The moment Team 17 stepped into the Star Dust practice building, Jiwon realized something.
The auditions had been the easy part.
The spacious lobby was filled with trainees.
Some sat reviewing lyrics.
Others were already stretching.
Conversations mixed with distant music from upper floors.
The atmosphere felt completely different from the audition venue.
More serious.
More competitive.
More real.
For the first time, Jiwon felt as though he had entered the actual battlefield.
Near the reception desk, a line of trainees slowly moved forward.
A woman wearing a Star Dust staff badge greeted each group.
When Team 17 reached the front, she checked a tablet.
“Team 17?”
Jaehyun nodded.
“Yes.”
She tapped the screen a few times.
Then handed him a laminated card.
“Practice Room 3-B.”
The card showed both a number and a floor map.
“Your scheduled room has been reserved until six o’clock.”
“Thank you.”
The receptionist smiled professionally.
“Please be aware that evaluations may occur without prior notice.”
The group immediately became quieter.
Minseok blinked.
“…Without prior notice?”
“Correct.”
The receptionist’s smile never changed.
“Good luck.”
Then she called the next team.
“Team 11.”
As Team 17 walked toward the elevators, nobody spoke.
Jiwon glanced at the card in Jaehyun’s hand.
Practice Room 3-B.
Reserved.
Scheduled.
Evaluated.
It felt less like a hobby.
And more like a job interview that never ended.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
As Team 17 headed toward the elevators, nobody spoke.
The receptionist’s words lingered in the air.
Evaluations may occur without prior notice.
That sounded suspiciously like:
We are watching you.
At all times.
“That’s evil.”
Minseok looked genuinely horrified.
“No warning?”
“No schedule?”
“No mercy?”
“I think that’s the point.”
Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
“The producers probably want to see our natural behavior.”
“Natural behavior?”
Minseok pointed at himself.
“I’m incapable of natural behavior.”
“I believe that.”
“Rude.”
The elevator doors opened.
A moment later, all five stepped inside.
The ride was short.
Far too short.
Before long, they arrived on the third floor.
Unlike the lobby, this area was quieter.
More serious.
The walls were lined with practice rooms.
Every few seconds, music leaked through a door.
A sharp vocal run.
A heavy bassline.
The sound of synchronized footsteps.
Somewhere nearby, another team was clearly practicing choreography.
Jiwon felt his stomach tighten slightly.
Everyone here was preparing for the same goal.
Everyone here wanted to survive.
Slowly, he activated Analysis.
A trainee passed them carrying a water bottle.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ANALYSIS]
Unknown Trainee
SINGING: 61
DANCING: 57
STAGE PRESENCE: 55
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s steps slowed.
Sixty-one.
Another trainee walked by.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ANALYSIS]
Unknown Trainee
DANCING: 72
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Another.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ANALYSIS]
Unknown Trainee
STAGE PRESENCE: 68
━━━━━━━━━━━━
His expression became increasingly strange.
None of these people were famous.
None of them had debuted.
They weren’t even contestants yet.
They were just…
Applicants.
Trying to reach the next stage.
The realization sent a chill down his spine.
If this was the waiting room…
What did the actual battlefield look like?
“Room 3-B.”
Jaehyun stopped in front of a door.
A clean silver sign was mounted beside it.
Practice Room 3-B.
The room assigned to Team 17.
For the next few weeks.
Maybe longer.
Depending on whether they survived.
Jaehyun pushed the door open.
Everyone stepped inside.
And immediately sighed in relief.
The room was large.
Wall-length mirrors.
Wooden flooring.
A small speaker setup.
Water dispensers.
Storage cabinets.
Nothing luxurious.
Nothing fancy.
But more than enough.
Minseok threw his backpack on the floor.
“This is it.”
His voice sounded oddly serious.
No jokes.
No dramatic gestures.
For once.
“This is where we become stars.”
A beat passed.
Then Hyunwoo pointed toward the mirror.
“You already sound like a documentary narrator.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“I’ll take it anyway.”
The mood relaxed slightly.
Only slightly.
Because everyone understood.
This room mattered.
A lot.
More than the mansion yesterday.
