"Is she a real devil?"

"Huh?"

"I didn’t think you’d prepare a guerrilla concert like this."

At Raon’s words, Sanghyeok, standing beside her, stared blankly at Seoul Forest Park, where Iam’s guerrilla concert was scheduled to be held.

And then he saw the people who’d been busy for a while installing the stage.

'It really is insane.'

Ahead of Three Kingdoms’ final third round—the guerrilla concert—Sanghyeok had been extremely curious where on earth they were going to hold it.

And for good reason: they’d only told them “Seoul,” and hadn’t given the specific location, so the curiosity had only grown.

And then, only this morning—the day the third round started—the guerrilla concert locations that came in via text early in the morning.

-Yeouido Hangang Park, Seoul Forest Park, and Ttukseom Hangang Park. These three places are where the guerrilla concerts will be held today.

Hearing the locations brought back the memory of Raon and the company staff letting out a mix of awe and despair.

-This is basically telling them to kill each other.

-At this distance, you can walk between Seoul Forest and ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ Ttukseom.

-If we lose here, it’s going to be such a blow to our pride.

If the venues were far apart, you could brush it off with “the location sucked” or “we got unlucky,” but all three places where today’s performances would be held were top-tier in Korea when it came to foot traffic.

And the distances weren’t even far, so there was a high chance that if things went wrong, people coming to watch guerrilla concerts would end up swarming to a single place.

"Seems like they took inspiration from a rock festival."

"A rock festival?"

Sanghyeok had experienced a system like this once before.

Glastonbury Festival, which he’d happened to attend by chance when he’d studied abroad in the UK.

Glastonbury—rated the best even among the world’s top three rock festivals—ran multiple live performances at different stages at the same time.

So the audience coming into the festival couldn’t possibly watch every stage, and the standard move was to look at each stage’s lineup and then stampede in packs to follow the artists they wanted to see.

And in that process, Sanghyeok learned just how miserable an unpopular band’s stage could be.

Even though the distance between stages was never close, people would still deliberately leave—walking thirty minutes—to go to another stage.

Three Kingdoms’ guerrilla concert venues right now were exactly like Glastonbury back then.

And considering the distance between venues had shrunk even more, it might end up with the audience concentrating into one place even worse than before.

'“Ratings demon” wasn’t some nickname they got for nothing.'

Sanghyeok could be cold for the sake of the company’s and Iam’s interests too, but he’d never imagined they’d blatantly stick the venues this close together so nobody could even make excuses.

[I made some templates in advance just in case we lose]

「1. Why did they put our girls in the only place with no people?

SY and TSP are promoting with what kind of money? This is just pushing with money power

The venue gap is honestly huge, right? The sound is so bad

This feels rigged, if you look at the crowd it’s 100% because info got leaked in advance...」

⤷OK, I copied it right away

⤷What if our girls win, then what?

⤷Then you show the original template and blame other groups’ fans

⤷Are you a genius?

⤷LYNX : saving this~♡

⤷VYNNIA : saving this~♡

Even though they hadn’t announced the location and time through SNS yet, MPlay had already revealed that Three Kingdoms’ third round was a guerrilla concert.

Fans who saw that were making a fuss, saying the network had actually used its head.

And it made sense—because with the nature of a guerrilla concert stage, all kinds of variables tended to pop up, so even if you lost, you could treat it as having “an excuse” and say you didn’t lose on skill.

But looking at the locations and rules they’d just delivered, it was like the production team had expected that reaction and cut off any “unfairness” controversy at the source.

"SY and TSP must be losing their minds too."

"Yeah. At this point, it’s really a pride fight."

What these rules meant—extremely narrowing the distance between the three venues and only allowing promotion by the members—was: drop your rooks and your knights and come at each other head-on.

A production team trying a method so nakedly decisive that even most competition programs wouldn’t attempt it—on an idol competition show.

Even Raon and Sanghyeok, who didn’t get surprised by most things after being hardened by Lee Sion’s antics, were shocked by the production team’s cruelty, so it was impossible not to think other agencies would be even worse.

The truth was, Three Kingdoms had been a nonsensical program from the start.

A crazy program that gathered the girl groups currently at the top of popularity and ranked them.

It was a miracle that big agencies like SY and TSP had joined a program like this.

If their group lost, there was no reason big agencies would want to bear the “second place” and “third place” tags that would follow them.

