Top Star By Luck [EN]: Chapter 1

First Episode

A courtroom.

Unlike typical courtrooms with wood interiors, this place was filled with mist on all sides.

A surreal space, as if stepping into the clouds.

There, ten jurors and a giant sat surrounding a man.

A juror with an unrealistically lush beard opened his mouth.

“Lee Min-gi, 32 years old, occupation: actor, died after falling backward down the stairs.”

He flipped through the documents in his hand, continuing.

“His head cracked in front of his apartment, causing a brain hemorrhage. He could have lived if he had been quickly rescued, but unfortunately, no one was around. He was left unattended for a full hour.”

“That’s bad luck.”

“Yes, you can only say it was bad luck. Even if he had received emergency treatment immediately after being transported to the hospital, there would have been a chance, but coincidentally, there were many emergency patients on the same day.”

“Were there no doctors available?”

“They were hospitalized due to overwork.”

The life of a man continued to be discussed by the jurors.

“At 11 years old, in the fourth grade of elementary school, he fell backward and broke his nose.”

“That’s bad luck.”

“At 12 years old, he almost died from choking on rice cake soup served as school lunch. Fortunately, his homeroom teacher knew the Heimlich maneuver [an emergency technique for dislodging objects from the airway] and saved him.”

“Should we say he was lucky?”

“In the process, his ribs were broken, and he ended up in the emergency room. Then, at 13, he sprained his ankle after falling backward the day before the school talent show.”

“When he ordered delivery food, the delivery person missed something about half the time.”

The process from the age of one to thirty-two, until his death, was continuously recounted.

And.

There was one common thread in all of this.

“That’s bad luck.”

Literally, it was bad luck.

The man’s life was terribly unlucky.

“At 22, he could have received a military exemption due to a heart condition, but he didn’t know and enlisted.”

“That’s bad luck.”

“At 24, he bought a used motorcycle as his first car, but it was stolen by students from a nearby middle school.”

Bad luck in every aspect.

That was the life of a man named Lee Min-gi.

From a young age, he had no luck in whatever he did.

They say life is 70% luck and 30% skill.

The man’s life seemed to have less than even 1% of luck.

“At the age of twenty-five, he decided to become an actor. But he failed every audition. He was pushed into minor roles, the studio went bankrupt, and he barely signed a contract with an agency… but even that turned out to be a scam.”

Luck.

There was terribly little to call luck.

With that kind of luck, he challenged acting, where luck is especially important, and suffered even more.

It was far beyond the level of breaking his nose when falling backward.

It even surpassed the level of drowning face-down in a bowl of water.

His misfortune was at a level where it wouldn’t be strange if he died from cerebrospinal meningitis [an infection of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord] due to a ruptured blood vessel while picking his nose.

An area where he could be called a human glass fish [extremely fragile and easily broken].

That was Lee Min-gi.

“This is really… hmm, a rare case. It’s amazing he survived past thirty.”

In the end, even the juror who had experienced all sorts of cases clicked his tongue.

“I have participated in the trial of the dead as a juror for six hundred and ninety-two years, but I don’t think I have ever seen such an unfortunate life.”

That’s right.

This trial was to retrace the life of the deceased.

A place to judge the life before death and decide what kind of life to give in the next life.

Here, the man, Lee Min-gi, lost his life at the young age of 32 and stood in this place.

“This is strange. It’s strange. I can only say it’s strange. How can one person’s luck be so bad? There must be an error somewhere.”

“I agree. I request a complete review of the defendant’s life.”

“I agree.”

“I agree.”

Starting with the mustached juror’s claim, the voices of the jurors followed like dominoes.

Eventually.

“Silence.”

The judge opened his mouth.

The judge, who seemed to be at least 3 meters tall, had a face as fierce as a devil and a body as red as ginseng.

His one word was as majestic as his size. At that one word, the jurors, who had been busy talking, all fell silent.

The judge then stroked his beard as if satisfied and said.

“Prior to the jury’s claims, I requested a review from the higher-ups a little while ago, and the results of the detailed examination have come down. The reason is this.”

He opened his mouth.

“He was not given luck.”

“…….”

A shocking result flowed from the judge’s mouth.

He had no luck.

Not anything else, he just lived that kind of life because he had no luck.

A word that felt even irresponsible.

But the expressions of the jurors looked very serious.

“That can’t be.”

“No wonder.”

“I never thought there would be such an error.”

The judge continued.

“Everyone is supposed to be born with their share of luck according to their actions in their previous life. But an error occurred in this process for the defendant. The defendant’s luck was transferred to someone else.”

The judge picked up a remote control and pressed it against the wall.

Soon, the life of a handsome man began to unfold like a panorama.

[All the questions I guessed were right]

[I won the lottery? Really?]

[The real estate has tripled in value!]

[The land my parents left me has been designated for redevelopment]

[You liked me too?]

Unlike Lee Min-gi’s life, this man’s life was lucky in whatever he did.

Beyond being blessed, it was as if he had become the embodiment of luck.

Even just breathing, money and connections rolled in.

It was such a lucky life that it seemed impossible to exist in reality.

“The defendant was a victim.”

“Hmm, I can’t believe such a thing happened.”

The jurors began to murmur.

There was a serious error in this solemn trial of the dead, and one person spent his entire life in pain.

It was something that should not have happened.

“As one person enjoyed the fortune of two, the other person had no luck at all.”

Meanwhile, Lee Min-gi, who was listening to those words in silence, was seething inside.

‘I’ve been unlucky until now?’

* * *

Lee Min-gi, 32 years old, died after slipping on the stairs.

