Debut or Die - Chapter 111

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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 111
“Is this Moon-dae? Is it Moon-dae?”
Park Moon-dae’s mother muttered to herself without realizing it, touching the screen. She couldn’t help but suspect—the character’s appearance bore striking similarities to the comeback trailer.
As the dialogue progressed, the name of the character that had been displayed as ‘??’ was finally introduced.
And it wasn’t ‘Park Moon-dae’.
[?? : …Yeah.]
[B11 : I’m… just call me B11. That’s enough.]
And as the ally-addition cutscene played, a boy in a black hoodie rotating a luminescent drone became an operable character.
‘Ah, so Moon-dae copied this character instead?’
She’d seen a few advertisements with that kind of concept before, so she tried to move past it casually, but her overengaged mind began spinning again, analyzing the situation.
‘Wait. During High Five, Moon-dae’s baseball uniform had the number 11 on the back. So if B is taken from the first letter of his surname ‘Park’…!?’
At this deduction that seemed oddly plausible, the College Student swallowed hard.
‘W-well, let me just keep playing anyway…!’
Startled by this unexpected plot thread, the College Student continued playing.
Besides, the game was genuinely entertaining.
The game was entirely in first-person perspective, beginning when the protagonist fell into a sinkhole while out and was transported to a half-destroyed Seoul in a parallel world.
[This is strange. You definitely left early this morning, yet the sky visible above the sinkhole is red and dark.]
[You can hear what sounds like someone crying and groaning from up there, but you can’t be certain.]
[You’re quite panicked, but you’re also worried that if you stay here, the sinkhole might collapse further. What do you do?]
-Look for a way to climb out.
-Wait for rescue.
-Shout for help.
-Listen more carefully to the sounds.
Though the atmosphere was somewhat bleak, the thrill of exploring and discovering a well-constructed world for the first time, combined with abundant choices, made it engaging and fun.
Despite being text-heavy, the game featured eye-catching graphics and illustrations for each battle and choice, keeping it from feeling tedious. And the combination of appropriate luck and strategy created genuine tension.
‘Hmm, I can’t stop playing. I’m curious about what comes next.’
However, the game hadn’t yet given much story weight to the ally character presumed to be this Moon-dae, or the other Testa-like characters who kept joining.
Which made her wonder if individual character stories would unfold one by one as she progressed.
‘Ah, I wonder if Testa worldbuilding lore will appear too?’
Some people would probably curse at being made to play a game, but from the perspective of someone who’d decided to continue, it was genuinely thrilling.
The game continued, and the character the College Student controlled reached a half-collapsed Subway Station infested with strange red masses.
[The station is dark with only emergency lights flickering. Something that smells oddly fishy seems to be wafting up. The Subway doesn’t appear to be operating, yet an announcement keeps playing that a train is approaching.]
[B11 : …Should I scout ahead?]
-Agree.
-Refuse.
-Rebuke him.
-Go together.
“Let’s go together! We have to go together!”
The College Student was completely immersed, playing with genuine excitement.
That was when it happened.
[Sudden vibrations began resonating throughout the entire area!]
[A massive crimson mass embedded deep underground flickered with an ominous glow, and then—accompanied by a horrific noise—strange things began surging forth from the mass….]
Combat was forced upon us.
And all my allies were killed by something terrible that emerged from the crimson mass.
The last one remaining was B11, who resembled Park Moon-dae.
[B11 : …You survive.]
A cutscene of Park Moon-dae violently pushing the protagonist appeared.
The screen went black along with the vibration of the smartphone.
…Then, narration appeared once more.
[…And when you came to your senses, you realized you were alone.]
[All that remained were the belongings your allies left behind and a heavy burden of survival.]
[Now you must navigate alone through this ruined Seoul, through 【Section 127】.]
And only then did the game’s opening screen appear. The 【127 SECTION】 logo rose against a dark background, set upon a biohazard warning mark.
“…??”
The College Student stared blankly at her smartphone, unable to process what had just happened.
After the brief opening ended, a short tip appeared on the loading screen.
[※Allies who die in combat do not return. Ever.]
“…?!”
Only then did the College Student panic.
“What is this, what—what is this?!”
Something was clearly wrong.
‘What kind of game kills all your allies right at the start?!’
She only managed to collect herself midway through the 【CHAPTER 2】 cutscene that began after loading finished.
[You finally admit that you cannot accomplish everything alone.]
[You need allies. Whether strategic partners or temporary alliances.]
‘Right, this can’t possibly end here!’
The College Student recalled complaints she’d heard from gaming acquaintances.
‘I’ve heard that many games funnel all progression toward spending real money to pull characters!’
If that were the case, she was prepared to curse them out—’Are you treating me like an ATM? Your money-grabbing scheme is absolutely vile!’—while crying and spending anyway.
‘Just Park Moon-dae, just Park Moon-dae….’
But after the cutscene ended, the character gacha popup that finally appeared came with a warning.
[※Characters you have already recruited as allies will not appear again.]
“Hey!!”
She couldn’t understand why these lunatics wouldn’t let her spend money even though she had it.
She hastily opened the Internet.
‘Maybe I chose the wrong option and that’s why they died…!’
