"....Are you serious?"
The bewildered voice of a middle-aged man rang out.
On the desk where the man sat was a nameplate, engraved with the name that identified him.
President of UFO Entertainment, Kobayashi Hiro.
"Yes, sir."
Steeling my trembling heart, I opened my mouth.
I had already prepared myself for this. Right—how much longer was I planning to roll around in this filthy place?
Having made up my mind, I said to him,
"I’m leaving the group."
Sakamiya Ren, leader of the idol group "Cornelia."
Today, in front of the president of her agency, she declared that she was leaving the group.
*
The beginning had been ordinary, as such things always were. I hadn’t taken part in some strange survey, nor had light suddenly burst out of a game screen, nor had I sent a five-thousand-character complaint email to the story writer.
One day, as I was simply living an ordinary life, I opened my eyes to find that I, who had been a man, had become a little girl.
And while I was panicking over that sudden turn of events, something strange appeared before my eyes.
[Quest: Gain Fame!]
[Become a famous celebrity and gain fame among others!]
[Success Reward: Survival]
[Failure: Misfortune]
Of course, the actual status window had far more detail written in it than that, but this was all I could roughly remember.
In any case, for that reason, my dream of living quietly was shattered to pieces.
Become famous—it was something perfectly possible. Objectively speaking, this newly born body was extremely beautiful.
The only problem was the person. I was none other than Sakamiya Ren.
'Are you kidding me right now?'
Sakamiya Ren.
The final boss who obstructed the protagonists in every route of the game, and the leader of the idol group "Cornelia."
Her in-game nickname was the "Ice Princess," a moniker given to her because of her exceedingly cold personality.
Since it was a dating sim, the male protagonist, the producer, became entangled with various celebrities.
All except one.
Ren, that is.
Despite her popularity, the cold-natured Ren had no personal route, and in every route she played the role of the final boss who tormented the heroines.
In the end, being imprisoned or socially buried was her fate as an idol.
At first, I had no particular feelings about her.
But once I was born as Ren myself, I understood.
In her childhood, Ren had not only been severely abused by her parents.
In the end, she had been abandoned alone in an empty house.
'Are you all right?'
And the one who raised me was my grandmother, whom the police managed to contact.
In those warm hands.
For a short while, I was able to feel the happiness of an ordinary everyday life.
[The quest objective has not progressed.]
[A penalty will be imposed.]
Of course, that everyday life did not last long.
"Grandma...?"
The next day, my grandmother, who had gone to the market to buy groceries, returned cold and lifeless.
Of all days, it had to be that day.
They said a robber who had broken into a bank suddenly opened fire indiscriminately.
And so, I lost my last refuge and was thrown alone into this damned world.
*
In the end, at the age of fourteen, I had no choice but to try becoming an idol, whether I liked it or not.
After all, the only high-profile profession that would accept someone as young as me was effectively being an idol.
If I refused the quest again, that damned system window might kill me this time.
"This place is·····."
"Yeah, it’s still a little small, but this is UFO Entertainment."
My childhood friend, and the male protagonist of the game.
It was a place I had come to through Shion’s introduction.
By the point of the game’s story, it was one of the largest agencies in Japan, but back then it was a newly established company with no money and no connections. So when I said I wanted to join, the president welcomed me with open arms.
"Then practice here."
The president generously allowed me to use the practice room.
There, together with the few fellow trainees I had, I continued to practice desperately.
Once, one of the trainees who was practicing with me asked me,
How could you work so hard? Was someone holding a knife to your throat or something?
Honestly, that damned system window floating in the air was no different from someone holding a knife to my throat.
Perhaps that desperate effort to survive bore fruit, because out of the five trainees, I was the only one who was able to officially join UFO Entertainment.
And so, at the age of eighteen, I made my official debut as an entertainer.
Shion also formally joined the company and became the dedicated producer of the group I would go on to create.
"Should we just make it a co-ed group?"
"·····Do you think that would work?"
It was just something I threw out there.
Honestly, he was handsome.
As befitting the protagonist of a dating sim, Shion had exceptional looks.
To the point that I wondered why no boy idol group had taken someone like him.
"Then how about this for the team name?"
"Hmm. Rather than that, I think this looks better."
The two of us were close enough to practically be best friends.
For one thing, now that my debut had been confirmed and I no longer had to worry about dying, my heart had settled down. On top of that, it was probably because he was around the same age as I had been in my previous life.
And so Cornelia, which had begun with me alone, gradually started to fill out with members.
Idol life was far more difficult than I had expected.
After a long period as underground idols, several members left for personal reasons.
That was why I threw myself even more desperately into our activities.
I appeared on countless variety shows to promote Cornelia, and I even uploaded covers of famous domestic and foreign idols’ songs to my personal channel.
Then, three years later, Cornelia succeeded in rising to become a rookie group whose name people overseas might have heard at least once.
And after some time had passed since we had grown into one of the idol groups representing Japan,
The incident arrived without warning.