Debut or Die - Chapter 203

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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 203
The moment I confirmed what Chung-ryeo had received, I cut straight to the point.
“Can you hear me?”
-Yes. Did something go wrong with the mission?
“….”
-It seems like that’s the only reason you’d contact me.
Calling right after the encore concert ended was too obvious a timing.
So many unexpected situations had blindsided me that I hadn’t thought it through carefully enough.
‘Still, I can’t sound like I’m begging for clues.’
I needed to start with an accusation to set the tone. I cleared my throat.
“There were no problems with the mission itself.”
-I see.
“But then another mission appeared?”
-….
“It wasn’t the last one. Were you lying on purpose?”
-No.
The voice on the other end of the line was obedient. There was no hint of laughter.
I could faintly hear what sounded like a dog whimpering for a moment, then the voice continued quietly.
-I think I could explain… if you don’t mind, would you be able to meet up for a bit when you have time? Anyone could be listening on a call.
“I think it would be better to do this over the phone.”
Not that I actually wanted to ramble on endlessly over the phone—I meant that someone listening in was better than getting my head caved in.
-If you’re uncomfortable, we can meet at the Testa Dormitory. I don’t have any other intentions. …I already know it won’t work anyway.
Hmm, I’d planned to either get him to slip up or threaten him with a recording if he tried to back out, but it doesn’t look like that’ll be necessary.
Of course, I can’t be sure when this bastard’s eyes might roll back again, so I’ll definitely prepare a backup plan.
“Let’s do it this way then.”
After settling on a place and time, I stepped back inside from the balcony.
Kim Rae-bin, who happened to be nearby, jumped in surprise.
“Hyung! You’ve been gone for 35 minutes, and I was worried you might have snuck off to drink, but you were on the balcony?”
“Yeah.”
This guy was pretty drunk too.
I sat down beside him before the others noticed and tried to talk to me.
“Rae-bin.”
“Yes.”
“I have a favor to ask you.”
“I’m listening!”
Kim Rae-bin perked up, apparently thinking I had something to point out about him.
‘No, that’s not it.’
I waved my hand once to tell him to relax, then continued my explanation.
“The thing is….”
And things unfolded exactly as I’d expected.

* * *
A few days later.
“This works.”
I arrived first at the Outdoor Cafe in City Corner that I’d suggested and he’d rented out entirely.
It was difficult to observe from outside, but if screams erupted, someone nearby would immediately call the authorities—and there were plenty of security cameras.
“You’re early.”
And a few minutes later, beside Chung-ryeo who appeared before the entrance gate was a dog panting heavily, fitted with a perfectly-sized chest harness.
“Woof!”
“….”
I’d suspected something might happen, but I never expected this to actually show up.
“I thought bringing him along would make for a better excuse. That’s okay, right?”
“…I don’t mind.”
“Haha, feel free to pet him. He loves people.”
Chung-ryeo smiled faintly, then picked up the dog and cradled it as he moved. The dog’s tail wagged vigorously.
‘Good instincts.’
He looked well-fed, plump even.
“The cafe owner said I can eat whatever’s inside freely, so make yourself comfortable.”
There was no way food was going down my throat in this situation.
I sat at the table and answered flatly.
“I’m not hungry. Let’s just talk first.”
“Understood. Should I start with the mission not being complete?”
“Before that, there’s something you need to answer first.”
“Hmm?”
I’d harbored this question from the beginning but held back, suspecting he wouldn’t answer. Now I threw it out.
“How were you so certain about the number of missions?”
“….”
From the start, he’d stated the total number of abnormalities with absolute certainty.
-From my calculations, it seemed like you get one base mission, plus one additional for each year that’s passed. That’s what I thought.
“I need to know where that formula—base plus the number of years plus one—came from. Because it was wrong.”
“Ah, that.”
Chung-ryeo nodded readily and stroked his dog.
Then he dropped a bombshell.
“I collected cases from people like us.”
