ES Entertainment’s president, Oh Dong-cheol, jumped to his feet.

“Sora! Did you just say it’s a new song?”

“Oh my, our president has come back to life.”

“Is it on that USB? Can we listen to it?”

“Of course. I got the entire sheet music file like last time. The parts are divided to perfectly match us, and when I sang my part… hmm, as expected, it’s great.”

“Let’s hear it!”

Oh Dong-cheol plugged the USB memory stick into the computer and opened the sheet music file.

“Oh! It’s a complete score again this time!”

Yoon Nana pointed at the monitor.

“There are a lot of notes explaining how to sing the song!”

There were even more sticky notes attached to the sheet music than last time, explaining how to perform the song.

“Let’s just listen to it first.”

Oh Dong-cheol clicked the mouse, and music flowed from the speakers.

Everyone gathered around the monitor, listening to the song. When their respective parts came up, they clumsily sang along while reading the lyrics displayed on the screen.

About four minutes later, the song ended.

The twins’ eyes sparkled.

“It’s really good.”

“It’s so exciting to sing!”

Yoon Nana agreed.

“The last song had an exciting yet wistful vibe, but this one is just straight-up exciting. It feels like we’re bursting with energy.”

Seo Sora spoke up.

“The title is ‘Smash It,’ right? I guess we’re supposed to smash something with excitement.”

“Looking at the lyrics, I get what we’re supposed to break. It’s telling us to smash the monster called the world’s prejudice.”

“Ah! So that’s what it means!”

“As expected of Dimension. The lyrics hold a deep message.”

Park Cheol-woo had written this song before his family went missing. Even back then, the other world was at war with monsters.

He had named the song with the meaning of beating down monsters that came through the gate.

But in this world, there were no monsters. So Yoon Nana interpreted the lyrics in her own way.

Suddenly, President Oh Dong-cheol leaned back in his chair, propped his legs up on the desk, and made a phone call.

When the person on the other end picked up, Oh Dong-cheol spoke in a haughty voice.

“Hey, Reporter Lee. Let’s do an interview this afternoon. Our girls are busy, but I thought of you, so I’m calling.”

The reporter’s voice wasn’t audible, but from Oh Dong-cheol’s responses, it was clear what kind of conversation was happening.

“What do you mean we only have one song? A journalist shouldn’t fall for such lies. That’s all just malicious rumors. They’re just jealous of our success and spreading nonsense to hold us back.”

Seo Sora, catching on quickly, sang a bit of her part that she had practiced at home. She deliberately directed her voice towards the phone to make sure it was picked up clearly.

Oh Dong-cheol made an “OK” gesture with his fingers before speaking again with an air of superiority.

“Oh? This song? Ah, I just called while watching our girls practice. Songs? Of course, we have plenty more. We’re preparing something huge. Huh? You want to hear more details in person? Let’s see… our girls are only free between two and three today. Can you come then? Alright, see you then.”

After hanging up, Oh Dong-cheol put his legs down and straightened his chair.

“Kuhuhu. The people scheming to take us down are going to panic now. Khahaha!”

Seo Sora asked,

“President, will just one reporter be enough for this?”

“Of course. That reporter is famous for spreading news fast in this industry.”

“But do we really have a lot of new songs? Did you buy more from somewhere? I barely managed to get this one.”

Seo Sora had practically begged Seo Jung-woo to get this song.

Oh Dong-cheol hesitated.

“Uh… if that question comes up in the interview, I’ll just change the subject. Ha, hahaha.”

Yoon Nana turned to Seo Sora.

“By the way, Sora, do you call Dimension ‘oppa’?”

“Huh?”

Seo Sora flinched slightly. But there was no way to undo her slip-up now. She had to come up with an excuse.

“Uh, yeah. I told you we know each other.”

Yoon Nana and the twins already knew that she had introduced them to ‘If We Could Meet Again.’

Yoon Nana continued.

“So, Dimension is a guy. How big is the age gap?”

“There’s quite a difference.”

“Are you two dating—?”

