Debut or Die - Chapter 142

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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 142
Testa was performing well domestically, but that was only within South Korea.
Just looking at YouTube views alone, we were being outpaced by groups ranked in the top 50 of music charts.
Internationally, it meant we had relatively less recognition compared to groups from other major entertainment agencies.
‘But why Billboard all of a sudden?’
Did that mean we charted on the World Album Chart? That seemed at least plausible.
But it wasn’t.
“Alternative Digital Song Sales Chart… what?”
“That’s right!”
I’d never heard of it in my life.
Without exception, everyone reflexively turned to look at Cha Yu-jin, our native English speaker.
Hmm, he had the same expression—he’d never heard of it either.
“Oh wait! Hold on.”
The Manager who was supposed to explain got a call from the company and rushed out again.
‘What a mess.’
We headed back to the Waiting Room on our own, and I threw the question at Cha Yu-jin.
“Do you happen to know that chart?”
“I know the Alternative Songs Chart… but not that one.”
Everyone except Kim Rae-bin looked confused.
“What… is that Alterna… chart…?”
“There’s Alternative Rock. I like that!”
“Ah.”
So it must be a type of rock genre. It seemed to be referring to a genre-specific chart.
‘If “Digital Sales” is attached to the back, then it must mean a chart that measures purely music download sales.’
The moment I found my smartphone in the Waiting Room, I checked what kind of chart this actually was.
…It was a minor sub-chart for a specific genre that only displayed up to 25th place.
‘And it’s only for paid members.’
Kim Rae-bin muttered awkwardly from beside me.
“None of our title tracks are alternative rock though…”
I first checked the previous chart using the saved page from my search history.
“Oh, is that it?”
Big Sae-jin leaned in and swiped the screen down.
“Hey.”
“Ha! You can tell just by looking at the albums here…?”
As I scrolled through the results, Testa’s album art was… nowhere to be found.
“…?”
What?
“It’s this one!”
Just then, Cha Yu-jin’s hand burst onto my smartphone screen. He quickly swiped and pointed to a specific track.
[【127 Section】 Bonus book / TeSTAR]
“…!!”
“No way.”
“Our game track!”
That’s right.
The track from 127 Section—that hopeless, dreamless game we’d collaborated with when releasing our second album—had charted.
Memories surfaced instantly: the experience of dressing up as fellow characters who got slaughtered in Chapter 1.
“But it’s not from our album, is it?”
Big Sae-jin was right; even the album artwork was different.
I immediately pulled up the track on Spotify.
‘…It’s a game OST album.’
Only after the Manager returned and we moved to the car did I hear the full story and everything clicked into place.
“A global game launch?”
“Yeah! And apparently it went huge. People are going crazy about it!”
127 Section had launched globally with a focus on English-speaking markets, and it had become a massive hit.
The Manager chuckled warmly.
“So they released an OST album, and your track charted on it! Hey, that’s gotta mean the song is just that good, right~”
“That’s true.”
“W-well, that’s wonderful…!”
The members, having grasped the situation, relaxed with laughter.
It was decent news, after all.
‘So that’s why we got the news out of nowhere on a Sunday.’
The Billboard chart would have updated on Wednesday.
Strictly speaking, this wasn’t Testa’s achievement—it was the game’s.
Whether through the Agency or the fans, it wasn’t an urgent or major matter, so it probably took a few days for the news to filter down to our Manager.
‘T1 must be thrilled.’
A massive hit from a small game company they’d acquired. Though they’d certainly poured in astronomical capital.
Regardless, the OST doing well was good news for us too. The song had strong connections to our album anyway.
‘Maybe it struggled because everything except the verses is in English.’
It didn’t show up on the main charts at all, just flickered briefly in the lower tiers of a minor chart, but it was still interesting and welcome news.
I shrugged and draped the neck pillow around myself when I suddenly felt something off.
‘Even so, a game OST charting…?’
I told myself it was because it was a minor chart, but still—could a game OST even chart? Not a film soundtrack, but a game one? And a freshly launched mobile game at that?
Plus, I had no idea what criteria classified it as alternative rock. I’d thought of it as K-pop that simply borrowed rock elements.
‘Something feels off.’
I needed to check what actually happened.
I scrolled through game community forums on my smartphone for the first time in ages.
And then I understood.
‘They used our comeback trailer as a game ad again.’
127 Section had apparently run YouTube and billboard advertisements overseas for their global launch, and they’d actively used our trailer video in them.
‘The quality was really solid, after all.’
It was cinematic trailer quality. I would have recycled it too.
In any case, English-speaking foreigners who encountered this advertisement seemed to think that Testa appearing in the trailer was just an advertising actor playing a character from the game.
‘They didn’t dance or sing, only acted.’
For game enthusiasts uninterested in K-pop, it was understandable to think that way.
We didn’t have nearly the overseas recognition that VTIC did, after all.
Anyway, since the trailer advertisement response was decent… the game company took it a step further.
In the game’s global version, they even inserted parts of the trailer on the loading screen while waiting for additional in-app data downloads.
Thanks to that, overseas users naturally experienced the spicy taste of ‘watching characters who seemed like they’d be important get wiped out the moment Chapter 1 ended.’
And apparently, uploading shocked reactions after playing Chapter 1 became quite the trend among game streamers.
When I searched, I found videos with tens of millions of views.
[Never play 127 Section… NEVER!]
