* * *

Once the advertisements' message was revealed, KTB's phones rang off the hook. Whether because of the 100-billion-won prize or those absurd advertisements, countless people had questions to ask or complaints to make.

But KTB's answers were uniformly the same.

"The prize money? Yes, we'll really pay it."

"Who qualifies to enter? That's a secret."

"How do we decide? That's a secret."

"Why is it a secret? That's a secret."

["You XXXXXX!"]

At that point, it was impossible to tell whether they were trying to answer or deliberately mocking their callers. As a result, people's curiosity only grew rather than fading. And so, amid the entire nation's interest, anticipation, and suspicious scrutiny, the live broadcast of [Music Challenge] began.

"Good evening, viewers across the nation. I'm your beloved national host, Choi Jeong-seok."

"Hello, everyone! I'm your beloved national idol, Rira!"

"I know many of you have been looking forward to today's show. Goodness, I can practically see the ratings shooting right through the screen."

"Of course! There's a whole 100 billion won riding on this show! Honestly, I wanted to enter as a contestant instead of hosting."

"Hahaha, good one. Everyone knows Rira is a tone-deaf idol—urk!"

"Ahahaha, Jeong-seok, you really do love your jokes."

Rira casually swung a fist, and Choi Jeong-seok coughed up blood from the blow. Watching the two hosts chosen for this edition of [Music Challenge] squabble, Kim Seung-jun swallowed hard.

It wasn't just the nerves of a live broadcast. The guests gathered on one side of the stage were that illustrious.

Han Ji-seong, the level-85 actor whose films drew ten million viewers. Revit, the level-78 male idol. Kim Mun, the level-74 vocal coach. And beyond them, trot singers, rappers, musicians, and more. Every one of them was among the country's leading entertainment-type players, watching with interest as judges and contestants.

Even that ditzy Rira and Choi Jeong-seok, who looked like any middle-aged man in the neighborhood, were players in the sixties and seventies. This unprecedented lineup could have cost even a legendary producer sleep from sheer nerves, let alone a rookie like Kim Seung-jun.

'I never imagined this would get so big...'

Of course, these leading figures of the domestic entertainment industry hadn't been blinded by a mere 100-billion-won prize. The real draw was publicity. KTB's advertising campaign had been such a phenomenal success that [Music Challenge] had become a hot topic, prompting all sorts of famous players to offer to appear. Thanks to that, he was in agony.

'If the show turns out worse than they expect...'

Kim Seung-jun shuddered. They had poured this much money into the show, generated this much buzz, and assembled this many guests. What if the result failed to impress? Not only would KTB go under completely, but he would have to write a suicide note instead of a resignation letter.

'The die is already cast!'

There was no backing out now. Even as his legs trembled uncontrollably, Kim Seung-jun kept himself on high alert to prevent even the slightest possibility of trouble.

But unlike their anxious producer, the studio was buzzing with excitement. The audience was thrilled that the show, which had caused such a commotion while keeping everything shrouded in mystery, was finally being unveiled. With a few exceptions, that is.

"This is unexpected. It is more modest than I thought. There are few people, too."

Tata calmly answered the expressionless girl, Ainsha, as she murmured.

"This is a small country. It's only natural that the turnout is small compared with the advertising."

"Even so, there are too few. More people gather than this when I merely show my face on the street."

"The honor of seeing the face of the world's noblest princess could never compare to entertainment for commoners like this."

"Tata, you praise me too much."

"But it's the truth!"

While Ainsha and Tata whispered to each other, the hosts, having warmed up the crowd, finally moved on to the main subject.

"All right, enough chitchat! I'm sure many of you have been wondering just what kind of show [Music Challenge] is."

"The idea behind Music Challenge is simple. Complete the assigned mission, and you win!"

"And whoever succeeds in this mission will receive a prize of 100 billion won."

"Now, let's reveal the inaugural mission of [Music Challenge]. It is...!"

DRRRRUM!

"Sing on the spot!"

"All you need to do is improvise a vocal performance to the original composition we're about to play."

"The prize goes to just one person—the first to succeed."

"Those who go later will have the advantage of being more familiar with the piece, but wait too long and you'll be going home empty-handed, right?"

"Of course, your singing has to earn the judges' approval. Unfortunately, someone tone-deaf like Rira can't just sing any old way and win the—!"

THWACK!

"Jeong-seok? My 『Wisecrack★Punch』 triples in power every time I hit you, you know? You don't want to be taken to the hospital during a live broadcast, do you?"

"Cough, cough, cough. A-anyway, we'll reveal the long-awaited challenge piece in just a moment."

That was when the faces of the celebrity contestants and the audience alike filled with confusion and bewilderment.

'Are they serious?'

'That's the whole challenge?'

'This is what all that fuss was for?'

Their reaction was inevitable. All high-level players were superhuman, and most entertainment-type players had done practically everything imaginable on variety shows. Singing in fire or underwater, or even performing group dances on cliffs, was commonplace on variety shows these days. Yet this was nothing more than singing on the spot.

As the challenge, so flimsy compared with the prize, left them feeling not merely bewildered but even betrayed—

VREEEEEN.

"...!"

Every sound in the world vanished.

* * *

The moment that melody began flowing from the speakers, everyone forgot everything. Their bewilderment. The fact that this was a broadcast. Whether they had been watching television. Even how to breathe.

A single melody filled their emptied minds. The violin's sound, so beautiful that it became almost violent, exploded inside their heads and erased everything else.

VREEN.

