WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
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◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈
Chapter 103: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (103)
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#103.
After enjoying Christmas and welcoming the new year, Onik spent some rather busy days.
First, there were his broadcast appearances.
After nearly half a year of discussions, the schedules that had gradually been finalized began reaching their filming dates one by one with the new year.
Major programs on large broadcasters and variety channels normally planned several months, or even half a year, ahead.
The earliest and most important of them was Baekdu Travels, Hallasan Journal.
It was a network road-variety show brought in with funding from the county council.
The honorable county council members had tearfully sacrificed their luxurious national-budget-funded overseas trips, then added a temporary allocation to the leftover regional balanced-development funds to barely secure this costly location shoot.
The filming for this precious program could not be allowed to fail.
They had to make it a success if they wanted to keep running their business with support from local government offices and important people in the future.
As its name suggested, Baekdu Travels, Hallasan Journal was basically about traveling across the country, enjoying each region's scenery and atmosphere while eating and sleeping there.
The members' banter and eating segments alone could make the show a little dull, so they were not simply given food and places to sleep.
Whether through contests or games of chance, some members always had to suffer.
Sometimes every cast member received a punishment.
As a result, the competition viewers actually saw often became less a contest among the cast than a contest between the cast and the production crew.
Onik gave the main producer more than two hundred percent of what they wanted.
The main producer's greatest hope for Onik was that he would become an unexpected Wall of Wailing.
While conducting an advance survey before filming, the production crew was startled to find three large stones in front of an old pavilion in the aging village.
The assistant producer in charge of the survey asked the country boy, who wore his grandfather's Saemaeul Movement cap.
“So these are those... Ttungdol things, right?”
“Yes! From smallest to largest, they're the small stone, the middle stone, and the strongman stone!”
“They look heavier than they did in the photos... How many kilograms did you say the heaviest one weighs?”
“I don't know exactly! But Grandpa said it weighs more than a sack of rice, so it must be at least eighty kilograms!
“It might even weigh more than a hundred kilograms! It's connected to the village's pride!”
“Tsk...”
The assistant producer tilted their head, then tried to lift the strongman stone, the largest and heaviest one.
After making a strange sound and straining until their face turned red, they succeeded in lifting the stone off the ground.
But they could not raise it higher than their knees.
The weight was a problem, but its large, rounded shape was worse.
There were no edges to grip firmly and put strength into.
“Oof!”
The assistant producer dropped the stone with a thud, put a hand to their lower back, and straightened up.
Then, looking exhausted, they asked the country boy again.
“Student Onik. Can you really do this stone lifting with those stones?”
“Of course! It's easy! Want me to show you?”
“Oh, yes. That would be nice.”
Smiling brightly, Onik gripped the strongman stone with both hands and lifted it in one motion with a shout of, “Yap!”
The heavy stone would have been better described as a small boulder.
While the assistant producer and the other staff members stood there in shock, the extraordinary boy lightly swung the strongman stone over his shoulder with impossible strength and carried it on his back.
Then, without looking tired at all, he told the producer, “This is doldeuri! They say that long ago, if you could swing it over your back like this, people treated you as an adult even if you were young!
“Sometimes they carried it around the village after swinging it over their backs. Sometimes they lifted it above their heads instead! It was to see who was stronger!”
The crew let out cries of amazement.
It was an impressive display of strength for a second-year middle school student, though the school term had not begun yet.
The assistant producer nodded in admiration as well.
‘This will be more than enough to tease the cast with. We'll absolutely need safety measures, though.’
Baekdu Travels, Hallasan Journal was a road-variety show that simply traveled around the country to play, eat, and sleep.
The games and contests along the way did not need to be grand.
No, they should not be grand.
Because the places they visited and the journeys themselves were familiar, the games had to feel familiar too.
Everything in the program had to feel warm and approachable to viewers.
It would be even better if the games that decided victory and defeat warmly reflected the country's traditions and local customs.
That was why the program had earned a reputation as both the most Korean variety show and the most exemplary, public-minded one.
