WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

[ Translation - Aren ]

I'm a Reporter, Please let me get off the Stage

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Chapter 8

“……Am I alive?”

“No, you’re in the underworld.”

“I see. What kind of punishment am I facing?”

“Eating three proper meals a day, exercise and getting enough sleep – that's your punishment.”

“Wow, that doesn't sound easy.”

“……Looks like you are more awake now seeing you joke around like that.”

The manager looked down at me with a stern expression on his face.

I blinked rapidly, as the light in this room was too bright for me, stinging my eyes.

Bluish fluorescent light was pouring down on me.

The sharp scent of disinfectant was stinging my nose.

……I was in the hospital.

[Notoriety: 85

Notoriety Keywords: Solo, Punk]

My notoriety had dropped about 5 points from earlier, but it was still alarmingly high.

The last memory I had was collapsing in the radio booth.

“What happened to the radio show?”

“We announced that the live broadcast would be canceled due to your condition. Don’t worry, no one will blame you for fainting. What’s important is your health.”

“What time is it now?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking what day it is first? You’ve been asleep for 15 hours straight. It’s already past midnight.”

“I slept all day?”

“Yeah. You’re quite feeble……”

I checked my phone and it seemed like he told the truth.

The radio show was yesterday, and it was really early in the morning now.

Malicious comments on the internet turning into real physical attacks felt rather fatal.

It was scary, to say the least.

The only way to prevent my notoriety from rising any further was……

To do nothing.

Ironically so.

People who were just waiting to bash Ahn Yuyong would jump on every single action I took.

I acted too rashly. I had to be more cautious from now on.

The power of the individual and group fandoms was quite high.

It was scary to think that I was pushed to the brink of death, because of an individual fandom’s hate comments.

Quests and all that……

It was clear that if I were to even hint at going solo again, I would surely be killed because of my notoriety.

My ability to take any individual actions was completely taken.

With that in mind, I decided to summon the only member I had grown familiar with.

―Yes, Hyung!!

After a few rings, Chae Ire’s bright voice could be heard through the phone.

“Ire. Where are you right now?”

―I was going to meet the CEO for a bit and run some errands.

“Why the CEO?”

―I just have something to tell him. I couldn’t get in touch with the CEO over the phone, so.

Damn……

Chae Ire…… Seems like he’s grown a lot bolder.

As soon as I hung up, the status window suddenly appeared before my eyes.

[Achievement unlocked! ‘Conversation with Members’

Reward: Karma points + 50]

I could buy another Bookmark with those 50 points.

Since the bookmark had turned out to be very useful, I decided to buy one again this time.

[Loading second bookmark]

<[Exclusive] WEEKANIZ Ahn Yuyoung’s extreme choice revealed…… Causes ‘Disbandment’?>

“……What’s this?”

* * *

“……We need to gather the other members.”

“Have you finally made up your mind?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a relief. As I said before, I want to continue being in this group.”

[Engaged in a deeper conversation with a member!”

Success: Karma points +30]

Chae Ire spoke with his round eyes bent into the shape of crescent moons.

He laughed like a mischievous kid.

“So, what made you change your mind?”

“……Looking into the future, I thought it would be better if I continued with this group.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that ‘I would die in the future if I continued on my own’.

“But even if you think like that, the other Hyungs probably don’t. They all seem to be exhausted……”

“Sigh……”

It was quite daunting to figure out how to gather up the other five.

However what was even more daunting was to figure out how to stop those crazy articles from appearing.

First, I called Kim Kihun to get a list of journalists from his contact list.

I somehow needed to find the author of that article after all.

All I had to do was catch the reporter who wrote the [Exclusive], which I had read through not too long ago.

If I only caught that reporter, there wouldn’t be any articles about this appearing.

However…… asking every single reporter out there

‘Are you going to write an article about me having tried to commit suicide?’

was out of question.

Just asking that was no different from advertising the matter all over the place……

So, if I just roughly picked out a reporter and bluntly asked them.

‘Are you going to write articles about me having jumped into the Han River???’

There was a high chance they would answer with.

‘That’s the first time I’m hearing that??? Thank you for the information???’

……That would spell disaster.

There were about 50 journalists in the entertainment department of the media outlets which had released articles about WEEKANIZ.

First, I boldly excluded all the names that didn’t seem familiar to me.

It was unlikely that a rookie journalist would cover an exclusive story directly from the police.

And there was no way that the veterans would entrust this with a mere rookie.

Next, I filtered out the media outlets that had covered an article about WEEKANIZ at least once.

These entertainment journalists weren’t as familiar with all idols as one might think.

And it wasn’t like we had a PR company that was tirelessly working on reviewing reporters’ requests to cover WEEKANIZ.

So, most of the articles written about WEEKANIZ…

‘Oh my, did they just report on WEEKANIZ without even asking for permission?’

……That was probably it.

The process of sorting out the articles and reporters took a full three hours.

Still, there were about 20 people left.

While I didn’t know all their faces, their names seemed familiar.

They were all reporters that I knew through Kim Heetae.

“……Wait, Kim Heetae?”

A certain name suddenly popped into my mind.

My spine tingled.

Seriously? For real?

“Hah……”

My heart was already pounding loudly.

This…… My heart already knew the answer.

……That bastard was the culprit.

Kim Heetae.

When I worked for Atstar News, he was my senior and direct supervisor.

He was a crazy bastard who liked to gather tons of data, starting with doing thorough background checks on actors and idols, even newcomers in the industry.

