The Idol Who Returned from Hell Chapter 88

Naturally, it was chaos from the morning.

“Brothers, the filming team arrives at 12!”

When I, who had woken up first, finished showering and came out, Yu Ha-woon, who had heard the announcement from the manager, was frantically running up the dorm stairs.

Kang Seon-woo and Chae Ha-ru somehow managed to wake up at that noisy alarm sound, but.

“…….”

“Brother Si-hwan! These guys aren’t responding at all!”

The Seong-hwi & Ma Si-hyeok room at the end of the first-floor hallway was still firmly shut.

Watching Yu Ha-woon making an extremely troubled face about what to do with this situation, I thought only this without any urgency.

‘The variety show content will be endless.’

And my roommate must have also achieved some level of enlightenment, as he was cheerfully laughing while quickly eating cereal by himself in the kitchen.

“They’ll wake up and wash up on their own! Let’s just eat breakfast!”

Thanks to that, the bizarre scene unfolded where the remaining four were diligently consuming cereal while two members of CENTIX were still off in dreamland.

Chae Ha-ru, who had been silently crunching chocolate cereal, suddenly opened his mouth as if something had occurred to him.

“It’s been two days since we started living together in the dorm, hasn’t it?”

“That’s right?”

“But why does it feel like we’ve lived here for at least two years?”

Certainly, this sight of not waking up the guys who were oversleeping even though it was three hours before filming started didn’t look like that of rookie idols who hadn’t even debuted yet.

But I calmly sipped my milk and answered.

“It’s probably because we already saw all of each other’s embarrassing sides when we lived together during 〈ISL 2〉.”

“Ah, that makes sense.”

So Seong-hwi and Ma Si-hyeok finally woke up from their deep sleep only after we had finished eating breakfast and even completed washing the dishes.

“Hey, did you sleep well? We’re about to start filming soon, so wash up that shabby appearance and come out.”

“Filming starts?”

“Yeah! The PDs are coming at 12.”

The two same-age friends with fire at their feet rushed into the bathroom in a panic.

Cerberus, who was leisurely tearing open dog treats in the suite house set up in the living room, giggled.

{Master, everyone is having a really hard time.}

‘I’m totally fine though?’

{Really? You’ve seemed kind of spaced out since earlier.}

‘I’m just interestedly watching this amusing situation.’

{Hehe, I have a feeling more chaos like this will happen in the future.}

‘Please keep such terrible words to yourself.’

Before the full-scale filming began, I took a look at the viewer participation survey that had been posted yesterday.

I already knew that (former) national managers basically have tremendous creativity.

I was quite curious about what kind of quirky missions they had bestowed upon us.

After sneakily accessing the internet, I found.

‘I have a feeling something went very wrong.’

I was overcome with anxiety as I looked at the best comment that had received the most hearts.

“Brother, what are you looking at?”

“Huh? Oh? It’s nothing.”

“Isn’t this the post the production staff uploaded yesterday? I want to see too.”

Chae Ha-ru, who had plopped down next to me, looked through the comments for a moment and then.

“……It looks like it’ll be fun, but I’m kind of scared.”

“I feel the same way.”

“I have a feeling we’re going to do this today.”

Sure enough.

The 〈TIME WITH CENTIX〉 filming team that appeared at exactly 12 o’clock provided us with one mission sheet.

We gathered together in the living room and read the mission aloud.

“Please prove CENTIX’s fantastic teamwork and coordination! The first mission to acquire stones is the ‘Random Luck 6-Course Race’. Please board the prepared vehicle and head to the sports field right now!”

After reading the mission, Seong-hwi, whose hair still hadn’t completely dried, looked at us with puzzled eyes.

“Random Luck 6-Course Race……?”

“I think this is doing those games that come out on variety shows! It sounds fun!”

“Ooh, I’ve wanted to try something like that at least once.”

Yu Ha-woon and Kang Seon-woo even clapped their hands as if they were quite excited, but.

The fans cheering for us seemed to like things that were tougher than expected.

* * *

“……If you successfully pass through all six courses within 3 minutes, you can acquire the first stone! You get five chances!”

I was giving quite high marks to the preparedness of Rave Entertainment and the broadcasting station production staff, who had rented out an entire vast university sports field.