The assistant producer made one more request of Onik, who was still standing there blankly with the stone on his back.
“Student. Could you do squats in that position too?
“The main producer told me to have you try it if it seemed possible. They said they had a scenario in mind.”
“Squats? Of course I can!”
Onik answered as if it were nothing, then satisfied the assistant producer with perfect full squats.
He thought doing too many might make people suspicious, so he stopped at exactly ten, put on a slightly strained expression, and set down the stone.
All the while, he thought to himself.
‘The stone doesn't have an exact weight written on it, so it should be okay even if it goes on television, right?
‘Even if it might weigh over a hundred kilograms, lots of people will think it's an exaggeration.’
Pretending to be ordinary was important even at times like this.
It was fine to use his extraordinary abilities as variety-show material, but if he did not keep within limits, it could become troublesome later.
The production crew handling the advance survey was pleased with the country boy's ability. After looking around the Guest Lodging Pavilion and the old home of the Songryeong Jo clan's head family, which would serve as the main filming locations, they were even more pleased.
“Wow. It was worth coming all the way out here. It's been a while since I've seen a location that looks this good. It's even better than the footage.”
There was the remodeled Japanese colonial-era house, heavy with a late nineteenth-century atmosphere, as if it were a drama set.
And there was the head family's old home, steeped in the weighty atmosphere of Joseon before the modern era.
The two buildings were perfect filming locations.
The filming crew quietly told the assistant producer that they were confident they could produce shots better than those a mere internet broadcaster had managed so far.
Their whispers were pointless, because the sharp-eared boy overheard every word.
Of course, Onik did not feel especially bad about it.
The actual filming took place one week after the advance survey.
“The three stones in front of you are stones people in the Joseon era used every year during the First Full Moon Festival or Chuseok for a coming-of-age ritual called Stone Lifting.
“The names differed by region, but it seems they call them Ttungdol in this village.”
At the words of the main producer, Kwak Yeong-seop, some cast members already began to look uneasy.
“The largest stone is called the strongman stone. I heard that it weighs as much as a sack of rice.
“To be recognized as a full-grown man, you had to lift it and swing it over your back.”
After hearing this much, one cast member raised a hand and asked, “Come on... Surely not, right? You're not saying we have to lift that stone to get food, are you?”
Producer Kwak smiled innocently.
“First, it's true that everyone must lift that stone before the first meal.
“You'll need to carry it on your back and do as many squats as you can.”
The cast's reactions split sharply.
Those confident in their fitness brightened, while those who were not immediately began protesting at nearly full volume.
“Wait! This isn't right! This game is one-sidedly favorable to people who are good at exercise!
“What's the point of playing a game like this? We don't even need to see the results!”
“Boo! No fun! No fun! Is this even a game? We condemn the evil producer Kwak Yeong-seop! Stop this biased hosting and guarantee equal meals!”
“Incompetence! Complete and overwhelming incompetence! Viewers don't want to see a simple contest of physical strength!
“We won't become victims of this unequal, horribly boring production!”
The members confident in their fitness teased those crying that it was unfair.
Like broadcasters, they instinctively created entertaining footage.
“What have you been doing instead of exercising? You call yourselves men, but all you've got are big bellies.”
“This is excellent! Let's keep it exactly like this! What could possibly be fairer than meritocracy?”
“They said it's tradition, tradition! Are you saying you hate our country's traditions? Wow, you really are terrible people, aren't you?
“Do you have no love for our country's culture? This is why families collapse these days, and society collapses...”
After the noisy split between the two sides passed, Producer Kwak chuckled.
“I said you'd need to squat before your meal, but victory and defeat won't be decided by the number of squats alone.
“This student here will help make the game fair. Student Onik, please introduce yourself.”
Onik stepped forward and introduced himself.
“Hello, everyone! I'm Jo Onik, the heir of the Songryeong Jo clan's head family! At school and in our village, I'm in charge of being the Strongest in Town! I even have this nameplate!
“I'm also the chef responsible for your meals today and tomorrow! Please take good care of me for the next two days!”
