Chapter 110

Chapter 110

“They’re coming in from the right. Let’s crawl this way.”

Wait… Do we really have to go that far? But Chungwoo was already dropping to all fours, wearing a grim expression.

We’re wearing Hwarang uniforms and wigs, and now we’re crawling on the ground... It was a terrible combination. An arrow flew overhead, striking a wooden fence post. It exploded, covering the wooden panel in blue paint. Ryu Chungwoo turned a sharp eye in the direction the arrow had come from and took aim—with his toy bow, of course.

Whoosh!

“Whoa!”

“And you’re out!”

“Man! That was close!”

Two final members of the team wearing orange headbands emerged from behind a fence, their shoulders covered in yellow paint. They’d been poking only their heads out from behind the fence and shooting at people.

He hit two of them with one arrow. This was completely unfair. It was like watching a diamond-ranked player smurfing with a bronze account in a MOBA game.

“That leaves only three teams. We’ll hit the one on the left first,” he said.

Haven’t you had enough?

“Hey... Don’t you think we should wait a bit until there are fewer people left?”

“Oh.”

Only then did he seem to realize that he’d been going overboard and looked a little embarrassed, resembling an adult who’d gotten too serious about a game he was playing with children.

“Right... Let’s hide behind that obstacle.”

“All right.”

“Hmm. I haven’t played this sort of thing in a while. It’s fun.”

He looked light like a weight was lifted off him. If I had to guess, he seemed the sort of person who destressed by winning competitive games.

I wonder if he plays MOBA games. It would be the perfect style of game for him since he wouldn’t have to worry about toxic players ruining it for him.

In any case, I did as he suggested and crawled toward the large piece of fence nearby. Arrows began flying at us again, however, before we’d even managed to take cover once more. This time it was guys wearing green hairbands.

Is the fighting in that part of the field over already? Worse still, there were four of them left.

I guess it’s about time we let them hit us, then. If Chungwoo managed to shoot two more guys, it would be the perfect ending to the game, and the other team would be able to take the win.

The situation didn’t unfold as I expected, however.

“Whoa, watch out!”

“No way!”

“Did it hit them?”

“Oh god!”

Chungwoo had managed to hit two more people, but he was shot himself right afterward. Before the return fire managed to land on him, however, he managed to take one more person down with him. This left only one guy with a green headband and me in a one-on-one match. We stared at each other in dumbfounded silence.

Are you serious? The problem was that the others had focused their fire on Chungwoo as a priority target, and in return, he had aimed at the person who seemed most likely to hit him. The two survivors were the weakest players in the entire game. My opponent seemed utterly stunned and stammered, dropping his arrow.

“Ha...”

Now, only us amateurs remained.

Chungwoo shouted hurriedly, his neck covered in paint, “Moondae, use me as cover and hit him quick!”

I stared at him incredulously.

I thought we’d agreed earlier to go easy on the other teams. I couldn’t have people think I wasn’t taking this seriously though, so I hid behind him and aimed my bow.

“Oof!”

The funny thing was, the arrow the other guy shot struck our leader in the back.

This is actually working? I thought, unable to believe it as I fired my arrow. I didn’t think it would actually hit him—it would probably fly over the guy’s head.

“Aack!”

Apparently, I’d been wrong.

“No! Are you for real?”

As it happened, the guy had raised his hand to pull an arrow from his quiver and was struck in the arm. It was pure dumb luck.

“Yeaaaah!”

“Moondae wins!”

My members waiting on the sidelines rushed to circle around me, elated.

Chungwoo grinned broadly at me as well, patting me on the back. “Well done!”

“Wow...!” I said, balling my fists in victory for the camera. I can’t do anything about it now that we’ve already won, so I should at least try to look excited, damn it!

However, the emcee rushed out of the commentator’s booth and delivered some welcome, to me, news. “Oh, I’m sorry, TeSTAR! You are out!”

“But why?”

“Any Hwarang who’s been hit should leave the field immediately, not hang around to help out a team member!”

And so the victory went to the green team.

“The victory goes to... Onyx!”

“Oh my god!”

There we go!

The TeSTAR members looked stunned like someone had just pulled a rug out from under them.

“Is it Chungwoo’s fault?” Eugene asked sulkily.

“Sorry...” Chungwoo said.

“It’s fine...” Eugene reassured, still looking put out.

And so filming for Idol Hwarang Mania came to an end.

***

The show flopped magnificently. It wasn’t because people thought it was too harsh on the idols, as was often the case with this genre of TV, or because of any controversy. It was, simply put, boring.

- I can’t watch this

- Please wake me up when TeSTAR comes on

- Who edited this? Fire them, please

- The captions are so annoying and old-fashioned. This is terrible T_T

- How’d they manage to make it so dull with such an insane cast list? I don’t get it.

- Ryu Chungwoo’s showing off all his national athlete skills, damn it! Surely they could have made him look better than this. F*ck this is frustrating

The editing and captions were lame and old-fashioned and none of the silliness was captured in the final footage. Because the promotional trailers for the episode hadn’t been all that exciting, not many people even talked about TeSTAR’s participation.

The production team had focused too much on the Idol Olympics format when they sent out the press releases. As a result, many who only moderately liked TeSTAR weren’t even aware that the group would even be appearing.

