Chapter 1: A Broadcasting Accident

The second biggest broadcasting accident in the history of South Korea just occurred. People murmured as they stared at the stage. The Production Director clenched his teeth and threw up his hands. He couldn’t hold in his anger and made a slicing motion across his neck. It was a sign to the person on stage to get his act together if he didn’t want to get fired. Meanwhile, the manager was pulling on his hair with both hands and screaming silently.

An idol must always give their all in dancing, as their livelihood depended on it. To not starve, they must swallow their pride and say cutesy things in front of an audience. Even if they are told to eat a grotesque bug, they must do so with a graceful smile.

Yet, this idol just stood there absent-mindedly on a live stage. He didn’t even bother to fake a smile for the broadcast. Nor did he pretend to limp or act hurt. He just stood still.

It made sense that the broadcasting officials, fans, colleagues, and viewers were all flabbergasted. There were cases where idols burnt out by the broadcasting life would do things half-heartedly. However, even they would at least move around a bit. But this so-called idol was just standing on stage dumbfounded. And on top of that, even though he was the one who caused the disaster, his face was calm. It was as if he couldn’t hear the ear shattering music. It was eerie to the point that if you were to photoshop the background, he actually looked like a saint. And in actuality, the idol was a saint. To be exact, a pontifex.

He was a pontifex who suddenly became an idol in modern Korea.

***

9 hours before the incident, the culprit who would soon drop a huge bomb in Korea’s broadcasting history was screaming in front of the mirror.

“Wh-Who is this?! What is this?!”

He was in a small 40m² bedroom and other members were wiping off their sweats while quickly brushing their teeth. Normally, people would be surprised if someone was screaming strange things. But the members simply glanced at him and spat harsh comments like–

“He’s fucking around again.”

“You think you’re funny?”

“Stop staring at the mirror you fool.”

They were an unpopular idol group known as Wild Animal. Despite their long run, the group could never make it out big, earning their nickname Submarine. Due to this, their relationship was falling apart.

In a situation where they needed to show results before the end of their contract period, it made sense that they were annoyed that he was doing something strange in front of the mirror. And on top of that, he was known for doing weird things pretty often.

For that reason, when they got in the car to go to the salon shop, or got their hair and makeup done, or went to the broadcasting station waiting room, no one paid attention to him. It was the same even when he asked endlessly “Who are you?” “Where is this?” “What is going on?”

But if they had paid more attention to him, they would have noticed that his face was terribly blue and that his hands were shaking. And that he was in an extremely frightened state, constantly looking around.

“What’s wrong?”

The first person to think he was strange was the fashion coordinator who came in to check his outfit 40 minutes before the rehearsal.

“Is he sick?”

The coordinator asked reluctantly when he saw his bad complexion. However, since they were too busy greeting people in the hallway of the waiting rooms, most of the members were not there. The only member who was in the waiting room was on bad terms with him.

“Leave him. He’s always like that.”

He snorted at him, who was visibly shaken, and turned away.

“Are you okay? Does your stomach hurt?”

When the coordinator asked again, he looked up with trembling eyes and repeated the same question he had been asking dozens of times.

“Where is this place?”

The coordinator smiled and replied “What do you mean where? It’s the waiting room.”

“Who, Who am I?” He asked again and the coordinator responded reluctantly.

“Woo Yeon-woo. An idol.”

The member next to him cynically added, "The one and only Nuclear Submarine Idol."

However, he couldn’t understand what submarines or idols were.

The coordinator called him Woo Yeon-woo. He clenched his fist and stared at the wall with trembling eyes. There was nothing else he could do. He was not Woo Yeon-woo. He was not a member of the unknown idol group Wild Animal, who was mocked and called submarine, nor was he an immature young man who always acted strangely. Considered to have the strongest divine power of all time, ‘he' was the pontifex, Lembrary.

***

How did this happen?

Lembrary clasped his hands tightly, thinking blankly. He was Lembrary, he was called a living miracle and performed all kinds of miracles but it was hard even for him to accept the situation. In the blink of an eye he became a complete stranger. He was a young man who looked to be similar in age but other than that, he was a person who had completely different features. His surroundings were completely different from the world he lived in, and the clothing was different too. People acted like they knew him, and they called him “Idol Woo Yeon-woo.” Even though he said he was no such person they didn’t listen to him and dragged him into a strange looking building. It was hard to understand how this all happened.

"Did I enter someone else's body?"

In a room covered in mirrors, Lembrary accepted part of the current situation. He also checked again the divine power that he had been repeatedly checking hundreds of times in the strange-looking carriage. Fortunately, he was still overflowing with divine power. He wounded his hand and treated it with divine power and the small amount of divine power that escaped immediately filled up again. Unlike the foreign body, his ability remained the same.

