Idol Hides His Military Service

“I don’t think so? I’m not Seo Ryujin, though?”

“···Stop.”

“What’s wrong, with our lady Lee Sion who even has a subway ad now?”

I really had underestimated human malice.

To forget the humiliation from the weekend, I’d played my trump card and left the KakaoTalk chat, but these bastards tenaciously dragged me back into it.

Even when I tried the last resort of blocking everyone on KakaoTalk,

[Seo Jihoon]

– Did you think blocking me on KakaoTalk would be the end of it?

this iron-willed Seo Ryujin used her dad’s KakaoTalk to chase me down to the bitter end.

When I left home for the dorm, I’d definitely set out with the mindset that I was really going to work hard from now on.

But the first person I ran into after arriving was Seo Ryujin—something had gone very wrong.

Maybe the grudge from when I teased her in the waiting room after the last group battle mission was still deep, because the moment she saw me, she started following me around, bringing up the weekend incident.

– Oh! It’s the person who isn’t Lee Sion!

Even when I tried to escape, unable to endure her mockery,

– Where do you think you’re running!!!

Seo Ryujin didn’t stop mocking me, even keeping up with the running speed of the one once called Haandong’s Usain Bolt.

In the end I gave up on everything and was now reduced to being Seo Ryujin’s punching bag.

“Unnis, you were already here?!”

“Commander!!! Why haven’t you unblocked KakaoTalk yet?”

“You really blocked us just because we teased you a bit?”

While I was suffering, trapped by Seo Ryujin, before I knew it her lackeys who’d arrived at the dorm showed up too and started surrounding me.

“Why are the three of you always coming together?”

But my life experience, which would soon reach the age of no doubts if you included my previous life, wasn’t for show.

At times like this, you needed to smoothly steer the conversation topic somewhere else.

“Ah, we all spent the weekend at my place!”

“At Yunkyung’s house?”

“Yes, Shinyu unni’s family home is in Jeju Island, so she’s living alone in a studio right now, so I invited her over to my house.”

Mm.

Im Yunkyung had done something very commendable.

I patted Yunkyung on the head to say she’d done well.

“I’m not a kid, you know?”

“If you’re a middle schooler, you’re still just a little baby.”

“It’s only a four-year age gap at most, though.”

Why did kids never understand how precious being young was?

Maybe she didn’t like being treated like a kid, because her lips were sticking out like a pufferfish.

“We watched Idol Ground 100 episodes 1 and 2 together, and honestly, it was really fun.”

“That’s right! Every time Sion unni came on we burst out laughing so hard it was rough!”

“Thanks to Commander, I got classified as a variety show participant too.”

I nodded at the girls’ words to show I agreed.

Even if my aunt had subjected me to devil’s editing, as a variety show, Idol Ground 100 was definitely an entertaining program.

However,

“What, why are you looking at me with that face again?”

“Hmm···.”

It really annoyed me that only Seo Ryujin among us had cool scenes and was building up a good image.

To the point I wondered if Seo Ryujin was actually my aunt’s real niece, the way she was only ever edited to look good, so that right now, online, it was all,

– Even among the A class kids, Seo Ryujin really stands out.

– Yeah, you can tell at a glance she’s leader material, the other contestants follow her without a word.

– Ryu Ayeon weirdly feels like she’s on the outside, but Seo Ryujin seems really good at leading the others.

– She’s got the skills. Honestly, if you leave out Ryu Ayeon, she’s number 1 in skill.

Only posts praising Seo Ryujin were going up.

‘Leadership? I’m losing to Seo Ryujin in leadership?’

Meanwhile, 90% of the posts about me were gag reaction images, 5% were promo posts, and only the remaining 5% were praise.

‘So this is how Pang Tong must have felt.’

Master Sookyung had called him a talent on par with Zhuge Liang, but maybe this was how Pang Tong felt, unable to show off his outstanding abilities because of his looks.

Thanks to devil’s editing, one of my thousands—no, to be a bit more modest, hundreds—of strengths, my leadership, had been stolen by Seo Ryujin.

‘If they showed how dirty Seo Ryujin played during the chicken fight, people would be able to see her true colors.’ 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Unfortunately, it seemed that wouldn’t air until episode 3, so I just had to wait.

“What the, why is everyone so diligent?”

“Seriously. Gahyeon unni and I thought we came early too.”

While I was briefly pondering how to clearly show viewers Seo Ryujin’s true nature, it seemed other contestants were arriving at the dorm one by one as well.

