A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 77

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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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Regression Manual for an Idol Who Lost Their Original Intentions Chapter 77

The 8-part reality show filming was still ongoing.

Today’s filming was our second chosen reality content theme: cooking(?).

I had imagined something like a heart-chilling terrible cooking competition, but the plot the production crew brought far exceeded our meager imagination.

“Relay cooking challenge?”

Even while reading the words written on the cue sheet, I was bewildered.

It would probably be more entertaining to just raid the refrigerator ingredients and make something edible.

“The members will take turns doing recipe selection, ingredient shopping, ingredient preparation, cooking, and tasting. The 1st batter chooses and writes the recipe, the 2nd batter shops for ingredients according to the recipe, the 3rd batter prepares the ingredients, the 4th batter cooks according to the recipe, and the 5th batter does the tasting. However, communication and consultation between each other is prohibited.”

After reading the explanation, I roughly understood what method this was.

Among these, the most important roles were the 4th batter who cooks and the 1st batter who chooses the recipe.

If the 1st batter chooses something like beef bourguignon, we’d all be doomed together.

I desperately prayed that I wouldn’t get stuck with 4th position.

Unless the cooking theme was Tornado Omelette, I knew better than anyone that my cooking skills were terrible.

For now, the most comfortable position was 1st batter.

5th wasn’t very appealing since they’d have to eat even ruined food. Of course, it would be different if the 4th batter was Gyeon Hajun.

“Hajun Hyung absolutely has to be the 4th batter.”

“Right, Rev’s only chef.”

“What about me?”

“Hyung is a diet chef.”

Seeming to like that title too, Seo Yehyeon nodded with a faint smile.

Before we could decide the order among ourselves, the production crew intervened.

“The order will be decided by a game.”

“We can’t decide it ourselves at our discretion?”

The production crew was firm. Ryu Jaehee grabbed his head and screamed in despair.

“We’re doomed! Unless the 4th batter is Hajun Hyung or Yehyeon Hyung, the 5th batter will definitely become a punishment role!”

“Honestly, if the recipe isn’t diet food, it’s dangerous for Yehyeon Hyung to be the 4th batter too.”

“If Yehyeon Hyung becomes the 4th batter, we’ll definitely go with a diet cooking recipe.”

“That’s such a good idea, guys.”

As soon as the suggestion to go with diet cooking came up, Seo Yehyeon had the expression of a father warmly welcoming back a prodigal son.

Seeing that pleased and moved smile that seemed to say these guys had finally come to their senses, even though we had reconciled, I wanted to shatter those expectations.

‘Would he fall backward if I said we’re doing cream gnocchi or triple handmade cheeseburger?’

To make that a reality, I had to secure 1st position somehow. How difficult it was to make wasn’t my concern.

The order-deciding game the production crew prepared was Halli Galli.

“The first person eliminated becomes 5th, and the person who lasts until the end becomes 1st.”

The rules of Halli Galli were that people who no longer had cards to play on their turn were eliminated, and the person with the most cards won.

But in this game, instead of producing a winner, they were saying they’d assign 5th through 1st positions in order of elimination.

I lightly warmed up my hands while lamenting inwardly.

‘Ah damn, I’m more confident at One Card than Halli Galli.’

The bell was placed in the center and we each received our card distribution.

“Ah, hit the bell gently! My knuckles are going to get destroyed!”

“That’s not five bananas! That’s six including this one!”

“What? When did that come out?”

“Hajun Hyung, you hit the bell wrong, so distribute one card each.”

“Kim Dobin just played his card facing inward! Play it facing outward! Hey, give back one card each.”

“No, giving penalties for card-playing direction is a bit much!”

An intense game that made each other’s knuckles swell red ensued, and resounding DING-! sounds filled the dormitory.

Looking down at my empty hands with not a single card left, I smoothly raised my hand and requested.

“Can’t we change to One Card and do it one more time?”

“Accept your fate, Hyung.”

“Ah, if I knew this would happen, I should have been eliminated first!”

Having been stuck with the cooking I least wanted to handle, I despaired.

Tasting would be better – why must I face such trials…!

[Dead fish eyes detected.]

[Original Intentions –1]

As I stared blankly at the floor, the system pounced like a hawk and deducted from my original intentions.

Yes yes, I’m the sinner for spacing out in front of the camera. I’m not saying anything and just letting it slide since I’m in the middle of a schedule, but please update the system.

Gyeon Hajun, who was eliminated first, became the 5th batter, I who was eliminated next became the 4th batter, and Ryu Jaehee who was eliminated after me became the 3rd batter.

Now only the final showdown between Kim Dobin and Seo Yehyeon remained.

The winner would take the sweetest position of 1st batter.

Tension hung between the two people holding cards. Anyone watching would believe it if told this was a legendary casino gambling match of the century.

Well, the reality was just Halli Galli, not even poker.

And the winner was…!

“Doby, Hyung’s knuckles are going to crack…”

“Ahhh, if I had been just 0.1 seconds faster!”

Looking enviously at Seo Yehyeon who had taken the easiest part, I silently offered words of consolation for Gyeon Hajun’s dark future ahead.

Gyeon Hajun would end up eating diet food with improperly prepared ingredients, improperly cooked, and absolutely no taste.

Sorry in advance, friend. If either you or I had been just a little better at Halli Galli, this tragedy wouldn’t have happened.

* * *

Seo Yehyeon, who became the 1st batter selecting the recipe, fell into contemplation with the camera turned on in front of him.

