Idol Hides His Military Service

The remaining days of break went by incredibly fast.

- My sister and brother-in-law went traveling in Europe. They’ll probably be back around your next vacation.

An empty house.

For my aunt, this was something to be very grateful for.

Thanks to that, I could lie on the living room sofa and binge-watch Chu–Han Struggle for Supremacy.

Of course, that was the only part I was grateful for; everything else was a pile of things I needed to get revenge for.

Especially when I thought about how I’d been tormented by my teammates thanks to her holding that press conference without consulting me—just remembering it still made my blood boil.

Even now, whenever I thought back to that moment, I wanted to rush over and fight my aunt to the death on the spot, but being a Korean who’s weak to emotional ties, I decided to let it slide.

It was absolutely not because that limited-edition Kongming’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms figure set was still in transit that I wasn’t storming my aunt’s place right now and turning it into an octagon cage.

Still— 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

- I’m not around anymore, so go ahead and do whatever you want to your heart’s content.

Family is family, I guess.

My aunt said it was no big deal, that she’d stepped down as main PD of Idol Ground 100 because it wouldn’t matter once she took on another show anyway.

‘Yeah, right.’

Even I, with zero office life experience, could tell that it couldn’t possibly be that simple a matter.

From the start, I knew very well how much effort my aunt had put in just to make Idol Ground 100 happen in the first place.

Even before the production was confirmed, Idol Ground 100 was the program my aunt would go on about every time we met, until my ears rang.

So it wasn’t an exaggeration to say Idol Ground 100 wasn’t just some show, but more like a long-cherished project for my aunt.

She’d gone so far as to ask me to fill in the gap in the lineup, after all.

Even if she’d somehow stepped down from the position of main PD without any particular penalty, there was no way she didn’t feel any regret.

I did, however, understand perfectly why she’d made that choice.

[Lee Sion seriously, this kid HAS to debut]

「The fact that a talent like this almost got completely cut out because of her mom and aunt... if that’s not targeted bullshit, I don’t know what is.

Just imagining what would’ve happened without this whistleblower makes me dizzy.

If it had come out later that the main PD and her were aunt and niece, people would’ve gone insane with favoritism accusations.」

↳ 100% she would’ve been kicked off the show and never gotten to dream of being an idol again

↳ For real, even if you argued later that there was no favoritism and she actually got villain-edited, who would believe that?

↳ Her aunt and mom probably low-key wanted that

↳ Don’t know who the whistleblower is, but the timing was god-tier

↳ All of Lee Sion’s antis who were screaming favoritism had to shut up the moment the recording got released

↳ They’re cockroaches, so they’ll crawl back out again eventually, but it still felt good

Right now, the only ones getting roasted online were my aunt and my mom, and public opinion about me had risen to the point it literally couldn’t get any better.

‘How on earth did you sweet-talk Madam Sukja?’

If there was one thing I was curious about, it was that my aunt, who’d barely survived last time, had sold out Madam Sukja again.

Seeing as Ms. Miyoung was still alive, it was clear she’d reached some kind of deal with my mother.

I did find it puzzling what exactly she’d used to persuade my mom, since this whole incident was not the kind of thing you could just write off with a single trip to Europe.

Click.

While I kept searching up Idol Ground 100–related posts online, it had somehow become 1 a.m.

If I wanted to get up in the morning and head back to the dorm, it was about time to go to sleep, but the posts were so fun to read that it was hard to stop.

‘This isn’t playing, it’s intel-gathering.’

I’d already finished today’s quota of Legend of Valley long ago.

Having clawed my way back to Silver with a terrifying record of 5 wins and 0 losses, if I turned off the computer and went to bed now, I’d be guaranteed a blissful night’s sleep.

‘When I play marksman, my tier goes up, but it’s just not fun.’

Maybe it was the pressure of being stuck in Bronze that had driven me away from top lane, fleeing instead to that refuge for cowards.

My still-unspent maniacal destruction urges were bubbling up, and it felt like I’d have to wander the internet for at least another hour.

Having finished justifying myself like that, I opened YouTube and started searching for Idol Ground 100.

***

[Agbaek Unreleased Footage Fully Revealed!]

[Agbaek Unreleased Footage Fully Revealed!]

Lee Hyuksu stretched in his chair as he checked the reactions to the Idol Ground 100–related video he’d uploaded to MPlay’s YouTube channel.

After Kim Miyoung’s press conference, orders had come down to release something—anything—to calm the enraged viewers, so Hyuksu had hurriedly uploaded the video and then crashed, without even checking the response.