He knew he had been unlucky all his life.

‘But this doesn’t make sense.’

To think he was destined to be unlucky from birth.

He had been trying to live positively all his life, putting in effort upon effort.

The job of an actor is something you can’t do if you’re unlucky.

To overcome this, he poured twice as much time into acting as others.

‘I didn’t want to be someone who made excuses about being unlucky when a work failed, so I practically lived in the practice room.’

How many times more effort did he put in than others?

How much more did he analyze, refer to, and study?

Yes, he certainly did.

To think that all those efforts were in vain simply because he lacked luck.

And to realize that fact only after death.

‘I can’t accept it.’

Rage boils over.

What makes him even angrier is that he can’t say a word in this place.

“……!! ……!!! …!!”

Because he doesn’t have a body right now.

He was only given the right to attend this trial as a third party as a soul.

“Hmm, what a pity.”

“So pitiful. So pitiful!”

“He dreamed of being an actor, didn’t he? It must have been hard. This soul’s life was always focused solely on acting.”

The jurors murmured as if his life was their own.

“His acting was excellent. He just didn’t have a place to stand.”

There was even a juror with teary eyes.

But they just murmured like that.

No solution came out.

“We must compensate this poor young soul.”

“That’s right. We must give him the right role.”

“We must help the defendant spread his wings as an actor.”

“That won’t do. This is shaking the very foundation of the trial of the dead.”

“That’s right. We can’t make exceptions.”

“Then are you saying we should abandon an innocent victim? I ask for reconsideration.”

“We must uphold the strict rules.”

“You old fart.”

“What did you say now?”

“Did you hear that? It’s good that you heard it because I said it for you to hear.”

“…Hmph, that’s why you can’t have lowly origins. There’s no respect for superiors or inferiors.”

“Is that all you have to show off, that petty talk about superiors and inferiors? That’s why you’re called an old fart.”

“What was that?”

Soon, a dirty quarrel broke out in the solemn courtroom.

After buzzing like that for a while.

Bang! Bang!

The sound of a hammer exploded as if a missile had exploded.

“Silence!”

The judge’s voice echoed loudly.

A huge voice as if speaking into a megaphone. The jurors all covered their ears at the sound volume reminiscent of a sonic attack.

By the time the courtroom became quiet again.

“I will pronounce the defendant’s disposition.”

The red judge opened his mouth again.

“How could a person born with such misfortune have lived a proper life? All defendants must be able to receive a fair evaluation.”

The final judgment.

Everyone in the courtroom held their breath for a moment.

The judge’s heavy voice echoed in the court.

“Therefore, I grant the defendant a second life as compensation. I will send him back seven years.”

He was saying he would give him a regression.

Lee Min-gi flinched at those words.

A wave of surprise spread to the jurors as well, but this was not the end.

“We must give compensation. Yes. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

The judge looked at Lee Min-gi’s soul, tapped the chair with his finger, and finally opened his mouth.

“In this life, he will have twice the luck of others.”

“……!”

He was saying that he would add more luck to the existing luck and send him back.

“Try to fulfill your dream as an actor. After washing away the wounds cleanly and facing your second death, I will judge again in the trial of the dead at that time.”

An unprecedented reward.

He was going to send him back to the past. Lee Min-gi’s thoughts were temporarily paralyzed as he became the protagonist who had seized good fortune in an instant.

‘Wait, then should I buy stocks, stocks first? No, wait, isn’t this the timing when I should be angry anyway?’

He said he would send him to the past.

Isn’t this enough compensation?

Is there any better compensation than this as an actor?

Even if luck doesn’t come back, it’s okay.

From now on, all I have to do is choose successful works and successful companies.

‘Okay, let’s accept it for now.’

It was the moment when a flower garden bloomed in his mind.

“I can’t accept it!”

A juror dressed as a stubborn scholar shouted.

It was that juror who had been arguing with the juror from a slave background earlier.

He opened his mouth, wrinkling his face.

“What the judge just said is a violation of the solemn court’s…”

It was the moment when he was about to add a protest.

“Shut up!”

The judge cut him off.

“How dare a young person refute what an adult is saying? Did that juror learn family education remotely [implying a lack of proper upbringing or manners]?”

“……!”

“Back in my day, when a superior spoke, even if it seemed wrong, we bowed our heads and answered ‘Yes~’ and pondered it dozens of times, but these days…”

The judge clicked his tongue for a long time.

By the time the jurors, who had been pouring out objections for a long time, all fell silent.

The judge slammed the gavel—no, the judge’s hammer—again and said.

“This concludes the trial of the dead, No. 9159124541.”

It was that moment.

Lee Min-gi.

His soul crumbled and turned into white ashes.

Soon, swept away by the wind, it flew somewhere far away in the sky.

* * *

Early dawn.

A cramped studio apartment.

Beep beep!

Beep beep beep beep!

After the alarm rang for a while.

“Huh!”

A man got up from his seat, breathing roughly.

He hurriedly got up as if he was so surprised, and groped his whole body with his hands.

‘I, I’m alive.’

It was certain.

He is alive now.

No, to be exact, it was right to say he had been resurrected.

He had faced death and gone through trial, but he had received a second life as compensation for the error.

All those memories were vivid.

‘Wait, that red giant said he would send me back seven years. Then what is it now?’

Lee Min-gi hurriedly took out his cell phone and checked today’s date.

After a while.

His eyes widened like a full moon.

‘Crazy.’

Twenty-five.

That was also the age when he first challenged acting.

But this situation was difficult for Lee Min-gi to understand.

[You have passed the first document screening for the audition]