Debut or Die - Chapter 459

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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 459
When I invested 10 billion won into the company, the System spat out something.
‘Five Hint Tickets.’
And ‘Hints’ were information that benefited the company…apparently.
‘Then right now, it’ll have no choice but to spit out information that helps Testa’s activities.’
The fate of this company now hinged entirely on Testa’s successful next comeback.
I found myself growing interested.
“Hmm.”
I settled naturally into my seat and clicked on what was called a Hint Ticket.
The hologram shifted, displaying a gray mechanical image. It was a familiar form.
A roulette machine.
[※Will you use a Hint Ticket?]
‘Yes.’
It reminded me of when I used to draw traits.
I watched the spinning roulette with a faint sense of nostalgia.
[You miss it…?]
Yeah. Since I’m not dead, it’s become a memory.
[….]
And here you are, the very one who implemented the roulette through the status window, acting shocked.
In any case, the roulette machine with its iron and brass-colored sections spun steadily, occasionally revealing silver sections….
[Usage Complete]
-Hint Acquired! 【C】
“…!”
By a stroke of fortune, it had landed on silver.
That meant the best grade possible among what I could obtain right now.
‘Grade C.’
Let me see—the trait “That Makes Sense Now That I Hear It” was that grade, and I’d used it quite profitably even after debuting.
So what kind of information would you provide….
[Desertion from Subsidiaries (C)]
-It appears that T1 Entertainment’s subsidiaries have recently experienced successive mass resignations of employees due to some incident.
“….”
That’s something I did.
‘Where exactly is this scam happening.’
Since when did reminding me of things I already know count as a hint?
How is this information in any sense?
Could it be that you didn’t say ‘I only give you information you don’t know’?
‘This con artist bastard….’
You ate 10 billion won and spat out this garbage?
[P-Please calm down! Brother, your blood pressure!]
“Sigh.”
I took a deep breath.
‘Stay calm.’
This hint ticket was just a bonus anyway. I’d raised something called “Company Dominance” to use System functions, and they’d given me this ticket as a reward.
‘Let me just use it and pretend it never happened.’
I continued spinning the roulette.
[Minor Embezzlement (E)]
[Training Room is Dangerous (D)]
[Shooting Hobby (D)]
The hints were dropping, at least.
The E-rank embezzlement was in the millions. I could report it to the audit department and be done with it—genuinely minor. The D-rank Training Room hint was about a protruding floorboard, which was decent enough from an injury prevention standpoint.
It was the kind of thing you’d find with routine inspections, so it felt a bit underwhelming, but I could live with it.
But the last one? I absolutely couldn’t accept that.
[Shooting Hobby (D)]
-The leader of Testa, the flagship group of Stars Orbit, has shooting as a hobby. If you meet them at the Shooting Range near the company, you might be able to build a relationship?
That’s a hobby I introduced to Ryu Chung-woo, you bastard.
[Hey, hey! Deep breaths again!]
“Sigh….”
I pressed my temples.
And then I immediately understood the source of this disconnect.
‘I’ve risen too far.’
The problem was that Testa was already a five-star group.
If they’d truly been the flagship of a startup company, maybe this information would’ve been useful, but from the perspective of a first-tier idol group that’s already done everything there is to do, D-rank intel was meaningless.
‘Is it impossible to upgrade the roulette?’
[Help: The hint ticket roulette machine upgrades according to your company’s grade.]
Only after that help text appeared did I nod.
Right. This is the early stage. Once the company grade increases, I’ll be able to pull better hints too.
‘Let me just consider this a test run.’
And without hesitation, I threw my last remaining hint ticket into the roulette machine.
[Huh? The ticket….]
What?
[No! I thought you were saving it to use once the roulette machine upgraded….]
You don’t understand.
‘Once the roulette machine upgrades, they’ll just sell me a more expensive ticket for it.’
[….]
That’s how pay-to-win games work.
[I’m really sorry for copying the mobile game mechanics….]
The straightforward design is fine, so never mind.
Anyway, I was watching the roulette with little expectation, half-heartedly, when suddenly a golden four-leaf clover pattern appeared above the roulette machine.
[Lucky chance!]
“…?”
Then a brilliant fanfare erupted, and every segment of the roulette wheel gleamed gold.
And slowly, the roulette came to a stop.
[Wonderhole Rookie (B)]
“…!!”
Grade B.
And… Wonderhole’s agency?
‘A major entertainment agency.’
I immediately opened the description.
[Wonderhole Rookie (B)]
-202X year. This summer, Wonderhole will finally debut a male idol rookie group.
