Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 12

12. I Shall Sing It Divinely

“Me doing a good job? What are you talking about?”

Jongwoo, who hadn’t told him about the evil editing, was flustered and made up an excuse.

“Just your appearance when filming, your filming appearance.”

Rembrary thought, ‘That sounds like a lie?’ but didn’t press further.

PD [Production Director] Kim Murok looked at Jongwoo with a meaningful gaze but wisely kept his mouth shut.

Instead, he teased Rembrary about his way of speaking.

“But Wooyeonwoo-ssi [term of polite address], you speak so beautifully? My niece is eight years old, and she speaks exactly like that.”

“Is there something strange about my way of speaking?”

Jongwoo bit his lip tightly at Rembrary’s way of speaking, which seemed straight out of an elementary school ethics textbook, and Keshi openly burst out laughing.

Even Seonusil, who had been fighting with Rembrary until just now, burst into laughter.

Thanks to PD Kim Murok’s appearance, everyone became docile, and the atmosphere improved significantly, but PD Kim Murok was a busy man.

The number of participants who wanted to talk to him even for a little while was twenty, so he couldn’t stay here forever.

“I’ll look forward to it, Wooyeonwoo-ssi.”

PD Kim Murok patted Rembrary on the back and said to Seonusil,

“Seonusil-ssi, well, you’ll sweep it all, obviously.”

Then he left for another place.

Keshi’s expression darkened as she was the only one who didn’t receive any greetings, but Jongwoo was too busy worrying about Seonusil to notice Keshi.

Fortunately, Seonusil didn’t cause any more trouble and instead muttered,

“Strange guy.”

Then she left for another place.

Rembrary compared Seonusil’s back view and the pictorial in his phone one last time before belatedly asking Jongwoo again.

“Is that really the same person?”

“It’s the same person. It’s just heavily photoshopped.”

“What is photoshopping?”

“Making the photo look better than the real thing. Adjusting the balance, making the eyes bigger or smaller…”

“Ah.”

Rembrary understood immediately.

In his time, there were many cases where portraits were painted completely differently from the real person.

Usually, it was just for self-satisfaction, so it wasn’t a big problem.

However, in international marriages, portraits that differed from the real person sometimes became a problem.

Royal arranged marriages often proceeded with envoys discussing only the portraits and conditions, which caused the issue.

As a high priest, Rembrary officiated royal weddings, so he had been troubled by this matter as well.

“Why are you laughing?”

“It reminded me of the old days.”

“Is your memory coming back a bit?”

Just in time, a new participant entered, so Rembrary was able to avoid the question.

After that, participants arrived one by one until two o’clock, and later, everyone was too busy greeting each other to be sane.

Managers exchanged business cards with each other, and participants also greeted each other randomly, whether they knew each other or not.

Jongwoo exchanged business cards while constantly looking at Rembrary with a worried expression.

He thought Keshi would do well on her own, but he was very anxious about Rembrary.

However, unlike Jongwoo’s worries, Rembrary got along surprisingly well with the other participants.

In fact, he just seemed eccentric due to his king-like 말투 [manner of speaking] and lack of common sense, but in terms of personality alone, Rembrary was not particularly difficult.

Jongwoo was relieved and focused on his work, and Rembrary wore a benevolent smile and gradually built friendships with the participants.

But it was in the middle of a conversation.

Suddenly, there was a series of popping sounds, and all the lights around them disappeared.

There was a small scream.

Rembrary also looked around, wondering what was going on, and then the lights came back on in only one place.

It was where PD Kim Murok was, and a person holding a camera was standing next to PD Kim Murok.

“Welcome to Real 100% Real Survival, Sing Survival.”

PD Kim Murok smiled and spoke, and only then did the lights come back on.

The participants buzzed.

Rembrary noticed that the person holding the camera was right next to him and flinched.

The person was only filming Rembrary’s face, as if he didn’t care about anything else.

He even filmed Rembrary tilting his head.

Glancing at Keshi, there was also a camera attached to her.

As he was doing that, he heard PD Kim Murok’s voice again.

“You probably came thinking it was a preliminary meeting, but I’m sorry. We’re starting right now.”

The buzzing sound spread everywhere.

Someone shouted,

“Oh no, I have no makeup on!”

As laughter erupted, the atmosphere became much more relaxed.

PD Kim Murok continued his explanation.

“As you heard in advance, the competition will be held every two weeks. We’ll meet on Mondays like today to receive the task, prepare for the competition for a week, and then compete on the following Monday.”

“…”

“Regarding the competition results, I’ve thought a lot about how to make it as fair as possible. Should we have free internet voting, SNS [Social Networking Service] voting, paid text message voting, expert judging, audience judging…”

PD Kim Murok smiled mischievously.

“But when I thought about it, I realized that voting would favor popular people, and judging would favor people with long careers. So, we decided to compare the sound source revenue and YouTube view revenue of the competition songs and determine the winner based solely on the results!”

Rembrary didn’t understand half of what he said and just stared blankly, but the surrounding participants burst into sighs.

The person holding the camera filmed Rembrary’s calm appearance even more intently.

“The revenue will be tallied for a week, and the winner and loser will be announced on the following Monday. And the loser will take on the role of a slave, as I mentioned in advance-”

Another sigh was heard, but Rembrary, who had lived in a world of social classes, was calm again this time.

“The top seven people will be able to use the loser as a slave for a day in turn! But the time spent as a slave should not exceed three hours per person. The loser also needs to prepare for the next competition.”

