Save a Failed Idol’s Life

Chapter 73 Find Cheonise (2)

It was like a scene from a horror zombie game. All the kids in the class melted into slimy blobs.

“What the hell, this is crazy!”

The only thought that came to me was to run away from here. 

I felt a surge of fear that I would forget what I was trying to do if I got caught.

Cheonise… why do I have to find him? As my head was in confusion, I heard a familiar voice.

“Ise-hyung, you seem to have changed a lot.”

“…Thanks.”

“You know, I feel like I can trust you more than before.”

“Let’s keep this a secret between us.”

I didn’t know whose voice it was, but it felt strangely familiar.

I didn’t have any friends with that kind of voice.

I felt frustrated as I realized I was ignoring something I shouldn’t forget. Blood rushed to my face.

“Shit! What is this!”

As I ran out of the hallway, the other students in the other classes also turned into dark and long shadows and reached out their numerous hands towards me.

‘Why can’t I just be satisfied here? Having normal parents, a stable family, going to college, making friends, and studying what I want. Wasn’t that the happiness I wanted?’

That’s right. 

There was no ideal happiness beyond that for Lim Hyun-seong.

I thought of the missing idol as someone else’s problem and lived my own life. That was the right path for me.

“What do you want me to do with this uneasy feeling!”

As I barely made it to the playground, I stepped on the shoelace of my left shoe that had somehow come undone.

“Ahh!”

I lost my balance and stumbled, twisting my center of gravity. I ended up falling on my knees, scraping them on the dirt. 

Blood was flowing from under my torn school uniform pants.

“Ah… Mom is going to scold me.”

As I barely got up and started running again, a sense of unease suddenly crept into my head.

Did my stepmother… ever care about my uniform? I didn’t know about her son’s shirt, but she never soaked mine in bleach. 

I remembered how mine was the only one that stood out in a yellowish color.

When I tried to recall more details, my head throbbed.

“Ugh… It hurts.”

Before I could regain my senses, a horde of zombies poured out of the school. I had to run away first.

“What the hell is going on!”

The starting point where I could cross the Mapo Bridge on foot was too far to walk, no matter how I thought about it.

But instead of looking for a bus, my feet moved on their own. 

I felt like my body knew where to go better than my head.

There was no one who knew better than me what kind of emotions Cheonise was feeling and where she was right now.

Because…

‘…’

Why? My head went blank again. What a stupid thought. There was no way I had any connection with an idol…

I should have been content with the perfect and happy world I had. I didn’t know why I was going through this hardship.

‘Should I go back to school?’

Maybe I could pretend that I had a brief lapse of sanity and blend in with the class again.

They would pat me on the back and accept me, saying they thought I was crazy. Yeah, going back to school would be better. As I turned my body around, I heard some strange voices again.

‘You don’t know how lucky I am to have you.’

“Thank you~”

“What… If you want to come, then come.”

“Bro, you’re amazing!”

I am…

Who am I? What was I trying to do?

I looked up at the ceiling, clutching my head in pain that felt like my brain was boiling. Someone was sitting on the low railing that was there before the construction, blocking me from getting up.

The moment I faced him, I remembered clearly who I was and why I came here.

“You…!”

It was more like a shadow than a person, a mass of black lines tangled together. It looked back at me.

As soon as I realized that this moment was not real, hot tears ran down my cheeks.

If I had a once-in-a-lifetime wish that would make me forget my original purpose. I would have thought it was something grand like achieving one trillion won in sales or opening a thousand stores in overseas markets.

‘How could this…’

My lifelong wish was to be a rice cake. 

A happy world that made me forget the reality of my group being shattered. 

Barely. The bastards who killed me in the end accepted me as their family, a high school student.

I didn’t want to admit it. Don’t make me laugh.

What I wanted most was not to live in harmony with those bastards.

I wanted to make them pay for their sins as murderers and make them regret it thoroughly.

I wiped away my tears roughly with the back of my hand and answered the question from before.

I was Lim Hyun-seong and at the same time, the leader of Climax, Cheon I-se.

Then what was that…?

“…”

“Are you the ‘real’ Cheonise?”

It slowly turned its head to look at me in response to my question.

It was a black lump with no discernible eyes, nose, or mouth, but I felt its gaze on me.

It was the same Cheonise who had trouble waking up on time even after hearing the alarm, who cried at the slightest anger, who was impatient and impulsive, and who lost his mind in a pinch. He was in front of me.

I didn’t know what to say. Why did you make that choice? Do you have any regrets or lingering feelings?

It wasn’t appropriate to say anything like that when I barely saved his life instead.

If Cheonise hadn’t given up on his life, I wouldn’t be here either.

“…”

The thing that I assumed to be Cheonise scanned me slowly from head to toe without answering.

And then it muttered in a sinister voice that scraped my bones.

“Why do you get to live and I don’t?”

