Became The Leader of a Girl Group Destined To Fail - Chapter 186

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

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Chapter 186.

After the Coloring shoot wrapped up.
I headed straight back to the Company Studio.
Why didn’t I go to the Dormitory, you ask?
Well, that was because….

“You said you had questions about the song?”

I needed to see Dan-ha.
Dan-ha’s expression made it clear she had no idea why I’d summoned her.
Fair enough.
I’d never been the one to suggest meeting her before.

“…Actually.”

I cleared my throat.

“It’s not about the song… I just had some questions, so I reached out.”
“…?”

Dan-ha’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
That look—why call her instead of Han Jae-i?
Well, because….
You seem more human than that guy.
Han Jae-i would try to exploit anything I said the moment it left my mouth.

“Senior.”
“Yes?”
“Do you recognize what this is?”

I showed her the flood of messages the Cotton Ball Entity had been sending me.
If she understood immediately what this was, then Dan-ha was a Contractor like me.
If she asked what on earth it was, then she was just an ordinary person.
Or perhaps a Contractor pretending to be ordinary.

“…!”

As expected, Dan-ha’s eyes wavered instantly.
Those are the eyes of someone who recognizes something.

“I would never ask you a question that could harm you, Senior. If you happen to know what this is… I’d really appreciate your help.”
“….”

Dan-ha looked at me with an extremely dark expression.

“You already have a sense of who I am, don’t you?”
“…Nok-ha.”

That’s all I needed.

“Yes, that’s right.”
“….”

Dan-ha lowered her gaze, lost in thought for a moment.
Then she exhaled deeply.

“May I ask you one thing?”
“Ah, yes. Go ahead.”
“Why is Nok-ha inhabiting someone else’s body instead of her own?”

Hmm….
That’s a difficult question to answer.

“The Cotton Ball Entity told me to do it.”
“…Cotton… what?”
“That thing that suggested this whole arrangement.”
“You call it Cotton?”

Dan-ha looked at me as if I’d said something absurd.

“Then what do you call it, Senior?”
“…’That thing’.”

Dan-ha stated it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“It doesn’t really look like cotton to me… Why do you call it that?”
“It does look like cotton though…?”
“…?”

We exchanged glances, both wearing expressions of mutual bewilderment.

“It seems… it appears differently to different people. What does it look like to you, senior?”
“A black… shadow?”
“To me, it looks like a fluffy ball of cotton… something cute, like an animal.”
“How discriminatory. So it only shows its cute form to people it likes?”

So that’s what it was…?
Dan-ha let out a hollow laugh.

“Anyway, back to my question. So Nok-ha, you didn’t willingly enter someone else’s body.”
“Right. From the start, I entered Yun Chung’s body and proposed saving StillBlue.”
“…That’s different from us. We… Jae-yi received the proposal first.”

Dan-ha began her explanation.
The first life.
Burnash was doing well enough as a group, but the members always harbored a sense of regret deep down.
A feeling that they could do better.
Just as they thought one more chance would let them truly shine,
Han Jae-i received the proposal first.

‘Want to try just one more time?’

And so.
Burnash was given a second chance.

“Was there any mention of compensation?”
“Compensation? Oh.”

Dan-ha nodded.

“If we succeed in the second world, they said we’d get to live there permanently.”

The same compensation as Da-hwin.
It seemed most contractors received rewards like this.

“May I continue speaking?”
“Yes, please do.”

But back then, I didn’t know, she said.
I was too young and immature to understand how monumental that decision truly was.
We thought a second chance simply meant rewinding time.
We had no idea we’d be crossing into a parallel world, she said.

“In that second world where we challenged ourselves anew, we failed. Or rather… it wasn’t exactly failure. We did manage to gain some recognition. But our results were actually worse than before the regression. All of us were operating in such a confused state… and most of all, Jae-yi’s ambition was overwhelming. She tried to excel at everything, to monopolize everything.”
I understood what she meant.
Because I knew all the information.
She must have been desperate to exploit it.
And unlike me, she’d crossed worlds together with all her members.
It should have been far easier for her.
But instead, it became a case of excess breeding failure.

“Jae-yi regretted it deeply. She wished she’d stayed in the first world.”
“…I think I would have felt the same way.”
“But… that didn’t mean we could return to the first world.”
“Why not? Cotton Ball Entity. Or rather, did ‘that’ prevent you?”
“No. In fact, ‘that’ told us we could return whenever we wanted.”

Dan-ha exhaled a long sigh.

“The problem was us.”

Regret remained.
Lingering attachment remained.
After living through two iterations, the humiliation of failure remained.
So the suggestion came to try just one more time, she said.

“Jae-yi was the one who began persuading us.”

