The afternoon sun hung low over the city as Team 17 finally stepped out of the Star Dust building.
For a few moments, nobody said anything.
The excitement from passing.
The exhaustion from the auditions.
The realization that they had actually made it.
Everything mixed together into a strange silence.
Five strangers.
One team.
One future stage.
Nobody seemed to know how to start.
Naturally, Minseok lasted less than ten seconds.
“So…”
He looked around dramatically.
“Anyone else feel like crying?”
Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
“I was fine until you said that.”
“See?”
Minseok pointed at him immediately.
“Emotional support.”
“That’s not what emotional support means.”
“It’s close enough.”
“It isn’t.”
Hyunwoo laughed.
Jaehyun quietly shook his head.
The group started walking toward the subway station.
The awkwardness slowly faded.
“So,” Minseok said.
“What were you guys doing before Star Dust?”
“School.”
Doyoung answered without hesitation.
Minseok looked offended.
“That’s boring.”
“You asked.”
“I expected something cooler.”
“I rank first in my school.”
Everyone looked at him.
Doyoung blinked.
“…What?”
The silence stretched.
Even Hyunwoo raised an eyebrow.
“Wait.”
Minseok pointed.
“First in your class?”
“No.”
“Your grade?”
“No.”
Minseok slowed down.
“Your entire school?”
Doyoung nodded.
The group stopped walking.
Jiwon stared at him.
Now that he looked closer, it made sense.
Round glasses.
Perfectly straight uniform.
Neatly combed black hair.
The type of student teachers adored.
The type of student parents compared their children to.
The type of student everyone secretly hated.
And apparently…
The smartest person in his school.
Hyunwoo whistled.
“Then why are you here?”
Doyoung looked forward.
His answer came immediately.
“I like music.”
Nobody laughed.
Nobody joked.
Something about the simplicity of the answer made it impossible.
For a moment, Jiwon respected him a little more.
Then Minseok ruined the atmosphere.
“Your parents must be furious.”
Doyoung sighed.
“They are.”
“Understandable.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What about you?”
Minseok pointed at Hyunwoo.
The silver-haired trainee shrugged.
“I did some modeling.”
That immediately made everyone nod.
Jiwon almost laughed.
Of course he did.
Even standing in casual clothes, Kang Hyunwoo looked ridiculous.
Silver hair.
Sharp features.
Long legs.
Perfect posture.
The kind of face that made people look twice.
Maybe three times.
Jiwon suddenly understood why he had recognized him from the future.
Some people simply looked meant for cameras.
“I knew it.”
Minseok nodded confidently.
“You look expensive.”
Hyunwoo stared.
“I still don’t know what that means.”
“Neither do I.”
Eventually, attention shifted toward Jaehyun.
Minseok pointed.
“And you?”
Park Jaehyun thought for a moment.
“I trained.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Hyunwoo laughed.
“How long?”
“Three years.”
The mood changed immediately.
Three years.
That wasn’t a hobby.
Three years was serious.
Then Jaehyun casually added:
“I’m signed.”
The group blinked.
“Signed?”
Minseok repeated.
Jaehyun nodded.
“Small agency.”
Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
“So you’re already a trainee?”
“Technically.”
That explained a lot.
The confidence.
The composure.
The way he seemed completely comfortable during the auditions.
Jiwon looked at him again.
Tall.
Broad shoulders.
Dark hair.
Clean features.
Nothing flashy.
Nothing exaggerated.
Yet attention naturally drifted toward him.
Like he already belonged in the industry.
“That’s a pretty big advantage.”
Hyunwoo said.
Jaehyun shrugged.
“It only means expectations are higher.”
Nobody had an answer to that.
A moment later, all eyes landed on Jiwon.
Uh-oh.
“What about you?”
Minseok asked.
Jiwon hesitated.
The real answer wasn’t exactly usable.
Office worker.
Regressor.
System user.
Unfortunately, none of those sounded normal.
“I play guitar.”
“Oh.”
Minseok’s eyes widened.
“A musician.”
“Not really.”
“Can you sing?”
Jiwon’s expression froze.
For a second, the karaoke room flashed through his mind.
“Again, not really.”
“That sounded suspicious.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It was.”
Thankfully, nobody pushed further.
By the time they reached the subway station, the atmosphere felt completely different.
The awkwardness was gone.
Not friendship but something close to the beginning of it.
Jaehyun checked his phone.
