[‘Take 1st Place in Song Camp!’]
A familiar blue window appeared before my eyes.
[Final opportunity: Survival mission.
Achieve 1st place in Song Camp.
Success: 70,000 points awarded.
Failure: Fracture in the world setting.
※Due to the fracture, a restoration period will be required. The player may suffer from random status abnormalities for one year.]
A nauseating quest.
[※Frequent loan usage after quest/scenario failures may result in fatal physical penalties. Proceed with caution.]
Beside it spun a golden trophy, twirling round and round.
At first, I was too dumbfounded to speak.
After slowly grasping the situation, I turned my head toward Kang Ichae.
“...What the hell is this....”
My voice broke apart with raw emotion, scattering into the air.
Trying to suppress the near-boiling rage, I covered my eyes with my palm.
Ding!
At that moment, with the alarm sound, words appeared between my fingers.
[There’s no way that would happen.]
[Even if the world collapses, that still wouldn’t happen....]
[Are... you crying?]
“...Cry....”
For an instant—
“I’m gonna lose my mind from this frustration, you insane bastard!!”
The anger erupted so violently that I couldn’t stop myself from swearing.
A flood of words beginning with “f” poured out like a waterfall until I caught sight of Kang Ichae’s pale face and barely stopped myself.
After forcing down the curses, I raked my hair back and spoke again.
“Kang Ichae, come here.”
As I dismissed the hastily popped-up system window, I grabbed the arm of the guy trying to quietly back away and pulled him beside me. Then I tilted my chin toward the screen.
“You explain.”
[...Uh, uh... well, you see.]
The system fidgeted as if gauging my mood, then began explaining the situation in detail.
And the gist of it went something like this:
The system, which had already become unstable since Nugu Actor Tycoon, had been reformatted and partially stabilized, but an unexpected error occurred that dragged Kang Ichae into it.
This time, during the penalty calculation from failing to win the award and thus failing to complete the main quest, the penalty mistakenly transferred not to me—but to Kang Ichae.
Meanwhile, new quests were still progressing steadily.
Ding!
[This... really wasn’t part of the plan....]
I swallowed the rising tide of curses again and turned to look at Kang Ichae.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Mm.”
Kang Ichae only shrugged calmly. Instead, the system window popped up to defend him.
[Kang Ichae was forbidden from disclosing this information to others! It wasn’t his fault!]
The way the system defended him after a few months together was almost touching enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Clicking my tongue in irritation, I glanced at Kang Ichae, who still looked ghostly pale and was breathing heavily.
“...He’s sick because of this, isn’t he?”
If the penalty from the failed main quest had been transferred to him, maybe that was why he was suffering now.
[No, since Kang Ichae was only a proxy and not the main owner, the system load overtaxed his body, pushing his stamina to its limit.]
[Now that authority has returned to you, Seo Hoyun, he will recover soon.]
“Cough! Kugh, khhh....”
But as soon as the system said that, Kang Ichae began coughing violently, like his lungs were about to tear apart.
“......”
...Should I just kill him?
As he bent over in pain, I glared at the system, and the blue light flickered nervously.
[I-I’m not lying! He really will get better soon! All system windows will soon disappear from Kang Ichae’s vision!]
“...You’d better not be lying.”
Grinding down my irritation, I rubbed my face roughly.
‘This is my fault.’
No wonder the system had been so quiet lately. I’d noticed something suspicious, but I’d been too busy fixing other messes to look into it.
My mistake. Yes. But there was still something that didn’t make sense.
‘Why is everything tolerated with Kang Ichae?’
When Sung Jiwon had associated me with my past identity, multiple system errors had erupted. That’s why I’d been careful not to talk too much around Kang Ichae.
‘So why is he an exception?’
Because we both got tangled in Nugu Actor Tycoon?
Why him, specifically?
How much does he actually know?
Thoughts tangled and untangled in my head.
I looked at Kang Ichae—his face flushed with fever—and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Kang Ichae... thanks for helping me.”
I felt his body flinch under my hand.
After seeing all these absurd, unreal phenomena, even after being trapped in Nugu Actor Tycoon, he still chose to help. He clearly wasn’t right in the head.
But since I was the trash who caused it all, cleaning it up was my job.
“...Forget everything else. As for Song Camp, you don’t need to worry anymore. I’ll handle it.”
