Nothing much happened at the broadcasting station that the writer dragged me to. I just had a quick interview in front of a camera.

They didn’t even ask me to dance, which should have been asked for formality. Of course, they also didn’t advise me to join a dance academy.

That was evidence that they had a clear role for me in the show.

But those things didn’t matter to me. The important thing was the fact that my name was put on the contestant list.

But there was one unexpected element.

The first shooting was way earlier than what I expected.

“...In 10 days?”

“Yes. Park Moondae-gun just came in right at the last minute. A free spot doesn’t usually appear like this, you’re really lucky~ It’s because Moondae-gun is good that’s why you get this spot.”

They phrased ‘I was just a replacement’ so nicely.

Slightly flustered, I thought about it carefully.

They worded it so nicely and it didn’t cost me anything to appear, so it was a good offer for me.

Of course, if I was actually nothing much after they found out about me, they would act as if they never said I was good.

There’s rarely a field where people cut off a person as fast as in this one.

In addition, asking a commoner to prepare a performance alone in 10 days without giving them any help was definitely not a good demand.

They said it like it was nothing much with a straight face, but if this was a contestant from an entertainment company, they might have complained about this.

That’s like telling me to never mind using an arrangement, just use any instrumental track and get some hate. And if I didn’t perform that bad, they would just edit me out.

But I expected this much.

“...Yes. Thank you.”

I nodded my head as if I was nervous for the filming that was happening soon and didn’t notice anything fishy.

A look of satisfaction passed by on the writer’s face.

“We’re the thankful ones~ I will contact you with more details.”

That was her cue to leave. I exited the broadcasting station without any regret and made a strategy for the next 10 days.

As my preparation time was short, it seemed like I needed to use a more extreme method than what I was planning.

* * *

At the end of the busy 10 days, the day of the first shooting came.

It’s an obvious structure in survival programs, but it first started with evaluation of the performances from each contestant.

The first evaluation.

A person who watched an idol survival program before would know about this, but the impression from this time rarely lasted until the end of the program.

For a contestant who didn’t have any interesting factor, it would be the worst if they performed vaguely average.

It would be better to fail badly like they were a joke, then put a narration of getting better for their show direction.

If you got edited out in here because you didn’t have any special feature, then there was no helping it anymore.

Though that didn’t mean one should aim for getting hate from the viewers.

“Everyone remembers their own number, right? Your number will be called. When you receive the notice, please enter the corridor~”

The shooting started with the fake appearance of contestants one by one entering the corridor.

This was just the portion for a teaser, but for this 40-second teaser, the shooting had gone on for 2 hours.

That was because the contestants were 77 people.

‘There were only young and innocent kids.’

Watching the faces of people sitting scattered in this waiting room that was more like a despicable empty space, my motivations slightly faded away.

I was a regressor that had a status window, but to be aspiring to become an idol with all these kids made me realize this was embarrassing.

“Excuse me, hello.”

One of the kids that was striking conversations here and there came to me.

I didn’t know if this kid was just excited or just putting on a facade to look good.

From his appearance, he seemed like a middle-schooler.

At this age of mine, I was exchanging introductions with a middle-schooler to build connections….

“Did you apply on your own?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, me too. Ah, may I ask for your age…?”

“...I’m 20 years old.”

My lips were itchy as I cheated my age by 9 years, but unexpectedly I felt great.

“Are you from any entertainment company?”

“No.”

“Oh, I see! Usually in IJC, there are many contestants coming from entertainment companies. Were you in any entertainment company before?”

“No, I was never in any entertainment company from the start.”

“Ah.. I see.”

Instantly, this middle-schooler kid lost his sincerity.

After concluding our conversation, he went off to strike a conversation with another person.

He already understood the society at such a young age, I felt like this kid would become successful in the future.

Of course, he needed to learn to hide that kind of mindset from the camera, but I was sure he would do fine on his own.

Anyway. A middle-schooler was already like that, what a warlike situation.

I wonder if I made an absurd decision after being caught up in this unrealistic situation. But it’s no use crying over spilt milk.

“We’re moving to the filming site!”

Because the shooting had finally started.

I stepped forward following the middle-schooler kids who were moving like meerkats.

I waited for my turn beside the main stage where the first evaluation was held.

They called me around the early to middle period.

* * *

“Contestant Lee Sejin B ranks in….. 15th place! Please take a seat.”