More than the group chat.
More than passing the audition.
This was where results would be created.
Or where dreams would die.
Jaehyun placed the lyric sheets on the floor.
“Let’s start.”
The room immediately quieted.
No one objected.
No one hesitated.
Jiwon watched him for a moment.
Leader.
The title suited him.
Not because he ordered people around.
Not because he acted important.
People simply listened when he spoke.
That alone made him dangerous.
“First we listen.”
Everyone nodded.
The music started.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The music stopped.
Silence filled the room.
For a few moments, nobody spoke.
The song had been playing on repeat for nearly thirty minutes.
Long enough for everyone to memorize the general structure.
Long enough to identify the difficult sections.
Long enough to realize that a three-minute performance could cause an unbelievable amount of suffering.
Jaehyun placed the lyric sheet on the floor.
“We should assign temporary positions.”
Nobody objected.
The keyword was temporary.
Everybody understood that things could still change.
“We’ll adjust later if necessary.”
That sounded reasonable.
Doyoung immediately grabbed a pen.
Of course he did.
Jiwon was starting to suspect the guy carried stationery everywhere.
“We need a center first.”
The answer came almost instantly.
Everyone looked at Hyunwoo.
Including Hyunwoo.
“…Really?”
Minseok pointed dramatically.
“You look like a center.”
“That’s not a qualification.”
“It should be.”
Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
“Actually, it is.”
“…What?”
“Visual appeal is an important factor in maintaining audience attention.”
Hyunwoo stared.
“You somehow made that sound scientific.”
“It is scientific.”
“It’s really not.”
Despite the argument, nobody proposed another candidate.
In the end, Hyunwoo sighed.
“I’ll do it.”
Doyoung immediately wrote it down.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Center
Kang Hyunwoo
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Next came vocals.
This discussion lasted significantly less time.
“Main Vocal.”
Nobody even looked around.
Their eyes landed on Jaehyun.
The trainee blinked.
“Why are you all staring at me?”
Minseok looked offended.
“Because you’re obviously the main vocal.”
“That’s not how this should work.”
“It literally is.”
For once, nobody disagreed.
Even Jiwon didn’t.
After seeing the eighty-two in Singing, there was no room for debate.
Not that anyone else knew that.
They simply had ears.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Main Vocal
Park Jaehyun
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Main dancer.”
This time everyone’s gaze moved toward Minseok.
The golden retriever immediately froze.
“What?”
“You.”
“But I’m funny.”
“What does that have to do with dancing?”
“I just wanted everybody to remember that.”
Nobody understood.
Again.
But the position was assigned anyway.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Main Dancer
Lee Minseok
━━━━━━━━━━━━
That left two positions.
Doyoung.
And Jiwon.
The room went quiet.
Not uncomfortable.
Just thoughtful.
Doyoung was consistently good at everything.
The type of person who could fill any gap.
Reliable.
Stable.
Jaehyun nodded.
“Lead vocal.”
Nobody objected.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lead Vocal
Seo Doyoung
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Which left one final slot.
Jiwon’s.
He already knew what was coming.
Even before anyone spoke.
Still…
Actually hearing it would probably sting.
“Sub vocal.”
Jaehyun looked at him.
His tone remained calm.
Professional.
“We can adjust later.”
Jiwon nodded.
“Okay.”
And that was that.
No arguments.
No complaints.
No unfairness.
Which was exactly why it felt so heavy.
The position made sense.
Objectively.
Logically.
Painfully.
Among the five of them…
He was the weakest performer.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The first run-through started immediately afterward.
And reality struck fast.
The moment the music began, the room transformed.
Minseok moved as if he had already practiced the choreography.
His feet naturally followed the rhythm.
Even when he made mistakes, his body somehow corrected itself.
Doyoung learned surprisingly quickly.
Any correction only needed to be explained once.
Hyunwoo’s movements weren’t the cleanest.
Yet every time he stood in the center, attention naturally drifted toward him.
And Jaehyun…
Jiwon finally understood why he had become leader so naturally.
The guy never stopped thinking.
Even while singing, he was watching everyone else.
Correcting positions.
Adjusting timing.