Han Jae-i’s regret ran deepest of all.
As the group’s leader, the burden weighed heavier on her shoulders.
Her ambitions burned fiercer still.
Knowing the talents her members possessed, she found a line she simply couldn’t cross—the line of surrender.
The moment she thought that Burnash’s failure to rise was entirely her fault, she found herself unable to let go.
Had she believed they simply lacked talent, she would have abandoned the dream quickly enough.
But knowing they possessed the talent—that they’d stumbled due to poor strategy, misfortune, wrong choices—that knowledge alone.
Held Han Jae-i captive.

“I couldn’t refuse what Jae-yi was saying. We all understood what was in her heart. So… we decided to challenge ourselves one last time together. And that’s this world.”
“Did Cotton Ball Entity accept all of that?”
“…Nok-ha.”
“Yes.”
“That cotton thing… do you perhaps not know why it’s doing this?”

Now I saw it clearly.
The discord between us.
Why I’d felt that unease listening to Dan-ha’s words.
What Dan-ha knew and I didn’t—

“‘It’ benefits from us working without rest, from remaining idols for as long as possible.”

That was it.

“Pardon?”
“‘It’ feeds on people’s joy, happiness, love, and altruistic emotions. From what I know, there are dozens of worlds where ‘it’ is involved. It can only survive by consuming the positive emotions generated in each world… which is why it makes these contracts everywhere.”

Dan-ha continued matter-of-factly.

“So I’ve heard it’s made contracts with many idols across many worlds. The more we wanted to renew our contract, the happier it became. We were a group that performed quite well, after all.”
“…I had no idea.”

This was another shock.

“We only learned it from other contractors. There are far more contractors in this industry than I expected.”

Dan-ha smiled bitterly.

“Which just means this industry drives people to desperation.”

I didn’t answer.
Though my reasons differed from theirs….
I’d come here out of desperation too, after all.

“But.”

Dan-ha lifted her head.

“I’ve heard that very few people actually succeed.”
“!”

That was rather surprising to hear.

“Just because you get a second chance doesn’t mean everyone succeeds. ‘It’ said the same thing. Most people fail. By our standards, we’ve done very well.”
“…I see….”
“Cases like yours, where you’ve completely transformed your destiny, are extremely rare. We were already a successful group in the first world, so we had it relatively easy…. But StillBlue originally….”
“Was destined to fail.”
“Yes. You’re probably the only one who’s managed to elevate a group from the bottom to the top like this. Everyone else merely ended up doing somewhat better than before.”

I suppose that’s true.
Now that I think about it, Da-hwin had mentioned being frustrated that things weren’t going as planned.
I’d thought that with a second chance, anyone could accomplish anything.
But that wasn’t the case at all.
…Changing one’s destiny really isn’t easy.

“Why idols specifically?”
“Pardon?”
“There are countless ways to create positive emotions. So why… idols?”
“Ah.”

Dan-ha offered a bitter smile.

“Don’t you know this already?”
“?”
“There aren’t many professions where a single person can simultaneously inspire joy and affection in so many people.”

…Yes.
That was the right answer.
I understood.
There aren’t many professions that receive this much love….
It’s truly rare.

“Then… Senior, may I ask just one more thing?”
“Of course.”
“You’ve experienced three different worlds in total, haven’t you, Senior?”
“…I suppose so.”
“Then did you see Baek Nok-ha in all of those worlds?”
“!”

Dan-ha’s eyes widened at my question before narrowing.
It seemed like an unexpected question.

“No.”
“…!”
“I only saw Nok-ha in the first world.”

Dan-ha’s expression was bewildered.

“Now that I think about it, that’s right. I hadn’t consciously realized it until now…. I only saw Nok-ha on the Stage in the first world.”
“So that’s how it was….”
“And….”

Dan-ha hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“Among all the contractors who entered someone else’s body instead of their own… I’ve only seen Nok-ha. All the other contractors I know entered their own bodies.”

I couldn’t respond.
Dan-ha’s eyes were demanding an explanation from me.
But I myself knew nothing.

“That’s why we were so confused. The voice was clearly Nok-ha’s voice…. But why was it a different person? We wondered if she was really a contractor like us. Or maybe… there was something different about her. It was all so bewildering.”

Dan-ha’s eyes trembled slightly.

“You must be troubled about something, asking me so many questions.”
“…Yes.”
“Whether to choose the first world or the second world.”

She’d hit the mark perfectly.
Of course.
She would be someone who’d wrestled with the same dilemma.

“We chose a third option, so I have nothing to tell you. However.”

Dan-ha smiled faintly.

“There might be… a third option for you as well, don’t you think?”

A third option.
Yes.
That was what I needed right now.
I couldn’t choose between just one of the two.
Both had become precious to me.
Then….
I had to find a third option.

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【Member Profile】

Name: Baek Nok-ha
Height: 165
Shoe Size: 230
Vision: L: 0.3 R: 0.1
Position: Solo
Family: Mother
Education: Eunhwa Elementary School, Eunhwa Middle School (withdrew). GED
Birthday: April 7
Blood Type: O
Hobbies: Cycling alone, playing guitar
Life Motto: The world keeps turning anyway

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

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