“…!”
“Well, there’s none now. He’s dead.”
His expression was utterly unmoved.
“Some illness or other… anyway.”
My hands clenched into fists. My mind went numb.
There was another one?
“How did you two meet?”
“Ah, this is a bit embarrassing… was it the fifth time? I used to say reckless things trying to debut as quickly as possible.”
Chung-ryeo continued with a bright smile.
“I went around broadcasting that I knew the future.”
“…!”
“But since the field was different, the mission didn’t clear… well, I did it properly from the next time onward. Now that I think about it, it’s funny.”
This bastard’s tone is changing.
I can’t let a lunatic dwell uselessly in the past. I deliberately cut off the subtly shifting atmosphere.
“Anyway, so what?”
“So… some old man approached me saying he’d also come from the future.”
Chung-ryeo removed his hand from the dog.
“I verified whether it was real… and when I compared the timelines, I figured it out.”
“What.”
“The point where that person’s known future ended matched exactly with the point in the past where I restarted.”
“…!”
“So… it seems like only one person exists in the same time period who knows the future. That person for several years, and then me for several years after.”
“….”
“And now it’s you, Moon-dae.”
Only then did I understand what this bastard had been rambling about to me.
-This is exactly the right time, isn’t it? You must feel like you’re living as the protagonist.
It was because only one person occupied that exact period of knowing the future.
‘…Then what’s the criteria, exactly?’
What commonality could this bastard and I possibly share? And was that dead old man also working in the entertainment industry?
All sorts of questions muddled my head, but the situation felt too delicate to dig into all of it.
Even now, Chung-ryeo continued muttering to himself.
“Hmm, come to think of it… I’ve never restarted before that person died?”
“….”
“It would’ve been nice to restart while that person was still alive and confirm whether they’d also go back to the past. Right? Then we wouldn’t have gone through all this trouble. Haha!”
“No.”
I deliberately cut him off.
“No?”
“Yeah. It’s better to match up than to die trying to verify that.”
“…well. I guess so.”
Chung-ryeo’s momentum died.
‘This is driving me insane.’
I wiped his saliva off the dog’s fur as it licked my hand, and suddenly realized another fact.
“…So you immediately recognized that I’d come back to the past.”
“Right. The timing matched perfectly.”
Chung-ryeo laughed.
“I wondered if maybe someone else knew the future now… but then suddenly an ordinary person came to the audition and took first place.”
“…!”
“Everyone expected it to fail, but on a program that succeeded spectacularly… I seized first place by dropping a personal bombshell at precisely the right moment.”
“….”
It was a result where chance and the status window’s effects had worked perfectly, but Chung-ryeo smiled with a hint of embarrassment.
“You thought I’d spun it multiple times, didn’t you? Obviously.”
“…Hmm.”
It certainly looked like a plausible candidate worth considering that way.
“But I never expected it to be someone else… Well, actually, I thought the new mission appearing might be connected to that too.”
In that moment, a hypothesis flashed through my mind.
“…Because I’m not Park Moon-dae.”
“Yes.”
Since I’d entered someone else’s body, it meant an additional penalty was attached compared to cases where I simply returned to the past.
‘This is insane, and I never even asked for it.’
I pressed my brow.
…If this hypothesis was correct, then designating Park Moon-dae specifically as the death target in this status abnormality felt oddly connected.
It felt like a signal that from now on, if I couldn’t break the status abnormality, I wouldn’t be able to use Park Moon-dae’s body anymore.
‘Damn it.’
…Will it end with just this once?
I don’t know. There are so many irregularities—status window errors, coins, and everything else.
‘And I can’t even confirm the coins.’
There’s been no word since the acquisition popup.
I even shamefully shouted “Inventory” out loud, but nothing changed.
Even with earbuds in, all I caught from Cha Yu-jin was something like “Do we have any album stock left?”
‘Damn.’
Thinking about it made my face burn. I roughly patted the dog that came whining toward me.
