A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 261

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Regression Guide for Idols Who Lost Their Initial Intentions Episode 261

“All together, that’s 5.5 million won total.”

Since the other three combined only made 500,000 won, even though I earned 5 million won, the total prize money wasn’t significantly different from other teams.

So much for differentiated stage setups or luxurious team-building events compared to other teams. We’d have to compete purely with our song.

It wasn’t that I lacked confidence in our completed song, but I was a bit frustrated that the merit of earning 5 million won in prize money couldn’t be highlighted.

“So first… anyone who doesn’t feel confident doing freestyle rap right now?”

At my question, Raizo and Nijeous simultaneously raised their hands.

“It’s a bit difficult right now, I need time to mentally prepare.”

“I’m weak at freestyle…”

Unlike Nijeous who spoke confidently, Raizo trailed off awkwardly.

“Then do you two have any of your own work? It’d be even better if it’s unedited.”

Fortunately, both of them nodded.

First, we played our team’s beat and listened to Toohyeok’s freestyle rap. Then we listened to Raizo and Nijeous’s work in order.

After finishing that process, only three words came to mind.

‘We’re fucked.’

Cold sweat formed on my back. For the first time since participating in DTB, a crisis had arrived.

I decided not to count the elimination in the third preliminary round as a crisis since it was clearly the broadcasting station manipulating results to create drama.

What made this a crisis was that I only considered the beat and didn’t consider the team members’ rap skills.

Before my regression, Skoen, who won this beat, was a rapper making quite a name for himself in the underground, so even the rappers who chose him trusting in the difficult beat were pretty formidable.

If three out of four team members advanced to the second round of the main competition, that says it all. Skoen himself said in an interview that luck was on his side.

But now?

Starting with the group leader being an idol rapper, none of these members advanced to the second round of the main competition, as far as I remember.

Moreover, didn’t Toohyeok choose this place with three people because everywhere else was full and he had nowhere to go?

I saw him scrambling around and then coming to my team when six people flocked to Yupi’s team.

And even if he didn’t take first place, only one person per team would be eliminated, so he clearly chose a place where he was confident he wouldn’t be last among the four.

Among the three, Toohyeok’s skills were the best. So this was a fairly credible speculation.

The problem was that Toohyeok’s tone, which I just heard, didn’t really suit this beat either.

He’d have to either lower his tone completely or change his rap style, and this request would inevitably lead to conflict.

Seven years before regression and three years after regression, a total of ten years in the entertainment industry. With this much experience accumulated, I unconsciously develop the superpower to foresee the future.

-Yoon Eden was too inconsiderate, cutting him off like that and suddenly telling him to change his rap style, honestly Toohyeok has a right to be upset

-Eden, please put yourself in his shoes, it really made me frown when you told him to change immediately, can rap style change overnight?

-Ah this is Yoon Eden crossing the line;; For Toohyeok, elimination is on the line

Due to devil’s editing, I would become the villain who only makes unreasonable demands of Toohyeok.

-Is Yoon Eden’s team doing song production or having fights?

-Ugh damn frustrating… whenever this team appears I get so stressed I want to change the channel

-If the song quality turns out shit after all that, it’ll be hilarious

Due to the conflict narrative that DubNet would beautifully maximize with devil’s editing, our team would become the most talked about in a negative way.

-The result is just this? If you were going to produce this quality of song, why did you grab each other’s hair like that?

-If they had just focused on working on songs with the time and energy they spent fighting, they wouldn’t have produced such garbage tsk tsk

-You made us eat all that frustration just to show us this,,,

The song born from that frustrating process would be put on the chopping block and butchered with knife-sharp evaluations down to the second.

-Essential viewing for rappers entering DTB team music source missions: (DTB Season 4 Yoon Eden Team link)

-A representative example of a failed group project

-Just don’t do it like this! Pretty easy, right?

Our song making video would be branded as a group project horror story and passed down as a cautionary tale for the next season.

Still, damn it, a man’s word is worth a thousand gold pieces, so I have to keep what I said. Even if I have to speed like a bus, I’ll definitely make us rank first among the five songs.

And I absolutely won’t let DubNet extract the conflict narrative they want from our team.

“Let’s put the hook aside for now and start writing lyrics for your own parts. Three days should be enough, right?”

Everyone nodded at my question. I’d be really grateful if everyone just followed along without complaints like they are now.

“Then let’s meet here Friday at 10 AM with your part lyrics.”

“Wait, I think you miscounted the days. You said three days. Then it should be Saturday, not Friday.”

Don’t tell me he understood three days as four days? I felt embarrassed by Nijeous’s confident correction without a hint of shame.

Then what’s four days, huh? Is there a number called ‘na’?

It’s truly difficult not to snap at others.

* * *

Friday, the deadline for part lyrics.

“Come to think of it, DTB episode 2 airs today, right? Did everyone watch episode 1?”

Today was also the day DTB episode 2 would air.

“I watched it. I was a bit disappointed since my screen time was just a brief face shot.”

