Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 157

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After about 20 minutes of sending texts and checking the reactions of the fans [believers] on social media,

I heard a honking sound right in front of me. I looked up and saw Shin Jo-woon’s car.

I quickly opened the door and got inside.

“I’m glad you’re here, Shin Jo-woon.”

“Where’s your manager? He’s not answering his phone.”

“I think he went to do his real job.”

“Real job? Is being a manager a side job? What’s his real job?”

A grim reaper.

It was a difficult question to answer. Even if my values were different, it was still a secret I couldn’t easily share.

I hesitated, shook my head, and quickly changed the subject.

“It’s not making any noise in the trunk anymore, is it?”

“You have good ears?”

“Did you fix it?”

“I threw it away. Whatever was inside.”

“Because it was rolling around?”

“Because it was broken.”

I nodded without much thought.

Shin Jo-woon turned the steering wheel and asked,

“Are you done with your business?”

I tapped the sketchbook on my lap.

“Here.”

“What is that?”

“An autograph.”

“An autograph? Whose autograph?”

“Song Seo-young’s autograph.”

Shin Jo-woon tapped the steering wheel a few times, pondered for a moment, and then nodded. “Ah.”

“The first Korean model to walk the Hallo, or fashion show?”

I might have thought she was just playing around, but as someone involved in the entertainment industry, Shin Jo-woon immediately remembered Song Seo-young’s recent success and asked.

“What is that [Hallo]?”

However, I knew even less about celebrities than non-celebrities.

“You don’t even know that, and you went all the way to her agency to get her autograph?”

Shin Jo-woon asked, dumbfounded. It’s one thing to run into her and get an autograph because she’s famous, even if you don’t know much about her career.

But if you take the time to visit her agency, you’re probably a fan and know something about her career, right? That’s common sense.

He was puzzled that I had gone to her agency with his help because I didn’t have a manager, and then asked what it was.

“A fashion brand, a Rococo-style brand.”

“I don’t know.”

Shin Jo-woon nodded.

“You may not know.”

“Of course.”

In the meantime, the car arrived in front of Wild Animal’s newly moved accommodation.

“Thank you.”

As I greeted him and got out, Shin Jo-woon took out the picture I had drawn for him from the glove box, waved it around once, put it back, and waved his hand.

***

September 28th.

Weather: The heat has subsided a bit.

10 a.m.

In the past, CEO Lim said he would invite a teacher to teach us common sense and culture.

After that, there was no word, so I thought it was just a passing remark.

It wasn’t. So, the order is…

When I first arrived at the office, Team Leader Mo came and said that the staff had narrowed down the five songs to be included in this album through a blind test, and that he would send the sound sources by email. He wanted everyone to listen carefully and give their opinions on the concept or lyrics.

This time, two of the five songs already had lyrics, but he said that we could make some changes.

I didn’t know what email was, so I just stood there, but Jung Seo told me my email address.

Jung Seo also taught me how to find the password, so we gathered in the practice room and held our phones.

But before I could check my email, CEO Lim came and introduced me to a culture teacher.

Her last name was Gu, and her name was Seji. She said she would give us a common sense test, so she separated us into different rooms and gave us the test papers.

The moment I saw the test paper, I realized that I wouldn’t get along with this person.

2 p.m.

The teacher says my common sense is surprisingly empty.

“You can fill it up again. It’s easier to fill up something empty than something with strange things in it, right?”

The teacher said cheerfully, as if she didn’t even see the members laughing at me.

I don’t think I’ll get along with this person after all.

5 p.m.

The teacher asks me if I lived in ancient times.

I said no, and she laughed and laughed, and then my brother… uh? Can I say that? Wait.

***

I, who had been chattering while the self-cam was on, paused the recording for a moment and thought about whether I should reveal on the show that the newly arrived culture teacher was an acquaintance of Woo Yeon-woo’s brother, Woo Seong-woo.

It was something I didn’t know until I heard it from the culture teacher.

If others heard it, they might think that the culture teacher came here through connections.

People like it when they benefit from connections, but they hate it when others benefit from connections, so I had to be careful.

After thinking carefully with my arms crossed, I decided not to record this in my video diary after all. It’s not something I have to record.

I completely stopped the self-cam, put it in a black bag, pulled my legs together, sat cross-legged, and took out my phone.

It was to check the email that the team leader had mentioned earlier.

I haven’t memorized my email address and password yet, but Jung Seo set up an automatic login function, so when I accessed my email, I could immediately check the contents.

‘Oops.’

I clicked my tongue.

Perhaps because I hadn’t checked it for several months, the number of unread emails was high.

Fortunately, the sound source email that the team leader sent was at the very top, so it wasn’t difficult to find.

However, I thought it would be good to learn more about ‘Woo Yeon-woo’, so instead of checking the sound source right away, I checked the unread emails one by one from the top.

‘Did he like gambling?’

There were a lot of gambling invitation emails.

