The Idol Who Returned from Hell Chapter 157

I thought I’d just have to appear as the first guest on a newly scheduled variety show and show off some decent variety sense.

“……I never imagined that the first boat I’d ever ride in my life would be going to a deserted island.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Seriously, what do we do?”

There was no way to reverse the happening that had unfolded in an instant.

Fortunately, the production team said they wouldn’t completely abandon us on the deserted island alone. They said the filming crew would come along, as well as a medical team and professional survival experts to prepare for emergency situations.

No matter how much they value realism in variety shows, we’re idols in the middle of active promotions.

If we got injured in a place like this, a huge storm would definitely sweep through both our agency and the broadcasting station.

Though it seemed like an obvious story when you think about it, the younger members looked considerably relieved as they boarded the boat traveling back and forth along the Gyeongnam coast.

As the isolated islands gradually began to come into view, the reality seemed to hit them coldly as they stared at the horizon with vacant gazes.

Actually, I was just as lost.

‘Even in hell, I never had to survive alone on a barren piece of land with nothing.’

{Eh, it’s fine, Master! No matter how hard it gets, could it be worse than when the large demonic beasts escaped from the underground prison?}

‘Back then I had you and the other wardens besides myself, so it was easier.’

{You have other friends next to you now too, don’t you?}

‘Well, that’s true, but……’

I glanced at the members who were gradually being weathered by the sea breeze.

‘I don’t really trust them that much.’

{One friend seems really happy right now though, Master?}

‘Happy? Who?’

The moment I asked Cerberus mentally, one memory suddenly flashed through my mind.

According to the preliminary explanation, this deserted island special was considered one of the legendary classic variety episodes where they were really brought to a deserted island without knowing anything and had to survive for one day.

That meant there would be almost no basic support like water or food.

What the production team wanted from us was probably the sight of us struggling desperately to survive in a completely unexpected situation.

And there was one guy right next to me who had connections related to that survival.

My roommate with the strange hobby of watching mysterious survival NeoTube videos until late at night before sleeping.

Chae Ha-ru had the same dead fish eyes as usual, but somehow seemed subtly excited.

‘……Don’t tell me. Did he come prepared by learning from NeoTube?’

{I don’t know much about that stuff, but anyway, a really happy smell is wafting from your roommate friend!}

To think the influence of some unknown algorithm would carry over like this.

That’s ridiculous.

With half-doubtful feelings, we arrived at a deserted island in Gyeongnam, today’s destination.

I had expected there would be no traces of people since it’s a deserted island.

But really, the moment our feet touched the sandy beach, everything that came into view was just dense trees and rocks.

All the members seemed overwhelmed by the unfamiliar environment.

Kang Seon-woo, the culprit who caused this situation, was the first to ask a question.

“Um, PD. What exactly are we supposed to do now……?”

“Even if we’re bringing the real variety spirit, honestly wouldn’t it be heartless to leave people experiencing this kind of situation for the first time with no support at all?”

“Yes!”

“You’re absolutely right!”

“So we’ve prepared several essential survival items. But there’s inevitably going to be a condition attached.”

Everyone held their breath at the word “condition.”

Then the main PD grinned with a beaming smile.

Like the other PDs I’d met before, and the 〈Memory Time Traveler〉 PD too. They all seemed to work just to see the cast members panic.

Wicked broadcasting station bastards.

“We brought a total of six items. And you can only choose two items. Please look carefully and discuss which ones you’ll need most. Oh, and if you complete certain missions, there will be rewards accordingly. Shall I give you a hint?”

“Like we’d refuse a hint in this situation, PD!”

“Please give us a hint!”

“Haha, then here’s the mission you need to complete before the sun sets. You’ll obviously need somewhere to sleep, right? If you complete a shelter that gets passing grades from the survival experts here, we’ll give you simple food to eat for dinner.”

We were destined to build a house first thing after being dropped on a deserted island.

While the members were projecting questions like “how on earth do we build a house?” with their eyes, Chae Ha-ru alone clapped his hands cheerfully and nodded.

“So we can start choosing items now?”

“Yes, please come forward and choose two items.”

Six survival essentials were placed on a simple table.

We slowly looked around at each item.

“Hey, isn’t 10 bottles of water pretty good? We’d be in big trouble without drinking water.”

“Or maybe these emergency rations would be good? What if we can’t find food?”

“But without water we can’t digest food. And they said they’ll give us food if we just build a house.”

“Ah, right.”

Three knives, 10 bottles of water, 6 packs of emergency rations, a lighter, blankets, and a guidebook titled 〈How to Survive on a Deserted Island〉.

We had to choose two items from these six total.

Everyone started having intense discussions from the beginning about what would be good, but unlike usual, this time it ended quickly before the typical CENTIX-style chaos could break out.

“Brothers, and Junior.”

“Huh?”

“Yes, Brother Ha-ru?”

“Could you all close your eyes and trust me just this once?”

It was extremely rare for Chae Ha-ru to speak in such a confident tone.

Since the members knew this better than anyone, they instantly became unified and stared at him.

After glancing over the items, Chae Ha-ru immediately marked an X over the emergency rations.

“Humans can survive 3 weeks without food. And like Brother Hwi said earlier, they’ll give us food if we just build shelter later, so we’ll pass on this.”

One by one, the blankets and 〈How to Survive on a Deserted Island〉 were eliminated.

“Choosing blankets for temperature maintenance isn’t a priority since we can make fire. And this book has a lot of useful information, but.”

“But?”

The corner of Chae Ha-ru’s mouth lifted slightly.

With the appearance of his cynical smile, Yu Ha-woon, who had the best reactions, covered his mouth with both hands and let out a faint scream.