Observing mistakes.
The entire team seemed to revolve around him.
Then—
The music stopped.
Jaehyun frowned slightly.
“Again.”
Nobody complained.
The song restarted.
Thirty seconds later—
“Again.”
Another mistake.
Another restart.
Another attempt.
Then—
“Jiwon.”
Jiwon froze.
“…Yeah?”
“You’re entering late.”
His stomach sank.
“Half a beat.”
The words weren’t harsh.
The delivery wasn’t rude.
If anything, Jaehyun sounded surprisingly polite.
Which somehow made it worse.
Because Jiwon couldn’t even get angry.
The criticism was accurate.
The music restarted.
Another attempt.
Another mistake.
And once again—
“Still late.”
The room suddenly felt much warmer than before.
Jiwon clenched his jaw.
“Got it.”
The music restarted.
This time he focused entirely on his timing.
One.
Two.
Three.
Move.
Step.
Turn.
For a moment, he thought he’d fixed it.
Then—
“Stop.”
Everything froze.
Jaehyun pointed at the mirror.
“You started watching your feet.”
Jiwon’s expression hardened.
“So?”
“You’ll miss your cue again.”
“I’m trying to fix the last mistake.”
“And creating another one.”
Silence.
The atmosphere immediately became uncomfortable.
Not hostile.
Just tense.
Minseok glanced between them.
Like someone watching a tennis match.
Jiwon took a breath.
Then another.
“I know.”
Jaehyun nodded.
“I know you know.”
Somehow that made it worse.
Because Jaehyun wasn’t attacking him.
He was correcting him.
The music resumed.
Five minutes later.
Another stop.
This time it was Minseok.
“No, no, no.”
The main dancer immediately moved to the center.
“Look.”
Without music, he demonstrated the sequence.
The movement seemed effortless.
Natural.
Like breathing.
Then Jiwon tried to imitate it.
The difference was obvious.
Nobody said anything.
They didn’t need to.
Jiwon could see it himself in the mirror.
Another thirty minutes passed.
Everyone was sweating.
Everyone was tired.
And people got less patient when they were tired.
A lot less.
“Doyoung.”
Jaehyun pointed.
“Your second line.”
“What about it?”
“You’re pushing too hard.”
Doyoung frowned.
The correction came again.
“The note sounds forced.”
Doyoung adjusted his glasses.
A habit Jiwon was beginning to recognize.
He did it every time he felt annoyed.
“I hit the note.”
“You did.”
“Then it’s fine.”
“No.”
Jaehyun shook his head.
“The note is correct.”
A pause.
“The delivery isn’t.”
The room became silent.
Because technically…
Jaehyun was right.
Again.
Doyoung knew it too.
Unfortunately, knowing that didn’t make it less irritating.
Minutes later.
Hyunwoo missed a formation change.
For the first time all day.
“Center.”
Jaehyun pointed.
“You’re one step too far forward.”
Hyunwoo blinked.
“No, I’m not.”
Jiwon looked up.
That was the first disagreement.
A real one.
Jaehyun grabbed the remote.
The recording replayed.
Everyone watched.
The pause lasted exactly three seconds.
Then Hyunwoo sighed.
“…Okay.”
He was wrong.
The video proved it.
Still—
The fact that he had argued at all said something.
Even the easiestgoing members were getting irritated.
By the third hour, frustration was everywhere.
Not loud.
Not explosive.
Just lingering.
The kind that sat quietly in the room.
Waiting.
Minseok eventually dropped onto the floor.
“I have officially decided.”
Nobody answered.
He raised a hand dramatically.
“This mission sucks.”
That finally earned laughs.
Even Jaehyun smiled.
Slightly.
Very slightly.
Which somehow made it funnier.
Minseok pointed immediately.
“Look.”
“What?”
“You smiled.”
“I didn’t.”
“You totally did.”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“That counts.”
The laughter faded.
The room relaxed again.
Only for a moment.
Then Jaehyun looked at the clock.
And his expression became serious.
“One more run.”
Everybody groaned.
“Again?”
“Again.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Minseok rolled onto his back.
“I miss Doyoung’s mansion.”
