Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Raise Three Idols Well And They’ll Launch a Confession Attack.

Episode 3: Call The Police!.

As I browsed through the community of agency job seekers, I realized something I had overlooked.

The fact that I wasn’t the A-grade employee who achieved numerous results as the director of Flower Entertainment, but just an unemployed high school graduate with military service.

The management system, which was a cheat key in itself, and my years of experience leading a company were impressive, but I had no way to show them.

The only visible certification I had was my driver’s license.

And with just a driver’s license, I couldn’t survive in the notoriously tough Korean job market.

If I could just get to the interview, I was confident I could win over the interviewers with knowledge only an experienced person would have.

But the problem was that, with these poor documents, I couldn’t even get to the interview.

Wasn’t there any agency that did blind tests?

Even after searching thoroughly, there was no such thing.

It was truly unfortunate.

To clear my thoughts, I pondered while walking across the bridge for a change of pace.

Ah, I really didn’t want to work as a road manager in a small company…

I really didn’t want to, but that was the only method I could think of.

I figured I should just grit my teeth and endure for two or three years.

As I walked, thinking about which agency with decent prospects would accept a high school graduate like me, I saw a woman hanging onto the railing.

She noticed me, too, and our eyes met.

Then, as if waiting, a status window popped up.

[Name – Han Gyeoul (Female)]

[Appearance – A- Potential A+]

[Vocals – C- Potential A+]

[Dance – D+ Potential A]

[Rap – D- Potential B]

[Acting – E- Potential C-]

[Entertainment – D Potential A+]

[She is a suitable talent for a sub-vocalist. Strongly recommend recruiting her.]

Oh, she’s got top-tier potential.

I marveled quietly.

She had the talent to be picked for a debut team at any agency.

I was a bit curious why someone with such talent was attempting suicide on a bridge railing.

Of course, it was just ‘a bit’.

From my past experience, I knew how tiring it could be to get involved in such matters, so that small curiosity was easily suppressed.

I dismissed the status window casually.

She was glaring at me with a gloomy aura.

As I stood still looking at the status window, she seemed to have misunderstood something.

She probably thought I was going to scold her and stop her from committing suicide.

It was a very unnecessary worry.

If it were before regression, maybe, but now I have no intention of wasting time and money on such matters.

Whether she falls or not, it’s up to her to handle it.

At that moment, a cheap mechanical sound rang out, and a quest window appeared.

[Cheon Jonghoon, the person in charge of SS’s new girl group project, is struggling to find the last member. Let’s make a deal by offering trainee Han Gyeoul!]

[Reward – Shard of the Future ‘Medium’ (No monetary gain restrictions)]

It was a rather odd request to sell the suicidal woman I just saw.

It wasn’t like it was the era of slavery; how was I supposed to sell a perfectly fine person?

By the way, SS’s new girl group project? Cheon Jonghoon?

Wait, I’ve definitely heard this somewhere before…

As I was recalling past memories, a piece of information struck my mind like lightning.

One year from now, Cheon Jonghoon’s first project, SS’s top girl group, Alcest, will debut.

Originally, Alcest was planned as a five-member girl group, but it ultimately debuted as a four-member group.

Cheon Jonghoon left a backstory about this in his autobiography.

According to his autobiography, he faced great difficulty in choosing the final member.

Since it was the first girl group he was in charge of, he wanted it to consist only of members who maintained Alcest’s unique cold and sharp color and were worthy of being called the best.

However, he couldn’t find a trainee who matched both the color and talent of the four members, so he chose to change to a four-member group rather than add a mediocre member and lower Alcest’s class.

Although Alcest achieved sufficient commercial success, as a producer, he always considered the completed form to be a five-member group, and he still regretted it.

While he is still gathering members now, that regret would be greater, not smaller.

What would happen if I introduced that suicidal woman to Cheon Jonghoon?

In my terms, F is no talent, D is dull talent, C is average talent, and B is outstanding talent.

And A is called a genius.

In the previous round, I saw the status windows of all Alcest members.

All four members were geniuses with main stats of A, proving Cheon Jonghoon’s perfectionism was no lie.

But I didn’t think the potential of the suicidal woman I just saw was inferior to theirs.

In fact, in terms of average scores, she seemed one step ahead.

After all, her potential abilities in both vocals and dance were in the A range.

At this level, she seemed to match the standard Cheon Jonghoon was looking for.

What about the ‘color’ that Cheon Jonghoon was so particular about?

For starters, her gaze at me was as cold as looking at an insect.

The color seemed to match roughly.

It was perfect.

Introducing such a perfect trainee to someone who felt so desperate that he changed to a four-member girl group would undoubtedly earn me recognition for my abilities.

If I made a small request afterward, he wouldn’t easily refuse.

I could be sure of this since I had a long-standing connection with Cheon Jonghoon as an acquaintance in the previous round.

Placing me in SS would be the best, but even if he doesn’t go that far, it’s okay.

Because that could be quite an uncomfortable request for Cheon Jonghoon as well.

‘There’s a guy with an eye for talent. Just give him an interview.’

He could just subtly drop this one line to the relevant person.

