The Trashy PD Has To Survive as an Idol - Chapter 1

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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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01

“Is the PD even human?”

I remained unmoved, even as the Idol wept before me, tears streaming down her face.

“Why?”
“If the PD had any conscience, they could never have edited it that way!”

I studied her as she shouted in fury. A Competition Program featuring trainees who had spent years in preparation but never debuted as idols—her ranking was fourth place, a respectable score by any measure.
More importantly, it was entirely my creation.
Through editing, to be precise.
A genius of editing, a talent bestowed by demons, a prodigious PD at thirty-three—these were the epithets that followed Seo Ho-yoon. Me.
I rather liked them.
Especially since the money followed.

“You placed fourth.”
“What good is that? Everything that mattered is already gone. The public calls me crazy. My friends I trained with for ten years won’t return my calls. People throw eggs at me on the street.”
“You’ll live a long life then.”
“What?!”
“Getting cursed at means you’ll live long.”

I pulled out a cigarette and placed it between my lips. The lighter clicked twice before the flame caught. I drew deeply on the cigarette, then exhaled a plume of smoke with a sharp breath. The Idol’s expression shifted to one of disbelief.

“You know you can’t sing, right?”
“What?”
“You said at the beginning you’d do anything to become famous. I liked your passion, so I edited it and uploaded it. Made you a rude but talented dancer, an irritating but oddly captivating celebrity. They broadcast you on TV so much people say you’re my niece. Even though you don’t look alike.”

I simply relayed what the internet was saying, and her face flushed red and purple with emotion.

“You said you wanted success, and I helped you achieve it.”

It was a simple fact. Without me, she never would have placed fourth. I stated it with complete objectivity, yet her jaw trembled with rage.

“Did I ask for that?”
“At first, didn’t you say that one thing would be enough?”
“….”
“If it gets tough, check your bank balance. That’ll cheer you up a bit.”

Sometimes when Director Kook pours alcohol over my head and throws a fit, I check my bank balance too when the world seems meaningless. Then I pat my chest reassuringly.
Yeah, what’s so special about the world? Money solves everything.
She clenched her teeth and shook her head. I glanced at my phone. It was time to leave.

“If that’s all you have to say, I’m going. I’m busy.”
“…PD.”

The moment I turned around and took a step, she called out to me. Then, with eyes rolled back like a ghost, she unleashed a curse upon me.

“I hope you crash and burn, PD. The day will come when you regret this. The day when our positions are reversed and you finally understand me. Even if you beg and cry then, it won’t matter.”
“How terrifying.”

I laughed with amusement. My luck had been terrible all day, but who knew something this entertaining would happen.
I quickened my pace, leaving her curses behind. I had to get back to the Production Department and continue editing.
So I decided to treat it as nothing more than an amusing incident.
Until the system window appeared.

***

Ding!
Ding!
Ding ding ding!

[Infamy Points +100]
[Infamy Points +350]
[Infamy Points +500]
[Infamy Points have accumulated. Game start conditions met.]
[Loading….]

“What the hell.”

The incessant dinging annoyed me. Dreams should have some limits. I’d only managed four hours of sleep over three days because of editing, chugging energy drinks the whole time. It was probably just an alarm going off.
The moment I was about to jolt my eyes open—

[Congratulations, Seo Ho-yoon! You have been selected as a player in the Unknown Idol Tycoon game. Celebrating your ten-year rejuvenation!]
[Seo Ho-yoon: Small Entertainment Company Unknown Idol.
Age: 23
Characteristics: Completed military service, zero talent for dancing.
Once a genius PD, but no one remembers him.
(※Excluding certain individuals)
[If you fail to clear the game, you will be permanently unable to log out.]

I was struck awake by a wooden club. Opening my eyes and sitting up, a system window hovered before me. Staring at it, I let out a hollow laugh and turned my head away.

“Come on.”

I tossed my phone aside and burrowed back under the blankets. I must have been editing too intensely—strange visions were bleeding into my waking mind.

“What an odd dream…”

I’d clearly overdone it yesterday. Yet the system window floating above the ceiling refused to vanish. In the darkness of my bedroom, the ethereal blue glow of the window pressed upon me with an unsettling sense of unreality.

Ding!

“….”

Ding!

“…This dream is relentless.”

The incessant chiming of the system window made it impossible to force myself back to sleep. I dragged myself upright with a groan, and the window came into sharp focus.

[Quest Arrived:
‘Time to Face Reality!’
Accept your new reality.
You are no longer a genius PD—you are now a player in the Unknown Idol Tycoon game.
You have become an unknown idol.
Accept reality 0/1
Success: ‘Failing Idol’ Title
Failure: Permanently unable to log out]

Permanently unable to log out? The ominous weight of that title jolted me fully awake. What kind of dream was this supposed to be?
I rubbed my face and sat up. This dream was proving remarkably persistent. I stumbled toward the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face and shake off the fog, then glanced at the mirror.

“…What is this?”