Still, no matter how Three Kingdoms’ PD, Kim Miyoung, had sweet-talked those agencies into joining, now that they were in, it was obvious that not just KJ Entertainment but the other big agencies weren’t thinking about anything except first place.

"Still, for our KJ Entertainment, this isn’t bad—no, it’s actually a good situation."

"Right. If it wasn’t a guerrilla concert set up like this, honestly, no matter what we did, it would’ve been hard to beat VYNNIA or LYNX."

This harsh, entertainment-first competition format from the production team could be called an opportunity for KJ Entertainment.

No matter how good their momentum was lately, and no matter how solid their parent company was, the depth of experience those agencies had built in the idol industry was on a completely different level.

If they’d been able to prepare the promotion method and the guerrilla concert stage in a “proper” way in advance, an uncontrollable gap would’ve opened.

"If it’s the Seoul Forest outdoor venue, the location isn’t bad."

"The best would’ve been Yeouido Hangang Park, but honestly, I don’t think it’s a huge difference even like this."

Of the three guerrilla concert locations revealed this morning, the place Raon—KJ Entertainment’s representative—picked through the drawing for where Iam would perform was Seoul Forest.

Since the production team had done thorough research in advance, the foot traffic at the three places was definitely similar.

Even if there were inevitably minor differences, all three were among Korea’s top outdoor venues, so it wasn’t a bad guerrilla concert stage—and there was no room for excuses either.

'This must’ve been a pretty big investment, even for MPlay.'

For a place like that, the booking costs and the stage installation costs wouldn’t have been small.

And as if to prove MPlay hadn’t spent its own cash, the installed stage set had logos from various partner brands exposed all over.

Even so, simultaneously installing and preparing three venues like this clearly required a massive investment.

"Do you think our members can do well?"

"Who knows. Honestly, I can’t promise it—but we did all the preparation we could."

MPlay had prepared hard too, and as long as the rules and conditions were identical, there was only one key point now.

Like racing—if every driver’s car is the same, what decides the match is the driver—what mattered now was how good a stage each team had prepared.

Since there was nothing he could do to help when it came to the stage itself, Sanghyeok had entrusted everything entirely to Raon and the members.

"You’re not going to tell me what you prepared?"

"Compared to the CEO who secretly sent a subordinate employee off to the military, isn’t this mild?"

"...Even that body blow you landed last time didn’t cool you off, I see." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"You’re the CEO, so I went easy on you."

Sanghyeok knew that Raon had prepared something for the guerrilla concert with one of the members, Im Yunkyung, but since she wouldn’t tell him the details, it was a little frustrating.

But since he had sins on his record, he couldn’t exactly press her.

'Her hands were vicious.'

He’d managed to dodge Raon’s pursuit up until now, but just yesterday, the moment he let his guard down, he ended up alone with her—and took a fist of fury.

And maybe she still wasn’t satisfied, because she wouldn’t even tell him what she’d prepared with Yunkyung.

"Isn’t it more fun if you don’t know?"

"That’s true."

He was only trusting her because she looked confident.

Slide.

While Sanghyeok talked with Raon as they watched the stage where the members would perform, he checked the time on the watch around his wrist.

Current time: 10:30.

"So there’s about an hour and a half left."

"It’s already that time?"

"Yeah. If we hadn’t skipped things like makeup at dawn, it would’ve been tight."

The official promotion time the production team had given them was only thirty minutes, from 12:00 to 12:30.

During that time, the members had to freely roam around the venue area and promote, drawing as many people as possible to the guerrilla concert that would start at 1:00.

"But is that really okay?"

"If you mean that... it’ll be fine. I asked when we went over the rules today, just in case, and they said it wasn’t against the rules."

"You really are crazy, CEO. To think you’d allow that."

Raon shook her head and sighed at Sanghyeok’s words.

'It really does sound insane.'

And seeing Raon’s reaction, Sanghyeok could fully understand how she felt.

-CEO, please make a decision to save the nation! I’ll handle the execution!

Lee Sion suddenly came to mind—showing up at the CEO’s office four days before the guerrilla concert and bringing up a ridiculous proposal.

-For a mid-sized agency like ours to leap over the giants, we need total war... no, an all-out war!

How she even knew the term “total war” was a mystery, but the content was even more enough to make him wonder what on earth her brain was made of.

-Me and the members are going to parade Yunkyung around on a palanquin while we promote!

