By Zephyria 
One of the victims, clutching a script they couldn’t even read and looking incredibly nervous, looked familiar. Uncertain, Yoo Jiha checked the selfie Han Geun-woo had sent him via chat, and it was indeed him. It was his first time encountering an acquaintance in an Aberrant Realm, leaving him feeling both bewildered and surreal.
“Someone you know?”
“Yes. I was chatting with him during lunch earlier, but the conversation cut off unnaturally. I thought he suddenly got busy…”
“Chatting?”
In his fluster, Yoo Jiha spoke too honestly, only to snap his mouth shut a moment later. Right beside him, Jeil Heon was staring down at him with an unreadable expression.
“G-game chat! He’s a Hyung I play games with.”
“Is thaaat so?”
Jeil Heon slowly rubbed his lower lip.
“You must be quite close. Since you called him Hyung, I thought he was a Sunbae from school.”
“It’s just… you know, when you find out someone’s age while gaming, you just start calling them Hyung or Dongsaeng.”
“I see.”
Jiha’s heart hammered against his ribs as he lied his way through, but Jeil Heon didn’t pry further. Soon, the staff entities approached the group.
「New-ly join-ed Ryu-ha actor-is-you. Here is the scrip-t so read it quick-ly before film-ing.」
Jiha flipped through the script, but it was filled with gibberish like ‘[unreadable characters]’. Just as a throbbing pain hit his head, Jeil Heon closed the script.
“Don’t look at it for too long, or you’ll get Contaminated.”
“Can you see what it says, Mister?”
Jeil Heon gave a light nod and called over Song Hilda and Kim Min-seop. Since this was an Aberrant Realm that didn’t require the combat power of Enforcement Division agents, there were no guards. If an emergency occurred, the standby agents from the Enforcement Division would enter.
“Skimming through it, it’s a low fantasy where a wizard appears. The protagonist is a boy wizard with a flame-shaped scar on his forehead who became an orphan as a baby and was raised by his aunt. The villain is a bald wizard with no ears…”
In proportion to Jeil Heon’s earnestness in his explanation, the team members’ expressions grew increasingly strange. Song Hilda cautiously raised a hand.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your explanation, but isn’t this just a Harry Potter knock-off?”
“What is Harry Potter?”
“…”
After a moment of profound silence, Yoo Jiha poked Jeil Heon in the side.
“Team leader, was Harry Potter not released 22 years ago?”
“Is it a movie?”
“It’s super good. I have the original novels at my house in Suwon; I’ll sneak them out without my Noona knowing.”
I guess I’m the only one who can give this boring-life mister some culture… Sigh, what am I even saying. Yoo Jiha let out a long sigh and shook his head. Let’s just get to work.
Anyway, if it’s imitating a masterpiece like the Harry Potter series, wouldn’t it at least be mediocre? It felt as if the goal of ten million viewers was already within reach.
The team members naturally approached the victims so as not to seem strange to the Aberrations. The victims, who had been shivering anxiously in a corner, finally brightened up once the agents revealed they were from the Management Bureau.
“How many times have you filmed so far?”
Jeil Heon’s calm voice provided a sense of stability to them. The victims began to explain, one by one, in a disjointed manner.
They had already filmed the movie once, and one person had died during filming, their corpse being recycled as a prop. The rest had been extras, and Han Geun-woo was the one who had received a role with some actual significance. Yoo Jiha flinched at this, but Jeil Heon merely twitched an eyebrow, showing little reaction.
“How many viewers were estimated for the first filming?”
“1.2 million…”
Yoo Jiha’s eyes widened.
“That’s all? Even after copying Harry Potter?”
“A plagiarism cannot surpass the original. Besides, you said the original was a long series?”
“There are eight movies.”
“Compressing a long series of eight movies into a 115-minute runtime would naturally result in a mess.”
“Ah…”
Now, they had to inflate those 1.2 million viewers tenfold. Beside a bleak-looking Yoo Jiha, Jeil Heon and Song Hilda skillfully organized the situation.
“When you explored the studio previously, did you ever negotiate with the Director Entity?”
“Of course! He’s spineless, so he’s easily swayed if you push him a bit. He probably bought countless germanium bracelets when he was human.”
“Then I will determine the victims’ roles. As things stand, they might be hit by stray attacks. The Director wouldn’t particularly care if extras died off.”
