Debut or Die - Chapter 10

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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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A Fatal Illness if I Don’t Debut – Episode 10
Throughout the first shoot, I hadn’t breathed a word about last season, so I never dreamed it would explode here.
The comment section was already drowning in “??!?” and similar expressions. Young-rin continued speaking with an unnaturally composed expression.
[To prevent identical catastrophes, the entire Production Team will henceforth entrust all decision-making authority entirely to our shareholders!]
The Stage lights flared intensely in sequence with Young-rin’s words.
[Members? Please choose them, shareholders!]
[How many people? Please decide, shareholders!]
[Would you prefer a team like this? Please assemble it, shareholders!]
[Or perhaps….]
The lights began flickering like a stage effect.
[Don’t like the look of that team member? Then eliminate them, shareholders!]
-The Production Team’s lost it.
One perfectly apt comment caught my eye.
Even so, Young-rin delivered her closing remarks with utmost seriousness beneath the flashing lights.
[Our company’s survival rests in your hands, shareholders!]
[【Idol Corporation】 is now relisting!]
The camera panned upward.
Across the massive star-shaped Stage, lights rippled like a galaxy in motion.
And at the very center, bathed in light, stood the silhouettes of ten participants. They were Platinum-tier contestants.
The camera circled up and down, zooming in on the participants. Despite the Stage’s enormous size, all ten of them filled the frame completely.
The moment the camera stopped, the intro began.
The participants turned one by one as the camera captured their movements.
It was a solo part—a Platinum-tier benefit—but honestly, the arrangement was awkward since each person barely got a second.
‘I’d rather they’d just picked a center like the original.’
Watching my cut flash past, I felt something strange.
My movements were correct, but it felt unfamiliar seeing Park Moon-dae’s face.
‘Hmm, though oddly enough, it makes my limbs look less stiff.’
As the intro ended and the song began, Gold-tier contestants appeared around the Platinum-tier. The editing made it look seamless.
When the pre-chorus started, the lighting shifted and Silver-tier contestants emerged from both sides, and Bronze-tier appeared from behind at the chorus.
And then the group chorus.
“Oh.”
It looked convincing. The editing had masterfully cut out every moment the choreography didn’t align, making the movements appear perfectly synchronized.
The comment section showed scattered positive reactions. Most were bewildered by their own positivity, though.
-Why is the song so good.
-It’s a doomed company but the theme song is always a banger.
-The song is a waste. I’ll give you another stone.
Of course, whenever close-ups appeared, the commenters didn’t forget to critique the contestants.
Your skin looks a bit… uncomfortable to look at.
Did anyone see that? He just slit his own throat and it was hilarious lol
“As expected, if you’re ugly, your skills are trash too, haha”
└Please stop generalizing because it makes me sad to hear squid ㅠㅠ
He’s got the skills, but his ugly face makes him look like he can’t do it lol
└This bastard really
hahahahahaha
Of course, there were moments of admiration too.
-Wow, they just looked handsome.
-Wow, why did they come here.
-How did they even get cast.
-If I looked like that, I wouldn’t be on a show like this.
Basically… those were the reactions that appeared whenever participants with appearance stats of B or higher got close-ups.
Oh, Sun Ah-hyun’s close-up just passed by too. As expected, the camera tends to capture those with better-looking faces.
…Wait.
I compared the participants getting close-ups with the reactions in the comment section.
“…Did I make a mistake?”
If the initial buzz differs too much, that would be problematic.
‘Should I have maxed out appearance to an A first, before worrying about vocals and dancing?’
If my appearance were top-tier, even just one close-up during the theme song stage would have generated buzz.
If even a few casual fans latched on, photos would have been taken at press conferences, and they would have spread decently across SNS.
If I’d solidified a fanbase here, I likely would have avoided early elimination.
Then couldn’t I have shown growth in skills since I have a status window?
I had abandoned this strategy thinking about how this season initially gets mocked but then skyrockets after airing… but I overlooked that mockery is still attention.
I felt a chill run through my chest as I looked back at the stage footage.
It was already the ending.
A few more close-ups appeared in the ending.
The most striking was child actress Lee Sae-jin. The way they spent several seconds capturing her showed the Production Team’s determination to build buzz before broadcast.
Now that I think about it, most of the debut members I knew also had appearance stats of B- or higher when their faces were matched at the filming studio.
If the editing also revolved around participants with high appearance stats, I’d be in trouble.
Park Moon-dae had decent looks, but he wasn’t a standout handsome guy either.
Just as I was losing confidence and about to reconsider my strategy, the screen suddenly changed. It was a commercial break.
But I heard a familiar voice.
[Idol Corporation, relisting!]
They’re running the first commercial here?
Well, over a week had passed since filming ended, so they should have had plenty of time to edit something like that.
I focused on the commercial, wondering if there might be any hints about the editing direction.
[I hope a lot of talented friends appeared.]
[I have high expectations.]
[Wait, (beep–) is appearing too? The participants this time will have to be really nervous.]
It was a cut of the judges laughing and conversing. They seemed to be saying all the lines that typically appear in previews.
And brief clips of praised participants’ stages appeared one after another.
[Remarkable, truly a remarkable stage….]
“This is innate talent.”
“Wow!”
“Where on earth have you been hiding until now?”
My ranking evaluation had passed as well. With that, my worries about being cut from the final edit eased considerably. Only then did my shoulders relax.
It seemed I’d been overly sensitive, perhaps because it was my first exposure to mass media.
Regardless of how fierce the early competition was, the landscape typically solidified by episode four, so I decided to stay composed and refine my strategy rather than panic.
While I found peace of mind, the screen that followed showed stern-faced judges delivering harsh criticism without warning.
“This right now… can’t even be called a stage.”
“You know that’s just an excuse, right?”
“It just seems like preparation was lacking.”
“Aren’t you ashamed?”
Then came the participants’ hardened expressions and biting lips, layered one after another.
…Looking at the background, it seemed they’d even captured expressions worn simply from exhaustion during practice.
Eventually, a cut edited to look like a sudden incident appeared.
“[—Mr./Ms. —? Mr./Ms. —, wait a moment, just a moment…!]”
“[A participant suddenly leaving their position.]”
A close-up of young actress Lee Sae-jin’s tear-stained face appeared.
“[What’s the full story?]”
The screen darkened as the Idol Corporation logo appeared majestically.
At the climax of the distorted theme song, the logo cut out abruptly, and the MC’s voice echoed.
“[The newly revamped Idol Corporation’s comeback! Its first gateway is… the — evaluation!!]”
“[Gasp!]”
With the participants’ shocked expressions, hands covering their mouths, the preview ended.
“….”
When I lowered my head, the comment section was scrolling endlessly.
It made sense.
That evening, the Internet entertainment news comment sections erupted.

