I blinked.
What the hell is she planning to do to me?
I thought maybe I'd misread it.
I hadn't.
The appraisal message flashed again, as if to snap me back to reality.
[Plotting to find a weakness in Team 5's Midas Touch (Manager Chanwoo Lim) and exploit him.]
"!!!"
Mina, the true mastermind behind Ebony's scandal, spoke in a trembling voice.
"I'm sure you've heard the story… I've had a really rough time with the group. Things still aren't good between me and the other members, so I was hoping to talk to you privately, manager."
[Laying the groundwork to stir up your sympathy and lure you into a trap!]
…You don't need to narrate it that thoroughly, you know.
Her face drooped, heavy with sorrow. Her eyes even trembled with a touching sadness.
Anyone who didn't know better would've felt their protective instincts kick in on the spot.
If she'd gone into acting instead of becoming an idol, she probably would've had at least A-rank potential.
But who was I?
Sure, I was a billionaire now, but I'd started out as an orphan.
Meaning, my body was thoroughly conditioned with all sorts of survival skills.
She'll keep bothering me even if I dodge, so let's just deal with it now.
I played along.
"Mina, I heard about it. It sounds like it's been really tough."
The moment I seemed to sympathize, a triumphant glint flickered across her villainous eyes.
It was so brief, so faint, that anyone else would've missed it.
But not me.
[Secretly mocking you as a gullible pushover!]
I know that without you spelling it out!
"Is there somewhere we could talk alone? Somewhere quiet, with no one else around?"
* * *
I suggested the meeting room in Team 5's office, but Mina turned it down. She said she was worried people passing by might overhear.
So the spot chosen for our little counseling session was the emergency stairwell.
She is a pro!!!
The spot Mina picked was near the CCTV but sat perfectly in its blind spot.
A placement like that was only possible if you'd mapped out every camera in the stairwell down to the inch.
She was the first person besides me I'd ever met who had CCTV positions memorized that cold.
No wonder she was the true mastermind behind the group's bullying scandal.
[The villainess is celebrating inwardly, thinking she's got you cornered like prey walking straight into her arms!]
The appraisal kept flashing messages, as if worried about me.
I was fine. She definitely wasn't someone to take lightly, but that villainess had underestimated me way too much.
I already had a rough idea of what she was about to try.
I casually brushed my finger over a button on my jacket, and Mina began her performance.
"Manager, I've really had such a hard time."
"…I see."
"Could you comfort me a little?"
"Please accept my sincerest consolations."
"…"
Mina's eyebrow twitched, and she took a step toward me.
Toward whom, exactly?
I took two steps back.
"Manager… you know, from the moment we met, you felt like a big brother to me. I'm having such a hard time—could you hold me, just a little?"
With that, Mina moved to press herself gently against me.
I was impressed once again. Given the camera angle and our position, it would look exactly like I was the one pulling Mina into an embrace—not the other way around.
That level of skill made her a true grandmaster of CCTV angles.
I immediately executed an evasive maneuver, retreating five full steps.
"I've never had a little sister like you, Mina."
"…You're so mean."
"You see, I grew up in an orphanage."
"Oh…"
A brief, heavy silence settled over us.
Eventually, Mina switched tactics.
She undid a button and put on a seductive expression.
"I… want to get closer to you, manager. Don't you want that too?"
"Not particularly, no."
"…Ebony's finished anyway. If you help me debut as a solo artist, I'll give you everything I have."
"Didn't I just tell you I'm not interested?"
Mina's face twisted into a scowl.
"You'll regret this…!"
Then, out of nowhere, Mina pulled her final stunt.
"Kyaaa!!!"
She tore at her own clothes and collapsed to the floor with a scream.
From the CCTV's perspective, she'd been in the blind spot one moment and suddenly in frame the next—no way to tell it was staged.
A truly masterful move, worthy of a CCTV grandmaster.
It looked like a disaster, but I watched the whole scene with an unimpressed stare.
My lack of reaction seemed to set Mina off even more, and she thrashed harder.
"Manager, why are you doing this?! Stop it!!!"
And that entire staged scene of Mina's was being recorded, start to finish, by a tiny hidden camera built into the button on my jacket.
* * *
I had recently picked up a spy camera disguised as a jacket button, which was completely undetectable from the outside.
I'm rich now, so I've got to watch myself. A voice recorder alone isn't enough.
Some might call it overkill, but when it came to precautions like this, there was really no such thing as too careful.
With every one of her schemes foiled—and now with her own weakness caught on tape—Mina hung her head like a criminal hauled into the police station.
"I won't drag this out. Withdraw from the group. And come clean about everything you pinned on the other members."
"That's…!"
"If you want any hope of reducing your penalty fee, you'd better do as I say."
Ebony's bullying scandal.
Driven by jealousy toward the group's star, Lia, Mina had orchestrated Ebony's entire bullying scandal.
"That assault footage a fan filmed back then—you think I don't know you hired a cameraman to stage it yourself?"
"H-how did you…?!"
The appraisal message had told me.
Well, even without it, it wasn't hard to guess.
"You know how ruthless Star Entertainment can be, right? Civil suit, criminal charges—they'll strip you bare down to your soul. If you're hoping for any mercy from the court, you'd better clean up this mess as thoroughly as you can before you go."
The damage Ebony had suffered from Mina's schemes was beyond words.
Some companies would've just let it slide, chalking it up to keeping the peace. But Star Entertainment hadn't earned its notorious reputation for nothing.
If things kept going this way, the rest of Mina's life was about to get brutally hard.
Not that I care what happens to a criminal like her.
"You'd better do everything you can to help repair Ebony's reputation. You've clearly got experience manipulating public opinion across every fan community out there, so I'm sure you can manage."
