Debut or Die - Chapter 428

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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 428
The image flickers.
A scream.
A dull roar, then a cascade of afterimages and trembling light.
A massive impact crashing down from behind.
And I….
“Gasp.”
My eyes opened.
-Senior.
The smell of dust and metal filled the air.
And at the edge of my vision, light flickered faintly.
A voice.
-Senior.
“…Yeah,”
Cough! The coughing cut off my words. I couldn’t breathe. Yet I could see.
A glimmer.
A smartphone, ejected by the impact, lay face-down on the cracked floor, blinking.
A muffled sound reached my ears.
-You’re alive.
Yeah, I survived, you bastard.
Wasn’t that what you told me to do?
But my condition was still garbage to say anything like that.
‘This is killing me.’
My vision swam, and my heart pounded erratically as if it might burst from my chest. It felt almost like a spasm.
‘When did I lose consciousness?’
I couldn’t even tell where my limbs were attached….
‘…Anyway, I’m alive.’
I wiped my mouth. The back of my hand scraped against my teeth below my lips, and I tasted blood. I wasn’t dead.
-Did the Stage equipment collapse?
“Yeah.”
I suppressed my cough and forced my mouth open with effort.
“It came down onto the Stage.”
Given my condition, failure means death.
So if the System were to kill me right now, wouldn’t the way it happens be through something “impossible”—something absurd?
‘An accident.’
A ridiculous accident.
So I guided my thoughts toward what was most likely to happen.
Since no one was on the Stage, I reflexively thought that whatever happened would probably amount to structural collapse anyway.
Fortunately, that seems to have been right.
‘…If it had been the Corridor, I’d be dead.’
I’d steered things in a direction that minimized dragging in bystanders, orchestrating an accident I could predict and evade.
‘And somehow, I managed to dodge the first strike without dying.’
But.
“This isn’t the end, is it?”
-….
“Right.”
I spoke flatly.
“If this were the end, you wouldn’t have needed to push the mission all the way through.”
Since it’s unavoidable, this bastard wouldn’t have restarted so many times otherwise.
I held my breath and waited. Soon, a low voice filtered through my smartphone.
-Yes.
I clenched my teeth.
“…When?”
-Soon.
Damn it.
I lifted my head.
Around me, precariously stacked steel frames and lighting debris created a chaotic mess.
One wrong shift in that balance, and it would all come crashing down on me—the end.
‘If I get rescued before then… no, that’s even worse.’
I had no idea what could happen during a rescue operation. More variables meant exponentially greater difficulty.
This was right.
I steadied my breathing and collected my thoughts. Then I said what needed saying.
“Don’t report this.”
-….
“Don’t tell anyone that I’m safe or that you’re in contact with me. Nothing like that.”
He’d understand without me saying it, but I was saying it just in case.
-Don’t worry about that.
“….”
The situation must be pretty messed up. Even he was using that tone.
His voice continued rapidly.
-And until the next thing happens,
‘…until, what.’
But the next words didn’t come through.
-….
Silence.
“Shin Jae-hyun?”
I turned my head toward the smartphone and realized.
The faint light that had been glowing was gone.
“…!”
Damn it.
I immediately reached out and felt along the floor where I’d been looking at my smartphone.
Soon, jagged and solid fragments….
Hiss.
Sharp pain stabbed through my knuckles. It burned.
Damn it.
I wrapped my hand in my costume somehow and flipped the smartphone over.
….
The smartphone was completely shattered.
It seemed to be from the impact when the steel frame fell.
So the call was cut off. No, it’s almost miraculous that it stayed connected until now in such a mangled state.
So in other words,
Face it quickly.
Whatever the hell this situation is, I failed to clear the abnormal status condition.
And my connection to the outside world is completely severed.
I bit my tongue.
Another way, another way.
First, hearing.
What’s going on?
I strained my ears to listen for sounds from outside. But all I heard was a dull humming.
At this level of blockage, it seems the ceiling collapsed entirely, not just the stage equipment.
Then… next.
Move quickly.
Before something else goes wrong.
I immediately pushed my upper body up.
Ugh.
My side hurt. The ribs I’d broken last time seemed to have cracked or broken again.
Or maybe it was just my imagination.
Let’s hope it’s the latter.
In any case, I could stand up with my own body, but….
My head was touching something.
I felt cold metal scraping dangerously close above my head.
Probably debris from the stage equipment.
Exhale.
I closed my eyes and waited a moment. Damn it, I was anxious, but my vision adapting was the priority.
And as I opened my eyes, my vision adjusted to the darkness revealed the overall outline.
!
The stage was a complete disaster.
The steel frame had completely collapsed, leaving almost nothing that could be called a stage, and the steel frame and ceiling materials surrounding everything blocked any view of the outside.
And where I was standing was right in front of the Backstage on the opposite side.
I’d been pushed here almost sliding and tumbling, barely avoiding that wreckage.
“Phew.”
I’d gathered enough information, and there was no point in observing further with my current state of mind.
‘Time to move.’
If I stayed here, the steel framework would collapse and crush me.
At least my limbs seemed relatively uninjured.
My back felt strange though… but it didn’t impede movement significantly, so it was manageable.
I made my way toward the opposite Backstage, taking care not to stumble.
What I needed to find was.
‘A place with definite danger.’
Anywhere that looked obviously safe wouldn’t work. They might pull some ridiculous stunt like triggering a gas leak.
A space where an accident I could roughly predict might occur.
And….
‘I need to be alone.’
I had to move in a direction that kept me as far from others as possible.
If I got caught up with them, I’d lose even the fragile thread of control I barely maintained.
“….”
So waiting here was absolutely out of the question.