To set up games and perfectly prepare filming locations in just one day.

It seems they’re keenly aware that CENTIX’s future activities starting with this reality show could determine their rice bowl.

But I never imagined they would directly copy and paste the content of that best comment.

The production team must have found it quite interesting too, as they immediately adopted it as the first mission.

They said the selected viewer would receive a special signed Polaroid from 〈TIME WITH CENTIX〉.

“……I take back what I said about it being fun earlier.”

Kang Seon-woo made a gloomy expression while looking at the colorful pressure point mats showing off their vibrant appearance.

The Random Luck 6-Course Race we had to clear as a ‘teamwork mission’ was as follows.

First checkpoint, the water bottle standing game called ‘Bottle Flip’.

Second checkpoint, drinking 5 random beverages, but with anchovy sauce included among them.

Third checkpoint, running 50 meters while stepping on pressure point mats.

Fourth checkpoint, eating 2 random breads.

Fifth checkpoint, getting 3 consecutive random general knowledge quiz questions correct.

And the final checkpoint, just brutally running 100 meters.

Looking at each game individually, it seemed like we could definitely complete it within 3 minutes.

But with the element of randomness added, if luck was bad…… there was a high possibility it would drag on for a very long time.

First, we started deep discussions about who would handle which checkpoint.

“First of all, I can’t do the pressure point mats. Absolutely not.”

“I can’t even wear pressure point slippers.”

“I-I think the pressure point mats would be a bit scary for me too.”

Seeing Ma Si-hyeok, who had the biggest build, calling pressure point mats scary felt contradictory.

I sighed and voluntarily stepped up.

“I’ll do the pressure point mats.”

“Wow, Ryu Si-hwan is so cool!”

“Thanks to you, Brother, we’re saved!”

Well, I’d already jumped over all kinds of bumpy terrain in hell countless times.

I thought I could easily handle those level of pressure point mats.

After about 5 minutes of discussion, we scattered to our respective positions.

“CENTIX members, are you ready?”

“Yes!”

“Then we’ll start the first attempt!”

With the whistle sound, Yu Ha-woon, who was in charge of bottle standing, quickly twisted off the cap.

And he gulped down water.

As we had discussed beforehand, Yu Ha-woon had said he’d tried this kind of challenge before.

According to him, it was easier to stand the bottle when there was somewhat less water.

Thump! Thump!

Thump, thump!

“Got it! Brother Si-hyeok, drink quickly!”

Yu Ha-woon, who had stood the water bottle in just four tries, waved at Ma Si-hyeok.

Ma Si-hyeok, who was in charge of drinking random beverages, stared at the cups with wide eyes.

They were all filled with black liquid, making it impossible to distinguish what was what.

They were even thoroughly sealed so you couldn’t smell them either.

In short, you had to rely on luck.

“I’ll go with this one.”

After deliberating, Ma Si-hyeok picked up the middle cup, took a deep breath, and plunged in a straw.

The probability of getting the foul-smelling and hard-to-drink anchovy fish sauce was 1/5, which was only 20%.

So I thought there was no way anchovy would come up on the first try.

“Ugh—!”

Ma Si-hyeok, who had taken one sip, immediately staggered backward.

The smell was so foul that the stench reached even me, who was standing by on the side.

“B-Brother. I can’t drink this.”

“Wow, how did you manage to break through that probability and pick anchovy in one shot?”

“Don’t just be amazed, I want to cry!”

Even while sniffling, Ma Si-hyeok brought the straw back to his mouth.

His brow was already furrowed to the max.

His eyes looked like tears would come out any moment.

But still, he drank the anchovy little by little.

“Brother Si-hyeok, you need to drink a bit faster!”

“My tongue has no feeling.”

“That’s actually good! Since you can’t taste it, just drink it all refreshingly!”

Looking closely, the most vicious one here might be Yu Ha-woon.

Ma Si-hyeok looked at Yu Ha-woon with an extremely resentful gaze, then realizing that a lot of time was being wasted on his turn, he gulped down the anchovy again.

After that time of endurance.

“I finished drinking it.”

Ma Si-hyeok showed the empty cup and then collapsed with a thud.

“Si-hwan, run!”

