The Grand Culture Gala was the kind of event where you needed a security clearance just to park your car.
Black sedans lined the entrance of the Seoul Arts Center. The red carpet was swarming with politicians, ambassadors, and chaebol heirs. They weren't here to scream for idols. They were here to be seen being "cultured."
Han Yoo-jin adjusted his bowtie in the backstage mirror. He hated tuxedos. They felt like straightjackets.
"You look nervous," Olivia Ray said, leaning against the dressing room door. She was wearing a dress that was technically black tie, but ripped in enough places to offend half the guests.
"I'm calculating," Yoo-jin corrected.
"Calculating what? How fast you can run when the conductor tries to stab you with his baton?"
"How many watts of sound it takes to shatter a mass hypnosis field," Yoo-jin said.
He checked his phone. Min-ji was in the vocal warm-up room, pacing. She looked like a fighter before a title match.
"Is the band ready?" Yoo-jin asked.
"The band is ready," Olivia grinned. "And your 'special guests' are hidden in the orchestra pit."
Yoo-jin nodded. "Good. Remember the plan. We wait for the 'Crescendo'. When he tries to drain the crowd, we interrupt the signal."
"With noise," Olivia finished. "My favorite weapon."
The Gala began with speeches. Endless, boring speeches about "Harmony" and "National Pride."
Yoo-jin stood in the wings, watching Maestro Kim on the podium. The conductor looked serene. Powerful.
As the speeches ended, the Maestro raised his baton.
The orchestra began to play. It wasn't the collaborative track yet. It was an opening overture. Something slow, hypnotic.
Yoo-jin felt the air in the hall grow heavy.
[System Alert]
[Target Area: Grand Hall]
[Atmosphere: Sedated.]
[The Maestro is establishing a neural link with 2,000 attendees.]
The audience stopped fidgeting. Their eyes glazed over. It was starting. The "Purification." He was turning the elite of Seoul into batteries.
"Now," Yoo-jin whispered into his headset.
The stage lights shifted. The spotlight hit center stage.
Min-ji walked out.
She looked small against the massive orchestra. The audience barely registered her. They were too deep in the Maestro's trance.
The Maestro glanced at her with contempt. He signaled the violins to begin the intro to Shatter. But he played it wrong. He slowed the tempo down, turning the aggressive rock ballad into a funeral dirge. He was suffocating the song before it could breathe.
Min-ji looked at the conductor. Then she looked at the wings, where Yoo-jin stood.
Yoo-jin nodded.
Min-ji grabbed the mic stand. She didn't sing. She spoke.
"This is too slow," she declared, her voice echoing through the silent hall.
The audience blinked. The Maestro froze.
"I said," Min-ji yelled, "THIS IS TOO SLOW!"
She kicked the monitor speaker.
BOOM.
At that signal, the floor of the orchestra pit dropped.
Rising from the depths wasn't a section of woodwinds. It was a full rock band. Drums, bass, two electric guitars.
And holding the lead guitar was Olivia Ray.
The audience gasped. The diplomats looked confused. Was this part of the show?
Olivia strummed a power chord. It was distorted, loud, and American.
SCREEEEECH.
The feedback loop shattered the Maestro's hypnotic field instantly. The audience woke up, startled by the noise.
"One! Two! Three! Four!" Olivia screamed.
The band kicked in. They played Shatter at its original tempo—fast, angry, and violent.
The Maestro waved his baton furiously, trying to get his orchestra to drown them out. But acoustic violins can't fight electric amps.
Min-ji began to sing. She fed off the band's energy. Her voice soared, raspy and desperate, fighting the wall of classical sound.
"You tried to paint me white..."
"But I bleed in color!"
It was chaos. A musical war zone. On one side, the disciplined, terrified orchestra. On the other, the anarchic rock band.
And in the middle, Min-ji, conducting the chaos with her voice.
Yoo-jin watched the Maestro. The conductor's face was twisted in rage. His SSS-Rank aura was flaring, trying to crush the band mentally.
[System Warning]
[Psychic Pressure Increasing.]
[Olivia Ray is resisting.]
[Kim Min-ji is resisting.]
"He's going to blow a fuse," Yoo-jin muttered.
He ran to the soundboard. The engineer was cowering under the desk.
"Get up!" Yoo-jin shouted, shoving the engineer aside.
He grabbed the faders. He pushed the vocals and the guitars to the red line.
"You want volume?" Yoo-jin gritted his teeth. "I'll give you volume."
He activated his own skill.
[Skill: Soul Resonance (S)]
[Target: The PA System.]
[Effect: Project User's Will through the speakers.]
BOOM.
The sound waves hit the audience physically. It wasn't just loud; it was emotional. They felt Min-ji's pain. They felt Olivia's rebellion.
The Minister of Culture was tapping his foot. The ambassadors were nodding their heads.
The spell was broken. They weren't batteries anymore. They were fans.
The Maestro realized he had lost the crowd. He did the unthinkable.
He stopped conducting.