‘It’d be nice if there were a team dedicated to managing the YouTube channel.’

They only ever ordered him to upload videos to YouTube without assigning any extra personnel, so the management work ended up being something the youngest on the production team, Hyuksu, did in odd scraps of time.

Because of that, this Idol Ground 100 unreleased footage had only gone through the bare minimum of editing, and he couldn’t help but feel it was a shame—if there had been any support, the video could have gone up at a much higher quality.

However—

[Are they insane, hoarding something this funny just for themselves?]

[lol okay but I get why they cut it, if they aired this it’d be Agbaek: Infinite Challenge Edition]

[What the hell has Lee Sion been doing all over the place?]

The response to this roughly edited unreleased footage was nothing short of explosive.

‘The raw material’s so good that it’s funny even without touching it.’

Honestly, unreleased variety-show footage usually fell into one of two categories.

Either it was funny but didn’t mesh with the main broadcast and got scrapped, or it was just not that funny so it got ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) cut, but was too “useable” to throw away outright, so they piled it up.

The unreleased footage Lee Hyuksu had uploaded this time was the former.

「- Where did I leave off last time?

(Cut to interview with contestants Kim Suyeon and Kim Nara)

↳ Wow··· what kind of war have Kim Suyeon and Kim Nara been fighting all this time?

↳ They’re both way too nice, honestly at this point they should’ve just thrown down with her, forget the unni thing

↳ Sion-ah··· I could listen to you talk about Three Kingdoms for over 10 hours!

↳ Why does Lee Sion call Cao Cao “that bastard Cao” but call Sun Quan “Jerry”? Is she a Shu fan?

↳ Ahem, don’t call them Shu fanboys, call them people who support the rightful heir of the Han imperial family

↳ Okay, next up, the owner of the Yiling Grilled Skewers Restaurant

↳ Where do you live?

The video of Kim Suyeon and Kim Nara, who shared a dorm room with Lee Sion, falling asleep while listening alternately to Three Kingdoms stories and Legend of Valley commentary, was already blowing up in popularity.

On top of that—

「- Honestly, I’m most worried about our Yunkyung.

↳ Okay Sion, this one was actually pretty pathetic

↳ Doing all that over a single pork cutlet lol

↳ Why is it that Lee Gahyeon, who doesn’t seem like the type, always ends up getting wrecked by Sion?

↳ If you look, there’s literally no contestant who hasn’t suffered at Sion’s hands. Even Seo Ryujin had her chocolate stolen by her last time

↳ But why is Lee Gahyeon so good with chopsticks though?

There was the video of Lee Sion and Lee Gahyeon fiercely fighting over a single pork cutlet.

「- Contestant Lee Sion has been calling contestant Seo Ryujin “Sluggish Ryujin”—is there some particular reason for that?

Among the unreleased-footage videos, the one boasting the highest popularity was the “Lee Sion’s Victims Compilation.”

↳ Seo Ryujin and “Sluggish”··· shouldn’t match, but it rolls right off the tongue

↳ When did Lee Sion even give Ryu Ayeon a nickname?

↳ A maestro of naming···

↳ If you look, she slaps nicknames on contestants she’s only run into once too

↳ Once you watch this, the F-class group beatdown of Lee Sion scene suddenly makes perfect sense

“This is what you call a superstar.”

It was to the point that just having Lee Sion in a video guaranteed views.

At this rate, he felt like even an upload of Lee Sion talking in her sleep would get numbers, but Lee Hyuksu had no choice but to restrain himself.

- Seiker! That toss was perfect··· just trust me···.

Because the entire production staff agreed that airing that one would be going too far.

Of course, the unreleased-footage videos that Hyuksu had uploaded to YouTube weren’t just doing well in terms of views.

[There were this many sides to the contestants I never knew about]

[Watching the unreleased footage finally makes some parts of the broadcast that didn’t make sense click into place]

[Story really is important, but all of this got edited out, what a waste]

[Now I kind of get it though, if they’d aired all of this, people would have screamed favoritism toward Lee Sion for sure]

[Honestly, even after hearing the recording, I wondered if her aunt wasn’t low-key slipping her extra screentime, but now I believe she actually worked hard to cut it down]

[Her aunt must’ve had a headache. If she cut Sion’s footage any more, there wouldn’t be a show left ㅋㅋ there’s nowhere she doesn’t show up]

Thanks to these unreleased-footage videos, whatever trace of favoritism suspicion remained toward Lee Sion vanished completely, and the negative atmosphere surrounding PD Kim Miyoung, who had voluntarily resigned, had also largely dissipated.

