Debut or Die - Chapter 413

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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 413
There was a phenomenon that occurred every time a colleague awakened.
It was pain.
Clutching my head and staggering, experiencing dizziness and throbbing at the temples while recovering memories that came flooding back.
Something similar happened to me.
The problem was that it had layered over more than twenty times.
‘Damn it.’
I recalled the Fame stat item I’d last seen, nearly depleted, and felt a burning headache as if my skull was on fire.
Even though my body had melted, the pain suggested that this strange world with only its skeleton remaining was all theater after all.
And the memories came rushing through like a dam breaking all at once…
-…!
Parents, accidents, fires, college entrance, cameras, dogs, one-room apartments, grades, heating, relatives, school trips, debut, data, problem sets….
Layered upon each other, the past echoed relentlessly in my mind.
‘Damn.’
My stomach churned as if I were about to vomit.
But it wasn’t without its rewards.
‘Ah.’
Just as I thought.
I smiled bitterly as I confirmed my father was a company employee and my mother was a cram school instructor.
…It was clear. That was good.
And what came crashing in next, splitting my skull, was the memory of Gold 2.
Kwon Hee-seung.
-Ah… truly my life!
He was an earnest, positive guy.
Of course, it didn’t stop there.
The shock of awakening layered and layered… going further back.
‘Ugh.’
My insides twisted, but my mind remained sharp as if I were in a state of awakening itself.
And as I dizzily replayed the scene of Park Moon-dae waking up in that shabby motel after taking sleeping pills and collapsing.
Click.
Finally, the overflowing stream of memories rewound to just before the film cut out.
The life I’d forgotten just before entering Park Moon-dae’s body.
When I met Park Moon-dae sitting in front of some motel on my way back from the study room.
-Thank you…. Hyung.
Even so, there wasn’t much change up to that point. It was merely a replay of the scene I’d seen during the last ‘truth confirmation’ becoming my memory.
The problem was the years that had completely evaporated from me.
The period after the civil service exam.
-I look forward to working with you.
After abandoning exam preparation and getting hired, I was ground down at a decent mid-sized company with no real prospects. I seemed to do the work well enough, but that was all. There was so much work, and every day I processed inefficiently delegated tasks until late into the night.
The days blurred together in a haze of monotony and exhaustion.
A life where there’s no way to relieve stress, no time for it, and no money to spare.
So I developed a quick, simple habit to distract from the headaches.
Something I could watch in brief snatches between moments, requiring no extra expense, and a field I knew well from my previous money-making work.
‘Idols.’
Before bed, I’d just watch whatever videos came up on the site, passing through casually. It was useful because it didn’t drain any energy.
I didn’t feel any genuine interest in the content itself. Since I wasn’t selling data anymore, there was nothing to analyze.
It just felt good to do something different.
That’s how I ended up watching this group too.
The group that originally debuted under Idol Stock Company.
STier, not Testa.
[STier – ‘Launch’ Official MV]
With the disastrous member withdrawal, drug trial of the departed member, and rumors of conflict, plus fragmented individual fandoms, they only broke through the gap and made comebacks once in a while by the time I got employed.
Still, there was no reversal.
This group had already stopped growing, stagnated.
[STier Cha Yu-jin, Kim Rae-bin, Ryu Chung-woo Begin Unit Activities]
Eventually, more than half the members suspended their activities.
So the remaining three were doing unit activities, but the atmosphere wasn’t great. The album sold decently and the song was good, but that was it.
Their image had already been worn away by endless controversy, and public favorability had been eaten away to the bone.
There was no further buzz or growth beyond that.
Just a massive cruise ship raised to championship weight by Ajusa, slowly sinking.
-The song’s decent
-Still doing well, fighting
Reactions that ended with a few moderate comments. Compared to their debut, the hype had already deflated.
But.
I unconsciously narrowed my wide viewing range, which I’d been scrolling through without purpose, to center around these guys.
Instead… more deeply.
It wasn’t that I developed interest in individuals or held any particular fan sentiment. I just found myself casually searching for information about that group.
Maybe it was because their situation seemed similar to mine.
A problem of the overall circumstances.
A situation where no matter what I do now, a real turnaround is impossible, with no sharp solutions or methods available.
Just running to maintain the status quo.
‘The environment itself isn’t great.’
