Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 275

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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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275. Results Over Process…?
“What on earth is going on?”
I couldn’t comprehend it.
No, it wasn’t just incomprehensible—it was impossible.
‘Rene Entertainment? Covering a Upia song? Why? When they have all their senior artists?’
Rene Entertainment valued the image of unity and family bonds even more than Miro did.
They had successful senior idols, held regular company concerts, and above all, they were a massive agency whose artists took pride in being part of Rene Entertainment.
It wasn’t like they lacked senior artists, so why would they suddenly cover a Upia song?
I gripped the sofa cushion tightly, my expression growing increasingly serious, and asked Su-ho.
“Did Kateon Linxiao flee to China or something?”
“…What?”
“No, that was last year. Then did Kateon MJ get married? Did that secret proposal at the concert get exposed this time?”
“What…. Who did what?”
“Oh, someone at Sphere must have caused a scandal! After the contract renewal, I remember thinking someone did something crazy. Or did a drunk driving incident get exposed? No, damn it, with so many idols under the agency, I can think of a million scandals off the top of my head.”
What on earth did someone at Rene Entertainment do to cause Lanion to pull off this insane stunt of covering a Upia song?
As I bit my fingernails in agitation, Su-ho, who had been listening quietly, spoke as if he finally understood.
“…You mean that’s how it happened in the original timeline, right? Ha-jin. If you go around talking about that somewhere, you’ll be in real trouble.”
“I won’t. I’m only saying this because the Executive Director is here. …But seriously, it doesn’t make sense. Why would they cover a Upia song? Why? They could have a dozen candidate songs just from their senior artists’ tracks.”
“That’s…. kind of complicated.”
Su-ho expressed his bewilderment and explained the full story of what had happened.
“To cut to the chase, the broadcasting station’s request was, ‘We’d prefer if you didn’t perform your own agency’s senior artists’ songs.’ The surface reason was that they want to see diverse performances without being tied to the company.”
“What’s the real reason?”
“…You know Storm Header’s agency is backed by QBS investment, right?”
“Who? Storm Header?”
Why are they even involved in this?
“QBS wants to push Storm Header as much as possible. They need those guys to be profitable if they’re going to keep investing in the entertainment business.”
“But?”
“Storm Header’s reference point is Sphere.”
“…I see.”
Now I finally understood how everything was connected.
So basically, we’ve become the shrimp caught in the fight between whales.
“They want to give Storm Header a Sphere cover song, but they don’t have a legitimate reason to take it away from Lanion. So they chose the rule of ‘no songs from the same agency,’ right?”
“That’s about it.”
“…But why did Lanion choose a Upia song? Their musical styles don’t match at all. Aren’t they the easy-listening power pop group that pursues mainstream appeal?”
As I voiced my remaining doubts, Su-ho removed his glasses with a tired gesture and spoke.
“The easiest reason they chose it was because ‘the number of members is the same.'”
“This is insane.”
Did they seriously cut their trainees in half just to do a Upia cover stage?
‘No, no. They wouldn’t do something that crazy just for one year-end stage.’
Still, unable to shake the possibility, I gripped the sofa cushion even harder, my expression now deadly serious, and pressed Su-ho further.
“That… Executive Director. Are you saying that Lanion also used Yupia as a reference and deliberately matched the member count before debuting…?”
Su-ho’s expression grew serious as he responded.
“What? What are you talking about? No, that’s not it. Why would they copy Yupia’s kids?”
“No, listen to what I’m saying. In the original timeline, they were either a nine-member or ten-member group, right? But in this timeline, they suddenly debuted with only five members—it was already suspicious. From what I can tell, they might be coveting some kind of connection with Yupia….”
As I laid out my reasoning earnestly, Su-ho let out a hollow laugh and pointed at me.
“Who are you trying to fool? The fact that they went from a large group composition to five members—that’s all because of you. More precisely, because of you.”
“…What?”
“You changed the fate of Rene’s next generation without even knowing it, and you’re spouting nonsense like that?”