“Hyuksu, let’s go to the conference room. Our guests are here.”

“Ah! Yes, I’ll be right there!”

Looking over the reactions to the unreleased-footage videos he’d uploaded, Lee Hyuksu quickly got up from his chair at the words of his senior, Park Hyungsoo, calling him.

‘Whew··· now Hyungsoo sunbae is the main PD.’

Park Hyungsoo, who had become Idol Ground 100’s main PD after Kim Miyoung.

In fact, ever since the planning stages of the program, the person who had been preparing it together with Kim Miyoung was Park Hyungsoo, so not much would change from how things had been.

The only concern was that, where Kim Miyoung had been a demon of ratings who never hesitated to carry out things that might even seem extreme if it meant viewership and buzz—

Could her successor, Park Hyungsoo, really follow in the footsteps of that ratings demon?

That would be revealed in the preliminary meeting for Idol Ground 100’s third mission, which was about to begin.

***

“That’s unfortunate.”

“If the CEO decides he needs Ayeon, I’ll do my best to talk to her and get her to join LYNX.”

At those words from the secretary behind the wheel, Park Taesu shook his head.

“Even if she did join under those conditions, Ayeon would probably go back to who she used to be. That’s no good.”

“Ah··· my apologies. I didn’t think it through.”

Park Taesu didn’t think the secretary was being thoughtless.

That way of thinking was actually the standard for most entertainment agencies.

But Park Taesu’s thoughts were different.

‘Idols have to grow into artists now.’

Back in the early days, idols had grown mainly centered around the Korean market.

After SY successfully entered Japan, however, everyone began aggressively targeting overseas expansion, and the main stage of K-POP idols had shifted from Korea to the entire Asian market.

In this situation, Park Taesu was looking at a market a bit farther away.

America.

He meant the American market, where he’d once tried to break in, suffered a painful failure, and driven the company to the brink.

He wasn’t planning to directly attempt entering the U.S. market yet, but if and when he did, the ones leading that charge would be the upcoming girl group LYNX.

‘It’s not some empty pipe dream.’

Knowing how fierce the opposition would be, Park Taesu hadn’t told anyone at the company yet that he was aiming for the U.S. market through LYNX.

But he could feel that the atmosphere now was completely different from when he’d failed to break into America before.

K-POP, which had once remained mostly within Asia, had started slowly but steadily expanding its fandom into regions like South America and Europe.

Thanks to that, most entertainment agencies now targeted the overseas market from the outset, and as they collaborated with foreign songwriters and choreographers, the quality of K-POP idols’ music continued to rise day by day.

That elevated quality, in turn, was being well received in overseas markets, creating a virtuous cycle—in other words, that was the current situation of K-POP idols.

Because of this, Park Taesu thought that if TSP focused the company’s capabilities and gathered the best members to form LYNX, they really might succeed in entering the American market, which until now had been little more than a dream.

And what he thought LYNX needed most, in order to become idols who could resonate in the American market, was an artistic identity.

That was why, though he believed that the changed Ryu Ayeon was needed for LYNX, he had no intention of forcing her to join.

- I’m sorry, sir. I want to see Idol Ground 100 through to the end.

Today, on the last day of Idol Ground 100 contestants’ break, Ryu Ayeon had called Park Taesu.

And shockingly, the content of that call was her turning down joining LYNX and saying she wanted to continue with the program.

Hearing her answer, Park Taesu once again realized that in a short span of time, Ryu Ayeon had truly changed.

And the trigger that had brought about that change.

‘It must be Lee Sion.’

Having watched the Bang! Bang! Love team’s Position Evaluation stage with his own eyes, Park Taesu was almost certain that the cause of that change was Lee Sion.

“I’m looking forward to this.”

“Sir?”

“Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

Because of that, although he’d already found Lee Sion intriguing just from watching the broadcast, he was now even more curious about her.

Normally, he wouldn’t have been able to endure that curiosity and would’ve gotten impatient enough to go see her himself, but this time was different.

He was about to get the chance to meet Lee Sion in person soon anyway.

“Sir, we’ve arrived at the MPlay station.”

“Good work.”

While he’d been thinking about Ryu Ayeon, LYNX, and Lee Sion, they’d reached their destination before he knew it.

Soon, he’d be able to see the very contestant he’d been so eager to meet.