The line about “failure penalties” still bothered me, but “status abnormalities” weren’t new at this point.
Still, there was something else I needed to confirm with him first.
“And, you know...”
“...Wait.”
Wiping the corner of his mouth with his hand, Kang Ichae’s crooked voice broke out. He lifted his head, meeting my eyes. His gaze was sharp, blazing.
“Handle it?”
“......”
“Right. Of course. You’d pull it off. Like you always do.”
He didn’t have to say it aloud. The implication was clear.
Creating noise marketing for the team.
Using paparazzi.
Selling his own family drama.
Even if he didn’t voice it, those unspoken words lingered in my ears.
“But I can’t just stay out of it. I put in too much to stop now.”
With irritation bubbling up, Kang Ichae roughly rubbed the back of his flushed neck.
“I get it if you can’t trust me. I’ve been impatient. Baek Jijun turned out to be way more talented than I thought.”
Yeah, I knew. I’d seen it right beside him.
“You know... could you at least try to trust me?”
He had always been quick-tempered, but now he spoke with an eerie calm.
The unshaken confidence of youth? Or maybe the fearlessness of someone who had never truly failed before.
As I hesitated, searching for the right words, Kang Ichae’s eyes curved faintly.
“...I guess you can’t, huh?”
“......”
“You’re thinking that the guy who was so anxious a ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) few days ago couldn’t possibly have changed that fast.”
With that, Kang Ichae pulled his phone from his pocket.
“Begging for trust won’t work, huh? Fine. Do things your way, then. I’ll do mine.”
“......”
“If we’re done talking, let’s go. Sunghyun’s looking for us.”
He showed me a string of missed calls from Kim Sunghyun and joked half-heartedly that our team’s dumpling would cry if we stayed away too long. Then he started walking toward the emergency exit.
I ran a hand through my hair to clear the chaos in my head, then quickly caught up and grabbed his arm.
“Wait.”
“......!”
Startled, he looked down at my hand, then slowly turned to face me.
I wasn’t ready to let him walk away yet.
“What...”
“Kang Ichae, did you see it?”
Now that I knew he existed outside the system’s limitations—no errors, no restrictions—there was no point in holding back.
“The quest in progress.”
After Nugu Actor Tycoon, Kang Ichae had already assumed this world was temporary for me—that I’d eventually return to my original one.
But this time, that assumption had turned into a confirmed fact.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be okay after seeing that.
His eyebrow twitched.
“...What kind of answer are you expecting?”
The words I wanted to ask crumbled on my tongue, shapeless.
Kang Ichae sighed at my silence.
“Ha....”
“......”
“Don’t worry. I’ll still help you.”
That wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but nothing came out of my mouth.
“......”
He was someone who felt happiest when doing fun things with people he liked, as long as everyone was healthy.
That’s why I’d always thought his actions came from simple, fleeting whims.
“...Hey...”
But now, I couldn’t tell anymore.
“What.”
How could I take lightly someone who looked at me with eyes burning that sincerely?
“...I wasn’t going to ask because I thought it didn’t matter, but now... I really want to know.”
I finally voiced the question I’d avoided all this time.
“Why are you going this far?”
“...Wow.”
Blinking at me a few times, Kang Ichae covered his mouth like he couldn’t believe what he just heard.
“You, the guy who usually keeps his mouth shut like it’s sewn, suddenly asking me something honest?”
Then, brushing back his wind-tousled hair, he added,
“Well, first of all, I don’t do this for just anyone. I’m not that sociable. Sure, watching you sometimes pisses me off a dozen times a day... but what can I do? With a penalty like that, we’ve got to keep working somehow.”
“...That’s all?”
“......I also still believe that maybe—just maybe—there’s a solution waiting at the end of all this.”
“......”
“I’m kind of optimistic, remember?”
I stayed silent, searching for something to say, but maybe he thought I was still waiting for a reason. He sighed softly.
“...What, you still don’t get it? Even after all that?”
Looking flustered, he turned his gaze away as if embarrassed. Under the lights and moonlight, shadows deepened across his face.
“Ah, I really wanted to keep this to myself because it’s embarrassing, but....”
Kang Ichae finally met my eyes again, his features showing a faint maturity.
“The truth is... I get really damn lonely.”
Then he smiled awkwardly.
“So yeah. That’s all.”
