I Debut with 100 Billion Won

Chapter 1

“Thank you, everyone. I had a great time at today’s performance!”

[Congratulations].

[Han Jin-sung has completed a successful solo performance in Times Square, New York].

[Stage rank: SSS Perfect performance.]

[The reputation of Jin-sung’s group ‘Ollios’ is rising.]

Notifications popped up one after another with the on-screen character and Jin-sung’s stage greeting.

The game ‘My Idol’ is consistently rising in the top 10 revenue rankings in recent mobile gaming.

True to its name, it was a game where you train trainees to become idols.

The appeal lay in being able to nurture various trainees from F grade to SS grade into idols.

Not only were there cards featuring handsome male idols, but it was also famous for having 99.9% of the voices dubbed by professional voice actors.

Moreover, all the albums appearing in the game had every song and music fully recorded, and there were even songs that actually topped the charts.

It also made it into the national news.

Anyway, the idea of being able to raise one’s own handsome idols was enough to spark the fandom of countless idol fans.

So much so that there was even a fan club for it.

What about him?

He too, joined a fan club and actively participated in activities in his own way.

This is the fan club for Han Jin-sung that he is currently raising.

“Stage Rank SSS, perfect.”

Yoon Gun-ha, who turned a cosmetics company with a capital of 50 million won into a giant with his instinctive sense of consumer needs and natural sales skills.

Yoon Gun-ha, that’s who he is.

After realizing the full potential of the men’s cosmetics business, he invested in several businesses using the money he saved.

Investing in real estate, stocks, bitcoin, and businesses that seemed promising.

Looking at other companies with the keen eye that thoroughly understood consumer needs, he could discern quite a lot.

He could tell if the startup he was investing in was going to make money or not.

Whenever he saw a promising company, he invested in it.

Despite shareholders calling him crazy, he believed in the vision of the company he invested in and trusted his own judgment.

The first success brought prosperity to him and fostered the company’s growth.

Through repeated successes, he became a billionaire in his thirties, accumulating immense wealth.

The money in my bank account was swelling frighteningly due to the real estate, stocks, and Bitcoin mentioned earlier.

He was overflowing with money, so he started spending it on games as a hobby.

The first in-game purchase was precisely for this game, ‘My Idol.’

He wonder how much he spent on raising all these characters.

It seems like he poured hundreds of millions into this game alone.

It wasn’t like he particularly enjoyed drinking, and he didn’t have any other extravagant hobbies. This was the only luxury he could indulge in.

He was earning money just to spend it anyway, so why not indulge a bit, right?

Thanks to that, he got closer to the final ending of ‘My Idol’ faster than anyone else.

“Now all that’s left is the announcement of the Grammy Awards.”

He tapped his phone’s screen.

Grammys!

The ultimate reward for unlocking all of the game’s many achievements, and the pinnacle of the international music industry.

It was the equivalent of the Oscars for movies and the Grammys for music industry.

And Han Jin-sung, whom he was raising, was nominated for the award.

[The winner of this year’s Grammy Award is….]

*Drum roll!*

[Congratulations! Han Jin-sung of Ollios!]

“Awesome!”

He cheered, fist pumping the moment he heard the name of his idol, Han Jin-sung.

That’s it.

He finally did it.

Yoon Gun-ha finally saw the final ending by raising the last remaining SS-level idol to become an ultimate top star.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

He saw Han Jin-sung stepping up to the podium to accept the award.

Han Jin-sung’s voice, dubbed to match his character, made it feel like there was a real person on the screen.

It was only a mere illustration, but why did the carefully animated hair and eyes seem so real?

Perhaps it’s because of all the love he has given over the years.

He expressed his gratitude with a voice that seemed like it could burst into tears at any moment.

“Thank you so much, I feel like I’ve only gotten this far with the help of so many people.”

Gun-ha wondered if this was how a mom or dad might feel.

It was like when a child who couldn’t even take a step grows up and expresses his gratitude to their parents.

No matter what anyone says, Han Jin-sung was the idol he nurtured from a trainee to a top star with his own hands.

“My Big Brother manager who has been with me since the beginning, the members of Ollios, my dance trainer bro who told me I had talent, and my vocal trainer older sister….”

One by one, Han Jin-sung listed the names of the people he was grateful to.