He turned around and walked towards Min-ji. He raised his baton like a weapon.
"You ruin everything!" he screamed, his voice amplified by his own magic. "You filthy little pop star!"
He swung the baton. It was aimed at Min-ji's face.
Min-ji didn't flinch. She didn't step back.
She grabbed the baton mid-swing.
The music stopped abruptly. The hall went dead silent.
Min-ji held the Maestro's wrist. Her hand was shaking, but she didn't let go.
"I'm not a pop star," Min-ji whispered into her mic. "I'm a rock star."
She snapped the baton in half.
Snap.
The sound was small, but it echoed like a gunshot.
The Maestro stared at the broken pieces of wood in his hand. His symbol of power. Destroyed by a rejected idol.
He collapsed. Not physically, but spiritually. His aura vanished. He looked suddenly old and small.
Min-ji dropped the pieces on the floor.
"Finish the song," she ordered the band.
Olivia grilled a solo. The drums kicked back in. Min-ji belted the final note, holding it until her lungs were empty.
The song ended.
For three seconds, there was silence. The audience was processing what they had just seen. A rock concert. A fight. A revolution.
Then, the applause started.
It began with the younger attendees in the back. Then the ambassadors. Then, slowly, even the stiff politicians stood up.
A standing ovation.
Min-ji stood center stage, sweat dripping down her face, chest heaving. She looked like she had just survived a war.
She bowed deeply.
Yoo-jin slumped against the soundboard. He was exhausted. His nose was bleeding again.
[System Notification]
[Quest Complete: The Symphony of Destruction.]
[Target 'Maestro Kim' defeated.]
[Reward: 'The Truth About the System' (File Unlocked).]
He wiped his nose with his sleeve.
"We did it," he whispered.
Two Hours Later.
The after-party was awkward. The Maestro had fled the building, claiming "illness." But the buzz in the room was electric. Everyone wanted to talk to the "girl who broke the baton."
Yoo-jin found Min-ji on the balcony, hiding from the diplomats.
"You okay?" he asked, handing her a bottle of water.
"My hand hurts," she said, rubbing her wrist. "Did I really snap it?"
"You snapped his soul," Yoo-jin said. "His career is over. He can't conduct if the orchestra doesn't fear him. And after tonight, they saw him lose."
Min-ji looked at the city lights.
"I felt it," she whispered. "When I grabbed him. I felt... empty. Like he was hollow inside."
"He was," Yoo-jin said. "He gave everything to the System. He forgot the music."
"Will that happen to us?" she asked, looking at him with fearful eyes. "Will we become monsters too?"
"Not as long as I'm producing," Yoo-jin promised.
He checked his phone.
[File Download Complete: The Truth.]
"Go enjoy the party," Yoo-jin said. "I have some reading to do."
He walked away, finding a quiet corner in the lobby. He opened the file.
It wasn't a document. It was a video.
He pressed play.
A man appeared on the screen. He was wearing a lab coat. The date stamp was from 20 years ago.
"Project Muse. Log entry 1."
"We have successfully isolated the frequency that stimulates dopamine production in the human brain. We call it the 'Idol Particle'. If we can synthesize this... we can create the perfect entertainer."
The camera panned to a glass tank. Inside, floating in a blue liquid, was a glowing, ethereal substance.
"The subject is responding. We have implanted the first chip."
The camera zoomed in. The chip had a serial number.
HYJ-001.
Yoo-jin dropped the phone. The screen cracked.
HYJ. Han Yoo-jin.
He wasn't just a user of the System. He wasn't just a rebooted version of a dead producer.
He was the prototype.
He picked up the cracked phone. He watched the rest of the video.
The scientist spoke again.
"The goal is not music. The goal is control. If we can control the culture, we control the vote. We control the economy."
The video ended.
Yoo-jin stared at his reflection in the dark screen.
The System wasn't magic. It was technology. Military-grade psychological warfare technology, repurposed for the entertainment industry.
And he was the weapon.
"Yoo-jin?"
Sae-ri was standing there. She looked at his pale face, then at the phone.
"You watched it," she said softly.
"You knew," Yoo-jin whispered. "You knew what I was."
"I suspected," she said. "The static. The headaches. It's the hardware overheating."
"Who made me?" Yoo-jin asked. "Who ran the project?"
Sae-ri pointed upwards.
"Not a music company," she said. "The government. The Ministry of Culture."
She stepped closer.
"The Maestro was just a field agent. A tester. You are the final product. And now that you've woken up... they're going to want you back."
Yoo-jin laughed. It was a dark, terrified sound.
"They want me back?"
He looked at the ballroom, where Min-ji was laughing, where Olivia was stealing champagne, where his artists were finally free.
"They can try," Yoo-jin said.
He stood up. The fear was gone, replaced by a cold, metallic resolve.
"If I'm a weapon," Yoo-jin said, checking his tie in the reflection. "Then I'm going to aim myself at the people who pulled the trigger."
He walked back into the party.
The music had stopped. But the war had just gone nuclear.