Affinity, Quick Wits, Decisiveness, Negotiation, Stamina.
I have none.
But I have a stat that beats anyone else's. 3 years' worth of articles. In other words, intel.
So right now, I had both the questions and the answers in my hand.
To put it another way, this is an open-book test. The heart of an open-book test must be application and creativity. I'd have to use 3 years of future information in the right place at the right time.
But this world I've landed in is a different world from the one before. It's probably right to assume that the people I'll meet are different people from before, too.
Still, noticing what has changed about the people I meet in this world will be impossible. After all, even in the previous world, I didn't personally know a single one of the famous people whose names appeared in the articles.
In that case, nothing really changes. I just have to act on the information I hold in my hand.
"Why are you doing this to me? What did I ever do wrong to you?"
The voice that pulled me up out of my thoughts sent a chill across the back of my neck. It was Chae-eun's voice. Surely not, is Chae-eun asking me because she remembers what happened in the last world?
When I turned to look beside me, I saw Chae-eun's face, muttering with a grave expression. We were in the taxi on the way to the set.
"Just now..., what did you say?"
Chae-eun flinched at my voice as well. In the way she stared at me, as though she hadn't expected me to speak to her, I felt an invisible wall.
"Ah....... I was practicing my script. Du-hwan oppa was supposed to go over it with me. Du-hwan oppa has always taken really good care of me, so."
So that's how it was. Du-hwan took such good care of her that in the last world he even set her up with a sponsor, I guess.
"Shall I go over it with you?"
When my eyes went to the script, Chae-eun rolled up the script that had been lying on her lap and gripped it in her hand.
"No. Just, ...please don't disturb me."
Seeing Chae-eun act as though she and I had nothing to do with each other, as though she'd never let me get close, I felt the shoulders that had stiffened for a moment go light.
After all, I had no reason whatsoever to jump inside the line Chae-eun had drawn, hugging the one-sided guilt carried by the me of the last world, who'd become a stranger even to me.
I gave a vague nod and skimmed quickly through the screenshots on my phone. But there was no way an article connected to Chae-eun, a total rookie in the middle of shooting her debut, would turn up.
Just then, the information written on the cover of the script book in Chae-eun's hand caught my eye.
'Utopia'. Director Kim Gi-seok. Writer Son Yu-rim.
'Son Yu-rim?'
Only then did the information come to me. Son Yu-rim was the writer I'd interviewed after she scored a massive hit on a streaming platform with a fantasy rom-com.
Come to think of it, Writer Son Yu-rim had said that back when she won a contest at a later age than average and was interning at a broadcasting station, she wrote a few one-act dramas.
She'd said her debut work, which she called a time when she grew through many conversations with the director, was a school drama, and that was 'Utopia', which Chae-eun was shooting today.
"What a Joke" KBC 'Grabs' the Buzz With Its One-Act Drama, the Controversial 'Utopia'
'Utopia' PD: "A Display of Violence? Scenes We Absolutely Needed... Reality Is Worse"
Fortunately, a few lines of articles on 'Utopia' remained. When I looked over the headlines, the content of 'Utopia' came to mind at once.
This one-act drama is about what comes after a student commits suicide inside the school, as the cause, who drove that student to death, is brought to light.
As it turns out, the bully students who used physical violence, the classmates who stood by, the teachers who looked away, and the school system that drives children to extremes were all tangled up in the death of the student, who died after being treated as the class outcast.
This one-act drama, which delivered a stinging rebuke to the adults who romanticize the barbaric school days everyone went through and hope children will find a utopia, had drawn the biggest response of the five one-act dramas broadcast together.
The depiction of school violence that Writer Son Yu-rim wrote with a skill unlike a rookie's and a nerve just like a rookie's stirred up controversy in some quarters for putting violence on display, but it rode word of mouth and seized a great deal of buzz.
The lines Chae-eun was muttering were the lead's. So Chae-eun was the lead in this piece.
A short while later, we arrived at the set.
"I'll go get my makeup done."
Chae-eun went into a classroom with a sheet of A4 paper stuck on it that read Makeup Room.
I looked slowly around the set. Having come to drama sets before to report, I'd thought it wouldn't feel all that awkward, but I was wrong.
I'd overlooked the fact that the sets that invite reporters, or that reporters seek out, belong to productions with enormous budgets poured into them.
This place, where rookie performers and a green directing crew had gathered, was thin ice, full of an unfamiliar tension on top of poor production conditions.
"Performers, please come into the classroom."
The assistant director shouted loudly toward the hallway. It looked like the rehearsal was starting right away. I had to count us lucky that we weren't late.
As the performers who'd been smoking at the end of the hallway came crowding over in a pack, an acrid smell hit me in a wave.
The detail of the performers, who'd brought to life those bullies who sat in the back seats in my school days, was excellent. Even so, there was surely no need to go as far as wearing the smell of cigarettes.
I stood against the hallway wall until they'd all passed, and Chae-eun, who'd come running out of the makeup room in a hurry, walked up to me and asked.
"How do I look?"
On her clear face, wiped clean of every trace of makeup, her cheeks were flushed with the tension showing there, and that only gave Chae-eun more life.
She told me not to disturb her, and now she's even asking me things. Now that we're on set, it must be sinking in that I'm the only one on her side.
Before I could even pick an answer, Chae-eun slapped both her cheeks with her palms, hard enough to make a sound.
"Let's go eat them all alive."
What a fright. For an instant, I thought I even saw sparks in Chae-eun's eyes.
***
When Chae-eun went into the classroom to get ready for the shoot, I walked over to the monitor set up in the hallway.
If I wanted to build up points and level up, I'd have to do things connected to Chae-eun, who was my charge.
"Excuse me."
