07. The Craziest Bastard in This Place Is Me (2)

My strike lasted exactly ten minutes.

The System declares a strike too…

"Fine. Let's all just die then."

Crazy bastard…

"I'll take that as a compliment."

I could feel the system window trembling, but from a few days of experience, it seemed like this thing had to come around to being cooperative with me one way or another. Which made sense — that 'voice' had left it behind supposedly to help me.

'Whatever the case, I'm going to squeeze this thing for every drop.'

The System kept flashing "Processing…" across the window, apparently crunching numbers away. From experience, this was about the right moment to make a show of giving a little ground.

"Listen, System. Ah — mind if I call you System? Nothing else to call you, really."

……. (Regarding the Fixed Regressor with caution)

"I'm not, like, asking you for something omnipotent, alright? I'm a very reasonable person. But reasonably speaking, you're being way too uncooperative right now. How's this any different from you not being here at all?"

……. (Still refusing to lower its guard)

"Let's find a middle ground, is what I'm saying. That's how negotiation works, right? Either way, me clearing this quest is best for everybody, isn't it? So."

Loosening up a little, I grinned and laced my fingers together. The system window crackled and warped.

"You've got them, don't you? Skills."

…W-what do you mean?

"They're something you can use. …That Selected Regressor, I mean."

When I'd strong-armed the System into coughing up something, anything, it had clearly said this:

The (Fixed) Regressor is not provided with separate skills…

"'Not provided' — not 'don't exist.' Because I'm a Fixed Regressor? Wow. That really stings, as the Fixed Regressor here listening to it. I put my whole life on the line to sign up as this Selected Regressor's mentor. So this is that Regressor discrimination I keep hearing about. Honestly, someone needs to run this on the news."

The system window trembled harder. I put on my friendliest smile, crossed my legs, propped my chin on my hand. Kang Hajin's Negotiation Principle No. 27: always be the one with the upper hand. And that always starts with a relaxed posture and demeanor.

"Anyway. Point is, a stat called 'skills' does exist. So there's plenty for us to discuss there, right? In all sorts of directions."

…The System is cowed by the (Fixed) Regressor's madness!

"Yeah, that I'm a crazy bastard — we've got time to get familiar with that."

---

Another ten minutes later.

After wrapping up my 'negotiation' with the System, I was rolling out my stiff neck when a set of finalized entries appeared on the system window — its usual blue nearly drained, like all the color had been scared out of its face.

Skill System (Update!) has been registered. — (Fixed) Regressor 'Kang Hajin' can 'self-create' skills necessary for quest completion. This is not a system patched to the user by default! (Error) A cost will be required for skill creation and execution until the system patch stabilizes. (Penalty) Create a skill? (Y/N)

Playing the off-the-rails lunatic to the hilt, I'd wrangled the Skill System out of it — but since I'd essentially strong-armed a permission I wasn't supposed to have, there was no getting away without some kind of 'penalty' tacked on.

'Still, this much is workable.'

I'd arrived at it through the following logic: thinking in game terms, if the Selected Regressor was the 'player,' didn't that put me closer to being an 'NPC'?

Unlike players, who 'acquired' skills through things like tutorials, NPCs typically had their skills built into their base parameters. So — sure, I couldn't be handed skills by the System, but making the skill system itself part of my own parameter set — that had to be doable, right?

Hitting the Skill Creation button, I ran through what skill I'd need for tomorrow. I'd been briefed in advance that the audition would involve recording, so I could roughly narrow it down to a few useful options.

Bomb detector? Handy for knowing who to boot and who to keep. But this was cheat-code tier, so the cost would probably run steep. On hold.

Idol stats, something like that? Not bad — but not exactly a skill I could use right now, when I wasn't even a trainee yet. Hmm. Also on hold.

After some thought, I entered the skill I'd landed on.

"Would something like this work? A skill that lets me express things exactly as I think or say them."

More specific criteria are needed to create a skill.

"Like an expression booster. Whatever I'm thinking about or imagining — abstract or specific — I can render it directly through song or dance."

Calculating skill creation probability…

A 'skill that creates skills' was obviously broken-tier, and — maybe for the sake of a balance patch — it seemed I couldn't just create anything I felt like. Watching the numbers roll, I waited calmly, and the alerts followed in quick succession.

