Becoming An Idol Wasn’T On My Plan [EN]: Chapter 249

“You didn’t look okay?”

To those words, kindly offered by the criminal, I raised my hand.

A gesture of obedience, a posture of submission.

“Who are you guys?”

The voice from behind the mouse mask was a bit eerie.

Even knowing the knife in his hand was a prop, it looked sharp.

“We came to find a cat. Sebastian, a cat with charming white fur.”

“A cat? There’s no such thing… Anyway, turn around.”

Yes, entrusting my life to someone else is making me nervous.

I turned around immediately.

“Forward.”

“Yes.”

Step by step, except for the first room, the remaining rooms all had number keypads.

Oh dear, what to do. I hope my brothers can handle this.

I continued walking and stood in front of the innermost room. The door also had a quiz written on it.

After seeing the sign that read, ‘1320+250=1610, 2310+500=410, 1955+2335=?’ I was convinced.

This person definitely has a mental problem.

“Solve it.”

“Do I solve it and enter it?”

“Yes.”

After receiving permission, I pressed the numbers.

1930.

Looking closely at the sticky fingertips pressing the numbers, oh my gosh, there’s blood here too.

If it’s a mousetrap, it should catch mice as cleanly as possible, but splattering blood like this disqualifies it as a mousetrap.

“You already solved it……?”

The grandson with the mouse mask, showing signs of mental instability, mumbled blankly as he watched the door open.

One hint for the sexagesimal system [base-60 numeral system], one hint for the vigesimal system [base-20 numeral system].

I’m disappointed that you’re blaming me for solving it too quickly when you kindly gave me hints one by one.

Looking back, his flustered appearance was obvious even behind the mouse mask.

Seeing that I even feel a sense of duty to stall for time here, there must be a scenario.

“Go in.”

“Yes.”

The grandson, having finally made a decision, muttered ominously again.

He was feigning ignorance as if he hadn’t been flustered at all, which almost made me feel a sense of kinship for a moment.

I carefully opened the room.

The revealed interior, at first glance, I couldn’t tell what it was for.

A huge glass panel divided the room into two parts, and only one chair was placed in the section closer to the door.

Conversely, beyond the glass, a huge monitor was installed on an entire wall.

The grandson pushed my back as I looked around the room.

Feeling someone else’s hand through clothing usually causes discomfort unless you’re close.

I was pushed as I stepped over the threshold of the glass partition.

Finally, when I stepped in completely, I heard the sound of the glass door closing and locking.

* * *

#Interview Cut

‘The youngest, Dong-hwa, disappeared.’

Jun-sung mumbled with a desperate look.

‘When I think about it, it’s like the person who goes out first gets caught. Why didn’t I go out first? I’m sorry, and I’m worried about how he’s doing…….’

Then Jun-sung hung his head.

‘Even though Dong-hwa seems strong, you never know. It’s an extreme situation.’

And suddenly, he asked.

‘How was our youngest?’

* * *

Ah, this is a bit fun. It’s my first time doing something like this.

“Everything’s messed up because of you guys.”

I guess the grandma wanted it to be messed up. Is that why she strongly recommended this place?

“I, I, finished everything, why are you stirring up trouble?”

Not being able to see his face creates a strange sense of unease.

Especially the eyes.

If you can’t see the eyes properly, it’s difficult to know what they’re thinking.

So I tapped the wall. I need to get out somehow to finish filming, what are the conditions?

“What is this place for?”

“A mousetrap.”

The grandson has a talent for stating the obvious as if he’s being profound.

If an elementary school student shouts, ‘Water is cold! An amazing discovery!’ I’d just accept it, but when a thirty-five-year-old adult does that, it’s just annoying.

“After stabbing them with a knife, I treat them and put them in here.”

Wow, it’s my first time seeing someone who’s really lost it.

I’m just amazed that the sound of stabbing with a knife in the recording wasn’t a signal, but a means of suppression.

He stabs them with such resentment, and after they lose consciousness, he treats them…….

I was thinking that it would be more rational to give them sleeping pills, but then I realized that I don’t have enough knowledge to understand a pervert’s mind.

“And I watch them die. Like a mouse caught in a sticky trap.”

The grandson was about to sit in the chair, but he tapped his head as if to say, ‘Look at my brilliant mind.’

The inorganic striking sound of the mask filled the space.

“You’re going to die.”

“…I guess my resignation will be accepted.”

The grandson didn’t even pay attention to my words and pressed a switch on the wall.

Then the screen lit up, and something like a game screen with a bizarre design aesthetic unfolded.

“Mice are stupid, they can’t survive here.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than the red letters ‘1:00:00’ appeared on the screen.

Then a keyboard-like thing rose from the floor, and the screen switched to a question.

“If you solve one, you get 3 minutes added, but if you’re late in solving it and the time runs out…”

I’ll die, I guess. He’s stating the obvious with dignity again.

“Poisonous gas comes out of there. Pest control is the best for mice. The only way to survive here is to make the remaining time two hours.”

How terrible.

It’s a system that injects hope that you might survive if you do well.

Perhaps the difficulty of the questions will gradually increase, so from the moment it takes more than 3 minutes per question, hope turns into despair, and the structure collapses mentally.

If this were a broadcast, it would be fortunate, but how terrible it would be if it were real.

“I don’t think this is the time to ask this.”

“Then don’t ask.”

I cleanly ignored him and continued typing the answer on the keyboard.

I saw 3 minutes being added to the top of the screen.

“What happens to my brothers?”

“After you die, I’ll put them in here one by one.”

