Grab the Regressor by the Collar and Debut - Chapter 526

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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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526. Special Mission! Become a Comet (3)
The scenario for this “zombie horde incident disguised as a preliminary meeting” that Kwon Myung-eun and Go Se-hwa had pushed through with rare enthusiasm was as follows.
“Hello.”
“Yes, hello―.”
First, the participants arrived at the Studio building and immediately entered their assigned waiting rooms.
To ensure the participants remained unaware of each other’s presence in the same building, the production team guided them through separate routes.
“Today is literally a preliminary meeting, and we’re planning to conduct a simple test to assess what abilities you possess that would suit our program.”
“Ah, yes.”
“We’ll give you 60 minutes. Within this space, proceed with the test to whatever extent you’re capable of.”
An ordinary waiting room with nothing particularly special about it.
After receiving a brief explanation about In the Chaos, the participants were distributed test papers that resembled mock exam sheets.
This cognitive test, prepared under the guise of a level assessment, was composed of diverse high-difficulty quizzes spanning various fields—language, mathematics, practical science, general knowledge—requiring both IQ and EQ to solve.
“Then we’ll begin the test now.”
The production team exited, leaving only the installed cameras and basic equipment in the waiting room, and once the 60-minute timer on the wall began counting down, all preparations were complete.
“…What is this, it’s intense?”
While the participants floundered in confusion over questions clearly designed not to be solved, ten minutes slipped away.
Around this point, people began to drop out. Sensing the limits of their concentration, they started glancing around, wondering if perhaps some hidden devices were concealed somewhere in the room.
And then, at that very moment―.
Weeeeeeee―!
Rrrrrrrrrr―!!!!
“…?”
An emergency alarm suddenly blared throughout the entire Studio building. As people jolted in shock and tried to comprehend the situation, a strikingly realistic emergency broadcast announcement from Park Mo, a master of method acting with 23 years of acting experience whom Go Writer had hired (41 years old, professional volunteer), echoed through the speakers.
-Ah, ah! We’re issuing an urgent announcement. Currently, currently people showing abnormal symptoms for unknown reasons are being discovered inside the building…! If you’re hearing this broadcast, please head to the rooftop, the rooftop right now―! Ugh, aaaah! No! Don’t come! Don’t, don’t come! Aaaaah…!
Crash, bang, tumble…!
Faced with the unexpected assault of a zombie horde, what kind of reactions would the participants display!?
From this point forward, using the clues provided, they had to escape their waiting rooms, either cooperate with each other or engage in complete solo play, evade the zombie horde, and safely reach the building’s rooftop to survive until the rescue team arrived—a (somewhat?) basic scenario.
“But will it be okay? We didn’t give them advance notice, and if there’s a complaint later about doing something like this….”
“What does it matter? That’s why we deliberately gave them a heads-up through their agencies beforehand.”
To the words of the junior PD watching the bewildered participants floundering on the monitors, Kwon Myung-eun responded cynically.
Originally, this kind of thing was only fun when people had no idea and experienced it completely unprepared. But if they did that, who knew what accusations of production team abuse they’d face in this day and age. Ultimately, they had given the agencies only a vague hint that “there might be an event disguised as a preliminary test.”
“Still, we didn’t mention anything about a zombie horde escape…. We also asked the agencies to keep it strictly confidential.”
-Aaaaaaaah! Help me!!!
“If they’re going to appear on a Survival Show and can’t anticipate something like this, getting uncomfortable about it, then we can’t work together. Besides, would they have kept their mouths shut? They’re the type trembling in fear that their own celebrities might get a bad reputation.”
-Ah, really! Waaaaah! No, how did you do the makeup so realistically!? No, wow, this is seriously driving me crazy!?
“Well, that’s fortunate then…. Maybe it’s because I saw all kinds of crazy things in that survival show I did before, but I keep worrying….”
-Kyaaaah! Aaah! Wow! Ugh, it’s really so scary, it’s so scary!? It’s really so scary!!
“Enough, enough. Look at them, the ones who got the hint are already preparing before the scenario even starts… ugh, who is that?”
-Aaaaaaaaaaah!
Kwon Myung-eun, who had been trying to ignore the sounds flowing from the audio monitor, finally looked exasperated and turned to the audio director team beside him.
The audio director, adjusting the participants’ audio feeds one by one while wearing a headset, responded with a thoroughly pained expression, as if his ears were about to burst.
“It’s Kang Ha-jin….”
“Ugh, that coward again.”
Kwon PD and Go Writer, who already knew Ha-jin’s long history of cowardice from working together, each grabbed their foreheads and the back of their heads. Their expressions screamed resignation.
-AAAAAAAHHHHH!! I don’t taste good!!!!!
While the other cast members had already locked in their concepts—either “brilliantly clever intellectual” or “overwhelmingly powerful athlete”—and were running with them, the junior was single-handedly monopolizing 90% of the reaction footage with his “overwhelmingly cowardly” persona, prompting Kwon PD to exhale a deep sigh.
“Back in the day, whenever we’d send him on horror experience surveys, he wouldn’t scare the people he was supposed to scare—he’d just scare himself and come back complaining….”
