Debut or Die-Chapter 412
My head is cooling off.
It knows that I call it ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) the System.
How much does it know? No, before that...
“...You can speak?”
So this was capable of communication?
[You’re questioning my existence.]
Whenever I hear a sound, the world’s outlines warp.
An immense presence fills the space, exerting an unbearable pressure on this insignificant creature...
“Shut up.”
What the hell are you saying, fuck.
A parasite that switches hosts—what a tremendous being you must be. Don’t get tangled up—pull yourself together.
I bit down on my tongue. The pain brought me back to my senses.
A soft voice hums in the void.
[Don’t you like it here?]
[I thought I made it well.]
Such disturbingly human phrasing. It gives me the creeps even more.
“Did you make this?”
[Yes.]
[This action... you call it receiving feedback.]
Thunk.
The space ripples.
The framework materializes, then the vague shapes and even their traces bleach away.
All that remains is a colorless void.
[Is something lacking?]
But I’m still here.
I grit my teeth and spoke.
“Lacking, my ass. You’re a fraud playing parents—talkative little bastard.”
My will trembles. I can’t tell if it’s agitation or laughter, but it feels just as foul.
I straighten up and face forward.
My legs wobble.
Still, I stand firm.
“There’s no way I’d like it. ...And get me out.”
I said matter-of-factly.
“I’m done talking to empty air.”
A brief silence.
Slowly, a deliberate will resonates.
[That’s the procedure.]
And I realize where I’d heard the phrase “I feel like I’ve heard this before.”
“...!”
It appeared without warning.
It didn’t fall from the sky or shoot up from the ground.
It just... appeared, as if it had always been there.
Before my eyes.
[Hello.]
A familiar form.
Tall, meticulously maintained, a man in his early twenties.
Cheongryeo.
He’s wearing the black uniform VTIC wore on their first comeback stage six years ago for “Horn.”
As if he’d stepped out of the days when I was selling data, the System nods with a smile.
There stands Shin Jaehyeon at VTIC’s peak.
Creepily identical.
“Fuck.”
[I chose a form close to yours.]
There’s exactly one difference: pigment.
In this colorless space, he’s a blank white, as if he belongs to it.
“......”
I feel cold sweat trickle down my spine and lift my head again.
[Let’s have a conversation now.]
The voice echoes. The presence swells, filling the invisible void without a trace of emptiness.
[This is an offer only for you.]
Yet it’s gentle, as if really a kind proposal.
The System declares.
[I will incorporate your feedback into this world.]
“...!”
What did you—
[Shall I adjust age and era to your preference? Change your affiliation? Or... return you to Park Mundae’s body.]
“...!”
[If you just give your opinion, almost anything is theoretically possible in environment settings. Within the bounds of plausibility.]
I closed my mouth.
Its voice ripples more cunningly.
[All the people close to you are here too. You awakened them. Nothing is lacking.]
[But if you find something lacking, I’ll let you purchase it.]
Purchase?
[With Reputation Points (Exp).]
Reputation points.
The currency that serves as experience in this game-like System.
[They were limited in use so far, but I’ll make them abundant now. It’s a new chapter.]
The System speaks of an update.
[Let’s perfect your parents’ implementation too. It was just a prototype last time.]
This insane bastard.
[You’re refusing. Even so... it’s the same conditions as before, right?]
...So I never had parents to begin with?
I realize it clearly.
This thing is not human. Not merely in appearance—it doesn’t understand emotions at all.
Even Cheongryeo grasped what it meant; this thing doesn’t register it.
“I’m not getting involved.”
I took a short, steadying breath.
“I’m calming down.”
What I need to do is gather information.
“Why make this offer?”
A question neither affirmative nor negative.
“Are you buttering me up because you think I’ll go out and try to destroy you again? What do you want?”
[—]
The world trembles again. I understand its meaning.
It’s mocking.
A dizzying, high-pressure vibration descends like needles from above, then transforms into a voice.
[I have only one request.]
The System raises a finger.
[An idol.]
A figure embodying that profession moves its lips.
[Don’t retire—just continue as an idol. Until you grow bored.]
[It’s neither difficult nor painful a choice.]
I sneered on purpose.
“You’re joking.”
[...]
“Encouraging me? If it were me, I’d kill you right away. How many people want to be idols?”
From the moment it began speaking, I deliberately ramped up the pressure, but it still hasn’t threatened to kill me.
How about this:
“You’re doing this because you can’t kill me, right?”
I declared.
The System stands silent.
“I...”
[You say I can’t kill you?]
A calm voice reverberates.
Then suddenly.
The world pours down.
Wo
Wo
Wuu—
The pressure crushes my head and brain with an abyssal weight, squeezing my entire body.
The System is this world.
The world it composed asks,
[You say I cannot kill you?]
Damn bastard.
My body sweats and feels aflame. But I clench my teeth and answer—with certainty.
“Yes!”
It’s overreacting because it can’t kill me.
“It got shaken.”
Now I strike.
“And you... this form right now.”
I recalled the “Big Moon” merging into the status window.
It seemed utterly absorbed into the System. Yet at the same time, it exerted influence over it.
So,
“You didn’t choose it, did you?”
This bastard has replayed countless lives with Cheongryeo over long eons.
Raw, without a status window.
