Debut or Die-Chapter 320
The moment I heard his definitive answer, all the questions I’d had about the status window flashed through my mind like a replay.
‘...“Park Mundae” is the status window.’
Then, before reaching my conclusion,
the original Park Mundae—“Bigdal”—began recounting everything he’d experienced as the status window.
“At first, I had no consciousness at all. But... when you shouted ‘status window,’ suddenly I became aware.”
– I’m quitting gaming, thanks for everything.
The last words I’d posted when I closed my YouTube account ‘gun1234,’ where I uploaded my fancams.
“You like games, so I thought it might help....”
“Maybe that shock was the last thing I experienced as a person—realizing that account belonged to you.”
I managed to speak.
“Then you used it to level up and draw traits?”
“Yes. The only game I’ve ever played seriously was mobile gaming... so that was the only halfway plausible thing I could do. I’m sorry.”
He had nothing to apologize for.
All the perks I’d gained, the status window I alone possessed... they weren’t a system glitch, as Cheongryeo had thought.
They were purely his doing.
“After that, I was absorbed back into the system... and my role was mostly to present whatever the system wanted to do in a neat package.”
I cut him off.
“No, thank you.”
“...! N-no....”
The boy sitting across from me looked at a loss, then bowed his head deeply.
“Actually, things get weird from here.”
Weird?
“I told you I, preparing for the civil service exam in your body, synchronized with myself as the status window.”
“Right.”
“Well... as the status window, I think I was influenced in turn by the me preparing for the civil service exam.”
“...!”
“So even when I was just the status window, I vaguely knew what would happen to you next. I’d seen all your activities since Ajusa.”
I see.
I recalled how the status window had given me exactly the traits I needed, as if predicting the future.
It hadn’t been predicting—it had truly been me from the future mixed in.
I pressed my palm to my forehead.
‘No beginning or end.’
If I hadn’t triggered the mission “Talk with Park Mundae” after clearing all status ailments, the exam-prepping version of him wouldn’t have existed.
But I needed that version to clear the ailments with the status window’s predictive draws.
“They’re all tangled together, right? Haha... I’m as confused as you are.”
“Exactly.”
Because time doesn’t reset when you go back—it coexists. Like me stepping in during TeSTAR’s activities while helping him study.
“Hmm.”
In the meantime, Bigdal cautiously spoke again.
“Well, the moment my status-window self truly awoke was when I realized your car accident was imminent.”
“...!”
I instantly remembered the unusual choice I’d received as a reward after clearing “Draw 200,000 spectators”:
[Choice]
: ‘Confirm Truth’ ☜ Click!
: ‘Obtain Coin’ ☜ Click!
※ Cannot choose both
“...Coin...”
Bigdal smiled faintly.
“Yes. That choice was made by me, not the system.”
Good grief.
“And the subsequent errors?”
Right after, new status ailments kept popping with all sorts of conditions:
‘If not number one → Death!’
‘If not the target → Death!’
‘If not a performance → Death!’
I’d thought someone had hacked it—it was an accurate premonition.
“Yes... fortunately you chose the coin, but that caused an error.”
I couldn’t help but say,
“So it didn’t confirm the truth, so the final condition couldn’t clear?”
“...! That’s right. So the status ailment that should’ve ended there appeared once more....”
“.......”
“Ugh, I tried to intervene and change it to something easy or cancel it... but I couldn’t.”
He bowed his head in embarrassment.
But the burden of that ailment was entirely on him.
“So the death target changed to you.”
– If you fail to meet over 400,000 spectators within the set period, ‘Park Mundae’ dies.
Bigdal nodded.
“...Yes. You’d actually cleared all ailments by then. The penalty falls on the one who created it.”
I muttered quietly,
“I don’t get it.”
“Huh?”
“My number of status ailments.”
I held up a finger.
“In the end, I just don’t remember—but I did live several more years before returning.”
He had cleared exams and even gotten hired at a company in my future—I’d seen it during the last truth confirmation.
“Why, then, was my count lower based on my memory, not that standard?”
“That’s... because, before you went back, preparatory work was done to grant my wish first.”
His wish was...
– I hope Gunwoo hyung lives happily for a long time...
A ridiculously selfless wish—but even more absurd was this.
“You had to forget those memories for me to live?”
“Yes.”
The boy across from me looked pale but resolute.
“My heart broke too much over those years—so the system judged you wouldn’t accept the new body.”
“.......”
“And based on how far back you returned after deleting your memories, your ailments were reduced accordingly.”
I was speechless.
I ground my teeth in a strange ache, then replied slowly,
“You also lost memories of meeting me.”
From me buying him soup to our intermittent messages—gone.
“That, too, for the same reason. If someone I knew inhabited the body... the system thought you’d react oddly.”
This is insane.
‘I set it up so the system would fulfill that one wish perfectly.’
Wiping someone’s memories isn’t humane—it’s the kind of decision an AI might make.
Then I remembered the special trait that had popped up:
[Trait: ‘Mission Disposition (S)’ Acquired!]
An ability to trade rewards and penalties like status ailments.
“You must have given me Mission Disposition.”
“Yes.”
So he’d saved himself.
‘Hmm.’
Almost felt satisfying.
“So... we’re still somewhat linked. We can’t directly affect each other, though.”
“Right.”
This might be useful someday. I nodded and relaxed my posture.