The skill content is effective for quest progression! Creation probability increased. (Calculating…) Skill creation is possible! Create Skill ⟨Just As I Say⟩? (Y/N)

Would you stop asking already.

I hammered Y without hesitation.

---

Seo Taeil — Upia's leader, and known among fans as Crocodile PD — thought to himself:

'What's with this kid?'

The Head of Department — who'd personally cast the Upia members and been their manager back in their rookie days — had begged him to come, so here he was, though honestly he hadn't been feeling it right up until he'd walked in.

This test was one the Head of Department reached for whenever he wanted to run off a trainee he didn't like.

'Sick of him using me as an excuse to boot kids every time. Wasn't planning to come.'

But unfortunately for Taeil, the man had ambitions of one day raising Miro's next generation of idols with his own hands, which meant a pretty serious interest in prospective juniors.

'Might end up receiving one of my songs someday — can't just pick anyone.'

So — precious Rene-poached trainee or not, if today's recording didn't clear his bar, Taeil was ready to kick the door open and walk out at any moment.

Can't you see it?

The moon and sun, swapped —

a new universe waking,

the first step already taken

soon becomes history.

Can you make it?

Can you make it — this far?

My racing knows no end

At the edge of this world

I become the era.

That's how he'd felt — until he watched this trainee pull off, with startling skill, the debut song even Upia's own main vocal had needed time to get a feel for.

'Well, our fourth is still miles better in raw skill.'

Pitting a 12-year top-idol main vocal against a trainee — no, a trainee-hopeful, not even a real trainee yet — was something Taeil owed his fourth an apology for just for entertaining. Thinking that, Seo Taeil — a doting elder by anyone's standards, silently apologizing to Upia's main vocal, who'd become a fixture in the practice room ever since discharge, insisting he'd lost his touch — flipped on the talkback.

"On that 'racing' bit — let the pronunciation slur a little more. It has to sound like it rhymes with 'this far.'"

"Ah, yes. I'll try it again."

That said — credit where credit was due.

The kid's baseline tone and technique weren't bad, and his range was decent to work with. If it had stopped there, Taeil would have handed him cab fare and mercilessly told him to go home. His tone wasn't extraordinary, and his technique wasn't jaw-dropping either.

'But damn, does he take direction beautifully.'

The point was, with those ingredients, the kid was landing Taeil's direction almost dead-on. 'Intense, but not overbearing; keep the rhythm going, but bite down on the pronunciation' — the direction, nailed in one go. Watching Hajin, Taeil huffed out a wry laugh and thought, is that what talent looks like?

After a few takes, the Head of Department got up with a face like he'd bitten something sour and left. Once he was fully out the door, Taeil, mischief on his face, jabbed the man in the next seat.

"Congrats, hyung. You won this round."

"Won what?"

"Don't play dumb. Word is that kid's yours."

Taeil shrugged as if to say, don't play innocent. The man beside him — Team Lead Ji Suho — finally let out a deep breath and settled into an expression of relief.

"Is there anyone who doesn't know you and the department head are on bad terms? Whole setup looked like he'd rigged it to drop the kid the second he clocked he was yours."

"Chief Jang's right here, kid, keep it down."

"Oh, please. Didn't hear a thing. Pretend I'm not even here and go on."

At the mention of Miro's internal politics — hands down the hottest topic in the entertainment scene lately — the quick-witted Chief Jang Seoyoon turned her head and made a show of looking elsewhere. Suho smiled awkwardly at her, then composed himself and, with a fairly serious face, asked Taeil:

"So? What do you think? Is he good?"

"How could he not be? Don't let our fourth see this. He'll dig himself right back into the ground."

"Hansol — twelve years in and he's still like that?"

"Twelve years of experience — imagine how deep he can dig. Kid took first in his unit for shovel work back in the army."

Shaking his head like the whole thing exhausted him, Taeil still had a smile at the corner of his mouth. But his eyes stayed sharp on the booth as he pressed the point with Suho.

"You have to bring him in, hyung. For the next group at least, I want to see the kids you build, not the department head's."

"Tch. Keep it down, kid."

Grinning at Taeil's serious tone, Suho flipped on the talkback. Inside the recording booth, Hajin had wrapped the song cleanly and was looking their way, an expression on his face that practically said, "you don't have to tell me — I know the take was completely fine."