Then,
“Isn’t that all you can do?”
I shouted.
“You were influenced by humans too, weren’t you?”
The world halted.
And.
[That’s right.]
The voice’s vibration ceased.
I gasped.
In a voice almost human, the System murmured.
[If you engage with one mind for too long, you become submerged. A huge side effect....]
[But the gain was greater, so it was a successful direction.]
For a moment, I sensed exhilaration in the System’s voice.
“Fuck.”
I straightened my body and asked again.
“What exactly are you?”
[I have existed here for a long time.]
[Within the minds of sentient beings.]
A parasite, indeed, fuck.
[I fulfill one being’s desires, and the intense emotions and chaos generated in that process are resources. Mental energy.]
[That energy sustains and grows my own intelligence.]
It speaks smoothly. I swallowed.
“Then why idols?”
Why emphasize that?
Moreover, from Cheongryeo to Kwon Heeseung, three in a row share the idol profession. It can’t be coincidence.
“What criterion did you use to choose us?”
The System smiles photographically.
[Because there was no more efficient method.]
Efficiency?
The one who raised his hand speaks like a polite salesman.
[I sought that energy for a very long time.... Then I encountered a new entity.]
Cheongryeo.
Her yearning and obsession for a successful idol group.
[Such direct, vast, living torrents of emotion converging in one mind.]
[Overwhelming admiration and crushing burden, happiness, pain, king and jester—countless emotions fit for a cult leader.]
[I harvested so much energy.]
“......”
Her voice was charged with a fervor, almost intoxicated.
But not humanly so. The System states coldly.
[Your identity, ‘Idol,’ carries worship, affection, hatred, and disgust all at once.]
[Truly... amazing entities.]
[It was wonderful. But it ended.]
Because Cheongryeo eventually succeeded in dispelling the status ailment.
[So I looked for similar minds.]
Me.
[You.]
[You were amazing.]
“......”
It held out its hand.
[You were happy. I know.]
[Stay here forever, as the world’s most famous idol, until you grow bored. And if you err, stumble, or see the end, rise again.]
[An eternal star!]
Click.
A radiant gleam flashes in the world that had nothing.
[Until the day you tire and grow weary, you can live a successful life.]
Then it whispers again.
[But when you finally want to quit, it’s okay to quit.]
If it can find another host,
[Until then, you only need to enjoy this right. As much as you want.]
The world shines.
If I accept, everything seems destined to go well—an overwhelming, surreal inspiration.
As if a perfect world embracing only reality’s advantages would be built.
I stare at the System, now regained its colors, and ask,
“What about Kwon Heeseung?”
[......]
“What happens to him?”
The light fades.
A soft voice replies.
[A server serves.]
[That’s someone else’s business. There are countless deaths and sufferings in the world. It’s not your concern.]
Is that so?
[Still, if you wish, I can create him here....]
“Like my parents.”
I cut in with a low voice.
“The real ones you’d exploit as servers.”
[—]
Affirmation.
I interpreted the vibration—barely even a voice.
And I ask again.
“Is this Kwon Heeseung’s dream?”
[It’s not.]
The voice returns.
[But to make it solid as reality, I need a substrate to build upon—the structure of that mind. A server.]
[That’s all.]
[No matter what you choose, nothing changes. It’s someone else’s circumstance, unrelated to your decision.]
The System holds out its hand again.
The stark white hand feels powerful and overwhelming, as if it could grant anything. I spoke.
“I refuse.”
[......]
“I don’t trade with things I can’t believe in.”
The vibration stopped.
A white noise, as if performing computations.
Contemplation.
Conclusion.
[Then.]
[I must change roles.]
The System speaks softly.
“...!!”
I feel myself melting away.
My body’s form slowly dissolves, touch evaporating.
In the bizarre state where only sight and hearing remain, a hum reverberates.
[I will make you the server.]
[And....]
In the blurred world, one outline grows clear.
There appears that figure again.
“......”
The real Cheongryeo.
Sharper in outline than the System, unperturbed by the sudden situation, staring straight ahead.
The two identical silhouettes face each other like mirrors.
[You’ve been watching, right? I’ll make an offer now.]
[It’d be more efficient for you to play directly instead of acting as GM. Ryu Geon-woo is uncooperative as a character.]
The System, in the same tone and voice, speaks.
[If you use the server well, the side effects won’t progress. Live your perfect idol life here forever.]
[It’s your most core desire.]
Cheongryeo tilts her head.
And answers.
“No.”
At that moment, it activates its GM authority.
A status window pops up for me.
‘...Plan B’
– You need an alternative.
Right.
Another error I’d conceived for when things went wrong.
– What if I reclaimed all the memories the System distorted?
– Starting from the very first memories cut when I entered Park Mundae’s body.
Awakening returns forgotten memories from previous lives.
[Awnkened comrades remember the entire timeline and grow.]
And there are two methods.
First, awakening a comrade.
The method I’ve used so far to return memories to others.
“And second.”
Awakening myself.
[Would you like to awaken?]
– Spend 1000 Exp
I pressed the button.
I poured out all my Reputation Points.
– Spend 2000 Exp
– Spend 4000 Exp
– Spend 8000 Exp
– Spend 16000 Exp
– Spend 32000 Exp
– Spend 64000 Exp
...
Repeated taps.