“Thank you!”

One of the contestants who were getting evaluated bowed their head following the MC’s words.

He was one of the four contestants getting evaluated together because they’re from the same entertainment company.

Out of all other contestants, he was one worthy of some use, but the producer team didn’t seem to take a liking to him that much.

‘This is severe.’

The writer who was spinning her pen, Ryu Seorin, knitted her brows.

The number of investors in Season 3 had decreased compared to the previous season. That was obvious. Because this new season was barely able to start after the failure of Season 2.

Using a hilarious slogan like ‘Relisting’, the producer team was determined to erase the shadow of Season 2 and started to prepare for this program.

But no matter how many connections or plans they had to hide the failure, there were always things they couldn’t hide.

One of those was the contestant pool.

The candidates who had better training had gone to other audition programs.

They tried to recruit exactly 77 contestants, so a lot of subpar kids were added, which made the difference in levels between them look big.

If there were too many contestants who were bad, no matter how they edited the show, there was still a limit on how entertaining it would be.

In South Korean audition programs, it was almost impossible for a talentless kid to gain popularity. Even if they edited the talentless kid well, just one mistake would get them endless criticism.

It was not an issue of hatred that followed one’s popularity, but they would be labelled as ‘boring’ and ‘fraud’.

At least, she finished deciding on the first-rank contestants that could be pushed to make into the debut group, with that, it wouldn’t be difficult to carry on the program without a dark horse.

‘The kid coming out now is like that too.’

The contestant getting evaluated now was a fresh newcomer who got recruited with 10 days left before this first shooting.

At the last minute, one of the contestants committed DUI (Driving Under Influence) and was quickly taken off, which was how this kid got recruited, so she had no expectations from him.

‘His name was… what again? Well, he would tell his name before the evaluation.’

That contestant’s voice was moderately good, his appearance was not bad either. If things didn’t work out, we could use his backstory too.

With that, he managed to pass the low standards this lady had due to the urgency of the recruitment.

Even with all those merits combined, he was still only better than a random substitute to fill a vacancy.

‘Well… He can be used for a comparison to others.’

The judges were chatting and looked uninterested after skimming through his profile that had nothing exceptional except for his family situation.

And that lady quietly thought of this.

‘Yeah, it will be better if he does it very badly. That will get people’s attention.’

People would get bored if ambiguously bad performances kept appearing, but if some were extremely bad, the program would look abundant. Following the famous quote, mocking is also a form of attention.

There was a high probability that a commoner, who only had 10 days preparing the stage on his own, would be hilariously bad.

The lady watched the stage with a bit of expectation.

“The next contestant, please enter the stage!”

Just then, the commoner contestant walked up to the stage.

Fortunately, it seemed like he found a nice salon, his face now looked more handsome than before.

The problem was his mood looked peculiar, as if he’s bored or gloomy.

Last time, it was probably because of his family situation, but his attitude was also like this in front of these many cameras?

It was actually because he had countlessly seen swarms of big cameras while he was a substitute photographer, but the writer, who wouldn’t know about that, was wondering.

‘Is he the type who doesn’t show his nervousness?’

But actually it didn’t matter. I could just make his image as a kid who couldn’t perform well yet was arrogant. The writer was using her head diligently.

At that moment, up on the stage, Park Moondae was listening to the MC.

“Yes. Contestant. Please introduce yourself.”

“...I am Park Moondae. Nice to meet you.”

And he bowed his head. Then the judges let out a small snort.

“Wait, is that just it?”

One male judge took the microphone and asked it with a voice mixed with laughter.

He asked that question with a slight negative connotation. It probably meant to make him introduce himself properly, but Park Moondae just nodded his head in a serious manner.

“Yes. I don't have anything in particular to introduce.”

And the judges burst out in laughter.

“Woah, what a unique friend!”

“He is funny~”

Several judges were whispering quietly. Of course all was caught in the microphone.

“Ah, looking at your application here, there’s really nothing.”

“Yeah, true.”

It was about time they’re going to ask ‘Why are you participating here?’.

But the judges seemed to think it would be more striking to ask that after the performance, they stopped laughing soon.

And the producer team thought this. They might be able to get a good cut.

“Then, please show us your performance.”

“Yes.”

With a malevolent childlike interest, the contestant received the microphone from the staff.

Soon, the interlude started playing.

And everyone was confused.

Why did this song appear here?