The mother-of-pearl nameplate Onik showed while introducing himself had been a Christmas gift from Sorin, along with truffle chocolate.
The members of Truffle Candy had filmed content for their side channel at various traditional-culture workshops around the province, making gifts of their own.
They had received support and advertising requests from the provincial government's tourism policy division and cultural heritage division, so their personal spending had been close to zero.
Instead of a corporate chairman's title, as one would normally expect on an expensive mother-of-pearl nameplate, it bore seven Korean characters ridiculous enough to make anyone laugh.
“Strongest in Town Jo Onik”
The cast could not stop laughing at the unnecessarily high-quality gleaming nameplate.
The main producer continued.
“For now, how Student Onik will help is a secret.
“But as I've already said, victory and defeat won't be decided simply by the number of squats. And the losing side will still receive a special meal that is nutritionally sound. I promise you those two things.”
The cast members exchanged uneasy whispers.
The phrase “a special meal that is nutritionally sound” was far too obviously suggestive.
One member timidly protested.
“At least let us use the smallest stone! I think some people can't lift the biggest one at all...”
It was not the producer who put down this complaint, but Onik.
“If you only lift the smallest stone, you're not a grown man. You're a baby farmhand! In modern terms, you're a beta male!
“I'll set a beta-male table for beta males! You'll be very disappointed!”
“W-What...”
“You came all this way, so you should eat something delicious before you go! You don't have to do squats, but lift the strongman stone and become an alpha male!”
After the country boy said that much, no adult could bring themselves to shout, “I'll be a beta male anyway!”
Satisfied with the country boy's instinct for variety shows, the producer announced the beginning of the game.
“All right! We'll now begin Stone Lifting, which is called doldeuri here! The order doesn't matter, so each of you, lift the stone, carry it, and do squats!”
For the cast's safety, the strongman stone had been wrapped with rope to serve as handles.
Ropes were then tied to both sides so support staff could hold them.
They would hold them loosely, ready to pull hard and take the weight if an accident seemed likely.
In addition, the cast wore thick safety gloves, sturdy metal-reinforced safety boots, and back braces.
“Hnnngh!”
The shouts of young men rang through the aging village for the first time in a long while.
By the standards of this village and the town, anyone under sixty was a young man.
Everyone managed to lift the stone with help from the support staff, but the squats were another matter.
The lowest score was zero.
The highest score was ten.
That record belonged to a cast member who had once been an athlete.
While the records were measured, people with poor stamina provided a stream of unintentional physical comedy.
After the cast members exhausted themselves straining, Producer Kwak thanked them for their hard work and handed each of them a small whiteboard.
“...What is this?”
The main producer grinned.
“Student Onik will now do Stone Lifting squats. You'll predict how many he can do and write the number down.”
“What?! Him? With that?”
“Yes. The people who write numbers closest to the actual total will have an advantage in the remaining game, so keep that in mind.”
“Not win, but have an advantage?”
“Yes. It wouldn't be fun if it ended here, would it? Heh heh.”
The cast's eyes repeatedly moved between Onik and Producer Kwak.
Everyone but one person wore the same expression.
Did I hear that wrong?
The one exception seemed, to Onik, to be someone who knew him as an internet broadcaster.
They were only pretending not to know him for the sake of the show, and so they could gain an advantage over the other members.
The cast members who did not know Onik fell into thought.
They knew because they had tried it themselves.
They knew how difficult it was to squat with the strongman stone.
“Tsk. It feels like there must be some kind of trap... Onik can't really be about to do squats...”
“Don't fall for it. The trap is making us suspect there's a trap.”
“Right. He'll obviously do zero, and they're trying to make us doubt ourselves and write another number. We win this game if everyone writes zero.”
“No. There might be another twist...
“And that sneaky man said the game wouldn't end here. If they're going to do something else with the numbers, then we shouldn't write zero.”
After whispering among themselves, the cast members thought carefully and wrote down their numbers.
Some wrote zero, while others wrote eight.
They all shared the same suspicion toward the production crew. They had been tricked too often before.