Lee Sion had said they’d carry a palanquin around and promote.

And Sanghyeok—

'It sounded fun, okay.'

Accepted the proposal on the spot.

***

"See? When you learn something, you use it somewhere."

"Is that really what you have to say right now?!"

I lightly ignored Seo Ryujin’s low, rage-filled voice.

"Iam is holding a guerrilla concert at one o’clock at the Seoul Forest plaza! Please come watch!"

Right now, the heavy palanquin decorated with thick flowers was on the shoulders of me, Seo Ryujin, Lee Gahyeon, and Ryu Ayeon.

And Yunkyung was sitting on top of it too, so the weight was on a level that wasn’t easy to handle.

'Still lighter than that rubber boat we carried at Marine Corps camp.'

Of course, the company hadn’t lost its mind and actually gone out and found a real palanquin.

They’d found a prop that had been used in filming, considering we’d be carrying it like a stretcher—and surprisingly, it didn’t even weigh ten kilograms, so it was easier to lift than I expected.

And besides, we members had already gotten IBS training at Marine Corps camp, so we could handle this kind of weight.

"Why do I have to be the carrier?!"

"It can’t be helped. This is hard to carry if the heights don’t match, so we need people who are as similar as possible carrying it."

Even so, hard was hard, so Lee Gahyeon—stuck with the carrier role—was protesting in an aggrieved voice.

But like I said, when you do something like this, if the heights differ too much, it’s hard, so it was right that the four tallest members were doing it.

"Thank you so much if you come watch our show!"

"I’ll definitely go!"

"A chance to hear Yuri’s voice in person! If you miss it now, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!"

"Where is it again?"

The other members weren’t just slacking off, either.

Shinyu and Yuri—excluded from being carriers because they were shorter, and with Yunkyung riding on the palanquin—were handing out flyers the production team gave us, promoting among the citizens who’d gathered around the palanquin.

And Yunkyung—the core of our palanquin parade—

Bwoooo!

Sitting on the palanquin, blowing the horn I’d gotten, was pulling people’s attention in.

"Isn’t that Iam?"

"Why are they riding on a palanquin?"

"She’s getting that kind of tone out of a horn?!"

The palanquin alone was enough to catch people’s eyes.

And with Shinyu and Yuri making a huge fuss around it, advertising, and Yunkyung on top blasting the horn, there was no way anyone passing by could miss us.

'Are you watching, Zhuge Liang?'

Had this been how Zhuge Liang felt, sitting atop the wall and playing a zither while facing Sima Yi’s massive army?

"Everyone, we’re sorry! Please make a little room so we can pass!"

Thanks to the crowd that had gathered, even the cameraman and writer the production team had assigned to us had a hard time keeping up with us.

"My shoulders hurt..."

"Smile, Gahyeon. This is all being filmed right now—what if it airs later and you’re frowning on camera?"

"Lee Sion, don’t your shoulders hurt?"

"This is bearable."

I was the one who used to stand through an entire march without setting down my full gear even during breaks, just to keep my pride in front of my squad.

Compared to that, this weight was feather-level.

"Alright, if you promote for just ten more minutes, I’ll let you rest for one minute!"

"Aaaagh!"

Since Lee Gahyeon looked like she was really struggling, I dangled a one-minute break to boost motivation.

"Ten minutes sounds like something we can somehow manage."

"Lee Sion, why would you even think of something like this?"

Ryu Ayeon and Seo Ryujin didn’t show it, but they had to be tired too—because at the sound of the one-minute rest I offered, they found energy again and started walking with the palanquin on their shoulders.

'Good thing they can’t check their phones.'

Unfortunately for them, there wasn’t going to be any break time waiting.

We only had thirty minutes for promotion—there was no world where we could waste that on resting.

-Company commander, when do we rotate?

-Yeah, I sent people, so just wait a little longer.

A memory suddenly surfaced—back when I was a company commander, answering a radio call from people who’d gone out for guard duty during training.

They wouldn’t have known.

That the company had already been drained of trainees to additional assignments at HQ, so there were no rotation personnel.

But even in that situation, if you gave them a single strand of hope that they could rotate, humans could endure anything.

Me mentioning a rest time that didn’t exist to our members wasn’t to mess with them—it was for them.

'If I take a few hits afterward, it’ll be fine.'

Right now, promotion was what mattered.