Chapter 30: Showtime

Chapter 30: Showtime

November 6th, 2088

Today is an important day. Its been a little over a week since I discovered that Project Redemption is in fact an attempt to emulate God and create a new world. Today is the live broadcast of the first episode of the new Japans Rising Idol and I am currently backstage waiting to go on. It will also be my first encounter with Alren, aka Fujioka-san, since killing Eual. Fujioka-san is quite cautious and I cant risk getting into a full-fledged fight with him. Hes a powerful wizard and my chances of winning in a fair fight are unknown. So itll be even more important now to not raise his suspicions.

Based on analysis of Euals memories, the barrier he mentioned is beyond my ability to break. I will have to wait until it dissipates on the night of the ritual, May 20th. Apparently, the star alignments are just right on that day and everyone is supposed to meet up there. My only chance to stop this plan is to kill the 3 members whose locations I know and then wait for the last one to show at the ritual site.

Everyone will be on their guard after Euals death, so Ill have to be patient for a few weeks or even months. I need to make them think he died due to some matter limited to the other world only and that they have not been exposed. Then Ill strike. First though, I need to tank this performance and get kicked off. I dont have time for this nonsense.

As I got backstage, I saw Fujioka-san come over. I expected him to start yelling at me but he instead flicked my forehead. It hurt surprisingly more than I had expected. As I rubbed my forehead while looking at him with watery eyes, I saw him give a rueful smile as he spoke When I told you to open up more, this wasnt what I exactly had in mind. I meant talk more, not say whatever you are actually thinking as it pops into your head. Self-confidence is a great asset for an idol, but there is something called time and place. The judges evaluations also include a personality portion. Your silence during your appeal time combined with your blatant disregard for the judges is going to really hurt you, ya know? Your singing was absolutely amazing though, so it might balance out. He then started patting my head, which actually felt kind of nice as I realized what I was thinking my face turned red. Damn this over-emotional body.

My final scores followed Fujioka-sans predictions. My singing was given a unanimous perfect score of 10, which was rare for the show. My personality was also given a unanimous score of 0, which was a first in the shows history. Based on the total, I was definitely going to be cut. All the other contestants had gotten scores of at least 12 or higher.

However, there was still the audience support. For every 1,000,000 votes a contestant gets, they get an additional point added to their final score. The highest record of audience support on the show thus far was 4,000,000 votes. As each of the contestants had a few points added on due to audience support, it was my turn.

It would be somewhat depressing if I didnt get even one point of support, but Ill get over it. The important thing is that I get kicked off without Fujioka-san becoming suspicious. Oh, the board showing my audience support seems to be broken. Theres an extra 0 after the 1,000,000 son of a bitch.

I shot to first place among the contestants thanks to the historic audience support of over 10,000,000 son of a bitch. I also discovered that my performance on the show went viral and nearly broke the internet son of a bitch. I didnt even manage to reach my house before I started getting calls from multiple talent agencies letting me know that they were extremely interested son of a bitch. I saw the late night news and apparently I have become the favorite to win it all son of a bitch. The one consolation is that I got a bonus to my pay from Japans Rising Idol for getting first place in the first round. I just hope there isnt too much talk about it at tomorrow at school.