At the same time, intense emotion welled up—unfathomably deep, wistful, and majestic. The flood of vivid emotion within the melody beat against their hearts, drawing out old feelings as though squeezing pus from the wounds in their souls.

'What... is this?'

Tata trembled. Following Ainsha around, she had seen as many performances as anyone working in entertainment. Yet even she could only lose herself in this one. The melody was that vivid, the tone that powerful.

But precisely because she was so utterly absorbed in the performance, another shiver ran through her.

Don't look at me—

Within the violin melody resounding through the air, Tata sensed a single singing voice and froze.

It wasn't only Tata. The audience and contestants, and even the viewers watching through their televisions—everyone listening looked as though they had seen a ghost. They hadn't heard the song with their ears. The moment they heard the performance, it had simply risen unbidden in their hearts and etched itself into their minds.

They could feel it, though they couldn't hear it. Listening to the music brought a song to mind. As though an invisible ghost were hiding beside their ears and whispering, the song, utterly chilling and all the more wondrous for it, intertwined with the melody and stole its listeners' souls.

"Tata, I can hear it."

"... I can hear the song too."

"No. It is not a song. It is a person."

"Pardon?"

Puzzled by those incomprehensible words, Tata turned toward Ainsha—and her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

"Y-Your Highness?"

Ainsha was always expressionless. Yet tears were falling, drop by drop, from her eyes, making Tata forget the shock of the performance entirely.

Ainsha herself paid them no mind. She merely stared blankly into the air and continued in her flat voice.

"A person has been placed within the piece. That is why we can hear that person's voice."

Ainsha could tell. This was no mere performance. It expressed through sound the recollections, memories, and emotions of playing together with someone. The expression was so vivid that listeners spontaneously imagined the song of the 'someone' whose voice would originally have resounded alongside the music.

And Ainsha knew what such a piece was called.

"This is a requiem (Requiem)."

Add singing to this performance? Such a thing could never be possible. This was a complete composition containing a person's entire life. The instant anyone else tried to add their voice, its expression would be ruined, and the performance would fall apart.

There was only one exception: the song's original owner. But the dead could not sing, so this performance would resound alone for all eternity.

In that sense, rather than a requiem, it was a ghost song (Ghost Song). A song that let the voice of the dead be heard instead of honoring them—a lonely ghost's performance that refused to join with anyone else.

That must have been why, though the performance had already ended, everyone in the studio remained silent, unable to make even the sound of a breath.

"Uh... That, um, was truly an incredible performance. Wasn't it, Rira?"

"Huh? Oh, yes, yes! It was amazing, wasn't it?"

"Now the contestants just need to play a game to decide their order, then sing along to this piece using the provided lyrics... That's... all..."

"Uh, to this piece? Sing?"

Perhaps it was a sense of duty. The host tried hard to break the silence and keep the show moving, but his voice had no strength. The celebrity contestants, too, had eyes as lifeless as rotten frozen fish. Even if they hadn't understood it intellectually, every one of them had realized in their hearts what Ainsha felt.

"Um... I'll withdraw from the challenge."

"I'm sorry."

"Unfortunately, I will too..."

"What? No, wait! Mr. Han Ji-seong? Revit? We're live, you know!"

Flustered by the contestants withdrawing one after another, the host argued with them, trying somehow to get them onto the stage. But they remained adamant. Simply failing would have been one thing. They all instinctively knew that trying to sing to that performance would leave them regretting it for the rest of their lives.

Even as the commotion onstage spread into the audience, Ainsha paid it no attention at all. She merely sank into thought, reflecting on the performance she had just heard.

'I do not understand.'

How could such a performance be possible? How could it contain such emotion? No matter how much she pondered, she couldn't understand, but that very fact intrigued her. The realization that there was something she didn't know mingled with the emotion the performance had stirred in her, filling her with excitement.

That was why, when a sudden glimpse of the future came to her, Ainsha could speak with anticipation rather than disappointment, even though she now knew what would happen.

"Tata."

"Yes, Your Highness?"

"I think I will soon fall in love."

"... Pardon?"

That startling declaration left Tata stiff with shock, like an adolescent girl who had just learned that her mother was remarrying. It was then that it happened.

On the tumultuous stage, Han Ji-seong swung his arm to shake off Choi Jeong-seok, who was clinging to his sleeve. His arm happened to strike the camera behind him. Hit by the fist of a high-level, level-85 player, the camera flew into the audience like an artillery shell.

"Gasp!"

"Aaaah!"

The crew recoiled in horror at the unexpected accident. The audience screamed in alarm. Tata was still frozen from her earlier shock. But Ainsha herself was neither surprised nor flustered. Her face still expressionless, she simply stared straight at the camera hurtling directly toward her.

FLAP!

It happened in an instant. A fierce gust brushed her cheek, and just as her field of vision abruptly changed, Ainsha was no longer in her seat. She was flying through the air in the arms of a black-haired young man who had appeared from nowhere.

With his brow furrowed as though something displeased him, the young man's fierce expression made her chest tremble of its own accord. Yet the arms around her were firm, and the lingering emotion of the performance beat against her heart. Even after the young man set her down almost as though discarding her and left, and Tata finally recovered from her paralysis and fussed over her safety, Ainsha couldn't say a word.

Only after placing one hand over her chest to feel her racing heart did she murmur softly, her face expressionless.

"—At last, I found you."

The White Dragon Princess, Ainsha. One of the seven princesses of the Seven Dragons Society. This was the moment when she, who had lived a drab, flavorless life until now, finally found her destined partner.