“We should exchange numbers.”
Everyone agreed.
Contacts were traded.
The group chat was created.
Simple.
Normal.
Yet somehow important.
When Jiwon finally boarded his train home, his phone vibrated.
The first message had already arrived.
TEAM 17
Lee Minseok: Nobody die before practice.
Seo Doyoung: An inspiring opening statement.
Kang Hyunwoo: Do emotional deaths count?
Park Jaehyun: Unfortunately.
Jiwon laughed.
Maybe this team would actually work.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon woke up to the sound of his phone vibrating somewhere on his desk.
For a moment, he stayed still.
The previous day felt almost unreal.
The audition.
Passing Round One.
Meeting Team 17.
The group chat that somehow already felt alive.
Then reality caught up.
A familiar blue window appeared above him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[MAIN QUEST #1 COMPLETED]
Objective:
Pass the First Evaluation
Status:
SUCCESS
Rewards:
• +5 Free Stat Points
• New System Function Unlocked
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon immediately sat up.
The sleep vanished from his eyes.
A smile slowly appeared on his face.
He had done it.
The first real wall.
The first real step toward Star Dust.
And the System had acknowledged it.
His gaze stopped on the reward section.
Five points.
That alone was significant.
Then he noticed the second reward.
New System Function Unlocked.
His expression became serious.
A new blue window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NEW FUNCTION UNLOCKED]
ANALYSIS
The Host may analyze another individual through concentration.
Warning:
• High mental energy consumption
• Excessive use may cause headaches
• Severe overuse may result in unconsciousness
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon blinked.
Then read it again.
And again.
“…That’s ridiculous.”
His Status was already useful.
Being able to see his own strengths and weaknesses allowed him to improve faster than anyone else.
But seeing someone else’s?
That changed everything.
The System wasn’t giving him information.
It was giving him an advantage.
Before he could fully digest it, another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[SKILL PROFICIENCY INCREASED]
Guitar: D- → D+
Reason:
Successful public performance completed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s gaze instinctively drifted toward the guitar resting against the wall.
The karaoke room.
The countless practice sessions.
The blistered fingers.
The audition stage.
Apparently none of it had been wasted.
The System had been tracking everything.
A strange sense of satisfaction settled inside him.
For the first time since starting over, something from his old life had moved forward.
Not recovered.
Improved.
Then, another blue window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NEW SKILL ACQUIRED]
Performer Lv.1
Description:
A novice performer capable of attracting attention.
Effect:
When performing before an audience, there is a small chance of naturally drawing additional attention toward the Host.
Current Bonus:
Minor
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon froze.
A skill.
An actual skill.
Slowly, he reread the description.
Then he reread it a third time.
“Ah-Ah..”
A laugh escaped him.
Not because it was powerful.
Because it was his first one.
Performer was something he had earned.
Something created after stepping onto an actual stage.
After standing in front of judges.
After singing despite being terrified.
His first genuine skill.
The first proof that he wasn’t merely recovering what he had lost.
He was becoming something new.
The notification faded.
A familiar screen replaced it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STATUS]
Host: Han Jiwon
Age: 18
━━━━━━━━━━━━
APPEARANCE
Face: 13 / 25
Potential: 92
Physique: 19 / 30
Potential: 88
Skin: 16 / 25
Potential: 94
Style: 8 / 20
Potential: 91
Presence: 7 / 20
Potential: 98
━━━━━━━━━━━━
PERFORMANCE
Singing: 16 / 45
Potential: 100
Dancing: 8 / 40
Potential: 93
Rapping: 6 / 35
Potential: 61
Acting: 10 / 30
Potential: 79
━━━━━━━━━━━━
MENTAL
Confidence: 5 / 20
Focus: 9 / 25
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Free Points: 22
CAP LOCKS: [LOCKED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILLS
Guitar: D+
Performer Lv.1
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes stopped on a single line.
Free Points: 22.
Twenty-two.
The number looked almost unreal.
Enough to completely transform one area.
Enough to noticeably strengthen several.
His finger hovered in the air.
The temptation was immediate.
Raise Singing.
Raise Dancing.
Fix Confidence.
Increase Presence.
There were too many possibilities.
Too many unknowns.
After a few moments, he closed the window.
Not yet.
Information came first.
Decisions came second.
Besides…
His gaze shifted toward the notification history.
Analysis.
A slow smile appeared on his face.
For the first time since obtaining the System, he had a way to measure other people.