At the sheer excess of screaming, Go Writer turned to the Junior Writer, who was monitoring each cast member’s movements on the monitors, with a puzzled expression.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, but his screams seem to have leveled up somehow? Did he really not know there was an event like this in today’s test?”
“Ah, well… normally we announce everything through the Entertainment Agency, but since Kwon PD directly handled Kang Ha-jin’s recruitment….”
“…?”
“…Oh.”
Had I not mentioned it?
Only then did Kwon PD scratch his cheek sheepishly and mutter, while Go Writer and the rest of the Production Team quietly closed their mouths and sent Ha-jin their silent condolences. Broadcasting was always rigged like a fixed card game anyway, but there was still an enormous difference between knowing what was coming and being blindsided.
Ha-jin, I’m sorry. Though this meager consolation won’t reach you, at least it looks like you won’t have a boring time because of it, so let’s count that as a small mercy.
In any case, there didn’t seem to be any shortage of reaction footage for editing.
“So, how far has Ha-jin progressed? It looks like he escaped the Waiting Room somehow.”
“Ah, well….”
“Even though he’s smart, he’s an absolute coward…. I’d be grateful if he at least passed the first obstacle properly.”
When Ha-jin’s location couldn’t be properly identified in the monitor room, Go Writer asked the Junior Writer, who was tracking the detailed movements of each cast member, about Ha-jin’s status.
Back when I was a PD, Ha-jin was less “intelligent” and more “cunning.” When the idea first came up to recruit Ha-jin as a “New Face & Visual” role, the reason I approved it wasn’t so much because of his popularity but because of how he’d presented himself up until then.
But that was only when I was in the position of designer, and now that he was standing in front of the camera for the first time in a while and had activated this “absolute coward mode,” it was true that he’d have difficulty performing at his usual level….
“Kang Ha-jin is currently in first place in the test.”
“Huh?”
“He was the first to escape the Waiting Room, and he found the direct route to the Rooftop right away.”
…What did he just do?
At the unexpected result, Kwon PD and Go Writer exchanged blank stares with each other.
* * *
“You can complete the test here from now on~”
“Yes, thank you.”
So this is, from Kang Ha-jin’s perspective.
‘This is fake.’
With a good-natured smile, Ha-jin allowed himself to be confined(?) in the Waiting Room according to the Production Team’s guidance, and the moment he checked the test problems placed before him, he was certain of it.
‘These aren’t problems made for people to solve.’
More precisely, it was the kind of difficulty where you could solve one or two problems if you really wracked your brain.
But In the Chaos wasn’t a pure intellectual survival show either.
There was no way Kwon PD would have presented this boring quiz as a preliminary test when viewers would need at least ten explanation frames per problem to understand it.
“….”
From the moment Ha-jin figured out it was fake, he began focusing on his surroundings instead of the problems.
Actually, from the moment he first entered Studio A, Ha-jin had been sensing a subtle sense of incongruity. At first, he thought it was just the feeling of returning to work, but once he entered this Waiting Room, the nature of that incongruity became crystal clear.
‘Wow, they really spent a lot of money on this.’
The structure is different.
Someone had tried to camouflage it naturally, but all the expensive items and branded goods had vanished without a trace, replaced by walls, pillars, and passages that hadn’t existed before. They’d probably installed temporary set walls for the shoot.
The number of staff present was fewer than usual, and most importantly, I didn’t recognize a single person.
‘Even accounting for how quickly and frequently people change in this industry… there’s no way the entire staff rotated like this in just one year.’
At first, I thought I was the one who couldn’t recognize them. In this timeline, I’d only been gone for a year, but from my perspective, it felt like far longer.
But even if I couldn’t recognize them, it was strange that they couldn’t recognize me either. Not a single person—not even the Cafe staff on the First Floor—acknowledged me.
Either they’d received prior instructions, or they were all actors hired for the shoot.
“….”
The test had begun, but I had no interest in solving the problems. I merely skimmed over them with my eyes or carefully observed something in the Waiting Room. When a problem I could solve appeared, I’d grudgingly check off an answer or two.
Weeeeeeee―!
Rrrrrrrrrr―!!!!
As time passed, the alarm sounded.
While everyone rushed to the window in the Waiting Room door to check what was happening, Kang Ha-jin didn’t even glance back—he stepped onto the desk and tore away a suspicious-looking piece of false ceiling. He’d been keeping an eye on it since he first entered the Waiting Room.
“…Ah. You really haven’t changed, Senior.”
As I tore away the false wall, a hole in the ceiling was revealed. Using my height and long arms, I easily reached into the gap and felt around inside to assess the situation.
After testing the wall several times to confirm it was sturdy―.
“―Hup!”
I pulled myself into the ceiling hole without much difficulty. What had appeared to be a hole was actually a long passage, apparently installed to allow escape from this Waiting Room and access to another location.
And as I stuck my face into that passage, I spotted a dash cam clearly set up for filming, and I flashed a grin at the camera lens.
“Hello, Senior. Are you watching?”
I’m sorry, but your entire plan is in the palm of my hand.
The entrance of a PD-turned-idol who shoots down flying PDs with a bazooka while the other contestants run below.

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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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