“Brother, run!”

“There’s no time!”

I, who had been standing ready with my shoes off, immediately ran across the pressure point mats the moment Ma Si-hyeok put down his cup.

Maybe because I hadn’t thought it would hurt that much from the start.

Rather than feeling prickly, it just felt refreshing.

‘This is nothing?’

I had also watched many variety show programs through NeoTube where people suffered with pressure point mats.

But then again, those people had never been to hell, so they couldn’t be compared to me.

Running almost as if on flat ground, I quickly cleared the pressure point mats and reached Kang Seon-woo, who welcomed me with an incredibly moved expression.

“Dude, that’s crazy! Don’t your feet hurt?”

“Oh, I’m fine.”

“There’s emotion in Ryu Si-hwan’s running!”

“Stop talking nonsense and hurry up and eat the bread.”

“Yes sir!”

By the time Kang Seon-woo started stuffing cream bread into his mouth, Yu Ha-woon came over here with Ma Si-hyeok, who had barely recovered from the anchovy shock.

“Brother, why are you so cool every time? Did the pressure point mats really not hurt?”

“It was more manageable than expected. And…….”

I grinned at Ma Si-hyeok, whose eyes were still spinning.

“We can’t make him drink anchovy again. We have to finish it right here.”

Meanwhile, Kang Seon-woo was challenging his second red bean bread.

Since the bread wasn’t that big, with Kang Seon-woo’s usual appetite, it should be possible quickly.

“Ah, did I eat too much cereal this morning?”

“Brother, instead of talking, hurry up and swallow!”

“Looking at it now, Yu Ha-woon is the worst!”

Kang Seon-woo, who had been wasting time slightly, crammed the last bite into his stomach along with milk.

Next up was the random quiz.

Chae Ha-ru, who had been sitting in the chair, pressed the bell with a confident attitude.

“The hardest substance in the world, boasting a Mohs hardness of 10—.”

“Diamond.”

“The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates is famous as whose teacher—.”

“Platon.”

Chae Ha-ru got two questions right in an instant.

The assistant director who had been asking questions had a clearly flustered look, but when he pulled out what seemed like a quite difficult question, he regained his smile.

“As a cause of World War I, when this person was assassinated, it’s no exaggeration to say all wars began. This person who died in the assassination called the Sarajevo Incident is—?”

“Franz Ferdinand. We learned about this in history class.”

“C-correct.”

Once again showing the true nature of his tremendous brain, Chae Ha-ru also easily passed through the checkpoint.

Now only one remained.

“Hwi, run!”

“It looks like we’ll make it in time, Brother!”

A fact I’d noticed since the 〈ISL 2〉 filming was that Seong-hwi also had considerable athletic ability.

Although he had lost to me in both running and dodgeball.

Still running at a fast speed for 100 meters, he pressed the finish button with a grinning smile.

“We succeeded, right?”

At his bold question, the production staff who immediately checked the timer looked flustered.

“It’s a success, it’s a success.”

Kang Seon-woo, with white milk stains around his mouth, said with a confident voice.

I also nodded.

‘They probably gave us five chances expecting we’d fail at least three times. But since we succeeded on the first try, they’re probably wondering what to do with the remaining content.’

Main PD Jo Seung-soo even stuttered slightly.

“F-final record 2 minutes 13 seconds, s-success.”

“Wow!”

“Give us the stone, the stone!”

“Come here!”

Instead of the hesitating production staff, Kang Seon-woo and Yu Ha-woon quickly ran out and snatched the box containing the stone.

When we opened the box, a blue gem was neatly placed inside.

Only after we had thoroughly filmed the enthusiastic cheering for broadcast use did the outdoor filming wrap up.

“Ah, I’m suddenly getting tired…….”

“Thank goodness we finished this in one go. We almost got stuck drinking nothing but anchovy.”

“I never want to drink that again…….”

Everyone was exhausted, but looking back, it seemed like there were several funny scenes.

With proper editing added to that, the fans would be satisfied too.

So I thought we’d go back to the dorm and rest a bit, but.

“Since CENTIX members performed the mission so excellently, today’s content seems a bit lacking. How about doing one dinner game at the dorm…….”

Right, that was never going to happen.