And if he wanted information—
There was one very convenient test subject waiting for him at school.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
School felt strangely normal.
As if Star Dust didn’t exist.
As if passing the first evaluation wasn’t currently changing the direction of his entire life.
Students complained about assignments.
Teachers handed out worksheets.
Someone was already asleep despite it being lunchtime.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Seoul, producers were probably preparing the next round of Star Dust.
The contrast felt surreal.
Jiwon glanced across the classroom.
A familiar voice immediately caught his attention.
“…and then Coach looked at me and said, ‘Lee Minjae, what exactly was your plan?'”
The group around the desk burst into laughter.
Lee Minjae grinned proudly.
“As if I had a plan.”
“That explains a lot.”
One of his teammates shook his head.
Minjae ignored him.
“As I was saying, I had the ball, there were three defenders in front of me, and in that moment—”
“You did something stupid.”
“I did something genius.”
“It was stupid.”
“It worked.”
“By accident.”
“It still worked.”
More laughter followed.
Jiwon found himself smiling.
Minjae somehow managed to become the center of attention no matter where he stood.
The basketball player was leaning against a desk, speaking animatedly with enough gestures to direct traffic.
Bright red hair.
Sharp eyes.
Tall.
Athletic.
The kind of handsome that didn’t feel polished like an idol trainee.
More natural.
The type that became popular without trying.
Not surprising, considering half the girls in school had probably had a crush on him at some point.
And judging by his expression, he was currently enjoying every second of the attention.
Perfect test subject.
Jiwon focused.
Analysis.
The world narrowed.
The surrounding conversations became distant.
His vision locked onto Minjae.
A blue window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ANALYSIS]
Lee Minjae
Age: 18
━━━━━━━━━━━━
APPEARANCE
Face: 18 / 25
Physique: 24 / 30
Style: 12 / 20
Presence: 17 / 20
━━━━━━━━━━━━
PERFORMANCE
Singing: 3 / 45
Dancing: 21 / 40
Rapping: 2 / 35
━━━━━━━━━━━━
MENTAL
Confidence: 14 / 20
Focus: 8 / 25
━━━━━━━━━━━━
SKILLS
Athletic Coordination Lv.4
Competitive Instinct Lv.4
Body Control Lv.3
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared.
Then stared harder.
Singing: 3.
Rapping: 2.
The karaoke room suddenly made perfect sense.
The rest, however, was surprisingly impressive.
Face: 18.
Physique: 24.
Confidence: 14.
Even the System acknowledged that Lee Minjae was annoyingly gifted.
Just not musically.
Which felt completely accurate.
Jiwon almost smiled.
Yeah.
That sounded exactly like Minjae.
His eyes moved lower.
Athletic Coordination Lv.4
Competitive Instinct Lv.4
His basketball talent was practically written into his status.
Curiosity slowly crept in.
Was this everything?
Or was there more hidden information?
He concentrated harder.
The blue screen flickered.
Jiwon frowned.
Then it flickered again.
This time—
A thin red line appeared across the bottom of the window.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]
Mental Load Increasing
━━━━━━━━━━━━
His eyes widened.
Before he could react, the notification disappeared.
The Analysis screen returned.
Jiwon hesitated.
Then focused harder anyway.
Immediately the window flashed red.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]
Mental Load Critical
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The red warning blinked once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then—
Pain exploded inside his head.
“Ah—”
The classroom tilted.
His vision blurred instantly.
The Analysis screen distorted.
Blue and red fragments scattered across his sight.
It felt as if somebody had driven a spike directly through his skull.
The world became too bright.
Too loud.
Too sharp.
Jiwon grabbed the edge of his desk.
His stomach twisted violently.
Cold sweat ran down the back of his neck.
For one terrifying second, he genuinely thought he was going to collapse right there in the classroom.
The red warning flashed one final time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ANALYSIS TERMINATED]
Emergency Shutdown Activated
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The screen vanished.
The pain remained.
His breathing became uneven.
“Jiwon?”
A nearby classmate looked over.
“You okay?”
He forced himself upright.
“Yeah.”
The answer sounded weak.
Even to him.
Because he definitely wasn’t okay.
The warning hadn’t been exaggerated.
Not even slightly.
Analysis wasn’t free.
And judging by what had just happened, the System had built a safeguard specifically to stop him from knocking himself unconscious.
Across the room, completely unaware that he had nearly caused a medical emergency, Minjae continued his story.
