A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 400

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

A Regression Guide for Idols Who Lost Their Original Intent Episode 400

With five days left until D-Day, I succeeded in achieving 100% relationship improvement with all the members. I finally did it!

If Ryu Jaehee wasn’t here with me, I would have been thrashing around on the sofa shouting hurray. Just how many years was this long-term quest?

And the numbers weren’t fixed but kept fluctuating, which caused me a lot of trouble. It wasn’t even a seesaw, but when one guy went up, another went down. Sigh.

If the move had been delayed by just five days, if Ryu Jaehee’s younger sibling had sold our gifts on Joonggonara just a little later, instead of achieving 100% relationship improvement through a serious consultation with Ryu Jaehee, I would have been singing 【Come to My Universe】 again.

When the CEO said he chose the moving day as an auspicious day, I clicked my tongue wondering if he really believed in such things in this day and age, but thinking about it now, it really was an auspicious day.

Thanks to choosing the moving day well, we prevented everything we’ve achieved so far from being reset in an instant, so it was indeed auspicious, yes, yes.

Just how far does the CEO’s insane luck extend?

【QUEST COMPLETE】

[▷Let’s improve relationships with the members! ✓

▶You have completed filling the relationship improvement with members to 100%.

▶’Regression Penalty’ is eliminated.

▶As a reward, you receive 30 Initial Heart Points, ‘Memory Fragment (28)’, and ‘(Unknown)’.]

Seeing the sentence that the regression penalty was eliminated, I let out a short sigh of relief. I finally escaped the threat of returning to debut days.

Of course, if this damn system throws me another quest with a regression penalty, I’ll suffer again, but at least I won’t be stressed watching single-digit D-Day countdowns for a while.

I nodded my head satisfactorily and read the reward list. My current Initial Heart Points are 88. And 100 was the maximum for Initial Heart Points.

‘So will the excess 18 points be kept and used to fill up later when my Initial Heart Points decrease?’

[No]

This damn system has no flexibility whatsoever. Do 18 Initial Heart Points just pop out of the ground? This is a score you can only get by completing weekly quests several times, and you’re telling me to just throw it away?

I’d rather curse nine times right now to lose 18 points. Then instead of 18 points flying away, it would be filling up the lost points, so it would be less unfair. I’d also feel refreshed from cursing after a long time, killing two birds with one stone.

Let me complete one verse of a hip hop song for the first time in a while.

[18 Initial Heart Points have been stored.]

This damn system only shows flexibility after I threaten it. Satisfied with getting what I wanted, I smiled and looked over the remaining rewards.

[Memory Fragment (29): Related memories will be unlocked when conditions are met]

What’s that number next to it? Is it age or quantity? And you should at least tell me what conditions they are so I can achieve them or do something about it.

[(Unknown): Cannot be viewed due to unmet conditions]

This one is even unknown and cannot be viewed. Why even give something like this?

Even though I completed a hidden quest, I can’t immediately see the memories the system manipulated, which only reinforced my thought that this system is truly useless.

“Hyung, let’s start recording!”

At Ryu Jaehee’s urging, having quickly mastered the lyrics and melody, I pushed thoughts about the reward items far away and sent Ryu Jaehee into the recording booth.

“You’re putting too much force into it right now. Try removing the excitement from your voice. This isn’t a fresh song right now. Why are you so excited about doing a guide recording for a demo song?”

As I stopped after just the first verse and pressed my forehead, Ryu Jaehee awkwardly scratched his cheek. If I had known he’d be this excited, maybe I should have let him do it once or twice before.

“Don’t cut it off sharply, stretch it out like you’re drawing out the end of your words. No, don’t stretch it out like you’re being cute, do it a bit listlessly. Like you just woke up.”

This guide recording directing session definitely took longer than usual.

What Gyeon Hajun would accept and change perfectly in one try, Ryu Jaehee needed two or three attempts to get right.

‘Still, it’s not unsalvageable.’

Come to think of it, even during main recordings, Ryu Jaehee was the guy who followed my directing best after Gyeon Hajun. Having more options wasn’t a bad thing.

When Gyeon Hajun was busy with schedules or his throat wasn’t in good condition, or for songs outside Gyeon Hajun’s vocal range, I could assign them to Ryu Jaehee. Their ranges were similar, but Ryu Jaehee’s was just slightly higher.

“That’s good, nice work.”

After finishing the guide recording, an exhausted Ryu Jaehee took off his headset and trudged out of the recording booth.

“I thought guide recording would be lighter, but it’s as intense as main recording. Is it like this when you do it with Hajun hyung too?”

“Looking at the quality of the demo songs you’ve heard so far, you don’t need to ask to know the answer, do you?”

I replied indifferently while playing the final version. Ryu Jaehee’s familiar voice, though not as much as Gyeon Hajun’s, echoed through the studio.

Mm, it came out well. It lacked the subtlety of Gyeon Hajun, who absorbed my directing perfectly, but since he was such a skilled guy, he sufficiently compensated for the required subtlety with his vocal techniques.

This level wouldn’t be worrying even if thrown into a blind test.

As I nodded satisfactorily, Ryu Jaehee, who had been constantly glancing at me, relaxed and openly showed relief.

“So between Hajun hyung and me, who’s better to work with?”

At Ryu Jaehee’s question asked with a bright smile, I came up with an answer almost reflexively, you could say instantaneously.

Still Gyeon Hajun for now.

But worried that the relationship improvement level I’d worked so hard to raise might drop back to 99%, I decided to tell Ryu Jaehee a white lie.