At the front was Lee Gahyeon, whose dark circles had gotten much worse in only two days, and maybe she’d come with her, because Suyeon had already come over to us and was chatting away.

“Gahyeon unni.”

“What’s with that look in your eyes?”

“You’re at the age where you need to take it easy, you know. Don’t overdo it.”

“Wha··· what?!”

There was something about the way Lee Gahyeon’s dark circles had deepened and her eyes were bloodshot.

‘One hundred percent.’

Seeing the way she looked exactly like the soldiers coming back from leave during my army days, I could roughly guess what had happened.

She’d probably spent a night of madness.

“Did you go clubbing or something?”

“Have you lost your mind! Hey! This is all your fault!!!”

Maybe she was flustered by my air-tight deduction that even Sherlock Holmes would weep at, because she suddenly started blaming me.

‘A textbook culprit pattern.’

Judging by the reasoning skills I’d honed with Kindaichi and Conan, this was usually the reaction a culprit had when their method had been exposed.

“Ugh··· after episode 2 aired the reaction wasn’t good, so I was just monitoring it a bit, okay!”

But at her next words, I had no choice but to pretend I didn’t hear and turn my head.

– Lee Gahyeon is seriously useless, though?

– For real. If you’re older and you’re not that skilled, it’s a bit much...

– No wonder Lee Sion staged a coup. If they’d left things as-is, F class probably would’ve gone down in flames?

At the time, I hadn’t known I’d end up getting close to her, but thanks to the revolt I’d staged, her image online was understandably not great.

“It’s okay, unni! Once episode 3 airs, you’ll definitely be reevaluated!”

“Nayeon-ah···.”

Maybe she’d heard what Gahyeon said, because Nayeon, arriving right after, put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her—

“You!! You were in on it with Lee Sion too!!!”

But Nayeon’s little scheme to slide through it wasn’t going to work on Gahyeon.

“Strictly speaking, Kim Nayeon was the ringleader and Yunkyung and I were the lackeys.”

“I agree with Commander.”

This was exactly why you shouldn’t put yourself forward as the main actor when starting a revolt.

On behalf of all of us, I just quietly offered a moment of silence for Nayeon, who was facing Gahyeon’s anger alone.

Tsk.

Watching Nayeon getting put into a cobra twist by Gahyeon, while the others and I were discussing whether their combined combat power would be enough to take on Seo Ryujin,

‘Still acting cocky, huh?’

I saw Park Soyeon, who’d just arrived at the dorm, make a small, annoyed sound as she walked past us.

“Sion unni··· you should probably be careful.”

“Careful? Of Park Soyeon?”

“Yes.”

Noticing I was glaring at Park Soyeon, Shinyu cautiously told me I needed to be careful of her.

“Didn’t you see last time? Even if ten Park Soyeons come at me, they can’t beat me.”

I did a light bit of shadow boxing to tell Shinyu not to worry.

But,

“That’s not it··· there were some bad rumors about Soyeon unni’s agency.”

“Bad rumors?”

“It’s a bit awkward to say, but weirdly, every trainee who fought with Soyeon unni ended up with strange rumors about them and ended up leaving. I heard trainees talking about how Soyeon unni’s family is connected to that kind of thing.”

That kind of thing?

At Shinyu’s words, I wondered if Park Soyeon’s family ran some kind of private investigator office.

But she earnestly insisted I had to be careful, saying they weren’t in private investigation, but in media.

“Don’t worry. Not to brag, but I really haven’t done anything.”

Unfortunately for them, even if Park Soyeon tried to dig up dirt, there’d be nothing to find.

In this life, all I’d done was games, dramas, web novels, and whatnot, rarely even going outside, so there was nothing they could grab onto even if they wanted to.

***

– All contestants, please gather in the auditorium!

The moment everyone had arrived at the dorm and finished unpacking their luggage, as if it had been waiting, the announcement blared.

Following the now-familiar announcement calling everyone to the auditorium immediately, I headed there with Suyeon and Nara, my roommates.

“We haven’t even had time to check the schedule yet, what are they gathering us for?”

“Well, won’t they tell us the mission and have us do some minigames again, like last time?”

The exact same thing had happened during the last dorm stint, so it was a roughly predictable scenario.

Know the enemy and know yourself, and you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.

A lot of people mistakenly think it means “win a hundred battles”, but the exact meaning is that if you know the enemy and know yourself, you won’t be in danger even if you fight a hundred times.

It was also the most famous line from The Art of War, which we had to read as a requirement back when I was a cadet, and I really agreed with that saying.

