The Idol Who Returned from Hell Chapter 3

I used the month’s time more effectively than anyone else.

Looking at the success of 〈Idol Stove League Season 1〉, it seemed that if I could show successful results in Season 2, climbing to stardom wouldn’t be that difficult.

Then I needed to prepare even more thoroughly.

I loaded hundreds, no, thousands of songs onto my phone and listened to and analyzed them endlessly.

What kind of songs would be good to use.

What kind of choreography would be good to adopt.

True to the name “survival,” I had to show my abilities in the right place at the right time. I inputted as many backup plans as possible into my head.

Just like that, in the blink of an eye, the final day of 〈Idol Stove League Season 2〉 participant recruitment had arrived.

After telling Cerberus to watch the house well, I left home.

Fortunately, the reincarnated Ryu Si-hwan had a decent amount of money in his bank account. Thanks to that, I took a taxi to the KNet headquarters, the broadcaster for 〈Idol Stove League Season 2〉.

Despite it being the last day of participant recruitment, I cleared my throat while looking at the fairly long line that had formed.

‘This really brings back old memories.’

All the applicants looked young.

Starting from middle schoolers up to high schoolers.

People over twenty like me were barely visible.

Of course, since today was the last day for applications, they might have come early for interviews.

But the age range was much lower than I expected.

“I’m nervous, I’m nervous…”

“Hah, hah! Hah, hah!”

“Excuse me, could I have just a sip of water?”

True to their young age, they couldn’t completely shake off their nervousness.

Having seen countless souls in hell for 50 years, I had reached a level where I could roughly guess what people were thinking just by looking at their expressions.

‘If they tremble like that, they’ll get eliminated without even showing their real skills.’

Unlike the applicants who kept stamping their feet restlessly, I checked today’s plan with a very calm face.

Honestly, I couldn’t show all the skills I’d trained for the past 50 years starting from this interview process.

But I had to pass here first to advance to the actual broadcast.

‘…Should I just do enough without going overboard, since it would be a disaster if I get eliminated?’

With this thought, I entered the place where the audition was being held.

Just moderately able to hit high notes.

Moderately intense choreography.

A male idol song where I could moderately strike an ending pose.

After finishing about 2 minutes of performance and deliberately panting slightly while looking at the three PDs.

“…You said your name was Ryu Si-hwan?”

“Yes.”

The face of the PD in the middle was familiar. The main PD of 〈ISL〉 whose face I had memorized beforehand. His name was definitely Jeong Chae-min.

He handed me a small name tag without making any particular marks on the paper in front of him.

“This is your participant number. You’ll definitely need it for ID verification later, so don’t forget to wear it when you come.”

“That means…”

“The first recording will start exactly one week from now. Pre-instructions will be sent to the phone number written on your application documents. We’ll see you again then.”

I smiled faintly while holding the name tag that read [Participant Number 77].

First checkpoint, passed very easily.

Now it’s the real beginning.

To personally seize the glory of being an idol again.

To reclaim the life I had lost.

I’ve returned from hell.

* * *

The week passed in an instant.

The month I had used for the interview had also disappeared like an arrow, so how much more so would a week be.

Still, I finished all necessary preparations during the given period.

Body condition OK.

Face condition OK.

Song selection for the level test and preparation for what concepts might come up OK.

While heading to the filming location where 〈Idol Stove League Season 2〉 participants would share hardships together, I kept brainwashing myself.

‘Si-hwan, no matter how seriously high your mental age has become, you’re 21 years old now. You have to act like a 21-year-old. Please put away that tone of someone who’s lived through everything.’

As if he heard all my inner thoughts, Cerberus, hanging from my shoulder, panted.

{That’s right, Master. You can’t go around showing off how old you are!}

“Can you even hear all my inner thoughts?”

{We’ve been together for 50 years, Master. Even without using such abilities, it all shows on your face.}

Really… there’s no Yorkshire Terrier more unrealistic than this.

I felt strongly that Cerberus was more of a cheat than me returning from hell.

For example, the ability to read even my inner thoughts.

Or the ability to become perfectly transparent to ordinary people’s sight like now.

Taking advantage of such abilities, Cerberus insisted on accompanying me to the 〈ISL 2〉 filming location.

Since others couldn’t see him anyway and he said he could help me in various ways, I couldn’t stop him.

{Even if Master tried to stop me, I would have secretly followed anyway, you know?}

“Stop reading my mind without permission.”

{What can I do when it’s so clearly audible?}

About an hour later.

A whopping 100 people gathered at the huge filming location in a mountain valley in Paju.

