LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 96
Chapter 96
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A killer whale somersaulted in the air, causing golden sands to fall like stardust once again.
But was that really sand?
Could something so insignificant exist in this moment?
Doubting that, I reached out my palm and caught one of the falling particles to examine it closely.
‘…A note?’
The golden granule, which I had thought was sand, was shaped like a musical note.
When I looked around, some were commas, and some were clefs.
Realizing that, the paralysis in my feet was magically lifted.
The first thing I did was run blindly towards the killer whale, now colored as blue as the sky, wanting to see it up close.
Every time my footsteps left marks on the ground and sand-like notes bounced up, a cheerful sound resonated.
It meant I could do the same as that killer whale.
Excited, I walked lightly on the desert, danced on it, and even lightly scratched the ground with my fingers, making sounds as I pleased.
Playing with heaps of falling snow wouldn’t be as enjoyable as this.
As particularly pleasant melodies were created, it felt like the killer whale was dancing joyfully.
For many times the sun drew arcs in the sky, I moved tirelessly.
This, too, would have been impossible if it were reality.
Eventually, I climbed up the tail of the killer whale that had come closer, watching the sunset unfold with a grand melody.
“……”
Finally, the sun completely set.
As if signaling the end of the illusion, the killer whale let out its first and last deep cry.
I woke up.
‘What kind of dream was that…’
The room was dark, suggesting it was still before dawn.
The two people lying next to me were still sound asleep.
[You have obtained the trait 《Darling of Creation》 as a reward for completing the quest
[《Darling of Creation》 – Didn’t I tell you before? You have boundless talent as a creator….]
Sleepy, I skipped through the explanation.
It seemed like it would help me achieve high concentration during creative activities and ignore physical limits while the effect lasted.
Interestingly, it mentioned that the effect could be added to later.
[Tip! Traits are based on your latent abilities. As the name suggests, latent abilities are those that may remain undiscovered in some worlds until death. The system allows you to fully utilize all your abilities. Just try calling yourself incompetent one more time….]
I yawned repeatedly from sleepiness.
‘Yeah. You’re not a system, you’re Larry.’
I decided to name my future puppy Larry.
[Woof, woof, yes, I am Larry ■■…. Willpower +1]
In a daze, I went out to the living room and searched on my phone.
[Dream about a whale]
I selected and read one of the search results.
‘Generally a good omen… The bigger the whale, the better….’
Since such things are meant to be read lightly to lift one’s mood, I skipped any vague or bad content and focused only on the good parts.
The conclusion was that it was a good dream.
Honestly, if that wasn’t a good dream, I couldn’t think of what would be.
Wait, hold on.
I felt like I was on the verge of thinking of something great.
My mind cleared up.
‘The fortune teller said our kids would cross the sea and open up new horizons.’
A killer whale is a sea creature.
Having already dealt with krakens and sharks, it wasn’t impossible for a killer whale to appear too.
Though the killer whale’s English name, killer whale, sounded fierce, it seemed like it had a more sophisticated name.
I knew it, it was on the tip of my tongue.
[Orca]
[Scientific name: Orcinus orca]
“!”
This was it.
The first part was hard to pronounce, so I’d shorten it to Orca.
Further research revealed that the killer whale is the strongest predator in the marine world.
It meant something like….
We’d form a strong team, like a killer whale in the treacherous sea of the entertainment industry, right?
I recalled the name candidates from yesterday.
Kraken, Sea Pearl, and Orca.
Ha… An excellent name.
I wasn’t sure if Orca was suitable from a public standpoint, to be honest.
But having gone through Kraken, Jaws, and Sea Pearl, I’d long lost my objective view.
Since people or animals generally seem more attractive and acceptable the more you see them, anything would be fine as long as it wasn’t on the level of Sea Pearl or Kraken.
I wished someone could drive this cursed pearl and octopus out of my head.
The image of a bizarre creature, an octopus with pearls stuck to each suction cup, kept coming to mind, driving me crazy.
“You’re up early.”
Seo Moon-gyeol, emerging from the one bathroom, spotted me sprawled on the sofa and spoke. His face was fresh, as if he’d just washed up.
“You’re up early too.”
“Aren’t you tired? You can sleep a bit more.”
“My eyes just opened. Maybe it’s because it’s the first day.”
But I was still sleepy, and kept yawning.
“Hyung, if you’re free, sit down and listen to me for a bit.”
The dream was such an amazing experience that I wanted to share it with someone while it was still vivid.
“I had a really strange dream.”
Seo Moon-gyeol listened intently to my story.
During the conversation, Kang Ji-woo came out of the big room, looking sleepy, and lay down on the living room floor.