* * *
I finished my workout and logged into a portal site while heating up dinner.
The article headlines displayed on the main page were as follows.
[‘Apology to Our Shareholders’ — Idol Corporation, What’s the New Project? ‘Male Idols’]
[Idol Corporation Relists with Unveiled Details, ‘Right Now (Shining Star)’ Makes Its Debut!]
[‘Please Invest, Dear Shareholders!’ Idol Corporation’s New Season Features 77 Participants on Stage.]
The headlines alone seemed reasonably neutral, but clicking into the articles and checking the reactions revealed the true public sentiment.
Entertainment news comments had been restricted for quite some time, and examining the emotion icons that were still visible…
‘Ridiculous’ had surpassed twelve thousand reactions. Since there was no ‘Angry’ option, people had clearly chosen this instead—a clear sign that public opinion was in absolute uproar.
Columns poured in as well.
[Idol Corporation, Depravity Masquerading as Freedom.]
[‘Buy Me, Please!’ — Children Turned into Stock.]
I clicked on one of them.
[It’s no longer ‘Please pick me.’ Within a program that screams ‘Buy my idol stock,’ participants no longer receive humane treatment. A sadistic program that surrenders the power of life and death to the masses…]
Well, I didn’t need to read any further.
Internet communities and social media were overwhelmingly filled with posts condemning the program.
-These bastards show no remorse whatsoever.
-Starting from the first season, they put in all kinds of things, called stocks, sold voting rights, and came back again without dying. Is the money you make from selling children that good? Hahaha
But the Production Team was probably celebrating. The participants weren’t the ones being criticized, after all.
Season 2’s fatal flaw had been that the popular participant—the program’s main content—had failed.
This season, however, the program’s cruelty, which the Production Team had deliberately provoked, was overshadowing that image.
Whether the program’s structure was overtly brutal or tried to hide it, a survival show was grueling either way.
From a participant’s perspective, capturing the buzz might actually be preferable.
Posts like this were already appearing thanks to the program’s rising notoriety.
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[Ajusa Season 3 Platinum-Tier Ranking Summary.]
: Captured clips from Music Bomb performances. These talented kids deserve better than this, so I’m posting this out of sympathy—please refrain from hateful comments.
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Most of the responses focused on participants who were handsome or had good expressions, but I noticed several mentions of Park Moon-dae, which stirred something odd in me.
They mostly called him cute or said he had the kind of face that was trending these days.
-Park Moon-dae thought he was cute, so I watched the performance once, but the camera didn’t capture it very well. Still, after watching the trailer, I thought he did a good job on the ranking evaluation performance, so I’m thinking about watching it.
“….”
The feeling was strange. It was my first time seeing posts where people expressed such raw interest in me.
I’d felt it back in university when selling data, but it amazed me how people could invest their time and money in someone they barely knew, simply because they found them appealing.
Maybe it was because I’d lived a life with neither time nor money to spare.
But now that I was the subject, the feeling was even stranger.
Yet it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.
‘…What else should I do next time?’
Suddenly, I felt the urge to move, to do more.
I reviewed the participant reactions comprehensively and organized my priority order for stat distribution going forward.
That was when it happened.
[The Beginning of Fame!]
1,000 people have remembered your existence!
: General Trait Draw ☜ Click!
So notifications come for this too.
I read the popup content anew. The ‘draw’ at the bottom felt similar to the one that appeared in the previous stage-related popup.
Let me click it right away—a slot machine appears.
This time too, brass-colored slots were scattered sparsely among the gray ones.
I hoped this time a trait that could quickly develop my appearance or charm would come up. With more anticipation than last time, I waited for the slot machine to stop.
And just as the slot machine was about to stop, another popup suddenly appeared.
[Slot Machine Jackpot!]
: Drawing a Heroic Trait!

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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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