The dark circles that had persisted from excessive overtime, the dull complexion that had begun to deteriorate—all of it had transformed.
My face was radiant. No, that wasn’t even the real problem. My face….
It was Seo Ho-yoon from ten years ago.
This was pure terror.
I touched my face frantically, my jaw, and recoiled in shock. Even in a dream, I could never experience something this vivid.
How many people could actually cry out, “Wow, I’ve become young again”? I fled the bathroom and bolted from my room.

“What’s wrong, Hyung?”
“Seo, Seo Ho-jin.”
“You startled me. Have you finally lost it?”

My younger brother, Seo Ho-jin, was drinking water and answered casually, but the moment he saw my face, he spat the water from his mouth.

“Pfft! Cough, cough… Hey, did you get plastic surgery, Hyung?”
“What?”
“Why does your face look like that? Wait, can plastic surgery change you this much in one day? Has South Korean medicine advanced that far? Your face looks exactly like Seo Ho-yoon’s from ten years ago….”

Seo Ho-jin strode over and grabbed my face, turning it this way and that to examine it.
Seo Ho-jin remained unchanged. Normally, I would have complained about him grabbing my face like I was some heavenly sculpture, but I couldn’t do that now.

[Seo Ho-jin]
[Seo Ho-yoon’s younger brother. University student.
※This person remembers you.]

I looked at the system window that appeared beside Seo Ho-jin.

“Move aside.”

I hurriedly grabbed my wallet. Then I noticed my resident registration card placed beside it. The first digit of the number had changed.

“What is this?”

[Let me say this once more—congratulations! You, Seo Ho-yoon, have become a player in the Small Entertainment Company Unknown Idol Tycoon.]

“Hyung?”

Seo Ho-jin, as if caught in a dream himself, muttered in bewilderment. With trembling hands as though he’d taken some drug, he picked up his phone and searched my name. A page appeared.

[How How! / Real Name: Seo Ho-yoon
Idol under Dae Pa-sung Entertainment
Debuted in 20XX]

No matter how I looked at it, that face was mine. Even though it should have displayed “QBS Broadcasting PD” instead!
The search results that appeared were

‘Seo Ho-yoon’s Demonic Editing—Is This Right?’
‘Petition for Broadcasting Sanctions Against Seo Ho-yoon’
‘Seo Ho-yoon PD’s Program Achieves Record Viewership’

Articles that simultaneously praised and criticized me were nowhere to be found.
All that remained were posts about a failed idol’s profile.

[How How! A fresh idol from Dae Pa-sung Entertainment—please support us!]

“What the hell….”
“Hyung!”

I clutched my head with both hands, the splitting migraine threatening to shatter my skull.
Me? A genius PD, blessed with demonic talent, a master of editing—Seo Ho-yoon—had become an unknown idol?

***

“I’ll apologize, Hyung.”

After cornering Seo Ho-jin, whose complexion had turned ashen, and extracting answers, here’s what I learned.

1. This wasn’t a dream. (I’d begged Seo Ho-jin to hit me so I’d wake up, but it only hurt.)
2. I’d been transmigrated into a game he’d been playing lately. (A mobile game called “Unknown Idol Tycoon”—apparently a game about raising idols.)
3. I’d become twenty-three years old, while everyone else remained unchanged. (Seo Ho-jin was still twenty-three.)

And…. And the most crucial final point.

“Hyung’s an idol…. You mean that kind of idol? The kind that gets their vocals stripped out as a given, gets torn apart for not knowing a single trivia question, and has to smile brilliantly whether it rains or snows? That kind of idol?”
“Seo Ho-jin…. Stop being so irritatingly detailed and just stay quiet.”
“I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

I had become an Idol. Not just any Idol, but one from the most obscure of obscure entertainment companies. The kind where a search on any search engine yields barely a single page of results.
What in the world was happening? My head throbbed, so I pressed my fingers against my forehead. The system window still hovered beside me, bobbing gently in the air.

[Quest Complete!
‘Reality Awakening Time!’
Accept reality.
You are no longer a genius PD. You have become an Idol.
Accept reality 1/1]
[Success.]
[You have obtained the title ‘Doomed Idol’!]

Watching the ‘Doomed Idol’ title spin lazily above my head, I felt the urge to vomit.
Why? Why me of all people? And where exactly am I?

“What about the files I was working on yesterday?”

[They’re gone!]

I’d pressed Ctrl+S and even backed them up, and they’re telling me they vanished?

“This is insane… insane… absolutely insane!!”

As I clutched my head and muttered like a madman, Seo Ho-jin’s eyes rolled dramatically.

“Isn’t that not the important thing right now?”
“Be quiet.”

The first system window I’d seen flashed through my mind.
Infamy Points. Every time the Program became controversial, the people who cursed me. The Idol who had hurled curses at me one final time.

-I hope the PD crashes and burns.
Yeah, I’m ruined….

-When our positions are reversed and the PD finally understands me, that day will come.
I understand now. Can’t I ask for one more blessing?

-Even if you beg and cry your eyes out then, it won’t matter.
Ah, it won’t matter, huh….

“Brother, snap out of it!”
“My save file….”

I buried my face in my hands and muttered. The conclusion was inescapable.
I had somehow become an Idol.

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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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