“Leave the persuading of that guy to me.”
Jeil Heon quickly scanned the script and redistributed the victims’ roles, while Song Hilda succeeded in gaslighting—no, persuading—the Director Entity within five minutes.
As Jiha was practicing waving his wand in the corner, a large hand rested lightly on the crown of his head.
“Since this is a good opportunity, practice not reading with your true eye. This is a place where, as long as you play your role well, you won’t die even while surrounded by Aberrations.”
Since he was in a place with so many Aberrations, the True Eye Text was being read incessantly; even a little focus made his brain throb. Unlike other people with the true eye, he found it very difficult to block out information, so he did need training. Until now, he had been too busy saving victims and escaping Aberrant Realms, but the Ten Million Movie Studio was a great place to practice since there were no Aberrations that directly caused harm.
Stroking the head of the nodding Yoo Jiha, Jeil Heon leaned in close. A question that made Jiha’s heart skip a beat dropped softly.
“That man, you said he’s someone you met while gaming?”
“Y-yes.”
“But it seemed like he didn’t know Jiha? I don’t know the details, but I’ve heard there are cases where people deceive others to scam them in games; that’s not the case here, is it?”
Jiha’s conscience pricked him. If it had been a nuance of suspicion, he would have answered more brazenly.
“T-that’s… I recognized him because he sent me a selfie, but he probably doesn’t know me! I didn’t send him a selfie!”
“Do you need photos to play a game?”
“Just, uh, I mean, Hyung just sent it, so I’m not really sure why he did.”
「Filming start-s in 5 minut-es¡」
The sound of the Director Entity’s megaphone had never been more welcome.
“Then you have a good shoot too, Mister!”
Jiha grabbed his wand and dashed away. Yoo Jiha was unaware that Jeil Heon’s gaze followed his retreating back.
“Squawk, squawk.”
「An anim-al has arriv-ed, so view-er count increas-es by 200 thousand¡」
It would have been bleak if he had been cast as an animal, but Kim Min-seop actually welcomed it, crawling on all fours. He claimed it was an unwritten rule that animals rarely die.
“You piece of XXXX! You XXXX who XXXXX and X!”
「Increas-e by 1 million for provid-ing a refresh-ing catharsis while attack-ing evil wizard-s¡」
Jiha wondered how hard it must have been for someone who cursed so fluently to have been a nun, unable to say a single bad word…
“…”
「3 million! Increas-e by 3 millionnn!」
Despite his stiff, textbook-like acting, Jeil Heon—a supporting character who dies midway—achieved the feat of increasing the viewer count by 3 million simply with his face. The fact that he returned perfectly fine after dying in the scene didn’t seem to be particularly surprising.
“Ya, yaap! Eyap!”
「Increas-e by 10 thousand because an extra is work-ing hard, which is peculiar.」
What on earth was the criteria for the viewer count… Yoo Jiha felt hollow as he waved his wand in the air.
They weren’t filming for a long time and editing it down to 115 minutes; they literally had to film in one take for 115 minutes. The studio background changed frantically every time he blinked, and the filming with amateurs had long since become a feast of ad-libs, with everyone just blabbing whatever came to mind. In particular, every time he saw the protagonist entity, he felt a bit annoyed, wondering if that was really the best they could do.
To think the Aberrations’ consciousnesses were so broken that they’d estimate 5.41 million people would watch such a disaster. It felt like they should be giving a 150% refund to the viewers.
The dizzying filming process was repeated three times, but the goal of ten million viewers remained distant.
「Why is this master-piece not reach-ing ten mill-ion view-ers¡ Ignorant view-ers who can’t even recogn-ize a master-piece¡」
Squeezing his movie-director-style beret, the Director Entity vented his frustration. This wasn’t a metaphor; something actually flew out of his mouth. Yoo Jiha quickly looked away from a kidney-shaped lump of flesh that crawled across the floor and was chewed like gum by a passing staff entity. I didn’t see anything. I saw nothing.
The victims were also exhausted. Management Bureau agents were fine even if filming continued because they had talismans fed with their own blood, but civilians were not. If re-filming continued, the contaminated civilians would turn into Aberrations. Ten times would likely be the limit. As he looked around worriedly, he saw Jeil Heon walking toward Han Geun-woo.