“Hoo, hoo…”

“Ah, I’m going crazy with nervousness. What should I do?”

The auditorium used as a waiting room, filled with folding chairs, was noisy with all sorts of groaning sounds.

I found the chair with my number in a corner of the waiting room.

The assigned number was 77. I don’t know if it was intentional, but anyway, it’s lucky seven, so it’s not bad.

“Excuse me.”

“Ah, yes.”

The 78th trainee, who had been sitting like a statue blankly staring ahead, flinched at my words.

Perhaps because he was quite tall, he had to pull his legs tightly together to create space for me to pass.

The 78th trainee was dressed in what you’d call the current trend. Slightly long hair and silver piercings that had conquered even his earlobes. He had many sparkling bracelets on his wrists too. His skin was on the fair side, but perhaps because of his thick eyebrows, he seemed scary.

{Don’t worry, Master. I thought that human was scary too, but after smelling him, he’s fine. No rotten smell.}

‘You can determine whether a person is okay or not by smelling them?’

{I was always like that, Master! Maybe because I only did gatekeeper work in hell, I could distinguish whether incoming souls were normal or not by their smell. It seems this ability remained the same even after coming to the human world.}

I quietly pondered Cerberus’s words.

If Cerberus, who had transferred to reality with the special ability to smell souls, said that, then he was at least a normal person.

Since it felt awkward to just sit quietly, I tried introducing myself first.

“Hello, my name is Ryu Si-hwan.”

“…Ma Si-hyeok.”

He looked intimidating from the start.

Even his name sounded very strong.

“How old are you?”

“I’ll be twenty this year.”

“Ah, so you’re younger than me. I’m 21.”

“Ah, I see.”

Words that could sound quite rude if you just looked at the responses.

But when I glanced at Ma Si-hyeok’s expression, it was the complete opposite of being rude.

Rather, he was avoiding eye contact with me altogether.

‘Is he someone who gets very shy?’

A guy who’s tall with a good build, yet his eye contact skills are terrible from the start.

Danger signals for ice-breaking came from the very beginning.

I smiled and kept trying to continue the conversation.

“Which agency are you from?”

“Vex Entertainment. How about you, Si-hwan?”

“I don’t have one. I’m an independent trainee.”

“Ah, I see.”

This kind of context.

“Did you eat?”

“I didn’t eat because I have a constitution where my body gets heavy if I eat a lot in the morning.”

“Still, you should eat properly. Especially survival programs like this can be physically demanding once filming starts.”

“Thank you for your concern.”

The conversation pattern ended like this.

Eventually, I also put aside the project to become friends with Ma Si-hyeok and listened to the song I would use for the level test once more.

A while later.

After confirming that all 100 trainees had gathered in the auditorium, the production team announced loudly using a megaphone.

“We’ll start the level test now. We’ll call you in order starting from number 1, so please follow the staff!”

* * *

“Hmm…”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t really feel it.”

“I thought the vocals were okay, but the dancing…”

The main writer bit her lips while watching the judges who were putting their heads together in worry.

Even just looking at the surface, the atmosphere didn’t seem very good.

And it actually wasn’t.

‘Are the later numbers assigned to the back, or are they just overall not meeting expectations?’

The trainees up to the 50s that they had processed so far brought more disappointment than satisfaction.

No matter how much these survival programs depend on the contestants’ capabilities for buzz, the editing and script that match them form the main axis.

There weren’t many editing points that would whet the viewers’ appetites.

But on the flip side, were the trainees’ skills outstanding?

“I’ll announce the results. Participant Yu Ha-woon receives vocal grade B, dance grade B, for a final ranking of 23rd place. Please go sit in your seat.”

“Thank you!”

To be honest, it was still at the level of comparing acorn heights.

Most of them got the lyrics wrong from the start, forgot the dance choreography, or severely stumbled over their comments. It was truly a total disaster.

‘At this rate, we can’t even properly use stimulating editing. No, there were definitely kids who looked decent during the selection screening stage. Did they really all get pushed to the back?’

“This is driving me crazy…”

“Why are you scratching your head so much, you’ll get dandruff.”

“How can you say such leisurely things even seeing this atmosphere? Right now it’s practically the worst, this situation that’s neither here nor there.”

PD Jeong Chae-min chuckled at her sighing as if the ground should cave in.

“No need to think urgently. There are still 50 trainees left, aren’t there?”

“What, did you plant a spy with your own hands? What makes you so confident that you can be so calm?”

“Just watch comfortably, that kid is doing well right now.”