I nodded and entered the answer to the question again. Similarly, 3 minutes were added.

“That’s the question I was going to ask earlier.”

The grandson, or rather, the actor playing the role, seemed to be flustered behind the mask, thinking, ‘What kind of question is he asking in this situation?’

“What’s your plan if I keep holding out or survive?”

It’s simple. Just solve one question within 3 minutes.

Fortunately, the questions have been easy so far, so I need to save as much time as possible in preparation for when difficult questions come out.

Anyway, as long as there’s at least 1 minute left on the timer, the ‘me’ in this setting doesn’t die.

And one more thing, who gets trapped here is determined by who comes out of the room first.

That means the level of the questions is designed so that the other members can endure it.

No offense, but I don’t think I can’t solve a problem that Senior Kang-hee can solve.

I enter the answer to the question again.

Again, 3 minutes were added. Seeing the number ‘1:07:32’ made me feel lonely.

It’s not fun at all since there’s no one next to me to react when I solve the problems.

“Try to hold out.”

With those words, the grandson opened the door and left.

* * *

Jun-sung, who was blankly staring at the door after Ji Dong-hwa was captured, took a breath.

“Dong-hwa, was he caught?”

“…I think so.”

He put his hand on the left side of his chest.

He already knew that he was a cowardly person who couldn’t even watch thriller movies properly.

Psychologically, he was closer to Ji Dong-hwa than the other three, so he kept hiding behind him and holding on to him, and the result was the kidnapping of his junior.

“I should have gone out first…….”

“That’s right, I could have had an early 퇴근 [toe-geun, leaving work] once.”

Ryoo Han-ho looks at Jun-sung and jokes.

‘He didn’t die, he just left work early.’ It’s a realistic observation.

It’s a comment that considers the broadcast while ringing the alarm in Jun-sung’s head, who’s trying to over-immerse himself.

“Then, what do we do? I heard a sound earlier, and it sounded like a man who looks like a mouse was locking the door.”

At Kang-hee’s words, everyone started searching around with one mind.

They must have locked us up because we can get out; they wouldn’t have locked us up to die like this.

Jun-sung thought of Ji Dong-hwa alone.

Even if he’s a calm and composed person, it’s natural for his psychology to change depending on the situation.

Maybe he’s trembling in the unique atmosphere, even though he knows it’s a broadcast.

“No, so what happened to him? What kind of grudge does he have? Why is he making a fuss with our youngest?”

Kang-hee mumbled while reading the paper Ji Dong-hwa left behind.

“He said Dong-hwa was framed.”

“Second, look at this. There’s a promissory note here.”

Lee Kyung-woo and Ryoo Han-ho also sat next to him and pondered together. They seem to be wondering what the exact story is.

However, that wasn’t an important consideration for Jun-sung. His head was already full of Ji Dong-hwa, fearing for him in the hands of a murderer.

Senior is me! Direct junior is you! I’ll save you, Ji Dong-hwa!

Jun-sung raised his head and looked around. There were a total of four rooms in the hallway.

Given the structure and the nature of the broadcast, he had a feeling that Ji Dong-hwa was trapped in the fourth room.

If the door was closed from the outside, he guessed that moving from the inside to the inside would be reasonable.

He’s been hiding behind Ji Dong-hwa, but he’s not originally a stupid person.

What caught his eye was the ventilation shaft.

Jun-sung immediately removed the ventilation shaft. The brothers, who were busy guessing the story, didn’t even pay attention to what Jun-sung was doing.

“Brothers! There’s a passage here!”

A senior saving a junior caught in the clutches of evil.

It’s one of the thirty dreams he told Ji Dong-hwa.

It’s a dream he set when he was late with 중2병 [Jung-ee-byung, middle schooler disease, a Korean slang term referring to the cringey phase some middle schoolers go through], but he never thought he’d have the chance to indirectly realize it when he was over twenty-five.

* * *

Something’s wrong. I looked at the timer.

‘1:57:24’, one question left to escape from this cold and gloomy room.

“It should be right.”

But something’s strange. There’s no way this is wrong.

I wondered if there was a problem with the method, so I tried solving it differently, but it’s irrational.

No matter how many times I entered the same answer, there was no change on the screen, which made me a little annoyed.

After that, I just habitually entered the same answer over and over again.

Then, as time passed and it became ‘1:56:59’, when my finger pressed enter, the time increased to ‘1:59:58’.

Wow, what a scammer. He blocked it systemically from reaching two hours in the first place.

I remembered it was a broadcast and mumbled to myself again.

If I just solve the problems without saying anything, the amount of footage will definitely converge to 0.

“He blocked it, shamelessly.”

Of course, I found out later, but the production team only thought about holding out, and they never assumed that I would fill two hours, so they hurriedly changed the settings.

But not knowing that now, I’m just annoyed at the murderer who sold his conscience.

Only then did I feel my stiff shoulders and sore legs. I kept solving problems while looking at the screen in the same position, so I felt like I had become some kind of problem-solving machine.

I turned my eyes, which had been focused only on the screen, and looked around.

“Really, there’s nothing…….”

In one corner of the glass wall, there were letters written in blood.

The sentence ‘I’m sorry, Jin-soo.’

Perhaps it’s one of the attempts to persuade the murderer watching him from beyond the glass.

I don’t think that would work. It’s difficult to turn back at the point where he created such a structure.

“Is anyone there?”

Silence.

“Brothers.”

I habitually entered the answer and called out to someone.

And when I pressed enter, the screen switched.

‘A gift for you, a smart mouse.’