“That was yesterday.”
“I know.”
A dramatic sigh escaped him.
“It was a simpler time.”
The final run began.
Everyone pushed harder.
Everyone focused.
The performance immediately looked better.
Sharper.
Cleaner.
More synchronized.
For the first time all day, Team 17 almost looked like an actual team.
Almost.
Then Jiwon missed another timing cue.
Half a beat.
Tiny.
Barely noticeable.
But Jaehyun noticed.
Of course he did.
The music stopped.
Once again.
The room fell silent.
And for the first time all day, frustration finally spilled out.
Jiwon ran a hand through his hair.
“What now?”
The words came out sharper than intended.
Everyone froze.
Including him.
A beat passed.
Then another.
Jaehyun blinked.
The irritation vanished from Jiwon’s face almost immediately.
Too late.
The words were already out.
And suddenly, for the first time since Team 17 had formed…
The atmosphere felt genuinely awkward.
Even Minseok stopped talking.
Which might have been the most alarming thing that had happened all day.
Jiwon immediately regretted it.
Not because he’d shouted.
He hadn’t.
Not really.
But because the frustration behind the words had been obvious.
And everyone had heard it.
Jaehyun studied him for a moment.
Then sighed.
“Let’s take five.”
The tension instantly loosened.
Nobody argued.
Nobody protested.
Everyone was too tired.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The music stopped.
Water bottles appeared.
Towels appeared.
Minseok somehow found snacks.
Nobody knew where from.
At this point, questioning Minseok’s ability to obtain food felt pointless.
Jiwon sat against the wall.
Silent.
The mirrors stretched across the room in front of him.
And for the first time all day, he hated them.
Every mistake.
Every late entry.
Every awkward movement.
The mirrors had shown him all of it.
Across the room, Hyunwoo was scrolling through his phone.
Doyoung was reviewing lyrics.
Minseok was eating.
And Jaehyun…
Jaehyun was writing notes.
Even during the break.
The guy really never stopped.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
A shadow appeared beside him.
Jiwon looked up.
Jaehyun.
Of course.
For a moment neither spoke.
Then Jaehyun sat down.
Not across from him.
Next to him.
Which somehow made the conversation feel worse.
“I’m not trying to pick on you.”
The words came unexpectedly.
Jiwon stayed silent.
Jaehyun continued.
“I know.”
“…Know what?”
“How it feels.”
Now that got his attention.
The older trainee leaned against the wall.
“Being the person slowing everyone down.”
Jiwon blinked.
That wasn’t the answer he expected.
“Three years ago.”
Jaehyun’s eyes remained on the ceiling.
“I was terrible.”
Jiwon almost laughed.
The statement sounded ridiculous.
Jaehyun noticed immediately.
“I’m serious.”
“You?”
“Me.”
“No way.”
Jaehyun actually smiled.
A rare sight.
“My dancing was worse than yours.”
“…”
“…”
Jiwon stared.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Most people don’t.”
For some reason, that made it easier to believe.
“…”
“…”
The silence became more comfortable.
Finally Jiwon spoke.
“You make it look easy.”
Jaehyun laughed softly.
The sound surprised him.
“It isn’t.”
His gaze moved toward the others.
“It just comes after enough failure.”
The answer lingered in the air.
Failure.
For some reason, hearing that from someone like Jaehyun helped.
A little.
Not much.
But enough.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Five minutes later the group gathered again.
The atmosphere had improved.
Slightly.
Unfortunately, reality still existed.
And reality came with choreography.
“One more run.”
Four groans immediately filled the room.
Even Doyoung.
Which was probably a sign of extreme exhaustion.
The music started again.
This time everyone focused harder.
The performance looked better.
Cleaner.
More coordinated.
Almost synchronized.
Almost.
Then the song ended.
Silence followed.
Jaehyun nodded.
“Better.”
The single word felt surprisingly rewarding.
Then he grabbed the lyric sheets.
“We’ll stop here.”
Collective relief swept through the room.
Minseok nearly collapsed.
“I saw my ancestors during that last chorus.”
“You say that every time you get tired.”
“I see them often.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The team slowly packed their things.