The moment the shock faded and I regained situational awareness, it would be easy for people to figure out how to approach the collapsed Stage through this opposite side. I needed to move fast.
I decided to circle around the outer Backstage and slip out toward the Emergency Stairwell. Fortunately, even though all the lights were out, I could see the blue glow of the emergency exit.
“Huff.”
I pushed open the emergency exit door with my sweat-drenched hand.
After a moment’s hesitation, I ran upward.
‘If I went down and the upper level collapsed and buried me to death, there’s nothing I could do about it anyway.’
I climbed the stairs as quickly as possible, heading up….
Creak.
An ominous sound continued from behind me.
‘No way.’
But over that creaking, an artificial sound cut through.
[DING- DING-]
A bell chime.
An announcement echoed from a speaker somewhere.
[We are informing our audience members. A safety incident has occurred due to current ground instability. Please follow staff directions and use the Emergency Stairwell to….]
I immediately stopped climbing and turned back.
‘The upper floor Corridor.’
People would flood this Emergency Stairwell, so I’d slip into the Corridor instead.
I climbed just one floor, exited the Emergency Stairwell, opened the door, and stepped into the Corridor.
…My hair stood on end.
Thud.
My footsteps echoed unnaturally loud.
Next….
A spine-chilling sense of crisis and incomprehensible terror descended once more.
Again.
‘Damn it…!’
I gritted my teeth and bolted forward, half a step ahead of the collapse.
Screeeeeech-CRASH-BOOM!
With an ear-splitting roar, the ground beneath my feet crumbled without warning.
I knew why.
‘I’m on the Stage.’
The most structurally unstable location by position.
And since the Broadcasting Station uses this area as a materials storage line, no one is stationed here. No one should be.
‘I chose this deliberately…!’
It’s fine.
I can do this, I can do this!
I mapped out the structure in my mind.
I deliberately avoid the Bathroom and facility areas designed to support larger pillars and weight distribution better.
If a collapse were massive enough to destroy those, everyone inside would perish together anyway.
‘It’s hell.’
Just the Audience Seating alone holds a thousand people.
“Ugh!”
Dust and air, fragments large and small scatter everywhere.
As I ran, my destination was….
[Storage Room 303]
Here.
‘Anywhere but directly beneath the Stage!’
Instead of foolishly pulling the door, I threw my entire body against it.
And then.
CRASH-BOOM-BANG!
The room shook violently.
‘Damn it.’
Cursed System bastard.
I took the falling supplies with my body, then clung to the heaviest, most solid object I could find and pulled it over my head.
The roar continued, the tremors persisting. Small and large objects struck my hands and arms.
How much time had passed?
“Gasp.”
The roar and vibrations ceased.
I repeatedly closed and opened my eyes to clear my vision. I was breathless.
Checking the object gripped in my pale hands first… it’s metal. A combination of solid surfaces and piping—likely a shelf of some kind.
It had been partially torn from the wall. No, it was ripped away along with the wall itself, revealing the dark void beyond.
I turned my head.
The door I’d entered through had shut during the upheaval, now precariously wedged and sealed tight.
“….”
The door wouldn’t open.
“Hah.”
I realized I was trapped in this cramped Storage Room 303. And.
Rumble, rumble, rumble….
What looked like equipment fans had rolled into one corner and piled up.
‘It’s tilted.’
The entire room itself was tilted and warped.
It seemed to be dangerously suspended, leaning toward the Stage side.
“…Huff.”
I was now trapped in a space smaller and far more unstable than the Stage above.
I couldn’t move.
Hanging from the metal shelf as I was, I tried to accept the reality of my situation.
Just an hour ago—no, merely tens of minutes before—my only concern was finishing one Stage performance cleanly.
And now this.
I’d survived twice through sheer luck, but now I was being hunted by some deranged supernatural force determined to kill me no matter what.
“…Sigh.”
Pain began creeping through my entire body. But stronger than that pain was something else… helplessness.
‘I don’t know.’
How much longer could I endure this?
I didn’t even have information.
“….”
Actually, there wasn’t no way to try contacting someone else.
I knew.
‘Big Dal.’
The one I could summon through the status window even without a smartphone.
And maybe this bastard even knew some clue. Since he could access the status window….
But the problem was whether I should open the status window right now.
What if it became some kind of trigger that summoned the next ‘impossible disaster’ faster, or delivered an even more certain death sentence?
So I wouldn’t call. Absolutely not.
“….”
That’s what I thought, but… here’s the thing.
I released the tension from my hands. And I lowered my head.
Cold metal cooled my forehead.
‘Wouldn’t it be better to just give up?’
Logically speaking, if everyone here died and I died too, what the hell would any of this even mean?
I couldn’t even predict what the casualties would be if this kept escalating.
‘Idiot.’
It’s almost laughable that I’m looking like I’m about to die and still have the presence of mind to worry about others, but if a person has even a shred of conscience, you can’t help but care about this.
And these weren’t just anyone—they were people I’d lived with for years.
And,
‘…they’re all fans.’
All thousand people in the Audience Seating are fans. This is ridiculous. It felt so deliberately designed to make me give up that I almost laughed.
I exhaled a long, heavy breath.
Blood from the gash on my palm—cut by the shattered smartphone—glistened on the shelf.
‘…so heavy.’
I closed my eyes.
Clamped my mouth shut and bent forward.
The silence was like a void.
How much time had passed like that?
“…Excuse me?”
“…!!”
A human voice.
I lifted my head.
The first thing I saw was a luminescent glow.
As the metal shelf collapsed and the half-torn wall gave way, a soft yellow light spilled through from beyond.
And a moment later, I realized what that light was.
…A light stick.
“Mun-dae?!”
The one who discovered me beyond the wall was a fan who had been sitting in the Audience Seating.

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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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