"Alright, Kang Hajin. Good work."

Finally, the audition was over.

---

Proficiency for Skill ⟨Just As I Say⟩ (Lv.1) has increased. Skill ⟨Just As I Say⟩ leveling up (Lv.1) ▶ (Lv.2)! A penalty has been triggered for the creation of Skill ⟨Just As I Say⟩. The penalty temporarily reduces Mental Care effectiveness.

Seo Taeil, that demon.

Seo Taeil, that damn professor.

Break time — recording done, interview still ahead. I chugged straight from a plastic water bottle and tore into Seo Taeil, mentally, with every vicious epithet I could dredge up.

'"'Dwae's a dwae, a dwae that's not a dwae, make the dwae a dwae' — how many hundred times can one man make me do a single syllable…'

This wasn't even an actual recording — what kind of person makes you do one word a hundred times over? These Upia guys go through this every album and still re-sign because of their leader — no way they aren't out of their minds.

'…Should I look at other agencies?'

However I turned it over, if I debuted here I'd have to go through this bastard's hands at least once more, and I really couldn't do this twice.

No further quest sabotage will be tolerated!

"I'm not, I'm not. That's more hassle."

The System regains its peace of mind.

This thing kept getting chattier by the day…

I glanced down at the system window, then flicked my eyes to switch pages and check the penalty I'd breezed past earlier.

The penalty temporarily reduces Mental Care effectiveness.

'Not feeling anything off right now, though.'

I still believed just fine that I was on my fourth regression, and aside from the hatch marks Seo Taeil had beaten into it, my mental state was more or less intact so far.

"Hajin. I think you can head back in now."

"Ah — Chief Jang."

Chief Jang, who'd sent me out on the grounds of 'grown-up conversation' and had been talking with the Miro interviewers, was walking my way.

"I have to head back to the office now. Manager Kim will probably give you a ride home when you leave."

"I can go on my own. Thank you for today."

"Not at all. You did really well, Hajin."

Chief Jang gave me a long look practically overflowing with reluctance, then her expression returned to normal as she held her hand out.

"……? Ah, right."

"No, I meant hold your hand out."

"Oh."

…Turns out it wasn't what I'd thought. I quickly let go of the hand I'd clasped and dutifully opened my palm, and Chief Jang, smiling, laid something carefully wrapped on top of it.

"Open it later on your way home. We've got your Fan #1 back at the office — she practically begged me to pass it along."

"…A fan? Me?"

Fan, what fan? I stood there with my face scrunched at her pie-in-the-sky comment, like it made no sense to me. And the longer I stood there, the less it did, and my face scrunched further. Chief Jang, seeing me like that, patted my shoulder — 'these things happen' — and headed off down the hallway.

'What kind of fan could I possibly have.'

She'd explicitly said to open it on my way home, but I couldn't handle the curiosity and ended up fumbling the wrapping open right there in the hallway. Inside the carefully opened gift box was some high-end chocolate along with a short card.

⟨Looking forward to the day you become a star!

—Someone who wants to be your Fan #1.⟩

"…A fan?"

It felt strange. Unreal feelings kept prodding at me from inside my ribs.

Who on earth? What had they seen of me — how much — to already be calling themselves a fan? And what kind of thinking was it, looking forward to a day I'd be a star, when I wasn't even a trainee yet?

That's when.

With Mental Care effectiveness reduced, control over reason and emotion is temporarily impaired! (Penalty)

What?

"Ugh—"

Before I'd even properly grasped what that meant, something surged up in me and my eyes went hot. What. Am I crying? I mean — sure, I was touched, but not to the point of tears?

"Hnk, hic—"

But — just as the system window had said, with reason and emotion out of my hands, in that moment I burst into tears like some fragile little flower with its emotional sensitivity dialed up 5,000 percent. And in the middle of it, gripping the chocolate tight so I wouldn't drop it — there was really no salvaging this.

Just looking at the chocolate and the card had tears welling up all over again, so I tipped my head high to the sky to try to stop them — and that's when.

"…Kang Hajin?"

Whose timing is this, seriously.

Seo Taeil — I had no idea how long he'd been there — was staring at me from the end of the hallway, wide-eyed.

"Are you crying right now?"

Ah, please. Was this a #misunderstanding_trope?