Even Oh Dong-cheol had once asked that and gotten scolded. Seo Sora reacted the same way as before.

Her face twisted in disgust.

“Of course not! Are you crazy?”

“You’re definitely not. Your face just looked like you bit into poop.”

“So, Nana, you haven’t just chewed gum but poop too? You know what that face looks like?”

“I haven’t actually chewed poop.”

The next morning, Seo Jung-woo went to work at the police station. It turned out that police work in this world suited him well.

The time he looked forward to the most at work was lunchtime.

He stirred the stir-fried spicy chicken with care, using a spatula. Meanwhile, the others simply watched, holding their chopsticks.

Baek Sung-min, watching him cook, asked,

“Hey, did Detective Kim come looking for you?”

“Who’s Detective Kim?”

“Kim Jung-ho.”

“No.”

Baek Sung-min tilted his head.

“That’s odd. He said he had something to ask you today.”

“What was it?”

“There’s a tough case, and he wants your advice.”

Jo Min-seok chuckled.

“Wow, other teams are already coming to you for help. Jung-woo, you’re totally the ace of the detectives now.”

Seo Jung-woo set the spatula down.

“If he asks, I don’t mind giving some advice. Not sure how much help I’ll be, though.”

Baek Sung-min quickly picked up a piece of rice cake.

“Wow, how does stir-fried chicken rice cake taste this luxurious? Are you sure you picked the right career?”

“What do you mean?”

“You should compete in the Olympics or become a chef. Anything would probably pay better than being a detective.”

Seo Jung-woo chuckled.

‘Come to think of it, I wonder how the song is selling. The rankings are high, at least.’

4cats met with the reporter who had visited ES Entertainment yesterday.

The reporter was curious about Dimension’s identity and other songs, but Oh Dong-cheol diverted the conversation every time those topics came up.

Still, the reporter was satisfied. There was plenty of material for an article, and the new song Seo Sora had briefly sung was undeniably good.

‘This song will definitely blow up. And when it does, I’ll brag that I was the first to report on it. I can milk that for multiple articles.’

The article was published online last night.

On a major internet community forum dedicated to gaming and PC-related content, a post about the article appeared.

The post immediately caught the attention of users.

It was because the article revealed that the twins, Park Ha-yeon and Park Da-yeon, members of 4cats, were Park Cheol-woo's daughters.

Comments poured in under the post.

– Wow! Iron Cop Park Cheol-woo. Haven't heard that name in a while.

– A nostalgic name.

– I'm hearing about him for the first time. Who is he?

– He was a detective who played StarCraft as a hobby after work and became a top-ranked player.

– Wow!

– He even competed in tournaments a few times, once reaching the semifinals.

– He reached the semifinals as a hobby player?

– Ah!

– I remember reading an article about his passing in the line of duty. I was shocked back then, but the twins in that photo have grown so much.

– They really grew up well.

– Agreed.

Not everyone reacted positively. Some negative comments appeared as well.

– They got lucky with one hit song, and now they're releasing another one just days later? Feels too rushed. They're overusing the whole ‘Yoon Nana's kidnapping and rescue’ angle.

– You have to row while the tide is high.

– I know a bit about their situation. That company is failing. There's no way their second song will be as good.

– Even if the company is struggling, its president is Oh Dong-cheol. You really think he only managed to get one good song?

– No matter how close they are, a composer wouldn’t keep giving out songs as good as ‘If We Could Meet Again.’ I’d bet my wrist that this new song is just filler for appearances.

– Why hasn’t Oh Dong-cheol released any new songs lately? I really liked him as a singer.

– Did you really? He injured his throat in an accident years ago and can’t sing anymore.

– What? But I saw him on a TV show not long ago?

– He can talk fine, so it doesn’t affect his daily life, but he can’t sing with his old voice anymore.

– Wow, that's a shame. His songs were amazing.

– After injuring his throat, he quit singing and started a company, but things didn’t go well, and he lost all the money he had saved.

– Poor guy. Let’s cut him some slack.