First, salads were out. Even though he prioritized low calories, he was aware that this was a broadcast.

And since the 5th batter, the tasting person, was Gyeon Hajun, overly difficult or complicated dishes were also eliminated.

He hadn’t expected those three hopeless brothers to cook well from the start.

At least he had to make sure Gyeon Hajun could eat something fit for human consumption.

Remembering that they were currently active gave him some inexplicable sense of mission.

What if he ate poorly made food, got an upset stomach, and ended up being rushed to the emergency room?

Moreover, Yoon Eden and Ryu Jaehee already had a track record. He hadn’t forgotten the nightmare of the birthday meal’s seaweed soup and stir-fried pork.

Nor the sight of those two calling for Gyeon Hajun every five minutes like Nobita calling for Doraemon.

Since communication was impossible this time, they couldn’t expect Gyeon Hajun’s help like before.

‘Why did they say to avoid fried rice dishes if possible?’

Recalling what he’d heard from the production crew, Seo Yehyeon drew X marks over the kimchi fried rice and omelet rice topped with Tornado Omelette he had written down.

In reality, fried rice would be perfect for Ryu Jaehee and Yoon Eden’s level of cooking.

Of course, those guys would burn even that fried rice.

Were they worried that if it succeeded too easily, they wouldn’t get enough broadcast content? If so, he wanted to tell them they were overestimating those two.

After much deliberation and searching, he was able to choose a dish of appropriate difficulty.

[Tteokbokki]

Seo Yehyeon stopped his hand and fell into brief contemplation.

A food that was full of carbohydrates and had no important nutrients – nutritionally the worst food, really?

Still, tteokbokki was ultimately the best choice.

The other candidate, tomato pasta, had almost nothing to prepare ingredient-wise, making Ryu Jaehee’s part virtually disappear.

“The rice cakes are the biggest problem though…”

Seo Yehyeon muttered while looking for something that could substitute for the rice cakes in tteokbokki.

After much consideration, while searching for diet tteokbokki, he discovered and adopted konjac tteokbokki.

Thinking of the guy who would measure sugar with two large spoons instead of small teaspoons and still have plenty left over, Seo Yehyeon chose a simple method.

Konjac, cabbage, green onion, carrot, fish cake, gochujang, red pepper flakes, canned sikhye, dark soy sauce, minced garlic.

After diligently searching for recipes on the internet and writing down all the ingredients first, he referenced multiple recipes to write out the optimal recipe that was the simplest and easiest to follow in as much detail as possible.

Simple enough that even an elementary school student could easily follow it.

He drew countless underlines under the sentence about straining the sikhye to remove the rice grains when adding it, and even that felt insufficient, so he drew five large stars before he could move on to the next step.

Seo Yehyeon’s portion of selecting the dish and writing the recipe was finally complete.

“I can only pray that the food will be completed safely like this. Hoping that Hajun will be able to eat proper food.”

Seo Yehyeon let out a deep sigh as he held up the densely filled paper in front of the camera.

“Isn’t it too big a trial to bear just for lacking Halli Galli skills…?”

Wondering if he should buy some digestive medicine in advance, Seo Yehyeon finished filming his part.

With the first batter’s role finished, it moved on to the second batter’s role of purchasing ingredients.

Kim Dobin also had no complaints about his role. He was just slightly disappointed that he couldn’t do the easiest and most comfortable recipe selection and writing.

“Konjac tteokbokki? Ah, so it doesn’t have rice cakes. Konjac instead of rice cakes. Wow, that’s so like Yehyeon Hyung.”

Kim Dobin exclaimed in admiration as he received and read the recipe paper.

“Pork cutlet would have been nice- though of course Yehyeon Hyung would never allow pork cutlet. But since only Hajun Hyung is eating it, maybe it doesn’t matter? Hajun Hyung really has a body type that doesn’t gain weight. I guess it all goes to his height. I’m jealous.”

Even while gathering the shopping basket and the paper with the recipe ingredients written on it, his mouth didn’t stop.

“If it had been pork cutlet, Jaehee would be pounding the meat with a hammer right now. Eden Hyung might be grilling it instead of deep-frying it in oil. But now it’s not because he’s thinking about calories like Yehyeon Hyung, but because he messed up controlling the amount of oil.”

Kim Dobin blinked and quickly shut his mouth, making scissoring motions with his fingers.

“Um, please edit this part out.”

Since Yoon Eden was a difficult hyung to him, he didn’t want any remarks that could be misunderstood as disrespecting the leader.

“But wait, he was okay with tteokbokki, so why wouldn’t he allow pork cutlet? What if we fry chicken breast instead of pork? Or wait, would that be chicken? Chicken cutlet?”

Kim Dobin chattered away as if his screen time would be cut if he didn’t fill the audio, heading to the mart near the dormitory with the cameraman.

Worried that Kim Dobin might buy everything written on the paper, Seo Yehyeon had checked all the ingredients they had at the dormitory and circled only the things that needed to be bought.

But despite the eldest’s ocean-deep efforts, Kim Dobin directly demonstrated that things in the world don’t always go according to plan.

“I don’t see any konjac. Would it be okay to buy konjac noodles instead? Konjac noodles are still konjac, right?”

If Seo Yehyeon had seen this, he would have immediately shouted “Doby, that’s not it! Put that down!” but unfortunately the rules prohibited communication, and Kim Dobin put the konjac noodles in the shopping basket.

It was the beginning of the first tragedy.

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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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