‘Even if you don’t prep in advance, you have to review.’

In my previous life, even when I didn’t do advance prep, I’d still gotten decent grades thanks to thorough review, so I considered review to be the basis of everything.

Idol Ground 100.

This was just another target to break down.

They’d given us the first mission during the last dorm period, so naturally the second mission would be given this time, and just like last time, they’d use some kind of physical game to assign songs and teams, and then another game in the middle to decide performance order—my logical prediction.

“Shoosh, shoosh!”

“Why is unni doing that all of a sudden again?”

When I started loosening up with some shadow boxing, Suyeon, next to me, freaked out.

But I ignored her reaction and kept my warm-up going.

I still hadn’t forgotten the humiliation of the last chicken fight.

Even if I excluded Suyeon from the list of accomplices, it was only right to exact proper revenge on SeoSearch and her lackeys, who’d taken me down with a cowardly combined assault back then.

‘Last time, too, they used physical games to pick team leaders and choose songs.’

I’d already researched all the physical games that might come up in variety shows.

Arm wrestling, thigh wrestling, palm pushing, and so on.

They were all events I was confident in, but the variable was that they might do a team event like last time.

“We’re one unit, guys.”

“Unni, is something wrong?”

“Is it your first day seeing her like this? Just leave her.”

Just as SeoSearch had dragged her lackeys in for a cheap group fight, I too needed comrades to join forces with in a team event.

– You can’t save the world alone.

Even if the movie flopped, I agreed with that ad line.

Walking toward the auditorium with Suyeon and Nara, I naturally hooked my arms around both of their necks.

“Don’t we look like Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei like this?”

Since I was the oldest, I was Liu Bei, Nara had a serious air so she could be Guan Yu, and lastly, Suyeon, who’d been especially rebellious lately, was a perfect Zhang Fei.

“Who are Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei?”

“The fact you don’t know this is a serious problem! You seriously don’t know Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei?”

“I don’t know, and we’re already at the auditorium.”

The timing was ruthless.

I had to teach Suyeon about the most loyal sworn brothers in history, but we’d arrived at the auditorium right then.

‘No, trying to condense their story into just a few minutes would be a sin too. I’ll tell it to her ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) later before bed back at the dorm.’

Thinking about it, time was tight right now, so once we were back at the dorm, when we were all gathered again, I figured I’d condense the Liu–Guan–Zhang brothers’ life stories into about—three hours··· no, that might be too long and boring, so maybe trim it down to about an hour.

I was sure that after listening, Suyeon would definitely understand how I felt.

“Unni, you’re here!”

“Commander, why are you so late?”

“Isn’t it obvious? She was late because she was holding Suyeon hostage with pointless stories again.”

When we got to the auditorium, our former teammates, who’d arrived earlier, were already there.

“Pointless stories, huh, we were having a very serious—”

I was about to say something to Gahyeon for slandering me the moment we met, when—

“Doesn’t look like there’s anything prepared?”

“Yeah, I came as soon as I heard the announcement in case there was something, but it’s just the same as usual.”

Gahyeon and her lackeys cut me off and started talking about the atmosphere in the auditorium.

Watching the Confucian spirit of Korea crumble like this yet again hurt my heart, but I held back and listened while I looked around the auditorium too.

There might be some hint about the game we’d be playing later.

But just like Gahyeon said, the auditorium wasn’t any different from usual.

‘Feels like there are a few more cameras, though?’

It was just a feeling, but there did seem to be more cameras and crew than usual compared to our normal shoots.

While I was looking around the auditorium like that, all 75 contestants—now that the number had dropped—arrived.

Right on cue,

“Contestants, did you enjoy your two-day break?”

Main MC Jang Junseok appeared on the stage at the front of the auditorium, signaling that filming for the program had begun again.

“During the last dorm period, you had your first mission and your first ranking announcement ceremony. Now what awaits you is the second mission.”

I was listening closely to Jang Junseok, who continued hosting smoothly as always, when—

“Ahem··· mm. I’m sorry. Let’s cut for a moment.”

He suddenly held out a hand to the crew and asked them to pause the shoot, then took a water bottle from a staff member and gulped it down.

‘Throat care is important in winter.’

Since it was the dead of winter, throats dried out easily, so management was important.

In the army, they even sprayed water on the floor of the barracks in winter so the soldiers’ throats wouldn’t hurt while they slept.

Once his throat seemed to have recovered, Jang Junseok grabbed the mic again, and with the cue that filming was resuming—

“Guhk!”

Jang Junseok coughed up blood.