“I didn’t watch it. I figured I’d only appear for a few seconds in episode 1 anyway.”

“Eden hyung appeared for quite a while though. I even bought that beret that became trendy recently. But it didn’t suit me as much as I thought, so I’m just leaving it alone. Oh, right. Hyung, why did you dress like that during the first preliminary round? Looking at you before and now, you seem to dress really fashionably. Did your agency tell you to dress like that?”

Nijeous was somehow maintaining high energy alone in this low-energy team.

Actually, it didn’t seem particularly high energy, but it was relatively high energy since the other team members were so low energy.

At this rate, instead of worrying about conflict narratives from devil’s editing, I should be more worried about being completely edited out for being boring?

Devil’s editing versus complete editing. Either way, neither is welcome.

I need to pull some aggro without any elements that could be portrayed or edited negatively.

Nijeous, who laughed good-naturedly saying his rap name was the longest so just call him by his real name Lee Gyuchan, was this team’s only hope.

“Everyone brought their lyrics, right?”

Toohyeok answered by nodding his chin, while Raizo and Nijeous at least answered verbally.

Damn, if I tell Toohyeok to change his rap style or tone, we might really get into a fight.

From my experience, that type of personality has strong pride, and if you touch it, things get quite troublesome.

Fortunately, the lyrics Toohyeok and Raizo brought weren’t at a level that would make you frown, and there was no socially problematic content.

Toohyeok wrote sensible lyrics making good use of punchlines, and I liked Raizo’s lyrics because they were DTB disses.

Finally, I took Nijeous’s cell phone and skimmed through the lyrics written in the memo app.

‘Gyuchan, are you crazy?’

I barely swallowed the words that were about to come out of my throat.

If we record this as is, it’ll 100% get caught by censorship and receive a 19+ rating. This was the first time I’d seen lyrics with three profanities per sentence.

And lyrics about being tired because women stick to you everywhere you go – even if I wrote that, I’d probably get cursed at, so what courage did you have to write it? The courage to be hated?

You obviously don’t look like someone women would stick to, don’t you think you’re being too shameless?

Shit, the cameras are watching.

I chanted my all-purpose spell to barely calm my angry heart and called Nijeous.

“Gyuchan.”

“Yes, hyung!”

After plunging me into a swamp of stress, his response was certainly quick.

“How about we tone down the lyrics a bit?”

Extremely gentle and soft-toned words flowed from my mouth.

If Kim Dobin had seen this, he probably would have made a huge fuss again about me being possessed.

Nijeous should be very grateful that this team was temporary. Otherwise, scalp massage and neck massage would have already begun, followed by a torrent of harsh words without profanity.

“But then the hip hop spirit won’t come alive, right? This isn’t a K-pop survival show, it’s a hip hop survival show, so isn’t this much okay?”

Nijeous retorted with an expression that clearly showed he had no intention of changing the lyrics.

Wouldn’t it have been better to team up with Choi Hyeongjin instead…? At least Hyeongjin wouldn’t have shoved such terrible lyrics at me.

“Gyuchan, abandon the prejudice that hip hop must use profanity for rhymes and punchlines.”

Right, this kid is still just a high schooler full of superficial pretensions. He’s not an X-man that Dubnet planted in my team to ruin me.

As I carved the character for patience in my heart and gave him unusually gentle advice, a sarcastic sneer came back.

“Ehhhh, isn’t that just because you’re an idol, hyung? I’m not an idol, I’m a rapper.”

Despite my desperate attempts to stop him, Nijeous (a.k.a. Lee Gyuchan) stubbornly provided delicious evil editing material. I could hear DTB PD’s cheers like an auditory hallucination from somewhere.

The editing angle was already perfectly set up.

They’ll probably push the narrative of ‘Idol rapper conscious of the public VS Underground rapper who wants to do truly free hip hop.’

A kid even younger than our youngest member was serving me this kind of disrespect. Kim Dobin, who used to stress me out as a duo with Seo Yehyeon during every recording, was being reevaluated.

Damn, but at least our Doby listened to what I said. Even when he talked back to me, he’d back down on his own if I just stared at him a little.

Before I knew it, Kim Dobin had become ‘our Doby’ in my heart.

But if I got serious here or established hierarchy by putting him in his place like I usually did, the PD would obviously shed tears of joy and give a standing ovation, so I chose to change my approach.

Anyway, this guy had thrown himself into the swamp of evil editing and ruined his own future, so I had to at least protect my own image. Salvation is self-service, you little punk.

“How old are you, our Gyuchan?”

At my sudden question, Nijeous scratched the back of his head but answered diligently.

“Eighteen.”

“I didn’t write lyrics like that even when I was fifteen and in the underground, Gyuchan. What are you going to do if you’re worse than a turbulent middle school syndrome?”

Changing that guy’s image from a ‘rapper who wants to do free hip hop’ opposing an idol conscious of the public to ‘a young punk who still hasn’t escaped his middle school syndrome’ was as easy as eating cold porridge for me.

If you want to defy me, come back when you’ve improved your lyric writing skills, punk.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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