Minji stared at the members of SEEDZ, especially at Rayen who was visibly breathing deeply from the exertion from the performance.

'What was that?'

Everyone below the stage were all thinking the same thing. What they didn't notice was that some of them had tears streaming down their faces.

"Eh, miss? You're crying!" The person beside Minji suddenly exclaimed.

"Hmm?"

Out of confusion, Minji raised her hand and touched her face. Just like what the person said, she touched something wet and warm. When she lowered her gaze on her hand, her fingers were glistening with tears.

'I'm really crying?'

Then, she looked up again, only to see that the person who pointed out that she was crying was also in the same boat as her.

"Sis..." Minji pointed at her. "You're also crying..."

"H-Huh?"

The person also did the same thing as Minji. After that, she stared back at her.

Then...

"Huhuhuhu..."

The two girls hugged each other, bawling.

Similar scenes were also happening everywhere below the stage. The venue was suddenly filled with sobbing sounds. Even from the backstage, the situation was the same.

Han Daon pulled the closest thing, which was Choi Daeho's shirt, to try to sneeze the snot that had filled his nose. Fortunately, their other members managed to stop him.

"We still have the interview segment! Don't ruin our leader's clothes!"

Meanwhile, at ATOMIC's waiting room, they had their own screen monitor to watch the broadcast.

Silence inundated the entire waiting room. Even they... felt something tug at the depths of their hearts.

It was quite an odd feeling. Wasn't the performance supposed to be a horror concept? Then why do they feel like crying? Still, everyone resisted that urge.

Finally, Sigrid broke the silence. "They don't seem like rookies..."

In this age... How many rookies could even evoke such intense feelings in people's hearts? It was as if something snapped inside them, releasing the tension inside their bodies, allowing them to relax and let them resonate with the lyrics of the song.

Few could ever do that. At least that's what Sigrid believed.

Kim Minjae and Jino frowned. Only Monde seemed intrigued by the turn of events.

...

Seeing that everyone was still crying, SEEDZ remained on the stage. It took everyone a while before they could recover.

One of the hosts dazedly handed the mic to Adrian. However, the audience seemed to be in no condition to hear what the group had to say, so Adrian only expressed his gratitude to everyone before handing the mic back to the host.

Besides, he was also in a rush to check on what just happened to them onstage.

When the group descended from the stage, no one complained.

The moment SEEDZ went back to their waiting room, the first thing they did was ask Plotter, who was waiting inside with a wide smile on his face.

"What the hell happened earlier?" Rayen asked.

"Didn't you hear it?"

"Yes, we did, but what was that?"

"Well, it's your unique skill as Minstrels."

"Our unique skill is to make everyone cry?" Xi Huan suddenly interrupted.

Plotter's eyes quickly shifted to her, his smile widening. "Oh, that's not all. Maybe you can even make them kill themselves."

Everyone flinched in response. How the hell does that happen? Could their skill be the same as hypnosis?

"That was a joke," Plotter suddenly said.

'Damn Plotter.'

Then, what was the case about those black lines?

"You just did a fan resonance. Those black lines you saw were the bugs in the Life Books that the system helped manifest into a form that only you can see. You, Minstrels, have been given the permission to scour the pages of every person that had been branded by you and erase those bugs," Plotter continued. "You can also do it manually with the Life Book pages at hand, but that would take a long time, but with the help of the system, you can do this collectively while performing."

"But why only during a live performance?" Adrian asked.

"It's because of your song. Your songs are like a set of codes that allows the system to activate the resonance."

"... How the hell does that happen?"

After all, they just composed the song as usual.

"Didn't you buy the sounds when you composed those songs?"

'!!!'

Right! They even nearly went broke because of that shitty pay-to-compose feature.

Finally, the explanation eased up the clouds in their mind for a bit. Only Yeo Haru was dazed, with smoke seemingly coming from his head.

"... You okay, Haru?" Rayen asked in concern.

Yeo Haru only shook his head and slumped down on the couch.

"I don't understand. And please, don't let me try to understand. My brain's in pain."

"....."

With everything cleared up, the members then checked their phones, no longer caring for the live broadcast. After all, their performance had just ended, and they didn't have to pay attention to the rankings because it's just their first week, exactly just 2 days since the song's release.

With only 2 days of the week's data, their song wouldn't be eligible for this week's chart ranking.

And so, they busied themselves with something even more pressing.

On their screen, a new pop-up window had appeared.

[Calculating Merits...]

Moments later, the string of words in the pop-up window changed.

[Calculation Complete. Do you want to see the result?

Y/N?]

Rayen hurriedly tapped on the yes button. Soon, a new window appeared on his screen.

[Books cleansed: 3000

3000 merits gained!

Employee tax: 25% (750 merits)

Sponsors tax: 25% (750 merits)

Total Merits gained: 1,500 merits]

'Merits?'

It was the first time that merits had been given to them.

'I thought those merits were actually just some abstract concept. But what the hell... Even with this, I still have to pay a tax...'

After tapping his screen once more, the pop-up window displayed another set of calculations.

[Merits to Memorial Coins (1:100)

1,500 Merits → 150,000 MC]

Rayen's eyes beamed in excitement. Such a large amount!

'I'm rich!'

However, Rayen didn't think that something even worse could happen. Before he could even fully celebrate, the damn numbers on the pop-up window changed.

[150,000 MC / 9 members

Member Share: 16,666.67 MC]

Immediately, Rayen's world crumbled.

'From 150,000 MC...'

Rayen could only cry.

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