In reality, that guy didn’t just like gathering information on celebrities’ private lives as a journalist, but as an individual.

Just by gathering that information, it seemed like he felt like he held some kind of power over them, acting all smug. Honestly, he was nothing more than a dirty voyeur.

When I first started working, my usual conversations with Kim Heetae went as follows.

‘Hey, we should go camping.’

‘Camping? All of a sudden?’

That was just three months since I joined, so I was completely dumbfounded at first.

Was my boss seriously giving me time off like that?

‘You’ve never been camping before?’

‘Well…… No. I heard a lot of people doing that these days, so I’ve been a bit curious about it though.’

‘Hahaha!!’

At that moment, Kim Heetae genuinely laughed as if what I said was the most hilarious.

Looking back at it, it sent shivers down my spine at how devilish his laugh actually was.

‘Shit…… Is that really what camping is like? This is supposed to be camping?’

My first camping spot was on the lawn of a luxury office building in Yongsan.

……A freaking lawn.

The reason for this sudden ‘camping’ trip was to get some evidence that Actress A and Idol B were dating.

Right, that was what camping was.

I had completely forgotten the origins of camping.

Basically, it was ‘being out in the open’.

That insane supervisor of mine called stalking some celebrities ‘camping’.

‘Crazy bastard……’

A continuous stream of curses and colorful language was flowing out of my mouth.

But what could I have done?

Even though my mouth was protesting, my body obediently continued to stand on that lawn.

I hid my body between the low camellia trees and endured from midnight until five in the morning.

I witnessed the dawn rising behind the magnificent luxury officetel.

There wasn’t even a single stray cat, let alone a human around.

It was early March according to the calendar.

Early spring, the time when Koreans felt the coldest.

It wasn’t until six in the morning that I crawled back to my studio apartment.

And as I had expected, I caught a massive cold.

I remembered Kim Heetae’s first message to me while I was groaning and writhing in pain.

<Stay home for today. We’ll get back to camping tomorrow evening. If you can’t manage your own health better, then you won’t last long in this job. Keep that in mind.>

‘Fuck…… Making me stay out all night and then scolding me like that for catching a cold?’

Needless to say, my fever rose even higher.

My pride was hurt to the point of shame.

However, I didn’t want to give up.

My dream was to publish an article with my name on it that I could be proud of someday.

I chose this path knowing full well that this was pretty much impossible.

If I couldn’t endure this much, I felt like I wouldn’t be able to achieve anything.

I woke up clutching my dizzy head the next day.

‘I’ll just go back out starting tonight.’

So I spent three days straight there.

Did I actually catch those two going in there together?

No, I didn't.

Instead, I just caught that idol entering that building.

It was pretty hard to tell who it was because he was wearing a deeply pulled-down hat.

However after keeping my eyes open for three days, I realized this place didn’t actually have these kinds of young residents.

Upon seeing the photos I had taken, Kim Heetae laughed as loudly as he did when I answered him whether I had never gone camping before.

He patted my shoulder saying ‘Not bad’.

I thought I would feel happy receiving praise for my work, but……

In reality, it felt like all the strength had left my body.

Even though I received compliments for my hard work, my energy was just completely drained.

Why was that?

It must have been because of the intense sense of guilt I felt.

How did the article do, you ask? It received decent views.

I also heard countless times ‘Look, those trashy reporters did something stupid again’ from fans of both sides.

After that, every time Kim Heetae saw me, he would pat me on the shoulder.

He probably made a deal with the agency, with the conditions that we didn’t release any additional photos and post their official position that ‘the dating rumors that are going around weren’t true’.

It was only natural to feel happy when receiving a decent amount of money, ours was a capitalist society after all.

Or maybe it wasn’t because of that? Kim Heetae didn’t seem to be happy just because of the money.

He was someone who got a sense of self-satisfaction just by gathering information on the private lives of those so-called ‘successful’ celebrities and holding it over their heads.

Since then, I had continued to do these illegal camping trips, which were no different from stalking.

I wrote all kinds of speculative and malicious articles on social media like a machine, just to satisfy him.

My private inbox was filled with emails containing the wrath of various fans.

They wrote things like ‘Can you even call yourself a journalist?’ and ‘Those words you wrote only to harm others will come back to haunt you one day!’......

Kim Heetae just chuckled, briefly commenting ‘Look at those fanatics raging’ after I showed him my inbox.

I couldn’t bring myself to laugh along with him however.

I was practically his successor who brought in the most revenue after him.

I was actually involved in many issues.

Even though I managed to establish myself as a ‘competent journalist’ I found myself enjoying writing articles less and less.

Thinking about these past events made my head ache a lot.

I could say that my relationship with him was a cursed one.

I couldn’t believe that I had to deal with that guy again this time.

I calmly opened the store.

[<Take back spilled milk> : Makes it that one mistake made by you or others never happened! -50 Points]

Hmm, this doesn’t seem like something I could use in this situation.

[<You, not any other photographer!> : Can accurately locate a camera aimed at you. Boosts your senses as a bonus!]

[<Lend me your shoulder> : Can steal 20 points of another person’s stamina.]

There were quite a few items that seemed unscrupulous.

There were also some that were able to increase my stamina and vocal skills.

[<Table debates sometimes have their use> : Can obtain one piece of information you want from a person of your choosing!

However, if the person doesn’t have the information the player wants, the item won’t be refunded.

* Usable in a radius of 10m –50 Points]

……This one.

I glared at the item that  was practically screaming “Use me, use me”!

I could confirm one thing with that.

……The system window gave me that opportunity quite openly.

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