Investment was dwindling, and the planning and care typical of a hastily assembled new agency were terrible.
Yet they kept coming out and gritting their teeth through performances, which oddly caught my attention.
And suddenly I felt a sense of waste.
‘Me?’
Soon I forgot about it, my nose growing three feet long.
Still, it was my first time following an idol group so intensively and consistently over such a long period.
Of course, it didn’t continue.
A while later.
[STier Activity Ends… “I Want to Share My Gratitude and Love”]
Naturally, STier disbanded cleanly once their five-year contract period expired.
Perhaps because we never witnessed anything particularly favorable from start to finish, even those few who worked exceptionally hard left without further news.
That was the conclusion.
Nothing remained.
“….”
And with that, my brief hobby of watching idols came to an end as well.
‘…There’s nothing left to see.’
By that point, even watching other idols failed to stir any similar excitement.
It was laughable. The catharsis I’d found in this hobby—all of it vanished because of a group I’d never even bothered to see in person, a group I wasn’t even a fan of.
And for me, who found everything inexplicably exhausting and tedious, that life ended exactly as scheduled.
The brief reprieve faded from memory just like that.
I had returned to Park Moon-dae’s body in my original state—confused about who was even debuting.
‘But perhaps traces of it remained somewhere.’
I suddenly recalled something.
A thought I’d had the moment I awakened in Park Moon-dae’s body.
-At one point, I had even become unnecessarily obsessed with this field.
‘…Was that it.’
Despite having no concrete memory of it, I’d sensed it instinctively—was this a remnant from that time?
I lifted my head.
The System must have deliberately omitted this memory from the truth verification.
Probably without any grand intention. It likely thought the content had little to do with my trauma.
‘Not necessary for the host’s continued survival’—that’s why it was cut.
Big Dal probably couldn’t have predicted this either.
‘So that means.’
The System still doesn’t understand that memories affecting the human psyche exist beyond trauma.
‘People usually call those things memories.’
I let out a hollow laugh at the awkward phrasing.
The headache had subsided. Evidence that the memory had fully settled.
My mind felt clear.
Originally, I’d hoped that if I swept away all the System’s mental interference, I might escape its control entirely, but it wasn’t quite that simple.
‘At least I didn’t lose my mind and get converted to a server.’
That’s enough. Preparations for Plan B are complete.
‘Big Dal.’
I sent the signal.
A chat began as if he’d been waiting.
[Apple has been invited to Error’s Gold chat room.]
[Error : Moon-dae, are you okay?]
The error unaffected by the System—Sun Ah-hyun responds immediately.
I typed my message.
[Apple: Yes. I’m doing it now.]
Recalling the meeting held in that chatroom in case of any unexpected leaks.
-Apple: As you all know, unnecessary reactions are forbidden.
And this idea had originated from Sun Ah-hyun’s suggestion.
-Error: So… because I’m an error, I spread like a virus to anyone who enters this chatroom?
-Error: Then if we invite all people here, couldn’t we restore their original memories and actions?
The idea was that if we invited everyone in the world to this chatroom and spread the error, wouldn’t they all escape the System’s influence?
They’d recover their memories, be able to move in the ‘game paused’ state, and ultimately the world wouldn’t be able to sustain itself.
The intention was good, but the problem was reality.
Everyone understood.
-RAB: It’s truly an altruistic and wonderful idea, but I’m concerned that contacting everyone would be difficult due to constraints of time and space.
-Sejini: First of all, I think it will be difficult since invitations cost gold.
It was the moment Sun Ah-hyun’s idea seemed about to fall through.
-Tiger: What if it doesn’t spread to just one person but the whole world? Like a virus!
-…!
This seemingly meaningless expression had struck the core of the matter.
‘The whole world.’
Isn’t that the System itself here?
So I formulated Plan B based on that.
‘Originally, I was planning to hand this over to the GM myself while temporarily outside the System and inject it into the game.’
It seemed there was no need to go that far. After all, the being that is the entire world here is right there.
The humanoid System in the form of Chung-ryeo.
[Character: Ryu Gun-woo (Park Moon-dae) Logout!]
Just as Sun Ah-hyun had done in the frozen timeline where the GM stopped time, I was now able to move my body through the effect connected to the chatroom.
“…!”
