I Suddenly Became a Monster Singer-Songwriter - Part 3
(Level Up)
The front door opened, and the sensor light flickered on.
Jeong Udam took off his shoes and crept toward his room without so much as saying he was home. His parents went to bed early; greeting them would only wake them.
Click.
He closed the door. Carefully, he set down the bag with the old wooden case he had picked up.
*What on earth was that?*
Out of nowhere, it had said his recommended job was Entertainer.
Two cute polar bears were walking around like game characters.
A game? Yes, a game!
Maybe it was a portable gaming device.
*No, does that even make sense?*
But Jeong Udam was no fool.
What game company could realize such realistic holograms? Was this even feasible with current technology?
*There’s no explanation unless I saw things.*
And yet, he hoped he hadn’t seen wrong because of the alcohol. His curiosity was burning.
His face was actually excited, like a child tearing the wrapping off a gift, mixed with a little fear and tension.
What if.
*What if this is something you'd see on the news?*
He belatedly worried that he had opened it too rashly earlier. He suddenly remembered news stories about lunatics smearing strange drugs to mess with strangers, or leaving bags on the street pretending to have lost them, then extorting money from anyone who picked them up by claiming the contents were missing.
But the worry subsided in an instant. His name had been entered automatically as a new player.
Putting on a deliberately serious expression, Jeong Udam wiped the moisture off the bag with his discarded T-shirt.
“Whew.”
Breathing out sharply, he opened the bag. In one of the two divided compartments, sure enough, two polar bears came out of a hut and were tending a garden.
Humming a tune.
-Hmm~ hmm~ hmm~
*I didn’t have time to worry about it at first, but.*
Polar bears meant Arctic bears, so wasn’t it a setting error for them to be on a grassland?
Well, setting aside the details.
With this, he knew he hadn’t seen wrong because of the alcohol.
“If this isn’t real, then there’s something wrong with my head.”
With an expression where wariness and curiosity coexisted, Jeong Udam decided to start with a conversation to learn what this was, since he didn’t know what it was.
“Uh, hello?”
-Baab!
But the bears acted as if they couldn’t see him or hear his voice. One quickly went into the hut and came out with a basket.
-Baaabap.
-Bap-bap.
The two spread a mat on the ground, sat down, and opened the basket. Inside were fruit, sandwiches, and milk.
It seemed to be mealtime. How much had they even worked?
“What are you guys?”
-Kuaaang!
The bears ate while roaring fiercely, as if it was delicious. Once again, they didn’t seem to hear Jeong Udam.
It felt like looking down at the earth from God’s point of view.
Jeong Udam swallowed dryly.
He brought a ballpoint pen to try touching the world of the bears. He didn’t want to put his hand in, afraid it might get wet.
Swoosh.
But the capped ballpoint pen—
“Huh?”
Clearly, his hand was gripping the pen, but the part that had entered the bag had turned transparent. He pushed further, and though it should have reached the ground next to the bears by now, nothing was catching on the end.
It wasn’t transparent—it had literally disappeared.
“H-how?”
Startled, he dropped the pen.
But the pen was nowhere on the grassland.
There was no way to describe it except that it had evaporated.
A situation beyond the realm of understanding.
At that same moment,
smoke from the hut’s chimney formed letters again.
-One tree keeper can manage two trees.
-Seeds and items can be purchased from the top of the door or obtained through exploration.
-More tree keepers are needed to send them on exploration.
-Will you hire additional tree keepers?
The message he had seen in the alley repeated as if urging him on.
Come to think of it, the bears had planted four seeds, and four trees had grown. Each was a different size.
When he focused his gaze on the trees, the chimney smoke drifted over and formed speech bubbles.
-Visual (C)
-1,000,000 won / C→B
-Vocal Range (D)
-100,000 won / D→C
-Composition (F)
-10,000 won / F→D
-Acting (F)
-10,000 won / F→D
Did this mean that if he hired more tree keepers, he could send them to explore for seeds, plant those seeds, and increase the number of trees he could manage?
And it was just a guess, but.
*The letters are probably grades? And these are my current stats?*
If so, it seemed he could buy nutrients to raise his grades. But would anything really change if he raised them?
That aside, how was he supposed to procure currency in this tiny world?
Wait until the bears farmed and harvested?
Or...
Jeong Udam suddenly thought of something and opened his wallet. This too was a guess.
The pen had disappeared. As if this suspicious bag would accept nothing except what it demanded.
And what it demanded had always been money.
*Ten thousand won.*
The prices seemed to go up according to grade, and among them, the 10,000-won ones were the F-rank Acting and Composition.
It was an experiment rather than a desire to raise his stats and stand out. Since it was money that might evaporate, he chose a low grade so he could spend a little and confirm.