Just then, Writer Son Yu-rim appeared from somewhere, passed me, and settled in front of the monitor. I stood a little way off and watched Writer Son from behind.
Writer Son Yu-rim didn't look nervous in the slightest, even on the set where her debut work was being shot. It seemed to be because she had years of experience on top of her confidence. A master is different right from the seed leaf. Was there a saying like that?
Chae-eun has no record of working with Writer Son again after this drama. It means the writer never sought her out again. She even played the lead, so how did the connection not carry on at all?
CRASH!
As the rehearsal began, the loud racket of a chair toppling over came from inside the classroom.
"That's it. So-yeon feels real."
On the screen, which I checked by following Writer Son's gaze, So-yeon had collapsed and was giving it her all. But the performer playing the fallen So-yeon wasn't Chae-eun.
'And Chae-eun......?'
Chae-eun was one of the classmates, the bystanders. It was a bit part without even a character name, a role that only had to fill a seat like a prop.
Chae-eun's eyes had blazed as she said she'd go eat them all alive, but she can't eat anyone alive like that. Nothing has been laid out on the table, so what's she going to pick up and eat?
This is a work that divided opinion over its excessive violence. Chae-eun would have to be given a role that gets actively swept into the scene of that violence to receive even one more shot.
Ding. Just then, a text message arrived. I checked the message on my phone.
[Sub-Quest Triggered: Make Chae-eun Stand Out]
[Quest Details: Give Chae-eun a line]
[Reward: Affinity +1]
It was just as I'd expected. Now it was time to make my move on set.
***
Writer Son Yu-rim, focused on the monitor, didn't even seem to notice that I'd sat down next to her.
Among writers, most of whom tend to be introverted, this person stays in my memory all the more for being lively and outgoing.
The countless future plans Writer Son had spouted while endlessly unwrapping and eating the little chocolates on the interview table had made me, scraping by with no future, feel shabby.
People like this are fond of those who recognize them.
"Hello, Writer Son Yu-rim."
"Who are you?"
"I'm Chae-eun's manager."
I held out to Writer Son a little chocolate I'd swiped from the makeup room. I clearly saw Writer Son's mouth form an oh.
Writer Son thrust out a hand and took the chocolate. She rustled off the wrapper and popped the little chocolate into her mouth.
"My mouth was dry as it was. Thank you."
"You're very tired, aren't you?"
"I'm fine. Chae-eun, you said? So a bit part, then? Managers hardly ever come all the way out to places like this, do they?"
Come to think of it, there were no managers to be seen standing by on set. It was an opening.
"She's the rising hope of our Yong Ent, you see. Here. The one sitting toward the back is Chae-eun, the performer I'm in charge of. Thanks to you, she's making her debut with this piece. Thank you."
I pointed Chae-eun out on the monitor with my finger as I explained.
"I'm grateful too. To have someone so promising working hard on my debut work. Oh, for goodness' sake!"
Writer Son, who'd kept her eyes fixed on the monitor even as we talked, sprang to her feet and flung open the classroom window.
At the sudden noise, Director Kim Gi-seok, who'd been coaching the acting, turned to look at Writer Son. When he saw her, Director Kim's face crumpled miserably.
"One moment."
Having excused himself to the performers, Director Kim came out into the hallway. On his boyish face, as he took off the baseball cap he was wearing and smacked it against his hand, was a vivid look that said he hated talking to Writer Son enough to die.
"Director. So-yeon has to get it worse, more unmistakably. And So-yeon has to resist with everything she has."
"Writer Son. We already went over this several times in the script meetings, you know. People don't like watching students fight each other. If we go too realistic, it'll backfire instead, I'm telling you."
Director Kim seemed thoroughly worn out by this conversation running in parallel lines with Writer Son, who was his elder.
It was a scene of clumsy ambitions colliding, those of a writer and a director debuting together through a one-act drama.
"We have to lay it down properly in the first part for the later part to hit. If we go this bland here, the message that's supposed to come across later won't show."
"Bland? Writer Son Yu-rim. I understand you're pushing because you're in a hurry, but right now you're stepping far over the line into directing."
"Director Kim Gi-seok. Why is someone so young playing it this safe?"
Director Kim had tried to strike first by suggesting that Writer Son, debuting at a ripe age, must be in a hurry.
But when it came straight back at him several times over, as the suggestion that he was scared because he was young, his face flushed red as if it would burst. It was a perfect contrast with Writer Son's serene expression.
She really does know how to dig into a weak spot. I felt I'd caught a glimpse of one corner of the secret that let Writer Son become a star writer so soon after her debut.
Writer Son had no mercy.
A face and a name I have no memory of. You've already lost. Director Kim, driven onto the defensive, looked at me.
"You must have been watching from the side. What do you think?"
Director Kim suddenly asked for my opinion. Since he'd have nothing to say right now, his intent was a passive-aggressive attack through a third party's mouth.
"Going by the script alone, the violence is heavy, it's true."
When Writer Son folded her arms in front of her in a gesture of displeasure, Director Kim's face brightened.
I felt sorry for the innocence of Director Kim, whose expression changed the moment he found a small hope. Keeping my poker face, I went on.
"Instead, how about capturing more of the bystander students' reactions? Watching those reactions, viewers will be able to imagine the horror of the violence as freely as they like. I think that would help bring out your message, Writer Son."
After 'Utopia' was released to the public, the one who rebutted the violence controversy was the PD. That is, Director Kim Gi-seok. It means Director Kim gave in to Writer Son, and that the result came out well because of it.
For 'Utopia' to take off and for Chae-eun to make it too, Director Kim has to get as much of Writer Son's script onto the screen as he can.
Having soothed him by showing sympathy for his worries, I'd pointed out exactly the direction he needed to go from here. That much should be enough for him to get it.