What in the world was he talking about?
Feeling wrongly accused out of nowhere, I waved my hand emphatically.
“No, why is that because of me? I didn’t do anything.”
“Didn’t do anything? You went to audition at Rene. You went and unnecessarily raised Manager Jang’s standards.”
“The more you talk, the less I understand….”
Then Su-ho rested his hand on the armrest of the sofa and began recounting stories I’d never heard.
“Because you set Manager Jang’s standards so high, he started nitpicking the Lanion leader so intensely that the guy went dark before he could even debut. That threw off the entire original plan.”
“…?”
“The member count too—originally, they were planning to debut as a large group just to run an experiment. But the debut date got pushed back, and because you guys started doing so well, everything got reshuffled, and that’s how the current Lanion came about.”
“….”
“Do you get it now? That you’re turning the world upside down in this timeline?”
Even as Su-ho spoke with a smile, I found myself unable to laugh.
The story itself was shocking, but more than that, a question mark I’d been carrying in my heart ever since the regression suddenly surfaced.
‘Is it okay that other people’s futures change because of me?’
If I debut, someone who was supposed to debut doesn’t.
If I take first place, someone who was supposed to take first place doesn’t.
The moment I gain something in this timeline, someone loses the glory that was theirs in the previous one.
‘Is that right?’
That their lives, their timelines, their futures and presents change because of me alone….
Can I bear that responsibility?
A heavy question I’d been feeling all along pressed down on one corner of my heart.
When I read so many novels about regression, I was too busy feeling catharsis from the protagonist’s dramatic reversal of fortune and success.
But now that those things had become my reality….
‘Somehow it feels….’
“…Ha-jin?”
“…Yeah.”
At Su-ho’s call, I pulled my consciousness back from the depths of thought.
With so much work already on my plate, I didn’t want to share these unnecessary thoughts, so I quickly composed my expression and laughed playfully.
“I was wondering why Lanion came out gnashing their teeth this time, and it turns out it was because of me. Ah, I’ve got so much sin to answer for, don’t I?”
“Now you understand why I’m so obsessed with your contract?”
“I was just worried about how I’d make a living the other day…. It’s quite moving. Kang Ha-jin has made it.”
I deliberately made it more cringeworthy, hugging myself and patting my own back, until Su-ho looked away with a disgusted expression.
If it were Su-ho, he might have even noticed the shadow I’d hidden behind my jokes and laughter.
Yet I pretended not to know, maintaining my smile until the very end and swallowing my words.
‘Not yet…. Not yet.’
For now, I wanted to focus on what lay directly before me.
* * *
After talking with Su-ho for quite some time longer, I turned my steps toward somewhere other than the Dormitory.
And I mentally replayed everything I’d learned from my conversation with Su-ho just moments before.
-So, why did Lanion choose Yupia’s song?
-Like I said earlier, the member count is the same. That’s the official reason.
-….
-Among the remaining candidate songs, it has the most name value. That’s the unofficial reason.
-And that’s the most convincing reason. …Well, they’re the next in line after Rene, so of course they’d want to perform a song with name value. Excluding Rene’s idols, Yupia’s songs have the strongest impact among boy group tracks.
‘In other words, if they can’t perform their own songs, they might as well do the strongest one to save face.’
That meant our pool of selectable candidates had been cut in half.
Sphere’s song, which was called a top-tier group just like Yupia, had already been claimed by Storm Header, and the remaining candidate songs were either not to our taste or were already being marked by other senior idols.
-I don’t understand. Miro should be big enough not to be pushed around like this, shouldn’t it? Of course, with only two affiliated artists… no, three now. Only three. But two of them are worth a hundred, no, a thousand times over, aren’t they?
Su-ho answered my genuinely curious question with a bitter tone.
-That’s complicated too, but simply put, we don’t have a good relationship with QBS. It’s not like we owe them anything…. There was just some incident. It’s better to avoid conflict with them and just let things slide.
