The Cheongdam Riverwalk at 3 AM was silent and frigid. Lee Kang-joon stood by the guardrail, the cold wind slicing through his light jacket. He watched the reflection of the city lights ripple across the black Han River.
He checked his wrist. 1 hour, 45 minutes until he had to be back in the dorm. Just enough time for a high-risk meeting.
[System Warning: Host is engaging in activities with zero Debut Success correlation. Resource Allocation Diverted.]
Shut up. The System was always about the shortest, most efficient path to the stage. It could not calculate the existential risk of a different contract, only the immediate drop in his 'Starline EXP.'
A car, expensive and darkly tinted, pulled silently up to the curb. The passenger door opened.
"Get in, Kang-joon-ssi."
The voice was low, professional, and female. She was wearing a tailored coat and a baseball cap pulled low. She was the one who had slipped him the card in the dark practice room—the scout.
He hesitated for a moment. Stepping into the car was giving up control, a massive vulnerability he had avoided in nearly all ninety-six lives. But the key to survival wasn't avoiding risk; it was gathering information.
He slid into the leather seat. The car smelled expensive, like new leather and a subtle floral perfume.
The scout pulled her mask down. Her face was sharp, intelligent, and utterly exhausted. She wasn't an assassin; she was just another gear in the unforgiving machine.
"I am Han Min-seo, Head of A&R at Hourglass Entertainment," she said, cutting straight to business. "And I know your agency is going to kill you."
Kang-joon forced a small, practiced smile—the one he used to disarm aggressive fans. "That's a bit dramatic, Min-seo-ssi. We're about to film our survival show."
"Starline is in liquidation," Min-seo stated, ignoring his pleasant facade. "Not bankruptcy—liquidation. Your CEO, Mr. Kwon, has a seven-figure gambling debt due in three weeks. He's rushing the debut and the survival show solely to sell the new group's contract to a major Chinese consortium. It's a fire sale."
Kang-joon's blood ran cold. He had remembered the general outline of the CEO's gambling habit from Loop #78, but not the specific timeline or the fire-sale consequence.
This was why the deaths were so random and clustered.
The Debut Success Marker wasn't a curse. It was a statistical clean-up.
The moment the group debuted, the valuable IP would be sold. The new owners wouldn't want the financial and legal liability of a trainee who might already have internal health issues (stress-induced seizures, malnutrition, etc., accumulated during the desperate, cash-starved final weeks). They would want a clean slate.
The company was forcing the trainees to the absolute brink, making every weakness a plausible cause of death just as the sale closed. The sale was the true Death Marker.
Min-seo pulled a contract from a folder. "We're a new, ethical company. We have secured external funding. We can offer you a transfer now. A solo contract. Guaranteed debut in six months, with full creative control."
"Why me?" Kang-joon asked, his voice low.
"You have the X-factor," Min-seo said simply. "And I've watched you in practice. You're holding back. You're playing safe. You look terrified, Kang-joon-ssi. I can offer you safety and real success."
[System Quest: Evaluate External Opportunity. Success Probability: 85% (Solo Path). Debut Success Score: Rapid Increase Likely.]
The System screamed encouragement. The solo path was a guaranteed debut—it met the mandate perfectly.
But Kang-joon remembered Loop #92: He took a solo contract. His schedule was inhuman. He died of exhaustion-related renal failure three months later. The solo path was faster, but the workload was lethal.
"It's a generous offer, Min-seo-ssi," Kang-joon said, placing the contract back on the seat. "But I'm loyal to the team. I started with them."
Min-seo's sharp eyes held his gaze. "Loyalty is for the dead, Kang-joon-ssi. If you don't call me, you're signing your death warrant."
Kang-joon stepped out of the car, breathing the cold air deeply. The door closed, and the car sped away, leaving him alone with the System.
[Warning: Host Refused S-Rank Opportunity. Debut Success Score: Dropping to 0.055%. Host Behavior is Counter-Intuitive.]
He had sacrificed a massive boost to his score to avoid a guaranteed death path.
But he had gained two invaluable things:
* The True Death Marker: The date of the Consortium Sale (three weeks from now, just after the survival show finale).
* The Weapon: The Hourglass contract itself.
He had to survive the survival show, not to debut, but to be the most valuable asset on the sale day. If he could become indispensable, the new owners might protect him, rather than letting the random hazards of the industry claim him.
He was no longer fighting a curse; he was fighting a liquidation deadline.
He hurried back to the dorm, taking a circuitous route. He needed to prepare for the show's intense final weeks, where the stress would be maxed out and the random deaths most likely to occur.
He reached the dorm lobby, the air thick with stale sleep.
[System Quest: Internal Access Required. Security Weakness Detected.]
Kang-joon stopped. The lobby's CCTV system was flashing a low-power warning.
He remembered Loop #5: The power failure caused by a drunk staff member's error. The resulting darkness allowed a Wild Card to successfully spike a rival's drink with laxatives, ruining his performance. Simple sabotage, plausible cause (food poisoning), and near-fatal.
This was his chance to turn the security system into his personal System dashboard.
He accessed his [Perfect Memory Chip]. He recalled the specific password for the security console, learned from a drunk manager in Loop #30.
He slipped past the sleeping security guard and reached the console. He entered the password.
The security system opened to him. He didn't hack it. He simply set the alert system to notify his private phone first, then the manager. Any tripped wire, any unauthorized entry, any power fluctuation—he would know instantly.
He saw the low-power alert on the monitor. He remotely filed a maintenance request under Manager Kim's name.
[Sub-Quest Complete: Host has secured Environmental Control. Debut Success Score: 0.070%.]