and did the choreography. With the heavy beat, flashy footwork went back and forth. All in all, this stage, which is very meticulously composed, is both a pleasure to watch and a pleasure to listen to, increasing the immersion.

Thanks to this, viewers plastered with question marks saying that it was over too quickly when the stage was over.

The end of the stage.

With a narration similar to the electronic sound in the beginning, the participants who stretched and bent their necks waved their hands and walked away behind the stage.

The 8-bit melody sounded like it was breaking.

BBi- BBi- BBibibibibiBBi, BBi-------!

Lights burst out from behind the stage, and their silhouettes slowly faded away. Usually, the choreography ended with a pose. The composition was close to an adventure. However, thanks to such an unusual ending, they were like characters disappearing after a fun game.

"Woaaaaahh!!"

The viewers were very excited.

After a while when only words had passed, communicative comments started running around the end of the inserted interim advertisement.

And, as the viewers expected, the next team's stage was flat. This relatively low-ranking team competed in good faith for the main position and was given the amount to strengthen teamwork. And like the previous team, this team tried to make use of the keyword .

However, the lyrics and choreography that focused on effort, passion, and desperation became burdensome because they lacked refinement. This comparison was even more pronounced because the previous team composed the stage by mixing humor and fantasy.

The second team's stage came to an end in the midst of a rather dry reaction. And in this loose atmosphere, the stage of the last team was revealed.

The preparation process was equally trivial, but they added a little more with Ryu Chungwoo overcoming his slump. Although I don't know if he actually overcame the slump.

However, in the broadcast, he took on the role of the leader, which he had been refusing to do, and it came out as if he performed his job well.

The reaction of the viewers were rather lukewarm. Since Ryu Chungwoo's good cuts weren't just a day or two.

Anyway, I don't know what kind of insults Ryu Chungwoo would have had if he hadn't been from the former national team, but in any case, no one crossed the line.

And the stage.

Cha Yujin tore up the stage again.

In fact, because of his personality who doesn't care much about the amount of other people, there was no reason that other people's parts would look good just because he was there.

It was just that Cha Yujin was shining and the stage looked great.

It could be seen that he was a talent optimized for solo or contest programs.

The viewers chatted joyfully.

Youngrin, who was in charge of hosting again, had an important announcement left.

"How was the stage for the team match prepared by the participants? Yes. It looks like you enjoyed it... Now then, it's time for the big announcement."

Youngrin pointed to the screen with her hand.

"It's the announcement of the number of debut members!"

* * *

After finishing the performances, the participants descended down the stage to prepare for the final stage.

A pop-up of successful stages came up for the first time in a while, but of course I wasn't in a situation to look into it. Because you never know when your face will be broadcast live.

If any announcement was made on stage, there were cameras following each participant team to catch the reaction.

And right now, the number of people to debut is being announced above.

"How many people do you think it will be?"

"What about you?"

"I... ten people?"

Keun Sejin shrugged. It seemed like a slightly wishful answer. Kim Rae-bin, who had just finished getting his makeup fixed next to us, seriously intervened.

"I think it's an odd number. They usually prefer odd numbers because of the size and formation of idol groups."

"It makes sense."

That's...It wasn't like that though.

I turned my head and inwardly clicked my tongue. Seon Ahyun, who had just finished praying, made eye contact.

"How many do you think there will be?"

"W-well, I'm not sure... Ma-maybe...seven people?"

"Seven?"

"Isn't that too little?"

I think people around me picked it up, so they intervened and scolded him.

Everyone pretended not to, but it seemed to be because they were nervous.

Seon Ahyun shrank, but did not withdraw his opinion.

'His personality has changed.'

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I think most people voted for seven people too. Although it would be nice if more people would be in the debut lineup."

"Y-yeah!"

Seon Ahyun nodded.

As I was listening to Cha Yujin muttering things like, 'I like even numbers,' I could hear the screams of the audience from above.

"What the?"

It sounded almost like a tremor.

While the participants were bewildered, Youngrin's microphone's voice could be heard all the way down.

"In this the average number of people who the shareholders want to debut and selected.... is 6.47 people!"

All the participants stiffened.

"As a result of correcting numbers to natural numbers through rounding... The final number of debut members is 6!"

And again, things became noisy with shouts and swearing.

"What did she say?"

"6.4....what?"

Behind the bewildered voices of the participants, I sighed.

'This is the last episode of aggro.'

The number of people to debut voted by the public was completely averaged out. People could only vote once for the amount they wanted and it could not be modified.

Because of this, people voted for the number that they think would be the most ideal for an idol group. By a narrow margin, the most chosen amount of people was five.

However, since the show was a huge success, this averaging and rounding the number was the result of the production team's trick to try to increase the number of people to debut.

Although it ended up with an increase of only one person, there started to be attacks about the number of people on the internet community with an aggessive nature.

Thinking of the already predictable Internet reaction, I shook my head.

'Let's prepare my heart.'

Now that the last stage was over, it was time for the final ranking announcement ceremony.

//TN: Now that I'm done with ch60, the amount of chapters will decrease to about 2 per week. When I'm free and not dealing with college stuff then I'll try to translate more, since I also want to know how the story progresses ^^