-…Is that somehow related to what happened with Endway?
-…Yeah. But let’s talk about that later. It’s not even important right now. I’m just letting you know the situation. Right now, figuring out what to do is more urgent.
I didn’t know what QBS and Endway had fought over, but Su-ho didn’t seem willing to discuss it, so I didn’t press further. I had things I hadn’t told Su-ho either.
“Sigh…. So the problem now is what the hell we’re supposed to do….”
After long deliberation, I finally arrived at my destination and stopped in my tracks. It was Do-ha’s Studio, which I’d visited so often by now that I could draw its interior with my eyes closed.
The moment I heard we couldn’t do the Yupia cover stage, Do-ha was the first person who came to mind.
“…Ah, damn. He’s going to be so excited, what do I even say? What do I say?”
This was the guy who poured his entire heart and effort into performing Yupia’s song just once during Miro Maze.
Whenever he did interviews, he’d recite his rap perfectly, saying his musical role model was Seo Tae-il and that Yupia was the reason he started making music….
“Damn, what am I supposed to do if we don’t perform Yupia’s song? What can I do to make Do-ha accept it? How do I tell him so he’s less disappointed? God, I’m going crazy, seriously. Should I just call Tae-hyun? Would Tae-hyun be better at explaining things calmly and gently? No, wait. If I tell him Lanion is doing Yupia’s song, wouldn’t Seo Tae-hyun get pissed too? Or not? He probably would get pissed, but how do I deliver this so our kids don’t get pissed and… damn, what are you saying, Kang Ha-jin. Think, use your head!”
Unable to bring myself to enter even after reaching the Studio door, I ended up crouching in front of it, pulling at my hair.
Not just Do-ha, but Lee Yu-gun and Ju Eun-chan had apparently already started learning the choreography halfway through, so how was I supposed to handle and deal with this?
“Damn QBS…. If you were going to say something, say it early. You had us pick all the songs and now you’re stabbing us in the back? You bastards have no conscience. Damn, what do I say. How do I tell them we can’t do Yupia’s song….”
“We can’t do Yupia’s song?”
“Uh…. Yeah, so it’s ruined now. Ah, what do I do. What am I supposed to say… AAAAHHHHH!”
Who was that just now?
Who answered?
Why did they answer?
Turning toward the source of the sound with a look of shock, I saw Do-ha armed in black hoodie, black baseball cap, black pants, and black shoes, calmly looking down at me while holding a tumbler in one hand.
‘Why are you coming out from there instead of inside?’
Clutching my startled chest and barely able to breathe, I looked up at Do-ha, and he took a sip of the steaming drink from the tumbler he’d apparently just received, then asked me again.
“You mean we can’t do Yupia’s song for the QBS cover stage, right?”
“…Huh?↗ Oh, that. Well, it’s just… um…. …Yeah.”
“There’s a reason you can’t do it?”
“Well…. It’s a bit complicated, but to put it simply. Um. Uh… oh, songs by senior artists from the same agency aren’t allowed, apparently. It’s some kind of QBS standard—or criterion, or guideline, or principle, or whatever you’d call it—to pursue diversity and freshness on stage. No, not principle exactly….”
“Hmm….”
“….”
Crouching in front of the studio door and rambling on like this—I knew it looked pathetic even by my own standards, but I couldn’t help it. I gripped the studio door handle with both hands as if it were a lifeline, waiting for Lee Do-ha’s response.
Lee Do-ha was quiet for a moment, his eyes moving as if processing my words, before he finally lifted his head and answered.
“Okay.”
“…Huh?↗”
“…Why?”
“Okay? Okay…? You’re… okay~?”
“Yeah. Okay. I understand.”
Even as I asked in surprise, Lee Do-ha simply nodded quietly—not with a confused expression, but with his usual blank, emotionless face.
“You’re really… okay~?”
“…?”
“Why aren’t you mad!?”
“…Should I be mad?”
It was I who felt my soul drain away at his response.
Why is nothing ever going the way I expect?

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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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