And I fixed my gaze toward the appearances of the two In-youngs and two Chung-ryeos in confrontation.
‘Toward the one without color.’
The final step was action.
Inviting the System’s humanoid form into the chatroom full of errors.
So that being itself could be infected by the error.
‘Can I designate it?’
Soon, Big Dal from the chatroom responded with a crackling sound.
[Big Dal: Yes!]
Good.
Soon, text appeared in the chatroom.
[■■■ has been invited to ‘Error’s Gold Chatroom.]
…Success.
‘Yes!’
I clenched my fist. If this continues….
‘Ah.’
In that moment, the System turned its gaze toward me.
A new message appeared in the chat window.
[■■■ : So you prepared something like this]
“…!”
Crack.
A fracture spreads across the chat window.
The window trembled as if bearing down against some colossal pressure….
Shatter!
It shattered completely.
Semi-transparent holographic dust scattered, then vanished along with the glitch.
The System’s voice resonated.
[So you spent fame experience again for this.]
[Before becoming a server, thank you.]
…Thank you, it says.
That’s not human enough to provoke someone on purpose. But in this situation, that statement is… could it be.
I opened my trembling lips.
“This ‘fame experience’… is it energy you gather?”
The System nodded kindly with a smile.
[That’s right.]
[By using fame experience, you pay energy to me, and you become stronger in the game.]
The System’s voice grew louder.
[And this world becomes more solid with the energy you’ve spent. So attacks from the outside like that won’t work.]
The chat window disappeared.
In a world where the error was resolved, the System gazed at me instead of Chung-ryeo, smiling.
[You weren’t a player—you were a character. You have no autonomy to escape the game.]
“….”
The identity of the player marked as ‘■■■’ in Chung-ryeo’s GM status window.
[I’m the player.]
[I’m both the creator and the player. You’re just a component of my game.]
[There’s no game where a character can directly harm the player.]
The System finished its explanation and nodded.
[And now that the system has proven itself stable, auxiliary tools are no longer necessary.]
[Let’s proceed as planned.]
Then, for the first time, something human flickered in its eyes.
Having merged with Chung-ryeo and learned his most fundamental desire at that time, what the System possessed was….
An obsession with advancement and perfection.
[Here.]
It casually took my status window.
And tore something out. Despite the gentle touch, it was so forceful it looked brutal.
Screeeech.
No, to be precise… I tore it out itself.
Big Dal’s popup window, entirely.
[Wait….]
And swallowed it in my grip.
Gulp.
“…!”
Big Dal’s popup crumpled and vanished near that creature’s fingers.
[Recovered it.]
System laughs softly.
And I….
laughed along.
“Yeah.”
I gasped for the breath I’d been holding.
The reason I’d pushed and provoked this creature’s sense of superiority and victory to drag the situation this far.
“That one’s also an error.”
To make it unable to pay careful attention.
‘So Big Dal doesn’t notice accessing the chat window and getting infected by Sun Ah-hyun’s error!’
Think about it.
‘This bastard originally parasitized on one host.’
And Big Dal had guaranteed that once a host was used, it couldn’t be used again.
But this time, with no suitable candidates to attach to nearby, it had no choice but to recycle us.
So it came indirectly.
It grabbed three people simultaneously and turned them into brains in a vat, creating an entirely new virtual world of sorts.
Server, administrator, character.
So it seemed to operate stably, but thanks to that, the era when that creature could handle everything alone had ended.
Because it became structured, it could collapse from just one cornerstone missing.
Like now.
“You just accepted the error yourself right now.”
With just one fatal error generated from within.
[…!]
System’s form trembles.
The anomaly that began as a small glitch grows larger and larger, consuming the human form and spreading outward.
The world collapses from within.
Boom!
“Hmm.”
The real Chung-ryeo, standing still, turned his head and pulled up a status window.
“Interesting.”
[Player: Park Moon-dae (Ryu Gun-woo)]
In the midst of it all, System’s form changes.
[…Brother.]
A familiar sight.
It was that entity—the one I’d conversed with in my mind when I returned to Park Moon-dae’s body at some point.
Noise crackled across the ethereal hologram where Ryu Gun-woo and Park Moon-dae intertwined.
Crackle.
Big Dal, now fully materialized, thrust both hands upward and cried out.
[I… I think I can actually move this thing??]
Perfect.

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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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