Debut or Die - Chapter 412

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

A Fatal Illness if I Don’t Debut – Episode 412
My mind goes cold.
It knows that I call myself the System.
How much does it know? No, before that….
‘…It can speak?’
Was communication actually possible with this thing?
[You’re questioning my existence.]
The world reduced to mere outlines warps with each sound it makes.
An overwhelming presence fills the space entirely, exerting unbearable pressure upon this insignificant creature….
‘Shut up.’
What the hell is it saying?
A parasitic bastard that uses humans as hosts and jumps between them—how impressive. Don’t get needlessly tangled up. Get your head straight.
I bit the inside of my mouth. The pain seemed to bring some clarity back.
A soft voice hums through the empty space.
[You don’t like it here?]
[I thought I made it well.]
Remarkably human vocabulary. Which makes it all the more unsettling.
“You made this?”
[Yes.]
[I call such actions… receiving feedback.]
Boom.
The space convulses.
The framework emerges, then gradually the vague forms and traces fade and bleach away.
What remains is only the Colorless Space.
[What’s insufficient?]
But I’m still here.
I bit my tongue and opened my mouth.
“Insufficient, my ass. A fraud impersonating someone else’s parents shouldn’t talk so much.”
Its will wavers. Whether it’s agitation or laughter, I can’t tell, but the feeling is equally repulsive.
I straightened my body and stood facing forward.
My legs tremble.
But I force strength into them, refusing to move.
“There’s no way this is good. …And, come out.”
I spoke calmly.
“I’m not going to keep talking to empty air.”
A brief silence.
Slowly, a sluggish will resonates.
[So that’s the procedure.]
And I realize where that impression of ‘I think I’ve heard this before’ originates from.
“…!”
It appeared suddenly.
Not fallen from the sky, nor risen from the earth.
Just abruptly, as if it had always been there.
Right before my eyes.
[Hello.]
A familiar appearance.
Tall frame, a physique maintained to the absolute limit, a man in his early-to-mid twenties.
Chung-ryeo.
He was wearing a black uniform.
The costume VTIC wore during that famous Horn comeback first Stage six years ago.
Looking as if it had jumped straight out of those days when I was selling data, the System smiles and nods.
Shin Jae-hyun at the height of VTIC’s glory stood there.
Eerily unchanged.
‘Damn it.’
[I chose an appearance close to yours.]
There was only one difference, if any—pigmentation.
Devoid of color as if belonging to the Colorless Space itself, he was pallid white.
“….”
I felt cold sweat trickling down my spine and lifted my head again.
[Now let’s have a conversation.]
The voice resonates. An expanded presence fills the invisible void without leaving a single gap.
[This is an offer I’m giving only to you.]
Yet it’s gentle.
As if presenting a genuinely good proposal.
The System declared it.
[I’ll accept your feedback into this world.]
“…!”
What are you saying.
[Should I adjust age and era to match your preferences? Change your affiliation? Or perhaps… return you to Park Moon-dae’s body.]
“…!”
[If you just offer your opinion, almost anything is theoretically possible in the environment settings. Within the bounds of plausibility.]
I closed my mouth.
The voice ripples more subtly.
[Everyone close to you is here too. You awakened them. There’s nothing lacking.]
[And if there’s anything lacking, I’ll let you purchase it.]
Purchase, you say.
[With Fame Points (Exp).]
Fame Points.
The currency that serves as experience in this game system.
[Its uses were limited until now, but from here on, I’ll open up many more. It’s a new chapter, after all.]
The System speaks of an update.
[Let’s implement the parents more perfectly this time. The prototype was insufficient.]
This insane bastard.
[You’re refusing. But even so… the conditions are the same as before. Aren’t they?]
…So I never had parents to begin with, is that it?
I understood it clearly.
This thing is not human.
It’s not merely a matter of appearance—it comprehends nothing of emotion.
Even a problem that Chung-ryeo understood, this creature fails to recognize at all.
‘Don’t get drawn in.’