A large-scale project with 20 billion won invested over three years, the new team’s bold concept is generating expectations within the company.
Wonderhole. The male idol rookie group under T-Holic’s agency—the national idol group before VTIC.
I touched my chin.
‘This is… worth using.’
T-Holic had been a male idol group with a very mainstream appeal. Testa was practically the only one who inherited that mainstream lineage.
Even now, they’re a veteran idol group that’s doing well with their own entertainment programs.
So… if this rookie group follows a similar path to T-Holic, they could become a competitor to Testa’s mainstream position.
‘This rookie group is worth investigating.’
I reached my conclusion. And I revised my impression of the hint ticket.
High-grade tickets would be quite useful.
What I lacked most was insider information, and the ‘hint ticket’ could help me supplement that.
‘I could use this as a base to make exchanges and gradually expand my information network.’
I was quite pleased.
[Wow! Still, I’m relieved…!]
Right.
I exchanged a few more words with Big Dal, who seemed even more reassured, then closed the roulette window.
With Big Dal chattering away, I’d finished everything I needed to handle alone.
Next was… finally, the album production feature unlocked.
“Alright, let’s begin now.”
“Mm, got it!”
“This is exciting!”
I called the members to the living room. The dormitory’s living room was sparse with moving boxes stacked around, but the table was intact.
I placed a notebook on top of it.
What was I going to do with it?
‘I’m going to share my status window.’
Testa album production was something that had to be done as a group. Since these guys knew the situation, I figured I should share it to some extent with the members involved.
But if the status window couldn’t be seen,
‘I’ll just visualize it.’
I began copying the ‘album production’ hologram directly onto the paper.
Scratch, scratch.
“….”
Kim Rae-bin raised his hand.
“Hyung, is that perhaps barbed wire?”
“It’s a card.”
“….”
What.
“Ahahaha!! Ahahah, …ugh! I won’t laugh! I won’t laugh, Park Moon-dae! Haha! Park Moon-dae’s PowerPoint is so good, let’s display it on the TV screen! How about it?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
“…Yes.”
So after switching to a laptop as the medium, the work began to progress more smoothly.
“This is the current inventory our company has, and the detailed page looks like… this.”
“Ooooh.”
“Rae, Rae-bin has five stars!”
“Kim Rae-bin is a genius!”
“I’m not sure what determines the star rating, but I’m honored and will continue to do my best…. Wait, am I weak at trot composition?”
“…Isn’t that obvious?”
“Rae, Rae-bin likes trot….”
“Ah.”
Right. Well, that’s how it went.
“Park Moon-dae, did you really invest 10 billion won?”
“Yes.”
“…!”
“Whew! We’re making a 10 billion won album!”
“Oh my, Eugene’s spending all of Moon-dae’s money~”
“If it goes well, hyung will make a lot of money!”
Cha Yu-jin picked up the winning-and-repaying war meta, and as we filled in the cards, the final page looked like this.
[Album]
[Personnel: A]
-Kim Rae-bin(★★★★★), Kim Seo-won(★★★★), Park Jae-seok(★★★★), Park Won-joo(★★★)….
[Capital: S]
-5,000,000,000
[Duration: B]
-60 days
(Personnel Bonus + 150%)
(Capital Bonus + 200%)
*Start Production ← Click!
“I’ll press it.”
“Sure~”
And the moment I clicked the button, various effects began scrolling past like credits rolling.
[Concept: Undecided]
[External Personnel: To Be Determined]
[Production Company: To Be Determined]
….
[Album Prediction in Progress!]
Hmm, a prediction, then.
I recorded the hologram’s information in my notepad, and the members nodded along.
“Ah, so… you’re predicting what kind of album will come out based on the current situation.”
“And since we haven’t finalized the concept yet, there seem to be many undetermined aspects.”
“Right, but this kind of thing usually costs a fortune to do! That’s impressive.”
Then the hologram flashed again shortly after.
[Prediction Results Complete!]
Hmm, it’s finished already….
“…??”
What.
[Estimated Album Grade: A~B]
B?
There’s no chance of an S-grade or EX-grade, and it could actually come out as a B-grade?
Our album?
‘What nonsense is this.’
I’m pretty sure our first album would’ve been at least A-minus.
I immediately clicked to review the detailed breakdown.
“….”
Sure enough, there were debuffs.
[※ Promotion ↓↓]
[※ Physical Quality ↓]
[Help: There aren’t enough external personnel to contact! Let’s expand your network.]
External personnel contacts are difficult?