After checking everyone's numbers, Producer Kwak handed the turn to the country boy.
“Then, Student Onik? Please begin.”
“Yes! Leave it to me!”
The smiling Onik walked forward with steady steps. The moment he lifted the strongman stone with a shout of, “Yap!” the cast cried out together.
“What is that?!”
Even the cast member who seemed to know Onik could not hide their surprise.
The extraordinary country boy had lifted the stone much more easily than expected.
The cast's shock only grew while the country boy continued squatting.
“No, what even is this? This has to make sense...”
After completing ten squats, Onik made a show of being exhausted and lowered the stone with a groan.
Then he breathed a little hard and casually brushed off his hands, making the cast even more stunned.
“Why are you all looking at me like that? Were you surprised?”
“How could we not be...?”
“Why are you so surprised by something like this? This is normal for a child growing up in our village.”
“Normal? In what way?”
“By our village's standards! I won't accept objections!”
Onik was not lying.
He was the only child growing up in this village, after all.
Since Onik himself was the standard and there was no one else to compare him to, it was normal if he insisted it was normal.
It was shamelessness for variety television, but also a small mental victory for the extraordinary boy who wanted to become an ordinary person someday.
...Anyway, it was not a lie.
Main producer Kwak Yeong-seop clapped sharply to gather the cast's attention.
“All right, then. From now on, I'll give you a total of three turns.”
“Turns? What do you mean, turns?”
“You each have the number of squats you performed earlier, right? With those numbers, during each turn, you'll add to or subtract from someone else's whiteboard once.
“We'll hand out ballots. Write down whose score you want to add to or subtract from, and by how much, then put it in the ballot box in the middle.”
“No, wait...”
“Of course, you may discuss it among yourselves before voting. You can deceive your opponents too. But this isn't a secret ballot.
“You must write your own name on the ballot. At the end of each turn, we'll reveal who voted what for whom.
“In other words, you can't hide betrayal.”
“Wow. How can this be so evil...”
“Evil? Thank you for the compliment. Anyway, after all three turns are over, we'll rank you according to who is closest to Student Onik's score.
“The top half will receive a very delicious meal. The bottom half will receive a special meal full of nutrients. You all understand, yes?”
“What if there's a tie?”
“A tie? Then we'll rank you based on the original number you wrote before the pluses and minuses from voting.
“If there's still a tie, the other members will vote to choose the winner. Only four people can have the ordinary delicious meal.”
“What kind of rule is that?”
“What do you mean, what kind? It's a rule. Not everyone can be happy, can they?”
“Why not?”
“Because it wouldn't be fun if everyone were happy. Half of you must be happy and half unhappy for there to be balance.”
“That’s too much! Are you a devil?”
“I'm not a devil. I'm a producer. The two aren't synonyms.”
Producer Kwak answered shamelessly, wearing an innocent smile.
“Then we'll begin the first turn right away. Kill each other from this moment onward.”
The stage the main producer created was a variety-show arena perfectly suited to plots, schemes, and betrayal.
Country boy Jo Onik watched with great interest as the adults from the city formed and broke alliances with excellent variety-show instincts.
The adults from the city displayed childish pettiness and adult cunning at the same time, creating plenty of footage.
The resentment and laughter that burst out whenever betrayal struck, as well as the meaningless chases and escapes, were especially entertaining to watch in person.
The cast member with zero squats had become the wildcard player, preserving their presence through pitiful sniffling.
Onik squatted beside them and offered a few conventional words of comfort. He told them they should train their stamina a little more from now on.
The cast member who received comfort from the country boy felt even sadder.
It was the estrogen-filled sorrow of a middle-aged man who had lost to a second-year middle school boy in physical strength...
When the third turn ended, the cast member who had originally been in first place had been pushed down to last.
“I trusted you! Su-hwan, I trusted youuu!”
After that, Onik showed his presence once more while preparing the meal.
“Yesul noona! Get the basket ready!”
“Yes, Chef!”
“Diagonal slices of zucchini! Here we go!”