Fortunately, the 51st participant had the skills to break this boring atmosphere.

Looking at the paper with his profile, sure enough, he was from a major agency as a trainee.

“It was a confident stage. The basic foundation is solid, probably because he’s from BK.”

“Thank you!”

Lee Jin-hak, the oldest singer-songwriter among the judges, showed a bright smile he hadn’t shown all day while giving praise.

He had arranged a famous pop song himself and even wrote new lyrics for it. He deserved the praise.

This is why people say “major, major” even if they freeze to death. (+) ^[1] TLN: At first, I was confused, what the heck does “major, major” means. Now after thinking about it that this is an idol story, it probably refers to major entertainment agencies trainees will perform better than the others.

“I’ll announce the results. Participant Kang Seon-woo receives vocal A grade, dance A grade, for a final ranking of 1st place. We’ll look forward to your next stage too.”

“I’ll do my best. Thank you!”

Thanks to such skilled performers who brought about a reversal in the situation, the judges’ faces briefly showed signs of life.

However, this vitality was short-lived.

The nightmarish return of missing lyrics and lack of basic skills only brought sighs.

Watching the 72nd participant who completely gave up dancing in the middle of his performance and kept bowing his head, the main writer pulled at her hair.

She made up her mind as if she had no choice.

‘Right, at this point, there’s no choice but to stimulate editing of their poor performances. Even if we get called evil editors, we have no choice due to the need for buzz.’

Would a talent who could reverse this flow really appear?

Right then.

“Participant 77, please come forward.”

“Oh, that’s the one PD mentioned before…”

“Finally here.”

PD Jeong Chae-min spoke with meaningful eyes next to the main writer.

Some judges who had been leaning to the side and yawning immediately perked up at the appearance of participant 77.

“Hey, that kid has a good face.”

“He’s handsome. His height and proportions are completely fine too.”

“He easily beats all the kids we’ve seen today, right? Isn’t this the face type fans like these days? That desert fox look?” (+) ^[2] TLN: Okay, I learned something new again. Since I wasn’t really following things about idols. Apparently “desert fox look (사막 여우상)” describes someone with sharp facial features, pointed (fox-like) eyes, etc.

Even while the judges were collectively stirring slightly, Jeong Chae-min’s words continued.

“Hye-in. Did I tell you that I was involved in the entertainment industry a bit before I became a PD?”

“You say that every time you drink.”

“Haha, did I? Anyway, I wasn’t there for very long, but I think I have a good eye for sure. Like that participant right now.”

Participant 77, who came to the center of the stage with confident steps, held the microphone and introduced himself in a very comfortable voice.

“Hello, my name is Ryu Si-hwan. Although it may be a lacking stage, I’ve prepared hard, so I’d be grateful if you could watch favorably.”

“I have something I’m curious about.”

Min Si-hyeon, a top idol-turned-judge sitting on the far right of the judges’ panel, raised her hand.

“Si-hwan, are you appearing without any agency?”

“Yes, I’m an independent trainee.”

“Even though you practiced alone without receiving professional training, you checked all items in ‘most confident areas’?”

He checked all items?

The main writer wondered if she had heard Min Si-hyeon’s words correctly.

An independent trainee with no connections had expressed such tremendous ambition on his profile introduction.

“Really. He checked all of these? Vocals, dance, composition, rap.”

“Is this kid really an independent trainee? Isn’t he someone who went somewhere and came back?”

“Yeah, there’s no information in the data I received.”

“If he can handle all that with no base, isn’t he a genius? Is he from an arts school?”

“He even dropped out of high school. Not even an arts school, just a regular local high school.”

Other judges also looked slightly flustered.

They had rarely seen such a case.

The main writer, who had been staring ahead with her mouth open, finally pulled herself together and gripped her pen.

‘Rather good. A fresh character we haven’t seen so far? We can edit this deliciously.’

If Ryu Si-hwan put on a stage that matched his confidence, that would be a jackpot.

If he failed miserably, that would also be good.

Using ‘stimulating editing’ to present him as ridiculously as possible would be enough to create issues.

After slowly inhaling, Lee Jin-hak picked up the microphone.

“Then shall we see your stage.”

• 1. TLN: At first, I was confused, what the heck does “major, major” means. Now after thinking about it that this is an idol story, it probably refers to major entertainment agencies trainees will perform better than the others.
• 2. TLN: Okay, I learned something new again. Since I wasn’t really following things about idols. Apparently “desert fox look (사막 여우상)” describes someone with sharp facial features, pointed (fox-like) eyes, etc.