Not knowing that it was spam mail, I thought, ‘Woo Yeon-woo must have liked gambling so much that he received gambling invitations from all over the place,’ and read the emails one by one.

There were also many emails with (advertisement) attached…

In the end, after reading 60 emails one by one, I roughly checked only the titles and went down, down.

It seemed like it would take too long to check those meaningless (advertisement) emails and gambling invitation emails.

How many pages did I skip like that? Finally, the date before I entered Woo Yeon-woo’s body appeared.

From this point on, it was marked as ‘read email’, but strangely, there were no advertising emails or gambling-related emails.

However, most of them were receipts, so it didn’t seem like there was much to judge about Woo Yeon-woo even in the ‘read emails’.

I checked only the titles again and skipped back and forth.

Then, I paused after checking the email title three months before Woo Yeon-woo went missing.

The recipient was Woo Yeon-woo. The sender was Woo Yeon-woo. It was an email that he sent directly to himself, and the title was ‘Devil. Confirmation. Scrap’.

When I opened the email, there were nearly twenty lines of unknown character combinations with blue lines drawn on them, and above each line were black letters such as possession, demon summoning, escape from pseudo religion, real demon, and case studies.

When I clicked on the blue letters under the word ‘possession’, the email app went back and the internet screen came forward.

It was a screen with something scribbled in red letters on a black background.

I brought my phone closer to read the contents.

At that moment.

-Tang tang

There was a knock on the break room door. I quickly turned the screen black and asked, “Who is it?”

The person who came in was Jung Seo.

“Jong-woo hyung [older brother/friend] said he’ll take you to the dorm.”

“Oh, okay. I understand.”

I put my phone in my pocket and got up. I can check it when I get back to the dorm.

***

However, the plan to check the email when I returned to the dorm could not be put into practice.

It was because the members gathered together to listen to music and have a discussion.

I expressed my opposition, but in the end, I was caught by the members and had to listen to the five songs in a row for hours in the living room.

When the discussion was over, it was dawn, and I was so exhausted that I went into my room and fell asleep right away.

The next day, Jung Seo’s movie filming started, so I forgot to check my email because I had to follow her there.

Even though it was a cameo appearance, I didn’t have to go to the set every day, but I offered to go and support her in case Lee Il-baek bothered Jung Seo.

Jong-woo was worried about taking me, but since I was going to make a cameo appearance anyway, he reluctantly took me, thinking that it would be better to understand the atmosphere of the set and the characters interpreted by the actors in advance.

After arriving at the set, he scolded Sa Gam-jae, whom he had met in days, for ‘where have you been’, so checking my email was postponed again.

“I went to the underworld.”

When I showed him his missed call history and scolded him, Sa Gam-jae took me to a deserted place and confessed honestly.

“You used to come back right away even if you went to the underworld.”

“There were a lot of talks.”

“Talks?”

“About that side [the underworld].”

“No, why me?”

Sa Gam-jae pointed to the shadow with his eyes.

I frowned as I looked at the shadow.

“You’ve come out a few times, but you haven’t caused any accidents.”

“Prevention is originally done before an accident happens.”

“I’m a little uneasy about him too. All he’s done is act? He fought with Nakru, but that’s because he was attacked first… I’m not defending this demon or whatever he is. I’m asking because I heard that grim reapers gathered for days to discuss a demon who hasn’t caused any problems yet.”

I was dumbfounded and protested.

I didn’t like that I felt like I was defending a demon, but the problem was that I was the one who was awake most of the time when I was caught in the underworld because of this demon.

I really didn’t like the interior of the underworld in this world.

Besides, if I preached the Redrin God in such a place, there would definitely be trouble,

“That’s right.”

Sa Gam-jae readily agreed.

“But why?”

“The demons’ reactions are unusual.”

“Demons?”

Why are demons coming out here?

“When that side’s shadow took over that side’s body, there was a small commotion among the demons. They seem to be interested in that side, and the demons who were scattered are showing signs of gathering here these days.”

Recalling what the cow head had said to me, that we should join forces, I suddenly had a bad feeling.

I hope I don’t end up driving demons or beasts that follow me around like sheepdogs later?

But that’s when Sa Gam-jae was about to say more.

“What are you whispering about?”

Lee Il-baek, who had been firmly marked by me, appeared, chewing on a waffle with his mouth full.

When Sa Gam-jae and I stopped talking and turned around, Lee Il-baek looked at me with dissatisfied eyes and grumbled, “I don’t know why you came along when you’re only going to film for a short time at the end.”

Then he pointed his finger at Sa Gam-jae and chuckled, “Swimsuit.”

Sa Gam-jae, who was not ashamed of his taste, did not respond with a blank expression.

I also thought about what I would do to trick Lee Il-baek in the future, so I gently foretold without showing any displeasure.

“I hope my senior [term of respect for someone older/more experienced] has a big heart.”

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