Even though the Quest completion window had appeared, I didn’t know how that damn system would react. What if it showed the D-Day again when it dropped to 99? That system was wicked enough to do that and more.

Damn, if it weren’t for the regression penalty, I would never have compromised in the realm of music.

“You two are similar. Hajun is just slightly more comfortable?”

“If I do it for 4 years with you, won’t it become comfortable? By then, I’ll be able to follow your directing as well as Hajun hyung, right?”

“It’s not 4 years, it’s 6 years. He’s been exclusively doing guide recordings for my work since his trainee days.”

“Then I just need to do it for the next 6 years. You won’t be in Rev after 6 years anyway, right?”

I was leaving after 4 years. Of course, that was the story from before regression, not now.

When my expression became subtle, Ryu Jaehee grabbed my shoulder.

“Hyung…? No way…? You’re not thinking about leaving now, are you…? You’re not really preparing to leave the idol scene for the hip hop scene to find your identity as a rapper, are you…?”

“Yeah, take turns doing guide recordings with Jun.”

“Why are you avoiding the topic, making me anxious…!”

“Why would I leave, man!”

Would I be crazy enough to leave now? How much have I built and nurtured this group! It’s just that when you said 6 years later, it overlapped with the past.

And according to what Cha Yeonho said, 6 years later I wasn’t in Rev but didn’t exist in the world.

If this was going to happen, I should have asked Cha Yeonho who came to my funeral and who didn’t. If they came, I’d go easier during recording, and if they didn’t, I’d really grill them. 1 minute… since he came, should I cut him some slack, or apply the crime of being annoying?

Since Ryu Jaehee had opened up his honest feelings to me and finished the demo song guide recording, I left the studio to return to the dormitory before the members fell asleep.

“Wait, what was the new dorm address again?”

As soon as I turned on my cell phone to ask Manager Hyung, Ryu Jaehee reached out and entered the address into the navigation.

When I stared at him with my hand on the gear, Ryu Jaehee blinked and asked.

“What?”

“No, I expected you to be all proud and showing off your competence, but you’re surprisingly calm?”

“Of course I’m capable, but claiming contribution and necessity with something like this is a bit… It would make me look too trivial.”

Ryu Jaehee replied reluctantly and shrugged his shoulders. Now that he’s gained confidence, he’s become shameless. That’s a good sign.

I gently pressed the accelerator and glanced at the navigation.

“I should change the navigation’s home address to the new dorm address too.”

“I’ll change it. I just need to set this address as home, right?”

Oops, out of habit. I barely stopped my hand from turning the handle toward the familiar route and poured out some nagging to Ryu Jaehee for the first time in a while.

“But when are you going to get your license? Even Yehyeon Hyung got his. You’re the only one among the members who hasn’t gotten it yet. At this rate, you’ll never get it for the rest of your life, you know? Do you know how much your living radius expands when you can drive?”

“I’m going to get it this year. Yehyeon Hyung suggested we get it together this year, but then he went and got his first last year because he didn’t want to be called hyungnim. I was betrayed by Yehyeon Hyung.”

“That hyung is secretly funny too. He got his license because he didn’t want to be called hyungnim, but then why does he hate it so much when we actually call him hyungnim? Anyway, his personality is really unique.”

“What Yehyeon Hyung wants is a hyungnim with respect in it, not a hyungnim like some gangster boss.”

“That hyung needs to know that the world doesn’t always go the way you want it to.”

“Thanks to you, hyung, he probably learned that painfully. Especially during recording.”

That little brat, now that our relationship has improved 100%, his back-talk has also become 100%.

As soon as we entered the new dorm that I still couldn’t get used to, two boxes placed in the living room caught my eye.

“Youngest, check if everything you left at your family home is there. It felt a bit awkward to touch your stuff…”

Seo Yehyeon, who had been lying on the sofa, sat up and pointed at the boxes.

The sofa had also gotten much bigger, so even with one person lying down, two more people could still sit. Kim Dobin, who had been sitting next to him, jumped up and helped Ryu Jaehee open the boxes.

“Why is that kid Doby suddenly acting mature?”

When I nudged Gyeon Hajun and asked in a low voice, he only gave me a strange answer asking if it wasn’t a good thing.

“Everything’s here except for one thing. I thought he would have left a few things and sold the rest, but I guess I underestimated my little brother too much.”

Ryu Jaehee, who had laid out the items from the boxes on the living room floor, let out a cynical remark. But that was only for a moment, as the corners of Ryu Jaehee’s mouth drooped when he looked back at me.

The one thing that was missing was the limited edition sneakers I had given Ryu Jaehee as a gift.

It wasn’t something I bought new but was originally mine, but Ryu Jaehee had fallen for it completely after seeing mine once, and since it was hard to find now, I just coolly gave it to Ryu Jaehee.

And that thing appeared on Joonggonara for dirt cheap, so it sold immediately, damn it.

“Only hyung’s gift didn’t come back in the end. If I had known this would happen, I should have left that out when I left things at my family home. This is what I get for being stubborn and not listening to hyung.”

When I tried to comfort him by saying he could pick out another pair of shoes in response to the deep regret in Ryu Jaehee’s voice, Gyeon Hajun poked my side with his elbow. I guess that was the wrong answer.

“That guy obviously won’t even pay back the 500,000 won… Eden Hyung, can you cooperate with me?”

I nodded readily at Ryu Jaehee’s proposal, as if he had decided on something, and smiled wickedly.

“You know I’m good at this kind of thing.”

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