I took a short, measured breath.
‘Calm yourself.’
What I need to do.
Extract information.
“Why are you making such a proposal?”
I ask a question that is neither affirmation nor denial.
“Are you trying to appease me because you’re afraid I’ll escape and try to destroy you again? What do you actually want?”
[—]
The world trembles once more. I understand its meaning.
Derision.
A devastatingly oppressive vibration descends like a needle from that towering height, then transforms into a voice.
[I request only one thing.]
The System raises a finger.
[An idol.]
This embodiment of that very profession moves its lips.
[Don’t retire. Just keep being an idol. Until you grow tired of it.]
[A choice that’s neither difficult nor arduous.]
I let out a deliberate, bitter laugh.
“You’re joking.”
[….]
“A suggestion? If it were me, I’d have killed you outright. There are countless people wanting to be idols, begging to be idols.”
From the moment this creature began speaking, I deliberately escalated the pressure, probing, yet it hasn’t uttered a word about killing me.
What about this, then?
“You can’t kill me, so you’re doing this instead, aren’t you?”
I declare it.
The System stands motionless.
“I….”
[Cannot kill you?]
A flat voice resonates.
And then, abruptly.
The world crashes down upon me.
Uuuu—
Uuuu—
Whoooosh—
The pressure bears down impossibly heavy, suddenly crushing my head and brain, a deep-sea compression that wrings out my entire body.
The System is this world.
The world it constructed questions me.
[You can’t kill me?]
Damn bastard.
Cold sweat and heat make my body feel like it’s burning away.
But I grit my teeth and answer.
Rather, I understand it clearly now.
“That’s right!”
It’s overreacting because it can’t be killed.
‘It panicked.’
I strike here.
“And you… your current form.”
I recall Big Dal, who was merging into the status window.
It seemed to be almost unilaterally affected, absorbed into the System. But at the same time, it exerted influence over the System.
Then.
“You didn’t choose it.”
This creature repeated countless lives with Chung-ryeo Agency for an extremely long time.
Without a status window. Raw.
Then.
“That’s the only form you can take, isn’t it?”
I shout.
“You’re influenced by people too, aren’t you?”
The world stops.
And.
[That’s right.]
The vibration in its voice disappears.
I breathe heavily.
In a voice that sounds almost human, the System mutters.
[When you meddle in one mind for so long, you become buried in it. A major side effect…]
[But because what I gained was greater, it was a successful direction.]
For a moment, I sense exhilaration in the System’s voice.
‘Damn it.’
I relax my body, then ask again.
“What exactly are you?”
[I’ve been here since long ago.]
[Within the minds of intelligent entities.]
A parasite, damn it.
[Fulfilling one intelligent entity’s desires, the intense emotions and chaos produced in that process become resources. Mental energy.]
[That energy sustains my intellect and allows it to grow.]
The words sound polished. I swallowed hard.
“Then why idols?”
Why emphasize that?
Moreover, from Chung-ryeo to Kwon Hee-seung, the fact that all three consecutively held the profession of idol doesn’t seem like coincidence.
“What criteria did you use to choose us?”
The System smiles like a photograph.
[Because there was no work more efficient than this.]
…Efficient?
The one who raised his hand speaks like a well-mannered salesman.
[I searched for energy that way for such a long time…. And then I met a new specimen.]
Chung-ryeo.
Longing and obsession toward a successful idol group.
[Such direct and vast, living torrents of emotion converging upon a single intelligent entity.]
[Overwhelming admiration and crushing weight. Happiness, pain, king and fool. Countless emotions befitting a cult leader.]
[I harvested so much energy.]
“….”
Heat infused the voice as if intoxicated.
Yet not in a human manner. The System states it plainly.
[Your identity, bearing the meaning of Idol, receives so much worship and affection and hatred and disgust simultaneously.]
[Truly… an excellent specimen.]
[It was very good. But it’s over.]
Because Chung-ryeo ultimately succeeded in ending the abnormal state.
[So I found a similar intelligent entity.]