But he didn’t know why this was all happening…. He thought of what he did previously. Someone succeeded in summoning the demon king and black shadows covered the sky. A transparent dome was formed over the city, wrapped by the black shadows. The sun was hidden and the city became pitch dark. People screamed and strange demons began to pop out of the dark ground.

Lembrary was the only one who could handle the situation. Even if it cost him his life, in order to fix this situation he casted a spell but….he heard a chilling laughter at the end.

"I can't let you do that."

After hearing those words, he blinked and found himself in this situation.

"Did I lose?"

Lembrary clenched his fist as he thought with a dark expression.

Maybe the person who summoned the devil sent me somewhere else. As far away as possible.

"Damn it."

Lembrary clenched his teeth and fist. The prospect of how things would have turned after he left made him nervous. But Lembrary couldn't even be sad to his heart's content. This was because the young man sitting on the sofa in front of him, who was fiddling with a strange black object, stood up and grabbed Lembrary by the neck as soon as someone shouted in an annoyed voice and knocked on the door yelling.

"Wild Animal. Wild Animal! Come out!"

"Let's go. It's our turn.”

"Wait—"

"Hurry up."

Lembrary waved his hands but the young man just pulled him without caring if he lost his balance or not. Once he was out in the hallway, he could see the other young people who came trapped in the carriage with him running around.

"Hurry, hurry!"

"Ah, just come here!"

"He keeps dawdling!"

There was a moment of commotion. When he came to his senses, Lembrary was standing on a strange and giant stage. The young men who pushed him in stood in a line and it was followed by a tremendously loud song.

What is this?

Lembrary stood dazed and watched the young men suddenly dance. As he watched the young men dancing around, a man wearing strange black glasses that covered his eyes shouted while pointing a finger at Lembrary.

"What are you trying to do?! Get your act together!!”

Soon after the young men on the stage began to pull Lembrary around. And when the music ended, the young men took Lembrary back to the waiting room from earlier. When Lembrary came to the waiting room, a young man with glasses, who had brought the young men in the carriage but did not go on stage with them, angrily yelled.

"Woo Yeon-woo, get your act together! You’re not even famous yet but you already have Celebrity Disease? I told you rehearsals are just as important as the main stage! Didn’t I tell you that if you want to find even one more good angle, you need to run around until your feet catch on fire?!”

Among the words of the young man with glasses, Lembrary could only understand one word.

"Disease... Am I sick?"

"This bastard, look at him pulling a weird concept again."

The young man with glasses patted Lembrary on the shoulder with just enough force so it wouldn't hurt.

"Stop, stop! Why are you, the visual member, being weird?! Just stand still and smile! Because that's the best!"

"Visual member?"

Lembrary asked, confused but no one answered him. Seeing Lembrary stand in a daze, the young man with glasses frowned and asked, "What's wrong? Are you actually sick?"

Lembrary nodded, and a yellow-haired young man stepped in.

"Come to think of it, this morning he fell in the bathroom and hit his head."

Shocked, the young man with glasses asked,

“Really?”

Although he wasn’t sick, Lembrary nodded for now. The young man with glasses grabbed his head with both hands and said, "Aigoo".

"For this to happen at a time like this..."

He looked at Lembrary annoyedly and rushed out the door. He didn't come back right away. Later, the person who wore a whistle appeared and said, "Wild Animal! Stand by!" but he still didn’t come back.

When he was told to stand by and left the waiting room to wait in a dark place, the young man with glasses finally returned in a hurry and told Lembrary in a warning tone.

"I asked them to put a chair on the stage. When you go up, just say hello and sit there. Sit down and just move your mouth. Okay? Don't just stand there cause you’re sick."

"Understood."

"The way you speak is weird.” Said the young man with glasses annoyed, then he gathered the young men who came with him in the same carriage and made them put their arms around each other.

"Listen carefully. This could really be your last album. Okay? You have to succeed this time to have the next album. How long are you planning on being called Submarine? It was hard to get this spot so make sure to leave an impression on the public."

As soon as they let go, a person with a long string around his neck came and urged them, "This way."

Someone put something strange in Lembrary's ear and stuck something sticky on his cheek. Lembrary waved his hands as he kept telling the young man with the glasses “I’m sick, my head hurts, I have something to tell you, I might look like Woo Yeon-woo but I’m not" but he was dragged by the other young men and once again went up the stage.

The stage was still, large and quiet. There were countless people in front of the stage, but they somehow looked awkward. Lembrary looked around dazed.

The chair!

He remembered he was told to sit on a chair, so he quickly looked around, but the chair that the young man with glasses told him about was nowhere to be seen.

"Just dance!"

The young man, who stood with his body next to him, whispered quietly.

"I don't know how to dance!"

As soon as Lembrary shouted, the same music as before began to play and the young men on the stage reached out their hands at the same time and held a strange pose.