“Phew....”
The boy opposite me sighed softly, as if relieved of a burden.
‘I think he’s said everything.’
I smirked. Now it was my turn.
“I’ve heard enough. All my questions are answered.”
“Yes!”
Here comes the main point. I erased my expression and spoke again.
“And... thank you for saving me.”
“Huh?”
“Because of you, I lived well.”
I recalled all the years I spent in Park Mundae’s body.
There were plenty of awful moments, but in hindsight... every ending was good.
All those experiences were vivid in my mind. So... I found myself saying it out loud.
“Being an idol was fun.”
I could do it again if I wanted to.
Of course...
“I never thought I’d want to be an idol—but I guess I did.”
Suddenly, the boy in front of me welled up with tears.
“...??”
What are you doing?
“I-I’m sorry. It’s really touching.... Please say that at the concert, hyung...”
“......”
Absurd as it was, I just laughed. It didn’t feel bad.
And I joked,
“I never expected you to take the civil service exam, though.”
Did he really want that job?
“...!”
In that moment, he winced in embarrassment.
“What about it, hyung?”
“Why?”
“That... actually, I think I just picked it randomly, missing you as the status window.”
“.......”
Would’ve been better if you’d aimed for a grade-9 officer.
He managed to pass, so I couldn’t argue—but why shove himself into that pit?
He mumbled excuses about not knowing exams well, then returned to the point.
“You helped me so much there. Honestly, you saved my life countless times with missions...”
“Then let’s say we helped each other.” 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
“Yes.......”
The tension in our conversation began to ease, and we both had time to think.
And as if to mirror that feeling, the sunset faded outside, and a few stars appeared.
At that moment, the slumped boy sprang up.
“Gasp! Time’s almost up??”
“Time?”
Even in the Imaginal World, there’s a clock?
“Yes! Just before you leave the body you passed the exam in, I pulled a trick...”
That’s crucial: his future residence.
“So what happens to you now?”
“Well... I might return to being the status window!”
Ridiculous.
“Have you never wanted to use your own body again?”
“Uh... to be honest, having spent so long as the status window, it doesn’t really feel like my body.... I’m not drawn to it.”
“......I see.”
It would benefit me, but somehow it tasted bitter...
Then he added,
“And if I go back to my body, TeSTAR disbands. No way... I can’t let that happen.”
“.......”
Why do you care?
Whether from over-immersion as the status window or comfort during studies, this isn’t it.
“You can keep using it. Stats stay the same with the body.”
In the daydream, I did use Ryu Geonwoo’s body, but that wasn’t real.
Yet the boy across from me grinned.
“Hyung, there’s something I wanted to tell you about that....”
“...?”
“Remember the trait you had from the start? Before any draws.”
The trait he had even before the draw...
“Infinite Potential?”
“Yes!”
Right. The brokenly OP trait that let every stat grow to its limit...
“That was originally yours.”
“...!”
What?
“All the traits you drew, all the stats you raised... they were just your innate talents surfacing.”
“.......”
“Nothing you achieved was beyond what you were meant to have.”
Bigdal nodded firmly.
“I wanted you to know that.”
“.......”
I stared at him as if struck. Slowly, a strange elation rose in me.
Its name was... fulfillment.
His voice continued,
“So please show off amazing activities.”
I nodded reflexively. My head was too flooded with calm to think.
The boy mumbled,
“I really want to keep cheering you on as an idol....”
“......!”
In that moment, I snapped back.
Now wasn’t the time for sentiment—it was time to sort logistics.
Starting with his residence.
‘If you don’t care about your original body....’
“So you don’t care about the body you passed the exam in?”
He got a grade-seven officer. Surely he wouldn’t just abandon it.
“Uh-oh!”
Thankfully, he reacted positively this time. He must have wanted it deep down after all those years.
“Whoa, but is that okay? It’s your body!”
“I’m using yours, too—what’s the difference?”
It’s not like I’ve got backups simmering soup, so why not? I looked at him, refusing any hesitations.
He nodded, slightly flushed.
“Then... I’ll use it well for a while.”
“For a while?”
That phrasing felt off. I was about to ask when—
“Hyung, time’s up! I think it’s about to flow. Lie down quickly!”
“Ah.”
At his fussing, I twisted to lie back on the sofa once more. That’s when it happened.
The dark window, now fully night, reflected my figure.
“...!”
What I saw wasn’t purely Ryu Geonwoo. Nor was it just TeSTAR’s Park Mundae.
It was both.
How that was possible, I didn’t know—but regardless of which version someone knew, they’d recognize that as me.
Unlike the unsettled fusion of Bigdal’s form, this image was solidly settled.
As if it already knew exactly who I was...
‘Good grief.’
He stripped it down to both, then apparently decided both were me.
Unable to articulate what I felt, I lay back and let out a hollow laugh.
It felt oddly refreshing.
“If... if there’s another chance......”
I answered his tentative voice without hesitation.
“Let’s meet again.”
“...! Yes!”
Then, as sleep surged over me once more, I closed my eyes.
This time, it was a full blackout of the senses.
A dormancy where consciousness and thought vanish.
Ding—
Just as I thought I heard a bell—
“Park Mundae...!”
I came to onstage, realizing I was standing on the platform.
The scent of stage machinery and the air conditioner.
“......Hah.”
It was the day TeSTAR received the Daesang.