In B-grade cooking comics, there were often scenes where ingredients were chopped at high speed, sent flying into pots, or arranged beautifully on plates.
Onik displayed that sort of unrealistic scene from the very beginning.
The cast watched the country boy's feats with expressions of wonder, disbelief, and utter absurdity.
The cast and crew could also see that the chopped ingredients were mechanically precise.
Yesul carried the basket around the area like a ring girl at a combat-sports match, showing everyone what was inside.
“What is he, exactly...? Did he come from some martial-arts novel world?”
“Huh. That must be the thing about hands being faster than eyes.”
“This feels like being scammed with my eyes open...”
Onik also performed the potato-peeling magic he had once shown at Eun-jeong's house.
The potato trembled and rolled atop the knife, shedding its skin in time with his cries of, “Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap!”
It left the main cast even more dazed.
It was the sort of scene that would receive a shower of question marks and exclamation marks in broadcast captions.
Among the Truffle Candy members, Sorin and Mina appeared as Onik's assistants.
They brought him the ingredients and tools he asked for, and helped him cook as they had practiced beforehand.
The other two, Sera and Yesul, wore shirts printed with the four Korean characters for “Buff Duty” across their chests. They played guitar and sang.
They had rewritten their own songs into ridiculous versions and sang them with shameless seriousness.
After the cooking was finished, the Truffle Candy members served the food as well.
“Please enjoy your meal, everyone♪”
The ordinary meal could reasonably be called a grand gathering of the province's agricultural and livestock specialties.
Thanks to Onik's terrifyingly quick ingredient preparation and the skilled assistance of the two Truffle Candy members, they completed a feast grand enough to bend the table legs.
There was enough food for not only the cast, but even the entire production crew to eat until they burst.
The main dishes were two kinds of specialty pork that Legal Hunter had claimed in advance.
Stone pig, raised on ground geogeongseok.
And genuine native black pork.
An extremely long-term contract for exclusive sales rights had already been signed in exchange for continued advertising and promotion.
The online store was scheduled to open around the time the episode aired.
“Pigs raised on stone? We have something like that in this country?”
“This is black pork? Is it different from Jeju black pork? Oh, it is? The breed is completely different?”
“Oh... Wow... This chewiness... This flavor... Wow...”
“Wow. The texture of this meat is incredible. There isn't even a hint of gaminess.”
The winners who received the proper feast were delighted like this, but the losers who received the nutrient-filled special meal suffered a tremendous shock.
“You're telling us to enjoy this? This? How?”
That was because the special meal for the losers was far too revolting from the ingredients alone.
“Oh dear... City people are weak.”
With both hands on his hips, the country boy briskly scolded the foolish adults from the city.
“How can a person live their whole life without eating larvae even once? This is such a nutty, nutritious food.
“It's not as if I gave you huge rhinoceros beetle larvae. I stir-fried small, cute flower grubs, yet you can't eat them. You should know how precious food is.”
“No, Onik. Of course we know food is precious. But this isn't ordinary food. How can people eat insects...?”
“Why can't people eat insects? In our village, every summer, we take hornet nests. We make liquor from the nests, then stir-fry or deep-fry the larvae and eat them right away.”
“Huh? Uh? You eat the larvae...? Something is strange...”
“There's nothing strange about it! The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety says flower grubs are good food! Future food for reducing carbon emissions!
“The government officially approves of them, so anyone who objects is a traitor! Apologize to President Jo Jae-hun of Cheongun Insect Farm, who worked hard to raise these flower grubs too!”
“Huh, hah. Hahaha...”
“Are you really not going to eat them? Shall I show you a demonstration by a trained assistant?”
“Hahaha... Fine. Show us. Let's see how they're eaten.”
“Good! Noonas! Come here!”
“...Huh?”
The cast members had been blankly assuming that the country boy would eat them himself. They were startled when the four little-known idols, whom they thought had already left, appeared again.
The Truffle Candy members had practiced a great deal for this day.
Desperate to show their faces on screen even a little longer, they had eaten the disgusting food that made them shudder just by looking at it over and over beforehand, practicing their facial expressions.