With each name, Jin-sung’s eyes grew redder and redder.

It was a scene unlike any other acceptance speech previously delivered.

It was a scene that added emotional depth, highlighting the significance of Han Jin-sung’s journey and the culmination of his efforts

As he continued his acceptance speech, Han Jin-sung paused for a moment.

“…And you.”

On the screen, Han Jin-sung made eye contact with Yoon Gun-ha.

“You’re the reason I’ve been able to get this far, so thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

He smiled and nodded as if to acknowledge Jin-sung’s thanks.

*Phew*

What is this?

What kind of game is this making him so emotional at the end?

He found himself getting choked up without even realizing it.

While running a business, he’d faced countless challenges far more difficult than this. Expressions of gratitude have been far more frequent than this.

‘Boss, thank you. You saved my life.’

‘Please help me just this once.’

‘Our sales have increased tremendously. Thank you.’

However, there was a resonance in Han Jin-sung’s words that couldn’t be found in the superficial gratitude often expressed in business relationships.

“Cough, you worked hard too. Be as happy as you can in the future.”

He spoke to Han Jin-sung on the screen without realizing it.

Saying a heartfelt word to a game character, he can’t believe he just did that.

“Yes, I hope you’ll be happy too.”

And Han Jin-sung responded as if answering him.

[Fin.]

As the screen gradually darkened and white text appeared on a black background, the game’s ending had come to a complete close.

The game returned to the initial screen.

[My Idol!]

There stood a building housing a massive entertainment company.

On the massive building, SD characters of the idols whose endings he had seen were moving around here and there.

Jin-sung’s SD character¹ was also walking inside the building.

He realized that his journey with Jin-sung had come to an end.

He looked at the record book.

Jinsung’s Grammy Awards cutscene had been added to the book, labeled “NEW”.

99.9% Complete.

An imperfection born from just one missing piece.

99.9%.

Except for one, he had made them all into top stars.

It’s all thanks to in-game purchases.

He managed to fill in all the entries in the record book, while others haven’t even reached 50% yet.

He was so crazy about the game that he unlocked all the side stories of idols who had already reached their ending.

‘I’m not interested in real idols..’

It was funny.

But the moment he first saw the advertisement for the game, he was inexplicably drawn in.

Even his decision to make in-game purchases was because of that advertisement.

When he saw the advertisement featuring a character named ‘Yoon Gun-ha,’ the same name as his, surrounded by countless idol trainees growing together.

He felt like it was fate for him to play the game.

‘In reality, it was terrible.’

He clicked on the room of the only remaining untapped trainee.

The only starting character among the trainees with no skins and no voiceover.

The only F-class trainee.

An abandoned outcast that no one wants to keep.

The trainee with the most nicknames, including “Trashcan,” “newbie amputee,” and “trash character”.

The only character he didn’t make it to the ending.

F-grade trainee Yoon Gun-ha.

The only F-grade idol in My Idol, a starting character who was simultaneously abandoned by everyone.

As befitting the F-grade label, their appearance was average in every way.

Perhaps that’s why their features were obscured by the shadows of their hair, making them barely visible.

It was probably done on purpose.

The indistinct features and the face not being clearly defined, unlike other idol characters, might have been intended to remind players that they themselves are playing the game.

‘It worked out for me.’

Before succeeding as an entrepreneur, he had nothing—not even parents or family.

He saw himself in the past, when he had nothing, reflected in Yoon Gun-ha, who was ultimately scorned and rejected by everyone in the game.

He worked his ass off since high school to raise enough money for capital.

He remembered when he used to starve while desperately saving money at every meal.

His eyes that grasped success or failure was telling.

Yoon Gun-ha, an F-class trainee, was a failure.

So he focused on raising other characters first.

After raising the characters with the most potential for success one by one, he became aware.

He realized that he had neglected Yoon Gun-ha, who was the reason he started playing the game in the first place.

So he made a room for him in one corner of the building.

The biggest and most impressive room.

That was the consideration he could offer to the neglected Yoon Gun-ha.

‘So what now?’

Even after collecting and seeing all the characters and their endings, with the exception of Yoon Gun-ha, he remains a trainee.

Just an unsuccessful trainee with a slightly larger room.

The 99.9% culprit.