Specifically, Composition.
Even if a change appeared, there was no way to check Acting in a corner of his room, but with Composition, he could download an app and try copying any song.
The app was simplified in usage, and he had no intention of trying every instrument. He was going to look up guitar chords that he vaguely remembered.
*All under the assumption that this is real.*
For now, he was half-convinced, half-doubtful.
It had been proven that it wasn’t an illusion, but it was hard to believe his skill would increase just by placing nutrients.
Wouldn’t that be too convenient?
Moreover, this bag seemed to read even his thoughts.
-Will you supply nutrients to the Composition (F) tree?
-10,000 won / F→D
Jeong Udam nodded.
Then he slowly placed a bill he had taken from his wallet.
Flutter, flutter.
The 10,000-won bill disappeared into thin air before touching the field.
Gooooo.
A round, flat rock sprouted up beside the hut.
[Altar]
Above it, with a clink, a single silver coin was created.
The bears approached, collected the silver coin, took out an ampoule from their pockets, and injected it into the Composition (F) tree.
Soon, the tree, which had been smaller than the bears, grew to a similar size.
-Grew into a Composition (D) tree.
-Will you supply nutrients to the Composition (D) tree?
-100,000 won / D→C
......It was a success.
The means to intervene in this small world was money. Cash, at that.
*I don’t feel anything different, though.*
Had a change really occurred?
Jeong Udam turned on his computer and went to YouTube.
He clicked on a music video floating on the front page by algorithm. It was a song by a famous girl group.
*An electric guitar was used in the chorus, right?*
That was about all he knew. He didn’t know what effects were used, or whether the piano was real or EP. He had only heard it a few times at a bar.
Tkk tkk-tkk tkk tkk-tkk tkk tkk-tkk.
But just by listening to the intro.
“BPM 97...”
It felt like a metronome had been inserted into his head.
You could estimate the approximate tempo as “somewhere between 90 and 100,” but pinpointing it this accurately would be difficult even for pros.
In this convenient world, there was no need for that in the first place.
You could just use a measuring app or a composition tool’s functions.
Jeong Udam, his excitement not fading, searched on a portal site to verify if the BPM was indeed 97.
The search result.
[♩97]
He was exactly right.
“Holy shit!”
And.
“G#m, A#m, B, C#, G#.”
Jeong Udam had succeeded in identifying the guitar chords that entered as the chorus hit.
To think he could do this even at D-rank.
*No, composition. That is, production ability. Just because I’ve learned to analyze doesn’t mean I can compose songs.*
The D-rank seemed to say “just this much.” He didn’t know about creativity, but his ear for music had improved.
Even so.
It was enough to turn his wariness toward the bag into awe.
A shocking event had definitely appeared in his daily life, which had been spinning like a hamster wheel.
“Ha, haha.”
Ludicrous laughter burst out.
Of course, this was no time to laugh.
Jeong Udam wanted to learn more and more about this bag, this system.
He took off his glasses and stood before the mirror.
He was taller than average, his body had practical muscles earned through labor, and his head wasn’t particularly big.
Going by physique alone, he was quite decent.
On the other hand, his face had no sharp angles, but nothing outstanding either.
*The very definition of average.*
When he was in a band, people said he looked like he played guitar well; when he went to PC bangs, people said he looked like he gamed well.
It meant he blended well into the background.
The Visual tree here was C-rank, too.
He figured it was an extremely blatant evaluation of his looks.
But he felt no displeasure. He was merely curious.
How would an external change manifest?
*
After spending two days off in Seoul, Jeong Udam returned to his provincial worksite.
He stored the wooden bag in a carrier with a lock inside the company dormitory where he had a single room, and when he arrived at work, an accountant who was getting coffee from the vending machine asked him a question.
Today Jeong Udam was on the night shift, but she was working overtime, so their hours overlapped.
“Udam, you’re here? What did you do on your off days?”
“I usually rest on my days off.”
Such an obvious thing to say.
Still, even though they were in different departments, they had been hired in the same year, so she spoke to him more comfortably than she did other employees.
“Right. The boss’s daughter is a YouTuber, and I heard she’s coming for the sports day. She won’t film the employees too, right? I just hope she doesn’t mosaic our faces. Oh, are you prepared for the talent show...”
The accountant’s eyes, about to ask if he was prepared, were fixed on Jeong Udam’s face for a long time.
Because something was strange.
*Why does Udam look handsome today of all days?*
Was it because he wasn’t wearing his glasses for once?
Had he been killing his face with glasses all this time?
The accountant thought she might just be tired from overtime. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them, then looked at Jeong Udam again.
He still looked refreshingly handsome.