If that were the case, couldn’t she just check a guide this time and proceed correctly? She accessed SNS with a glimmer of hope.
And she saw fans rolling through hellfire.
-Nooooooooo
-What should I do? What is this? Why is Mundae dying?ㅠㅠㅠ
-Section 127 gameplay impressions: The developer is just as much a demon as the Ajusa Production Team
-No, but Bae Se in that gown… they told me to live and then died… But why couldn’t I save them? Isn’t that strange? It’s strange, right? Why do they die no matter what I choose?
-I’ve compiled this… The seven companions you get in the tutorial… Those friends similar to Testa from the trailer—no matter what you do, they all get wiped out when Chapter 1 ends…
Except the character with the highest affection dies last, it seems… What the hell, is this even a game?
“….”
The College Student felt her mind spinning.
And she wasn’t the only one whose thoughts had become muddled.
Korean comments were already flooding the latest replies on Testa’s trailer video at a frightening pace.
-Oh no, you guys
-Now that I know how these kids end… I can’t watch the trailer the same way anymore… Please save them… Take my money and give the kids back
-So that’s why the lyrics say they won’t die? No wait, watching again they’re saying they’ll save me, this is insane
-Could that be why the side story is titled that? Is this Testa’s grand plan to reduce the impact by separating it as an extra chapter? But this fragile fan is already a wreck… Please let them live!
Some people tried to stop others from spoiling the game or got into arguments, but most were swept away by the flood of comments.
Fortunately, the fans soon regained their composure and began worrying about targeted posts like “The trouble Testa fans caused for the new game.”
So the comments that dominated were mostly just crying or screaming.
And foreigners unaware of the situation left comments like “What happened?” and “Someone tell me why,” confused.
What was both funny and sad was that despite cursing at the game for being entertaining, countless players kept playing anyway.
Moreover, elements that lured them in kept popping up unexpectedly.
It was the costume shop that got added around the middle of Chapter 2.
[Give your companions a new look!]
Clicking this popup would display costumes currently available for special purchase.
And right now, the costumes being sold during the game’s launch season were exactly the costumes of the companions who had been brutally eliminated in Chapter 1.
Although the dead fixed companions couldn’t be obtained through character gacha, they could be made available by overlaying their appearance onto other characters.
And it came with this description.
[Purple Drone Boy Costume]
[: A costume of someone that evokes bittersweet memories. They once protected you.]
As a result, players rushed to pull characters with similar stats and personality scripts, then overlay the costumes to play with them.
For reference, game enthusiasts experienced the exact same phenomenon.
However, they were somewhat more composed. They’d already been through it in the previous work.
-The Ruin Factory’s determination—even with corporate backing, they won’t give up on betrayal
-Not just once or twice, we actually expected it
-These bastards enjoyed getting cursed at by the TeSTAR newcomers, released costumes to prevent refund runs and felt good about it, didn’t they?
└Seems like they felt great—number one on the Play Store in sales
Hahahahaha seriously, ugh this is so annoying, save me Bili~
└Saw the TeSTAR trailer and got excited, damn it, I really liked the sniper, but now I guess I’ll just buy a male character costume, you factory bastards
-After two years when the game becomes obsolete, they’ll definitely release the initial companion gacha—they’ve absorbed all of the corporate know-how to milk the whales until the very end
└Wouldn’t it be better to do it while getting the TeSTAR boost now?
└That’s a fair point, but they’re already sweetly pulling with costumes, so that’s unlikely
└It’s the long-term cash whale model
And true to their predictions, the Ruin Factory refused to open the initial companion character gacha despite the barrage of inquiries.
It was the developers’ unwavering commitment not to artificially provide teammates that would disrupt the story flow, since this was the moment users needed to immerse themselves deeper into the game’s world.
At the same time, even without that consideration, the revenue was already pouring in at an insane rate.
-Successfully restored all 7 members with identical stats and similar personality characters. Now we’ll be together forever… (game screenshot)
└Good grief
└How much did you spend…?
└Whatever you’re imagining, I spent more than that. But I’m satisfied.
This kind of thing became commonplace. Several Testa fans and game enthusiasts who were completely immersed in the game consistently drove up the revenue.
And through this process, most of the Section 127 game players developed a sense of affinity toward Testa.
-Glad they’re living well as idols in the third dimension
└Isn’t something off about this..? Isn’t it usually the opposite..?
└What do you mean, they were reincarnated after dying in the second dimension
└Wow, this guy’s serious
-So Bi-il’s name in this life is Moon-dae? No wonder he used a codename like B11 back then. Guess his real name was bad then too
└There’s an Easter egg if you go to Myeongdong Cathedral. I recommend checking it out around one playthrough
└Oh thanks
Because small breadcrumbs about the initial teammates could be found scattered throughout the game’s subsequent chapters, this interest sustained itself for quite a long time.
And then an unexpected TeSTAR content announcement suddenly dropped.
[TeSTAR ‘BETTER ME’ Official Music Video]
The music video for BETTER ME, TeSTAR’s sub-track for this comeback, had been released.
And the opening of this music video was… the final scene from the game collaboration trailer.

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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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