Bags.
Water bottles.
Jackets.
Phones.
The ordinary rituals of exhausted people.
Then Jaehyun spoke again.
“Doyoung.”
“Mm?”
“Practice the second verse.”
“Got it.”
“Minseok.”
“Yep?”
“Timing on the transition.”
“Already fixing it.”
“Hyunwoo.”
“I know.”
“You were drifting forward.”
Hyunwoo sighed.
“…I know.”
Then Jaehyun’s gaze landed on Jiwon.
The room felt strangely quiet.
Even though nobody else seemed to notice.
“Practice your lines tonight.”
A brief pause.
“You need it most.”
No cruelty.
No sarcasm.
No judgment.
Just honesty.
And that honesty landed harder than any insult.
Because everybody knew it.
Including Jiwon.
Especially Jiwon.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The ride home was quiet.
The city passed by outside the train window.
Rows of buildings.
Traffic lights.
People rushing somewhere.
A familiar scene.
Once upon a time, he had spent years looking at views exactly like this.
On the way to work.
On the way home.
Day after day.
Week after week.
Year after year.
Back then, he had always told himself the same thing.
Just a little longer.
A little longer and things would improve.
A little longer and he’d have more money.
More stability.
More time.
The time never came.
And eventually, neither had his dream.
Jiwon’s fingers tightened slightly around the subway handrail.
He had been given a second chance.
And yet…
Today had been miserable.
Not because Jaehyun had been harsh.
The guy hadn’t been harsh at all.
That was the problem.
Every correction had been justified.
Every mistake had been real.
Every criticism had been accurate.
A bitter laugh almost escaped him.
For a moment, he remembered how angry he’d felt in his previous life.
At companies.
At managers.
At circumstances.
At luck.
At everyone except himself.
Today there was nobody to blame.
Just himself.
The thought sat heavily in his chest.
I’m really the weakest one.
The realization wasn’t dramatic.
It wasn’t shocking.
Deep down, he had already known.
Today had simply confirmed it.
Again.
And again.
And again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
By the time he reached home, exhaustion had settled deep into his bones.
Not physical exhaustion.
That would have been easier.
This was the kind that sat inside his head.
The practice room.
The mirrors.
Jaehyun’s corrections.
The awkward silence after he snapped.
Everything replayed on a loop.
He tossed his bag onto the floor.
Removed his shoes.
Collapsed into his chair.
For a long moment, he simply stared at the ceiling.
Then a familiar blue glow illuminated the dark room.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]
Current Host Performance
Below Team Average
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared at the window.
Several seconds passed.
Then he laughed.
A short, humorless laugh.
“…You really don’t know how to sugarcoat things.”
The System remained silent.
Which somehow felt like agreement.
Slowly another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[QUEST GENERATED]
Become a Member Worthy of Team 17
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Evaluation
Below Average
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Requirements
Singing: 25+
Dancing: 15+
Complete Daily Practice
Before Team Evaluation
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reward????
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Penalty
Quest Failure May Negatively Impact Future Growth
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyebrow twitched.
“That’s unfair.”
The answer arrived immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NOTICE]
Objective Calculated
From Current Reality
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
“…I really hate how reasonable you are.”
No response came.
Of course not.
Sighing, he opened his Status Window.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Singing: 16
Dancing: 8
Free Points: 22
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Twenty-two points.
Enough to solve most of the problem immediately.
His gaze lingered on the requirements.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Singing: 25+
Dancing: 15+
━━━━━━━━━━━━
With enough points, I could complete everything right now.
No effort.
No sweat.
No frustration.
Just numbers.
His hand hovered in the air.
Then stopped.
A thought crossed his mind.
If I solve everything with points…
What exactly am I improving?
Silence filled the room.
Slowly, his eyes shifted toward Singing.
That one couldn’t wait.
His teammates could survive mediocre dancing.
A missed vocal line was another story.
The blue window opened.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Singing
16 → 25
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Free Points
22 → 13
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The instant the number changed, the System reacted.