"T-that too, how did you…?!"
"Did you really think I wouldn't figure out you were using accounts like 'DieLia' and 'MinaBest'?"
"!!!"
Mina looked at me with eyes full of fear.
I'd only found out thanks to the appraisal message, but it seemed like she was misunderstanding something.
Well, since the misunderstanding was already there, I decided to put it to good use.
"You'd better give it everything you've got. Otherwise, I'll make you regret everything you've done so far."
* * *
Hm… am I really that scary?
I'd never once threatened anyone before, so I wasn't sure it would even work. But surprisingly, it landed hard.
Mina looked as terrified as if she'd been threatened by the grim reaper himself, and she genuinely put everything she had into restoring Ebony's image.
[SHOCKING TWIST!!!! Ebony's bullying scandal revealed to be a lie! The supposed victim, Mina, confirmed to be behind it all!]
Despite the truth being in the public spotlight, Ebony's name was… never fully cleared.
People never care about something that's already old news.
It was the same as how nobody reads a correction to a news article.
A handful of Ebony's old fandom, "Evo-Tting," showed some interest, but that was about as far as it went.
Still, did that mean it was all meaningless?
I didn't think so.
"T-thank you."
The members of Ebony had gathered in my office, tears streaming down their faces.
"No one's ever believed us until now… hic, hic."
"Uh… let's not all cry at once, okay?"
"WAAAAAAAAH—!!!!!!"
I scratched the back of my head.
They were still just kids. The oldest member was twenty-one. Some had debuted back in middle school and were still in high school.
Given that, just how deeply must that unfair accusation have pierced their hearts over the years?
Even if this whole mess wasn't going to bring Ebony back to life, it must have given the members at least a little comfort.
"Playboy."
"…Eh?"
Sena Lee—a rising trot newcomer who'd been touring the country collecting checks for, er, I mean, doing shows lately—had stopped by the office for the first time in a while.
She stood pouting at the sight of the Ebony members bawling their eyes out in front of me.
"You said you'd take responsibility for me, but here you are ignoring me."
"…?"
"Hmph!!!"
Anyway, once the Ebony members had calmed down, I got down to business.
"As you know, even with the scandal cleared up, a comeback won't be easy for Ebony, since a lot of people still won't believe it."
The blunt truth darkened the members' expressions.
"If that's the case, I can arrange an early termination of your contract. Star Entertainment bears some responsibility for how badly this whole thing spiraled. You're still young—still in the prime of your lives—so that might actually be the better path."
You're probably thinking right now that I just don't want to deal with Ebony, right?
…Honestly, you're right.
But it wasn't just because I was feeling lazy.
It'd be such a waste of their time to keep them clinging onto a lost cause. They're right in the prime of their youth.
But then—
"…Manager, you really are just like the rumors say."
"Rumors?"
"I heard you're not like the others at Star Entertainment—that you're the one person who actually looks out for the artists. I didn't believe it, but I guess the rumors were true."
"…"
The Ebony members looked at me with resolve in their eyes.
"Could we try, just one more time…? We feel like we could actually do it, as long as you're with us."
* * *
I kept encouraging them to terminate their contract, but the more I pushed, the more moved the Ebony members seemed.
"You're only suggesting we end the contract because you're thinking of us, right?"
"I mean, sure? But…"
"We'll make sure to succeed, if only for your sake!"
"Go, Lim-bony!"
"Lim-bony…? That's a pretty rough name, don't you think?"
"It's how we feel about you!!!"
In the end, I set a condition.
"If it's hopeless, give it up. The company can't keep pouring water into a broken jar."
We headed to the practice room.
I figured I'd run a quick test to check the current state of Ebony's skills.
"Cutie-patootieꨄ︎ Ebony!!!"
"We'll give it our all, so please root for us!"
Honestly, I didn't expect much. Even before the bullying scandal, Ebony had been stuck in that awkward zone between a B-tier and a C-tier—you could've just called them a C-tier idol group.
If their skills had actually been good, wouldn't their results have shown it?
But then…
…Wait, they're actually good?
I wasn't an idol expert, but they definitely didn't look like C-tier material.
This is at least B-tier level, if not A, isn't it?
I quickly realized why.
[Ebony]
Type: Idol Girl Group
Rank: B (⇧ from removing the toxic deadweight)
Potential: S (⇧ from meeting a respected and trusted mentor, Manager Chanwoo Lim. Capable of reaching S+ with a further awakening trigger.)
S+ rank meant the elite among the elite.
We were talking about top-of-the-industry territory.
…Well, this changes things.
I'd recently settled on a personal principle: If I showed up to work, I should do the work that was actually mine to do.
Office politics or dealing with the head director—that kind of stuff didn't count as my job.
On the other hand, ignoring a group that could reach S+ rank?
That was straight-up negligence of duty.
I looked at the Ebony members, watching me with nervous faces, and spoke.
"You did great."
"Really…?"
"But you understand a comeback for Ebony is going to be really hard, right? Like I said earlier, even with the scandal cleared up, people are still going to look at you through biased eyes."
Their faces darkened again, so I pressed on right away.
"But that doesn't mean there isn't a way."
"What is it…?"
"Overwhelm them with pure skill."
"!!!"
"Whether people keep their biases, or spread unfair rumors about you—none of that will matter if you show skill good enough to silence everyone. That's the only way for Ebony to make a real comeback."
The Ebony members swallowed hard, and I looked each of them in the eye, one by one.
"I think Ebony is more than capable of that. Let's give it a shot."
Uh-oh… Did I try a little too hard to sound cool just now?
At my words, the Ebony members burst into tears.
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