[MY FIRST TIME PLAYING 127 SECTION. (I hate it)]
The thumbnails featured foreigners wearing headsets, either crying or screaming or with eyes bulging wide open.
‘It’s really causing quite a stir.’
In summary, based on that buzz, 127 Section was receiving overwhelming praise for its storytelling and UI, and was doing quite well commercially in English-speaking regions.
‘The game UI and visuals did seem like they’d appeal to that aesthetic.’
It was being compared to several famous indie games recognized for their artistic merit and worldbuilding. There was already talk of GOTY contention.
However, unlike the booming global market, the domestic gaming community was in chaos.
First, searching on anonymous sites…
“…Hmm.”
This won’t do. Sun Ah-hyun and Bae Sae-jin would probably faint if they saw this.
‘It’s rather unsettling.’
So I searched for a much more moderate community instead.
Traces of arguments remained in several posts on the Production Team’s suggestion board.
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[Let’s end the idol promotion here]
: I’ll accept the advertisements as unavoidable. That’s the trend these days.
But having the game constantly remind people of real celebrities is a different matter. I hope it doesn’t happen anymore.
I thought it would be fine since all those collaboration characters died in the first chapter, but the hints keep appearing, and there’s a strong implication they’ll return.
Recently, the idol image faded a bit so I tried to see them only as game characters, but then they appeared in the global advertisement again.
Western users don’t know those idols well, so it’s fine for them, but we do.
I’m worried they’ll do something foolish again after seeing the global version’s success.
Please let the launch advertisement be the end of it.
(No ill will toward the idol in question.)
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-Right, I wish they wouldn’t bring back something we enjoyed early on and moved past
-I understood the promotion at launch, but now I’m worried… the domestic update cycle is getting longer too… Is Ruin Factory losing focus?
-This isn’t even a female-oriented game to begin with. T1 acquired it and took a risky gamble to expand the market.
└Female-oriented game with male idols…?
└That’s what I meant by female-oriented niche game.
└Are you insane? They hate it there too lol
-I liked it. Wasn’t the trailer cool?
└I liked the trailer too. Testa was fine, but people seem to be overreacting… There wasn’t even any mention of a new collaboration.
└We need to set expectations like this from now on so they’ll be cautious and won’t get their hopes up. Let’s read the room.
-What? Why is this place so different? Wasn’t it supposed to be a god-tier community?
└That whole thing ended in a month, why are you bringing up ancient history… lol
└Well, there were a lot of idol fans back then hehe
└That sounds a bit malicious. Back then we just launched and everyone was excited and running wild. Those idols also promoted it a lot through collaborations.
-The global version’s advertisement with that video seemed intense and good, got their money’s worth, but when I see Western fan art with idols in it, it’s kinda gross, but it’s bearable, just don’t do it again
“Hmm.”
After scrolling through a few more posts and trending threads, I understood the gist of it.
‘The hype’s completely died.’
To put it bluntly, all the buzz had fizzled out.
Initially, when capital and recognition were poured into a new game from a company that might’ve flopped, people became rapidly favorable. The pressure for immediate success was intense.
‘Once they saw the actual product was genuinely good, they must’ve gotten hooked hard.’
Plus, since all the initial companions died, the shock factor made them even more excited.
With so many Testa fans flowing in from Testa’s promotion, that momentum carried things along.
But the characters were already dead and had exited the stage. Naturally, Testa fans lost their incentive to continue, so many dropped off quickly.
As the story of the initial companions’ massacre became public knowledge and the proportion of people drawn in by the ‘hit mobile game’ increased, the normal flow reasserted itself.
‘They don’t care about idols.’
It meant: don’t force irrelevant and foreign elements into the game content I love.
Moreover, since the game company had seen such intense reactions to the initial companions, they kept dropping hints about them in subsequent updates.
But now that Testa’s advertisement appeared in the global version too, I understood their worry about another collaboration sneaking in.
‘Then there’s only one option.’
Don’t get involved. I turned off my phone and settled the matter.
Let’s just end this on the amusing note of randomly seeing our group name on Billboard.
And sure enough, not long after, the company sent out subtle feelers.
“Hey guys, would you maybe want to do another game collaboration…?”
“No. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“We need to prepare for the next album~”
“…?? Guys?”
The Manager was flustered by our clean refusal.
‘I saw this coming, so I gathered the kids and gave them a quick briefing beforehand.’
-But the collaboration was so fun…
-Haha, you know what they say—leave while the applause is still going~
Some of them seemed disappointed, but everyone understood. The fact that doing it again would just be exhausting seemed to strike a chord with them.
From the Ajusa controversy to the rookie award debate, just being a topic of contention on the internet was tiring enough.
So this marked the first project rejection since the group was formed.
‘Have I been too compliant all this time?’
The company tried to persuade us a few times with regret, but since Testa had been performing so well recently, the group’s bargaining power had strengthened, and the matter was smoothly resolved.
And then one day, while simultaneously preparing a new album and managing the festival schedule in May.
A different proposal came up this time.
“A performance in America?”
“Yes! And it’s a trending program here! It’s mainly YouTube-focused and a bit smaller, but the viewership is solid and….”
The company employee spoke excitedly before letting out a slight cough.
‘…Are they reading the room?’
I had a bad feeling about this.
“But… well, um, they’re asking if you could perform the game collaboration song?”
Ah, as expected.

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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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