Then, the person who couldn’t ignore Cheon Jonghoon’s words would contact me.

If such an opportunity arises, the rest could be handled with my experience.

It would make it possible to showcase the product of a regressor manager.

Even if things got twisted and I couldn’t get the opportunity, the reward suggested by the system was worth trying.

Since I had used a shard of the future in the previous round and saw the second-place lottery numbers, its content was likely to result in immediate gains.

The phrase (no monetary gain restrictions) would imply that meaning.

This would work. This would definitely work.

This quest must be followed.

As soon as I was sure, I ran back the way I came.

In case she fell while I was running, I shouted loudly.

“Hey, stop! Suicide hurts!”

Whether my nonsense worked or not, she stopped what she was doing.

“Huff… Huff.”

I tried to catch my breath as much as possible after running in a hurry.

She looked at me as if I were an idiot, ignoring me as she passed by, then suddenly returned to scold me.

It was a gaze that made me want to look away immediately, but it wasn’t as harsh as the treatment I received from Ban Seongcheol.

First, I had to stop her suicide attempt.

What was the most effective way to stop someone from committing suicide?

My mind spun as I searched for an answer.

I pondered deeply to find the optimal answer: persuasion, intimidation, violence, empathy, humor, and so on.

Humor could backfire if the codes don’t match.

Intimidation or violence could provoke a backlash and create the worst situation.

Persuasion required overly theoretical talk.

I drew the best conclusion from all assumptions.

Let’s go with empathy.

“Life isn’t easy, is it?”

“…”

“It must be confusing for a strange guy to suddenly appear and say these things. You might feel anger, wondering who he thinks he is. But how about thinking there’s another wounded person here, too?”

“…”

“It’s not something to hide. I’ve also attempted suicide before.”

I rolled up my shirt sleeve and showed the scar on my wrist.

It was a scar from a stone shard that hit a perfect spot while I was trimming grass in the military.

At first glance, it looked like a cut from wrist slashing.

“It happened when I took too many sleeping pills and did it in a dazed state. It was quite dangerous because I couldn’t tell if it was a dream or if I had really cut my wrist.”

Of course, it was a lie.

“Of course, you might think it’s different since I did it in an abnormal state, but it’s true that I was that desperate.”

This was also a lie.

“Life isn’t easy. What you think is your best effort can lead to the worst result, and even when you try in desperate moments, things can get worse.”

“…”

“You might feel a sense of despair, thinking no one is helping or caring about you, as if the world has abandoned you. But there’s absolutely someone who can help.”

Even as I said it, it was something I couldn’t relate to at all.

I’d be lucky if someone like Ban Seongcheol didn’t stab me in the back, let alone help.

But I continued the nonsense, thinking that what a suicide attempter needed was not harsh reality but dreams and hope.

“If no one like that comes to mind right now, I’ll help you. As an adult, I might be able to help. So, why don’t you come down from the railing and talk?”

Her eyes wavered wildly.

It was unclear whether it was a positive or negative signal.

I just hoped it was a precursor to coming down from the railing.

“Um.”

She closed her eyes tightly and, as if she had made up her mind, opened her mouth.

“I wasn’t trying to commit suicide.”

“…Huh?”

She stepped down from the railing and stood up normally, as if nothing had happened.

“I wasn’t trying to commit suicide.”

Oh, it was a misunderstanding.

Only then did I properly see her appearance.

Her hair looked like it had been bleached at home, with black slightly mixed into the blonde; she had a pink hair roller in her bangs for curls; and her red Adidas tracksuit was clean as if she had bought it yesterday.

Her school skirt was shortened to a point where it seemed surprising it wasn’t caught, and her sharp face and thick eyeliner made her look more interested in soju and cigarettes than textbooks.

Lastly, she had a butterfly tattoo on her neck.

She looked like a typical delinquent.

She looked too full of life to be a suicide aspirant.

Realizing the situation, I quickly apologized.

“Sorry for the misunderstanding.”

It seemed she was glaring at me, not because she thought I was trying to stop her suicide, but simply because she didn’t like my face.

There was just one unresolved question.

“Then why were you trying to climb over the railing of a bridge high enough to surely kill you if you fell?”

“Well…”

She trailed off, as if it were a difficult question.

She didn’t seem to want to talk about it.

As I was thinking about how to coax her to follow me to introduce her to Cheon Jonghoon, she suddenly started crying.

“Heuk… Heuk-heuk, kreung, huaa-anng!”

“Hey, why are you crying? Tell me, I can help.”

She answered while sniffling and mumbling, tears and snot streaming down her face.

“Heuk… My wallet slipped out of my pocket… I accidentally kicked it while trying to pick it up… Heuk.”

I tried to focus as much as possible to understand her words.

According to her, she came up from the countryside to audition and accidentally knocked her wallet, which she needed to stay in Seoul, over the railing.

I asked her to confirm if I understood correctly.

“You mean you were trying to climb over to get your wallet because you thought it might be caught in the suicide prevention net?”

She nodded while crying pathetically, which didn’t match her delinquent appearance.

Understanding the situation, I spoke what came to mind.

“Didn’t you think of calling the police…?”

Someone almost died trying to retrieve a wallet.