Occasionally twitching, he responded to my story with “Wow,” or “I want to hear that too…,” showing he was listening despite not sleeping.
“In the end, the killer whale let out a long, low cry, and I woke up.”
“That’s a good dream. Do you often have dreams like that?”
“I think I had them quite often when I was young, but as I grew older, I just stopped dreaming altogether. It’s been a really long time since I had a dream like this.”
“I’m jealous… I always have silly dreams.”
Kang Ji-woo grumbled in a drawn-out voice, then suddenly lifted his head and looked at me.
“Still, it seems like it was a really good dream.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. We’re singers, and you heard a ton of good music in your dream.”
Kang Ji-woo said with a cheerful smile.
“I think you’re a total bundle of luck rolling in. Not just any bundle, but one as big as a whale.”
“…What’s with the weird talk all of a sudden?”
“I’m just saying thanks for being here.”
Kang Ji-woo hummed the ‘I won’t regret it’ part of Heart Attack in a pleasant voice, then fell silent, seemingly remembering that Seo Moon-gyeol and I were still eliminators.
“Thanks for being here. I’ll take good care of you.”
When Seo Moon-gyeol said that too, I felt unbearably embarrassed and searched for another topic.
“Oh, speaking of taking care of us, it reminds me, when I was in the same room with Yo-han hyung during our first training camp in Pick Heart…”
“I heard.”
“Did you know that hyung tried to make me sleep on the floor right off the bat?”
“…What?”
Thinking back, I got suddenly annoyed again.
“We ended up settling it with rock-paper-scissors later, but at first, Ban Yo-han tried to kick me to the floor, and I was like, what’s with this guy?”
Before I could finish my sentence, Kang Ji-woo jumped up and strode into the big room.
A moment later, I heard a series of loud slaps, clearly the sound of his palm hitting someone’s back.
Judging by the sound, Kang Ji-woo’s touch wasn’t only good for making food but also for hitting friends.
I heard Ban Yo-han’s scream as he was suddenly attacked while asleep.
“Kang Ji-woo, are you crazy?!”
“You must be crazy. How could you make your junior sleep on the floor? Do you even call yourself a hyung? Are you even human?”
Listening to Ban Yo-han being mercilessly condemned, I took out two cartons of cold milk from the refrigerator and clinked them with Seo Moon-gyeol’s, who was wide-eyed, in a victorious toast.
It felt refreshing from the morning.
* * *
Except for Gyun Seong-ha, who went to school since it wasn’t summer vacation yet, the four high school graduates headed straight to the basement practice room.
“Raon.”
While Ban Yo-han and I were receiving vocal lessons, Seo Moon-gyeol, who had come back from English conversation class with Kang Ji-woo, called me and handed over a notebook.
It had the same design as the choreography notebook we used when brainstorming for the Eolssu-Eolssu stage, but with a different color.
In the white notebook was a beautifully drawn killer whale, a person, and a desert.
The illustration captured the necessary realism while naturally incorporating the exaggerated aspects possible only in a dream.
“Wow…”
“Listening to your story made me curious about what it looked like, so I drew it during a short break. Is it similar?”
If there was a dictionary entry for Seo Moon-gyeol, the first definition would be saint, and the second would be talent squanderer.
“It looks so identical; it’s like you had the same dream as me. Did you draw all this with a pencil?”
“Yeah. It would have been better if I had paint or something.”
It was a talent to be this good and still feel regretful.
On the front page, there were several smaller killer whales drawn in various styles, likely as practice sketches.
“Can I take a picture of this with my phone later?”
Trying to refuse Seo Moon-gyeol’s offer to give me the notebook took up our entire break time.
By then, Ban Yo-han also knew about my dream, having heard the story from Kang Ji-woo.
And when Gyun Seong-ha arrived at the company after his morning classes, we held another meeting on the same topic as yesterday.
The trainees brought folding chairs and sat in a corner of the meeting room.
It seemed we were trying to gather the trainees’ opinions on this matter as well.
Given the company’s small size, it felt more like we were trying to increase the number of people brainstorming together.
CEO Ban Gae-ul suggested that if no good name came out in today’s meeting, we should temporarily go with a name like ‘Seed Boys’ for the debut group’s reveal.
‘Wow, that’s really corny.’
Of course, no one was brave enough to say that out loud.
Anyway, the staff took turns presenting the names they had thought of.
Fortunately, nothing worse than Kraken and Sea Pearl came up, but none of the suggestions felt quite right either.
The best-received name was ‘Neptune,’ proposed by Director Joo Yeol-eum.
It was the English reading of Neptune, the Roman counterpart to the Greek god Poseidon.
In my opinion, the issue lay with the sea.
“Don’t you guys have any ideas? Or were you too busy practicing?”