“I already have most of the information in my head, so we don’t need it.”

“Really?”

“Ha-ru, you’re not joking, you really know what to do after being dropped on this kind of remote island?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

Kang Seon-woo, who had grabbed his Junior’s shoulders and rapid-fired questions at him, wiped his nose and laughed awkwardly.

“Do they teach this stuff at science high school too?”

“Eh, no way. I watched a lot of survival-related videos during my free time. So I’ve memorized quite a few survival methods without realizing it.”

“You…… spent your free time watching that stuff on NeoTube?”

Countless hooks seemed to be thrown at Chae Ha-ru’s unusual interests.

At first I had also wondered what the hell kind of videos those were, but after the sounds of extreme survival in new survival environments filled our room every night, I’ve gotten used to it now.

So as his roommate, I confirmed it for him.

“After he finishes monitoring our stage videos at the dorm, he lives watching documentary channels for almost 2 hours. Just yesterday, where was it, Ha-ru? I think it was Africa.”

“It was Namibia, Africa.”

“Right, Namibia. He watched a video of an adventurer surviving there for a week before sleeping.”

Hearing my words, the members seemed to decide to put aside their doubts for now.

“Then Ha-ru would be much better than us who are complete novices in this area.”

“So what 2 items should we take?”

“Hmm.”

At Seong-hwi’s words, Chae Ha-ru looked around once.

“First, seeing that the plants are generally green and growing well, there’s a high probability of spring water or stream water on the island. If there was no particular water source, we would have been greeted by barren terrain rather than these lush trees.”

“So we don’t necessarily need to take water?”

“I think we’ll be okay. And thinking logically, the production team wouldn’t have brought us to an island with almost no usable resources. Even though it’s a real variety show, as you directly said earlier, it wouldn’t make sense to tell survival beginners to just spend the night no matter what.”

“Ooh, Brother Ha-ru! That makes total sense! So smart!”

While listening to Chae Ha-ru’s words and observing the production team’s atmosphere, sure enough, I could see them murmuring.

It seems the science high school genius’s analytical skills hit the mark again this time.

“Beyond those reasons, we absolutely must take the lighter. We definitely need to make fire, but we don’t have anyone wearing glasses so we can’t use lens fire-starting. And using a bow drill would be too risky, so taking the lighter would be convenient.”

“Okay, keeping the lighter for now.”

When Kang Seon-woo picked up the lighter first, Chae Ha-ru’s hands immediately went toward the remaining item, the knives.

“And the knives are essential too. We need to build shelter, right?”

“We do, since we need to sleep and get food.”

“Right. If there’s a cave on the island we could solve it simply, but that’s extremely unlikely, so we’ll have to cut down trees to build shelter. We can’t cut trees with bare hands, so we need to use knives. Also, I want to try something else later if there’s time, and that also requires knives.”

And so, with the survival expert’s eye cultivated by NeoTube, we completed our selection of two items.

To complete the first mission, we needed to walk around the island and find a suitable place to build shelter.

“We need somewhere with adequate shade and flat ground.”

“Would it be better to look around this beach area rather than going up on the island?”

“Yes. The terrain here is flatter, and the higher we go, the steeper it gets.”

“I’ll go ahead and scout first.”

I took one knife for protection and went ahead first.

Cerberus, who came down from my shoulder, also seemed quite excited as he proudly showed off his short legs while running hard.

{Master, there’s a place up ahead that looks good?}

‘You can see it already?’

{I can’t see it, but I can feel the wind coming in steadily through my nose! It means it’s open!}

‘That nose really is all-purpose.’

After running a few dozen meters, there really was a flat, open clearing just as Cerberus said.

With tall trees rising overhead, it naturally provided shade and was a good spot where we could avoid harsh sunlight.

“Let’s make base camp here.”

“What, this is going more smoothly than expected?”

“Right? I was worried it would be a total chaos party like when we cook and we’d be all confused and frantic.”

“……I don’t want to remember that.”

It wasn’t just us who were confused by the surprisingly smooth start.

The production team, who had confidently declared that idols would definitely panic when facing this situation for the first time, probably hadn’t thought of this variable either.

The PDs were exchanging glances like “is this right?” while watching us find our base camp location and start full-scale shelter building less than an hour after entering the deserted island.

‘They’d probably be satisfied if some scenes of us falling apart appeared around now.’

Having gone through 〈Idol Stove League Season 2〉, my way of thinking had recently become quite tilted toward capitalism.

Even though spending the night on a deserted island was the more difficult immediate situation, I was sitting here worrying about screen time like this.

But an event that would relieve both my and the production team’s concerns was ready to unfold.

“Now we need to build the shelter framework. Since there are six of us, I think we need to make 2 shelters. Should we split into two teams for now? Brother Si-hwan has the most strength, so if you could cut Y-shaped branches and bring them, that would work.”

“Okay. No problem.”

“It would be hard for you to carry them alone, so take 2 more people with you, and the remaining 3 of us will gather large leaves or branches with lots of leaves to block the wind.”

When Chae Ha-ru suggested splitting into 3/3 teams here, Seong-hwi and Kang Seon-woo, who had been standing on either side of me, exchanged glances.

Then, as if they had made a pact, they grabbed my arms and dragged me backward.

“We’ll go and come back like this!”

“4 Y-shaped trees should be enough, right Ha-ru?”

“Hey, hey, hey! I’m holding a knife! It’s dangerous if you drag me around like that!”

“Ah, I don’t care, if we get stabbed ,Ryu Si-hwan can pay the hospital bills himself~!”

“Crazy bastard.”

With two unpredictable guys together, plus survival knives on top of that.

The future looks dark.