Me.
[You.]
[You were excellent too.]
“….”
It extended its hand.
[You were happy. I know.]
[Do it forever here. Live as the most famous idol in this nation, in this world, until you tire of it. And if you stumble, again. If you seem about to fall, again. If the end appears in sight, again.]
[An eternal star!]
Click.
Brilliant radiance flashes across a world that held nothing.
[Until that day when you grow weary and exhausted, you can live a successful life.]
And it whispers again.
[But if at the end you want to stop everything, it’s fine to stop.]
If I could find the next host.
[Until then, I just need to enjoy this privilege. As much as I want.]
The world shines.
A strange, overwhelming sense of elation floods through me—as if accepting this would make everything turn out perfectly.
As if a flawless world would materialize, one that embraced only reality’s advantages.
I found myself staring at the System, now suffused with color once more, and asked.
“What about Kwon Hee-seung?”
[….]
“What happens to him?”
The world’s light vanishes.
And a gentle voice reaches me.
[A server serves its role as a server.]
[That’s someone else’s affair, unrelated to you. The world contains countless deaths and suffering. It’s not your personal concern to worry about.]
Is that so?
[If you still desire it, I could create it here….]
“Like my parents, you mean.”
I cut off its soft voice with my own.
“You’re really just using him as a server.”
[—.]
Affirmation.
I interpreted the vibration that hadn’t yet become sound.
And I ask again.
“Is this Kwon Hee-seung’s dream?”
[It’s not quite that.]
The voice returns.
[But it must be anchored in that medium’s mental structure to become solid. A server is necessary to manifest it as reality rather than mere dream.]
[That’s all there is to it.]
[No matter what choice you make, nothing will change, so it’s merely the circumstance of another—something that won’t influence your decision.]
The System extends its hand once more.
The articulate white hand feels powerful and overwhelming. As if it could grant me everything.
I opened my mouth.
“I refuse.”
[….]
“I don’t make deals with things I can’t trust.”
The vibration ceased.
White noise, as if it were computing.
Deliberation.
Conclusion.
[Then.]
[I’ll have to switch roles.]
The System speaks quietly.
“…!!”
I felt myself melting away.
‘Damn it.’
My body, which once had form, gradually disappears, and sensation slowly fades.
In this bizarre situation where only sight and hearing barely remain, sound buzzes and drones.
[I’ll make you my server.]
[And….]
In a world where everything blurs, one silhouette becomes sharp and clear.
And so In-young appears again.
“….”
The real Chung-ryeo.
He, whose outline is far sharper than the System’s, shows no agitation at the sudden situation and stares straight ahead.
The two In-youngs with identical appearances face each other in the same stance, as if looking into a mirror.
[You were watching, weren’t you? I’ll make the proposal right now.]
[Instead of you being a GM, it would be more efficient for you to play directly. Ryu Gun-woo is too uncooperative to play a character role.]
The System, speaking in the same tone and voice, continues.
[If you use the server well, the side effects won’t progress any further. Let’s live the perfect idol life you desire forever.]
[It’s your most fundamental desire.]
Chung-ryeo tilted his head to the side.
And he answered.
“No.”
At that moment, he activates his GM authority.
A status window appears before me.
‘…Plan B.’
-There should be an alternative.
That’s right.
Another method of triggering an error that I had devised in preparation for when things go wrong.
-What if I recover all the memories the System distorted?
-From the very beginning… the memories severed when I entered Park Moon-dae’s body.
Awakening returns the forgotten memories of the previous life.
[An awakened ally remembers the entire timeline and grows.]
And there are two forms of it.
First, awakening an ally.
The method I’ve used so far to return memories to others.
‘And the second.’
Awakening myself.
[Will you awaken?]
-Use 1000 Exp
I pressed the button.
Pouring out all my Fame points.
-Exp 2000 Used
-Exp 4000 Used
-Exp 8000 Used
-Exp 16000 Used
-Exp 32000 Used
-Exp 64000 Used
….
Consecutive hits.

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