Someone muttered softly,

“It might be better to just come in last and secure a week’s worth of content if you’re not confident.”

As if hearing that, PD Kim Murok pointed his finger in that direction and warned.

“If you become the loser three times, you will be automatically eliminated from the survival show.”

He then shared a few more jokes before shouting.

“The first competition task is, let’s start with the basics! ‘Sing the same song in your own style’!”

As he was staring blankly, the person who had been filming PD Kim Murok turned the camera back down.

PD Kim Murok stopped talking like a host and laughed heartily, saying,

“Were you surprised?”

He asked the participants.

While the participants jokingly protested, Rembrary was grabbed by Jongwoo and stood with Keshi again.

* * *

“The camera was rolling from the moment we started greeting each other?”

Two unfamiliar people holding small cameras were with the group returning in the car.

One was the woman who had been holding the camera to Rembrary the whole time PD Kim Murok was speaking, and the other was the man who had been holding the camera to Keshi.

Jongwoo made a desperate “Ughhh” sound at the story one of them told.

“I’m sorry. The PD said it would be more natural that way.”

Jongwoo groaned.

No wonder. He was laughing so heartily even though he was arguing with his senior, Seonusil. He must have been feeling good thinking that a great scene would be captured.

Rembrary, regardless, calmly entered the car.

The woman who followed Rembrary into the car smiled and quickly greeted him as she sat facing Rembrary in the narrow car.

“Hello, I’m Park Eunseon.”

“Hello, I’m Wooyeonwoo.”

Jongwoo, who was nervously looking at Rembrary, was relieved when he greeted her very normally.

As the car started, Jongwoo asked the person holding the camera in more detail than before.

“When will you be filming the camera?”

“We’ll be filming you preparing for the competition for a week. And the competition scenes and… the waiting room reactions during the competition, and then we won’t film while waiting for the results to come out.”

“So you film for a week and then don’t film for a week?”

“Yes. And then we go back to the beginning and film you preparing for the task when the task comes out… like that.”

“Not 24 hours, right?”

Jongwoo asked, watching Rembrary’s expression.

“Of course. If you contact us in advance when you’re going to prepare, we’ll be waiting with the camera.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Eunseon quickly typed her number into her phone and held it out.

“This is my number.”

As Jongwoo saved Eunseon’s number, Eunseon held out her number to Rembrary as well.

Fortunately, since there was a precedent of saving the members’ phone numbers, Rembrary was able to save the number naturally.

Eunseon muttered, ‘What else is there…’ and then continued her explanation.

“Ah, right. Even if it’s not competition preparation, if there’s anything like your daily life that you want to show, please tell us. We’ll film it first, and if it’s good, it might be able to air.”

“Then, can we call you when we’re with other members besides our Wooyeonwoo and Keshi? To appear together…”

“Of course!”

Jongwoo smiled with satisfaction at Eunseon’s cheerful answer.

Eunseon watched Jongwoo, Keshi, and Rembrary’s expressions and then carefully raised the camera and asked.

“I’ll start filming again now.”

As the camera started rolling again, Jongwoo awkwardly lowered his gaze to the floor.

Keshi also seemed burdened by the camera that was right next to her.

The only one who was calm in all of this was Rembrary again.

As a high priest, he had taken dozens of attendants with him at times.

He had lived with all of their attention on him, so this was nothing to him.

Eunseon admired that this troublemaker, who had recently dominated real-time search rankings, seemed to have a natural talent for boldness.

Meanwhile, Jongwoo awkwardly fidgeted with his hands and opened his mouth as if reading a book.

“So, Wooyeonwoo and Keshi, how are you going to sing the competition song?”

Keshi, who was more familiar with the camera than Jongwoo, quickly answered naturally.

“Since we have to sing it in our own style, does that mean we have to rearrange the original song?”

“It could be either way, right?”

“I’ll play the song first.”

Rembrary watched silently as Keshi fiddled with her phone.

After a while, a song in a foreign language started playing from the phone.

Rembrary frowned because he couldn’t understand a word.

On the other hand, Keshi, knowing the song, nodded her head and hummed along.

When the song ended, Keshi quickly said to Jongwoo.

“I’m going to do it in a musical style.”

Then she asked Rembrary.

“What about you?”

Jongwoo was about to tell Rembrary to sing as close to the original song as possible.

He thought Rembrary’s clear and clean tone would be advantageous when facing it head-on.

Besides, Rembrary would have a hard time memorizing the lyrics in a week.

Realistically, it seemed like there wouldn’t be enough time for arrangement or anything.

“Wooyeonwoo, why don’t you go with the original song? It might be the safest option since no one else is doing it.”

However, Rembrary had already thought about it from the moment he heard the words ‘sing the song in your own style’.

Rembrary shook his head and said.

“I’ll sing it in a choir style…”

“Like *Sister Act* [popular movie featuring a choir]?”

Eunseon said in surprise from the side, wondering if she could speak.

“That’s a good idea, isn’t it?”

However, Rembrary shook his head.

“I’m going to sing it in a sacred, formal choir style.”

Eunseon was

“Pardon?”

And asked back in embarrassment.

Then she hesitated and asked.

“Perhaps… do you not know the lyrics?”

“I don’t know.”

As Rembrary answered calmly, Keshi told him from the side.

“It’s a song about how I have a lot of money, a lot of things, I’m so handsome, everyone only loves me, and your lover is my future lover…”

“!”