“….”
That’s strange.
It wasn’t a problem before.
‘And if this is showing up even though we brought over the same production team…’
Someone is deliberately blocking the contacts.
And that would be someone with more power than just a successful entertainer.
‘…A corporation.’
“Did the results come out?”
“What are they?”
“….”
I crossed my arms.
“It looks like… T1 didn’t just draw a line between us and them.”
“…What?”
“It seems like we’re completely blacklisted. People don’t want to work with us.”
“…!”
The list of things I needed to investigate immediately had just grown.

* * *
That evening.
Ryu Chung-woo lowered his smartphone with a hardened expression and spoke.
“Music Bomb confirmed they can’t appear.”
I’d thought Tnet’s Music Broadcast Studio would keep us off for at least half a year. What comes next is crucial.
“…T1’s variety shows aren’t responding at all either.”
“Sigh.”
As expected.
We weren’t just a kite with a cut string—we’d become a kite thrown into the recycling bin.
‘How many variety shows are under their subsidiaries, and they’re blocking all of them?’
Honestly, I thought we could at least appear on T1-affiliated broadcasting variety shows.
‘It wasn’t that simple.’
I slowly began to understand the logic behind their actions.
To consolidate demand for Tnet’s newly launching Survival Show Program, it made sense to crush the Testa, Miry-nay, and Spacer lines that were already capturing that market segment.
And conveniently, they’d just made a big splash launching their new company with press releases? People’s reactions were positive?
‘We made the agency switch too conspicuous and touched a nerve with T1.’
The public response had been even better than I’d anticipated, and that became the problem.
It wasn’t a bad opportunity to vent frustration from being pressured by political forces and taking a hit.
T1 had clearly signaled to industry insiders: ‘We want to mess with Orbit.’
Industry people would be cautious for a while.
‘Directors, photographers, entertainment journalists… It’s rare to find anyone of note who hasn’t worked with T1 at least once.’
And if they wanted to maintain opportunities to work with T1 in the future, they’d be careful during this period.
“So… everyone will have a hard time working with us….”
“We can’t help but read the room. For a while, anyway.”
“….”
Damn it.
I ran my hand through my hair.
The meeting paused briefly, and I’d stepped out to the Balcony to check my status window.
It’s been so long since I quit, but I’m craving cigarettes.
Still, my mind kept working.
‘…I guess I have no choice but to rely on LeTi’s connections.’
Even if I fill in music video directors and album art through them….
‘No, that won’t work.’
If I lean entirely on that side, this company itself could end up as nothing more than a subsidiary label under LeTi.
‘That’s exactly what I was trying to avoid with all this.’
I can’t rely solely on their network.
I held back a sigh and flipped through the hologram again out of habit, hoping to extract some useful information.
‘Information.’
If only I could get information worth using a hint ticket on, rather than this garbage.
‘Stop handing me information I already know with a C-grade rating.’
I sighed and scrolled through the status window.
[Escape from Subsidiary (C)]
The entry slipped past my eyes.
“….”
But wait.
‘Now that I think about it, something feels off.’
Why is this a C-grade hint?
Isn’t a vague hint merely informing me that employees resigned from a subsidiary too high a rating for what it reveals?
Even setting aside the fact that I already know about it.
I carefully read through the entry once more.
-It’s said that T1 Entertainment’s subsidiaries have recently experienced mass employee resignations due to some incident.
“…!”
Then it hit me. There was a phrasing I’d carelessly glossed over because the content seemed familiar.
‘The subsidiaries mentioned here… aren’t just one.’
‘Subsidiaries’—plural. Multiple locations.
And there’s one more thing.
A critical difference.
‘T1 Stars wasn’t even a subsidiary back then.’
Our former agency was cut loose from T1 and became independent, after which the label staff underwent mass resignation.
So… this isn’t about our company.
‘There’s another company.’
A T1 subsidiary where employees collectively resigned.
I immediately began searching.
I looked through news articles and social media for information about T1 Entertainment’s subsidiaries.
Beyond broadcasting stations and entertainment agencies, there were film, music, home shopping, and studio divisions.
And….
‘Games.’
Found it.
-Heard everyone from the Ruin Factory at T1 Playz quit… no next project for Section 127 then..
I’m crying / So sad
└wonder if they’re okay, the interview made it seem like they had a falling out with T1
Ruin Factory.
The very team that had produced Section 127 had resigned en masse and made a fresh start elsewhere.
“….”
I felt it instinctively.
‘This is it.’
Found it. External personnel number one to utilize.

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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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