They had expected a situation like this would definitely come.
“Noonas, say ah!”
The four idols who had debuted late crouched together in front of Onik. Smiling sweetly, they opened their mouths like baby birds gathered before their mother.
“First, dip them just a little in salt, then yap!”
Onik used his chopsticks to place one larva into each noona's mouth.
It looked friendly and cheerful, but it was actually a desperate measure the four idols had come up with.
They did not have the courage to put the larvae in their own mouths, so they had asked the kind country boy to feed them.
They had deliberately unfocused their eyes for the same reason.
Sera desperately managed her expression.
‘It's hard enough just to keep smiling...’
Once the larva entered her mouth, she could close her eyes tightly and chew while pretending it was delicious.
She even let out a pleased humming sound.
The flower grubs, generously coated in oil and stir-fried until golden brown, were disgusting in appearance, but they were truly nutritious and tasty.
‘Why is this tasty at all...? It's somehow similar to shrimp, but nuttier and creamier... The outer part might be a little like silkworm pupae...’
The moment Sera thought of silkworm pupae, she forcibly cut off her train of thought.
She did not think she should keep thinking about it.
She could not normally eat silkworm pupae either.
Once, she had forced herself to eat a little and gagged. If she gagged here, it would be an enormous disaster...
After feeding bugs to all four in turn, Onik picked them up and ate them deliciously himself.
He ate one, then another, then another.
Anyone could see that he sincerely found them tasty.
Men and women alike among the cast and crew burst into cries and screams of horror, but Onik paid them no attention.
Instead, he asked in a tone that suggested he could not understand.
“Why are you all screaming?”
“...Aren't they scary?”
“Why would they be scary? Golden-brown stir-fried flower grubs can't kill Jo Onik, Strongest in Town. I don't fear things that can't kill me!”
“Haha...”
“Oh dear... You can't eat something this cute and tasty. You uncles are such beta males!
“How will you survive if a zombie apocalypse breaks out?”
“A zombie apocalypse? All of a sudden?”
“You never know what will happen in the world, right? Who knows? One day, a zombie virus might suddenly come out of the country next door.
“Then we'll have to flee to America and live gratefully eating even insects.”
“A zombie outbreak happens, and we flee to America? Would America be safe?”
“They have more guns than people, so wouldn't it be fine?
“If the people next door, behind us, and beside us each come out with a gun and go bang, bang, it seems like they could suppress it early.
“The land is very wide compared to the number of people too. They probably wouldn't accept refugees easily, though.”
“That’s true. America has been going wild trying to drive out all the refugees lately.”
“Yes. So, if we want to survive, refugees will need to make some kind of alliance among themselves.”
Onik liked the zombie-apocalypse genre.
He did not like it as much as pure romance stories, but he liked it enough to seek it out now and then when he was bored.
After all, zombies were something he could kill without feeling any guilt.
If hunting zombies gave the same spiritual fulfillment as murder, then a zombie-apocalypse world would be nearly heaven for the frightening boy.
The more he killed, the more praise he might receive from other people.
The desire to kill people, and the wish not to kill people.
His fondness for the zombie-apocalypse genre was the result of those two feelings colliding...
“Next, I'll put sweet-and-sour garlic-chive kimchi and flower grubs on lettuce, then make a wrap!”
Onik made a flower-grub wrap, then once again firmly pushed the wraps into the mouths of the idols pretending to be baby birds.
Then he beamed and made a delicious wrap for himself as well.
Main producer Kwak Yeong-seop watched the whole scene with a pleased expression.
‘He really eats with gusto. This will make excellent footage.’
Producer Kwak assessed the child named Jo Onik silently.
‘He has a clear personality. A clean face. Great instincts for variety shows. The fact that he keeps avoiding people's eyes is a major weakness, but...
‘If I gave him a score, I could give him about ninety out of a hundred, considering his potential for growth. He's a blue-chip talent I haven't seen in a long time.’
At this point, it would not have been an exaggeration to say that country boy Jo Onik's first network television appearance had already succeeded.
Footnotes:
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