At that moment, when I felt goosebumps all over my body even though it wasn’t real, a familiar UI status window popped up in my head.

[System recovery successful]

[The system connection of ‘Lim Hyun-seong’ has been successfully restored.]

[The unauthorized program that was trying to access ‘Lim Hyun-seong’ has been stopped.]

What? Then what was that until now?

I suddenly remembered the emergency quest window that had a different form than usual.

It was weird, as if I had caught some virus or something…

As soon as the status window appeared, the world turned into a black and white reverse mode.

“What the hell, what is this!”

As the world shattered like a well-made puzzle, the thing that I thought was Cheonise also disappeared.

“Hey, wait! Don’t go!”

There was a story I wanted to hear from Cheonise. 

Whether he was really satisfied with wearing someone else’s mask and living off someone else’s success. 

Whether he resented me for stealing his life.

But the system didn’t allow it.

[‘Lim Hyun-seong’ will be transferred back to the system’s management area.]

[‘Lim Hyun-seong’’s power will be temporarily cut off for location transfer.]

The front of my eyes blinked again.

***

When I came to my senses again, I saw the space I was in before I possessed Cheonise for the first time.

[The system is temporarily checking for a stable return to the original system.]

Under the familiar status window, Pposil barked loudly and looked up at me. 

He lowered his body and wagged his tail as if to reassure me that I could trust him now.

‘What the hell is this….’

[We sincerely apologize for the delay in responding to the unauthorized program due to a security flaw in the system.]

The system offered me an apology before I could even complain.

I needed to hear a proper explanation of what was going on.

“What is an unauthorized program?”

Then, as if someone was spiking his drink, the system quickly displayed a message of no authority.

[You do not have permission to view this information with your current authority as Cheonise (Lim Hyun-seong).]

What, you can’t tell me even though things have gotten this bad? 

I reflexively twitched my eyebrows.

The arms and legs floating in the air were clearly not Lim Hyun-seong’s, but Cheonise’s.

Wait, what about the quest reward? 

As soon as my thoughts settled down, I felt dizzy.

I accepted the urgent quest clear reward, but if the quest itself was unauthorized or something, it would have been a rewardless event.

“Wait a minute! What about my emergency escape service?”

The system answered irresponsibly.

[The system is not responsible for the transmission details due to the unauthorized program error.]

Damn! That meant that even if the system was restored and I returned to reality, the situation would not change.

“Don’t joke with me! Apologize, don’t think you can get away with just one word and properly compensate me!”

I threw a tantrum like a jerk who lay down on the floor as if he had been caught up in a huge conspiracy by a part-timer’s mistake.

“I was really surprised, you know? How are you going to compensate me for this mental damage? How are you going to take responsibility if I collapse from being so shocked by your poor security handling that I can’t function properly and suffer?”

My face was hot, but I had to be angry now. I couldn’t back down until I got a way out of this mess from the system.

[We are currently negotiating a compensation plan.]

The system stuttered and sent me a notification message.

Well, you should have said that from the start. 

I cooled my cheeks with a fan.

He must have overlooked the fact that the most difficult customer to deal with in a restaurant was a middle-aged man.

After a while, Pposil came up to me with a long scroll of notification window, smiling and sticking out his tongue.

[Our Human Happiness Death Wish System sincerely apologizes for the unprecedented security issue that caused damage to Lim Hyun-seong and offers to compensate you a little bit….]

Why is this so long? I skipped the nonsense with a soulless eye and checked the conclusion.

[To cope with the current situation proactively, we will temporarily expand the application range of the <Fate Skill> – ‘Overwhelming Skill’ and ‘You’ll Like Me Too’ from yourself to a group (up to 5 people) including yourself.]

Not bad. 

It would be much better if the insults, criticisms, and rumors that were randomly posted on the internet would calm down.

But that wasn’t the problem that would be solved by just making the people who increased the buzz against us quiet.

It had to be known that our comeback single didn’t steal Floss’s song, and that we were not the perpetrators of Floss, but the victims.

“This is not enough. Bring more stuff.”

I crossed my arms and lifted my chin, nodding my head slightly. The system hastily added a line.

[Special Item> ‘Twist of the Twist of the Twist’ effect has been modified from ‘You can use this item to reverse the overall trend of the public opinion battle.’ to ‘You can use this item to finalize the public opinion battle in the direction you want.’]

Oh… I looked at the icon shaped like a megaphone and thought for a moment.

Finalize… Does that mean I don’t have to keep fighting for the truth anymore?

If I used the buff for five people and the item, I thought I could quell the current controversy.

[Special Item> ‘Twist of the Twist of the Twist (Upgrade)’ Do you want to use it?]

Before I could answer, a window popped up as if it would accept the proposal if I used it.

[Please enter the truth you want to announce to the world.]

[ ]

The blank space blinked as if urging me to type quickly. 

It caught my eye.