- A reality show watching the members hanging out with the sheep at Daegwallyeong would have been more fun than this

- All I remember from the show is their Hwarang costumes and how good Ryu Chungwoo was with the toy bow

- There’s a re-edited version using the TeSTAR scenes done by a WeTube editing legend (link)

└ Whoa this is super fun

└ Yeah. They shouldn’t have turned it into a goddamn documentary. They didn’t even get first place. This is much cuter and funnier T_T

Idol Hwarang Mania’s only legacy was images and footage of various idols dressed up as Hwarang, which were mostly used as marketing material. It was never made into a permanent show on the network and faded into obscurity.

TeSTAR, on the other hand, despite appearing on the flop of a show, was still growing in popularity.

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[Results of TeSTAR’s first week are out]

: They ended the week with 780,000 albums sold (Chart of week’s sales)

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- Insane

- That’s out of this world

- They really are killing it. I see a TeSTAR profile photo in every public chat room I’m in

- How is this possible? I thought people were starting to move on from Idol Inc.

- They don’t even have that many overseas fans, do they?

└ There were a few foreign group orders (photo of receipts). I think foreign fans began to hear about them because they did so well during their debut promotions

└ The overseas fans are extremely good at hunting down this sort of thing

- All the fansigns coming up will have had a huge impact... Regardless, congrats!

└ Huh? They don’t have that many fansigns planned. The amount they’re having is pretty much the industry average

└ Yeah sure, LOL

- They should be considered part of the top three male idol groups. Some of the current top three don’t even perform as well as TeSTAR when they release an album. They’re pretty much second only to VTIC in Korea, aren’t they?

└ Hey, don’t exaggerate, please

└ Stop talking sh*t

└ Real TeSTAR fans never claim that TeSTAR is better than other idols. We’re simply happy to be their fans

The fans were still being cautious, but TeSTAR had just beaten their own first-week record by over 100,000 albums and were doing well in the music charts as well. They were now officially considered a popular idol group.

Thanks to this they reached #1 on public television based on sales from the first week.

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[TeSTAR says a few words after winning the #1 spot on Inki Music + encore performance]

: Congrats guys T_T

* They promised to change parts during the encore if they won first place. Oh, these cuties... LOL

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- Congrats on first place TeSTAR ♡ Let’s keep this airplane flying forever ♡

- So we finally get to hear them calling our name during a winning speech! T_T

- Guys thank you so much for mentioning us Loviewers every time you have the microphone T_T

- Raebin sounds so confident! I love how proud he is of the award. Love you, Rabbit!

- Hold up, why is Park Moondae good at rap, too?

└ Moon Puppy’s so good he got Eugene all excited!

- It’s so heart-warming to hear them sing the chorus together

The fans were a little nervous that other fandoms might appear to ruin the moment but continued to enjoy themselves and the career high that TeSTAR was currently experiencing.

It was around this time that 127 Section, the game made in collaboration with TeSTAR, was released. The fans didn’t pay it too much mind, since there was almost nothing in the comeback that seemed to suggest a connection with the game.

- I guess they made a game collab song from one of the B-side tracks, and that’s it?

- The themes are similar, but Better Me sounds dystopian, while the game is post-apocalyptic. They’re kind of different. If I had to guess, TeSTAR just offered them one of their songs that had the most suitable vibes

- Maybe we shouldn’t attach too much meaning to the stuff we saw in the trailer

- The title track Airplane is obviously the one connected to the Magical Boys universe

The in-depth analyses that had been rampant when the trailer was first released died off, and people had been busy picking “Airplane” apart instead. This didn’t change when ads for the game surfaced, which featured the TeSTAR members promoting the game wearing the same outfits they’d worn in the trailer.

- It’s just like all the other idol ads for games LOL. I guess I shouldn’t have worried

- Since they put Chungwoo in a sniper outfit, I’m going to try out the game just once as a thank-you

- I was surprised to see the TeSTAR trailer as a WeTube ad. It’s a game advertisement, isn’t it? It showed some gameplay footage

Gamers didn’t seem to hate the advertisement exactly, either.

- Subway ads? (Rolling eyes emoji)

- I guess they’re ready to milk us for all we’re worth

- I’m dying to play this...

- They really need to get their act together. Maintain the servers properly while there are still players, stupid developers

- I’ll be holding my breath until it releases

- I’m only eating T1 dumplings from now on

- They’re using too much money on the ads. They’re not going to release DLCs or some sh*t like that, are they?

└ Then we shall give them death

They were nervous, but largely welcomed the mass advertising. This increased the chances that the studio would stay afloat even if they’d messed up the game.

- Please be good

- If they mess up this time, they’re done for. The corporation that bought them will drop them

- I had a look at the gameplay in the advertisement. It looks like they maintained most of what we saw in the beta. If we can handle the influx of players thanks to TeSTAR, this game will be a hit

└ F*ck... Please!

The day the game was released, the TeSTAR fandom and gaming communities were both simultaneously swept away.

***

“Oh. It’s done.”

Park Moondae’s first fansite master finally saved the video she’d been editing of Hwarang Park Moondae and checked her phone.

The game 127 Section had finished downloading, the app’s icon now neatly tucked away on her home screen.

I’ve never played this kind of game before... but I’ll give it a shot. Moondae had been in the ad, after all. She wanted to make sure the game got a good amount of downloads and players. She didn’t usually play games like this, so her plan was to finish just the tutorial before quitting.

Turning on the app, she thought, Let’s get this over with. After a brief loading screen, the tutorial booted up right away.

[You open your eyes in 127 Section.]

Five minutes later, the college student who was the main character met a companion, a boy wearing a black hoodie, whose special ability was using drones. His eyes glowed purple whenever he controlled them.

It was Park Moondae, looking exactly as he had in the comeback trailer.