Oh Dong-cheol turned to Kim Hyeong-jin, his only employee and manager.

“Hey, how could they write that I’m pitiful? That’s humiliating.”

Kim Hyeong-jin, typing a new comment, responded.

“Is this really the time to worry about pride? If we get a bad reputation early on, we’ll just gain more antis. We should at least pretend to be pitiful.”

“Still…”

“Just leave the forums to me. You focus on getting ‘Smash It’ released. Once it becomes a hit, the people who pitied you will all turn into 4cats fans.”

Oh Dong-cheol grinned confidently.

“Don’t worry about that. This song is perfectly tailored to our girls, so they adapted to it quickly. If they get invited to a music show, they can easily choose between the two songs.”

Kim Hyeong-jin’s expression stiffened slightly.

“Music show? On TV?”

“Yeah. Impressive, right?”

“What about the choreography?”

“Choreography? The girls have been practicing dance for a long time.”

“That was just basic training and imitating other idols' dances. They’ve never created choreography for this song.”

“Oh?”

Only then did Oh Dong-cheol realize the problem.

“If they go on a music show like this, they’ll have to just stand there and sing. If they show that weakness, competitors will start attacking us again. Damn, what do we do?”

“You’re asking me what to do?”

“Seriously, what should we do?”

Kim Hyeong-jin made a suggestion.

“Let’s just do radio shows for now. We don’t need choreography for those.”

“What if we create the choreography now and have them train hard?”

“We haven’t even been able to pay rent for the practice studio. The girls haven’t done any formal training in ages. Their bodies must be stiff. Besides, recording the song is the bigger priority right now. Where would we find time for choreography?”

“Right. I always thought we should start with radio first. Let’s just focus on vocal training.”

Team 2 returned from lunch.

But something was off with the neighboring team.

Baek Sung-min walked over and asked, “What’s going on?”

One of the detectives from the other team answered anxiously, “Detective Kim is missing.”

“Maybe he turned off his phone on purpose? He’s done that before.”

“No. We contacted his family, and they said he never came home last night. They assumed he was working overtime again.”

“Then maybe he went somewhere else?”

“This morning, he told the team leader that he had something important to report. Why would he just disappear?”

Baek Sung-min’s face hardened.

“Do you know what that report was about?”

“No. He only said it was important.”

“I think I know.”

Baek Sung-min walked over to Kim’s desk and started going through his files.

The other detective frowned. “What are you doing?”

“Yesterday, Detective Kim talked to me about an ongoing investigation. He had a file with him at the time… Ah! Here it is!”

He opened the file.

The other detectives, including Team 2, gathered around to look.

The neighboring team leader said, “This is the missing person case Detective Kim was working on.”

“Yesterday, he told me he suspected the Sagori gang. He planned to ask Jung-woo about it today…”

The team leader flipped through the file quickly.

“What are you talking about? There’s no mention of the Sagori gang here.”

Baek Sung-min’s face grew grim.

“Damn it.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“If I hadn’t heard Kim say that yesterday, there would be no record of his suspicion about the Sagori gang.”

The team leader realized the implications.

“If Kim figured something out about them, and they noticed…”

“And if what he found was big enough to take them down?”

“They’d silence him? Those bastards dared to target a detective?”

The team leader shouted to his detectives, “Round up every single one of those Sagori gang bastards!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Who’s backing them?”

Another detective answered, “They’re a new gang, so we haven’t identified their backers yet, but we have a few suspects.”

“Find out!”

“Yes, sir!”

Team 2’s leader, Kwon Byeong-cheol, stepped in.

“Your hands will be full just rounding them up. Let us look into their backers.”

“Deal!”

Kwon Byeong-cheol turned to his team.

“Everyone, focus on this case! Detective Kim is missing. He might have been kidnapped, so stay sharp! We don’t have confirmation yet, so keep this quiet—especially from reporters!”

Detectives were handed documents analyzing the Sagori gang along with copies of the original case files.

Seo Jung-woo received a copy as well.