A bright flash filled his vision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NOTICE]
Primary Performance Threshold
Reached
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Singing: 25
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Another window appeared immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NEW PATH UNLOCKED]
VOCAL TRAINEE
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon’s eyes widened.
Path?
Without hesitation, he opened it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[VOCAL TRAINEE]
Rank
Beginner
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Effects
• Increased Vocal Learning Efficiency
• Improved Feedback Recognition
• Virtual Training Assistant
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Advance Requirements
Unknown
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon blinked.
Virtual Training Assistant?
Before he could think further—
Another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ACTIVATE TRAINING MODE?]
YES / NO
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…Obviously yes.”
The moment he selected YES, reality seemed to distort.
Not completely.
The apartment remained unchanged.
But translucent windows appeared all around him.
Floating graphs.
Indicators.
Lines.
Measurements.
As if somebody had transformed his room into a rhythm game.
A humanoid figure slowly materialized in front of him.
Faceless.
Genderless.
Expressionless.
Like a training dummy disguised as a coach.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WELCOME, VOCAL TRAINEE]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“That’s a little creepy.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[QUERY NOT UNDERSTOOD]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Of course.”
The music started before he could complain further.
Immediately, multiple gauges appeared around his vision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
PITCH ACCURACY
━━━━━━━━━━━━
BREATH CONTROL
━━━━━━━━━━━━
TEMPO
━━━━━━━━━━━━
TONE STABILITY
━━━━━━━━━━━━
RESONANCE
━━━━━━━━━━━━
A glowing track appeared in front of his eyes.
Markers moved across it.
Targets appeared.
A rhythm game.
Except the controller was his voice.
“Seriously?”
The System ignored him.
The exercise began.
He sang.
Almost immediately—
━━━━━━━━━━━━
TOO FAST
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
A few seconds later—
━━━━━━━━━━━━
PITCH DEVIATION DETECTED
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Okay, that one was fair.”
Then—
━━━━━━━━━━━━
INSUFFICIENT BREATH SUPPORT
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Followed by—
━━━━━━━━━━━━
LATE ENTRY
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“…”
“…”
“…This thing hates me.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[QUERY NOT UNDERSTOOD]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
The session continued relentlessly.
The System analyzed everything.
His breathing.
His timing.
His pitch.
His tone.
Even the exact moments he entered and exited phrases.
For the first time in either life, somebody wasn’t simply telling him he sounded bad.
It was telling him why.
Second by second.
Mistake by mistake.
The realization was strangely exciting.
Then the session ended.
A report appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
SESSION RESULT
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Pitch Accuracy: 57%
Breath Control: 41%
Tempo: 62%
Tone Stability: 39%
Overall Rating: Poor
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon stared.
Then sighed.
“…That’s brutal.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ACCURATE FEEDBACK
IMPROVES GROWTH EFFICIENCY]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Thanks.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[YOU ARE WELCOME]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon narrowed his eyes.
“Why does that sound sarcastic?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[QUERY NOT UNDERSTOOD]
━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Sure.”
Eventually his gaze returned to the Quest.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dancing: 15+
Current: 8
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Seven points away.
Thirteen free points remained.
Enough to complete the requirement instantly.
His hand hovered.
The temptation was obvious.
One button.
That’s all it would take.
Then he slowly lowered his arm.
“No.”
The empty room offered no response.
“I’ll earn this one myself.”
Slowly, Jiwon stood up.
Pushed the coffee table aside.
Moved a chair.
Cleared space in the living room.
A few minutes later, his phone was connected to the television.
A dance tutorial appeared.
Something embarrassingly similar to Just Dance.
The music started.
First attempt.
Disaster.
Second attempt.
Somehow worse.
Third attempt.
He almost tripped over his own feet.
And for the first time all evening—
He laughed.
A real laugh.
Because no System was helping him.
No stat points.
No shortcuts.
Pure effort.
The song restarted.
Sweat ran down his forehead.
Jiwon returned to his starting position.
A final window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
[QUEST IN PROGRESS]
Become a Member Worthy of Team 17
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Singing: 25 / 25 ✓
Dancing: 8 / 15
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Remaining Objective
Dancing +7
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Jiwon smiled.
Then the music began again.
And he started dancing.