“…and that’s why Coach banned me from making decisions during the last two minutes.”
“You realize that’s not a good thing, right?”
“I prefer to focus on the positives.”
Jiwon closed his eyes.
Somehow that made perfect sense.
Because if there was one person capable of treating a disaster as a success—
It was Lee Minjae.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
By the time Jiwon got home, the headache had mostly faded.
Mostly.
The memory of that flashing red warning was still unpleasantly vivid.
Yeah.
Let’s not do that again.
At least not without a very good reason.
For the first time in months, there wasn’t an immediate deadline hanging over his head.
A normal person would probably take a break.
Instead, Jiwon found himself scrolling through social media.
And ten minutes later, he realized Star Dust was everywhere.
Performance clips.
Reaction channels.
Fan edits.
Discussion threads.
Unofficial rankings.
Predictions.
Rumors.
Arguments.
Every time he refreshed the page, more content appeared.
The show’s momentum was growing frighteningly fast.
One clip had hundreds of thousands of views.
Another had already crossed a million.
People weren’t treating Star Dust like a future survival show anymore.
It had already become one.
For the first time, the scale of it truly hit him.
This isn’t just an audition anymore.
That had only been the beginning.
Soon millions of people would be watching.
Judging.
Comparing.
Choosing favorites.
Deciding who deserved to debut.
The thought made his chest tighten slightly.
Excitement.
Pressure.
Maybe both.
His phone suddenly vibrated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
TEAM 17
A new file had been uploaded.
Sender:
Star Dust Production Team
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The moment the e-mail arrived, the group chat immediately went silent.
No jokes.
No comments.
No reactions.
Everyone was reading.
Jiwon opened the file.
A few seconds passed.
Then he blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
“…You’re kidding.”
He reread the document.
The words didn’t change.
The Team Mission wasn’t what he expected at all.
No assigned song.
No predetermined positions.
No producer-selected center.
Instead—
Every team would decide everything themselves.
• Song
• Part Distribution
• Center
• Leader
Complete freedom.
Jiwon lowered his phone.
Then immediately picked it up again.
No.
That’s not freedom.
That’s a trap.
Choosing a song sounded easy.
Until five people want different songs.
Choosing a center sounded simple.
Until somebody has to be chosen over everyone else.
Part distribution?
That alone could start an argument.
And leader…
Jiwon stared at the final line.
They’re testing teamwork.
And somehow that felt far more dangerous.
The producers weren’t just looking for performers.
They were looking for idols.
And idols didn’t work alone.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
That evening, Team 17 attempted their first online meeting.
Attempted being the important word.
The chat remained painfully silent.
Nobody seemed willing to start.
Eventually, Minseok surrendered first.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lee Minseok: So…
who’s the leader?
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Silence.
Five seconds.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Jiwon stared at the screen.
Nobody answered.
Nobody volunteered.
Nobody even suggested somebody else.
The longer it lasted, the more uncomfortable it became.
Finally—
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Seo Doyoung: This silence is terrifying.
Kang Hyunwoo: Agreed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Somehow that only made it worse.
More silence followed.
Jiwon could practically picture all four of them staring at their phones.
Waiting for somebody else to speak first.
Then a new message appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Park Jaehyun: I’ll do it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The chat froze.
No replies.
No reactions.
Nothing.
Jiwon stared at the words.
Not because someone had stepped forward.
That part wasn’t surprising.
What surprised him was the way Jaehyun said it.
Not:
I want to be leader.
Not:
I think I’d be a good leader.
Not:
Choose me.
Just—
I’ll do it.
Jiwon stared at the message for several seconds.
…That’s different.
There was no ambition in those words.
If anything, it sounded like extra work.
Like a burden someone had to carry.
And Jaehyun had simply decided to pick it up without making a big deal out of it.
Suddenly, Jiwon remembered their conversation outside the Star Dust building.
Three years of training.
Already signed to an agency.
The calm confidence.
The way he naturally took charge without demanding attention.
A thought crossed his mind.
The dangerous people are never the loud ones.
Minseok was loud.
Hyunwoo was charismatic.
Doyoung was smart.
But Jaehyun…
Jaehyun felt different.
Like someone who already knew exactly what he was doing.
Park Jaehyun wasn’t simply confident.
He was dangerously competent.
And for the first time since entering Star Dust—
Jiwon felt like the real competition had finally begun.