‘Is there anyone without a status window?’
I felt an urge to tell the guy sitting in front to try shouting “Status Window” once.
Of course, instead of acting on that impulse, I simply stood up from my seat.
‘If the status window actually appears, that’s a problem. If it doesn’t, that’s also a problem.’
Better not provoke unnecessarily. I’d achieved my modest goal, so I planned to minimize stimulation and dig deeper next time.
But suddenly the dog started whimpering.
“…Yelp!”
Was it telling me not to get up?
“Looks like Kongi wants to play more.”
“…Kongi?”
“Yes.”
A surprisingly traditional name came out. It suited the dog, but it was creepy that he’d given it that name.
At that moment, Chung-ryeo spoke as if emphasizing something.
“It’s the original name.”
“….”
I understand what you mean.
“Yeah.”
I patted the head of the creature that had probably been using the name Kongi for quite some time a few more times before finally getting to my feet.
“Play a bit more.”
“That’s enough.”
I felt completely drained. There was no point in talking to this thing any further.
I turned my steps toward the fence at the entrance.
The one carrying the dog in his arms followed and suddenly threw a question at me from the entrance.
“Hmm… now that I think about it, you must have had an original name too.”
“…!”
“Could it have been a coincidence of the same name? Haha.”
I answered almost without thinking.
…It shouldn’t matter. My records didn’t exist anyway, even if someone looked.
“Ryu Gun-woo.”
“Hmm.”
He made an enigmatic expression.
“That’s better than Park Moon-dae.”
“…I suppose so.”
I couldn’t deny it.
Still, Park Moon-dae had its own charm… the more you heard it, the more it seemed like a decent name.
‘The fans seem to like it precisely because it’s unique.’
In any case, I climbed over the fence of the outdoor cafe and began heading home.
“Uuuuuung—!”
I could hear the dog’s rather mournful howling until I turned the corner.
I rubbed the back of my neck.
‘It wasn’t entirely fruitless.’
At least I’d formed a hypothesis about why the status window appeared again.
Reluctant as I am to admit it… having an extra head definitely makes it easier to reach conclusions. And now that one won’t throw in pointless bluffing either.
But hearing that this bizarre phenomenon had been happening to the others in succession made it even stranger.
‘Why is only my status window showing up.’
I really do feel like some web novel protagonist.
Just then, my smartphone in my pocket rang.
‘Of all times.’
I answered immediately.
-Hyung! Are you alright??
It was Kim Rae-bin.
“Sorry. I checked late. I’m heading back now.”
-That was incredibly fast… it hasn’t even been an hour.
Tell me about it.
I recalled a conversation I’d had with Kim Rae-bin yesterday.
“During my break, I’m going out. Could you text me every thirty minutes? It shouldn’t take long—maybe five or six messages at most.”
“Of course! But may I ask why?”
“I remembered that incident last time with some lunatic picking a fight. I want to be prepared. If I don’t reply, call me. If I don’t answer the call either, report it to the Company.”
“I see! That’s a wise precaution!”
It was essentially an emergency alert system—a part-time job of sorts.
Kim Rae-bin was the type who, once given a heads-up, kept his mouth shut and rarely forgot a task, so I was already planning to use this arrangement again in the future.
‘I should probably get him a snack when I get back.’
I was mulling over what incentive to offer—it was hard to exploit someone without compensation.
Suddenly, noise flooded through the phone line like a tidal wave.
“Oh, hey!”
“Hyung!! Hurry up!”
“Get out of the way, Cha Yu-jin!”
“This is important! Kim Rae-bin, move!”
So it was Cha Yu-jin. I understood perfectly.
“I’ll be right there. See you in a bit.”
I was about to calmly end the call.
“Moon-dae hyung! Our American Pro just aired!”
“…What?”
“Our reality show!”
It was an utterly unexpected announcement.
For the record, once I confirmed the details, I became even more bewildered.

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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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