Raising a Neglected Singer-Songwriter - Chapter 139



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Raising a Neglected Singer-Songwriter Episode 139

139. Go down to the lower world.

My dear and dear wife was bitten by the sharp teeth of a poisonous snake and lost her life.

I was so sad that I cried and cried and cried.

I sang about my separation from her, my sorrow, my despair, and it became a beautiful poem.

Yes, even in my grief, I was a genius.

It was a day spent with tears and songs.

Suddenly, a way to get my wife back popped into my head.

Let’s go down to the underworld and bring her back.

I took my lyre and went to the River Styx.

In the river that divides life and death, there was a boatman who carried the dead.

When he asked me why I came, surprised that a living person had come to see me, I answered that I had come to get my wife back.

The boatman felt sorry for me when he heard my story, but he refused to let me board.

This was because if a non-dead person boarded the ship, the ship would sink.

Having lost my wife, I am no better than the dead!

My conversion joke of “I thought it was a pretty plausible logic” didn’t work either.

But that doesn’t mean I can give up like this.

I just got on the boat, picked up my lyre, and played a song about the sadness I felt when I lost my wife.

Then tears began to pour out of the boatman’s eyes.

As the boatman said, the boat was about to sink, but the tears he shed caused the river to rise and lift the boat back up.

In this way, I became the first living being to achieve the feat of crossing the River Styx.

If it were a ‘game’, there might have been special rewards given for achieving hidden achievements.

After that, he put the three-headed guard dog of the underworld to sleep with a lullaby, and finally went to the underworld and the king and queen.

Even in front of the two rulers of the underworld, I played the lyre and pleaded.

And finally, he succeeded in wiping the tears from the eyes of the King and Queen.

I think I may be the first and last person to see the tears of that blunt and cold monarch of the underworld.

The king, impressed by my sincere love for his wife, allowed me to take her with me.

As the king pronounced her name, a blue seal emerged from the list he was holding.

She was my lovely wife.

The moment I finally saw my wife’s face again, my heart pounded.

Who knew she’d be this beautiful even as a ghost!

After all, a true beauty is a beauty in any situation.

I hugged my wife tightly.

Now, I feel like I want to turn the emotion of this reunion into a song.

My wife also hugged my neck warmly.

That was when.

The king set one condition.

Until both my wife and I reach the surface, we must never look back.

Honestly, I thought it was a really fun, raw mission.

Where in the world would you find a idiot who would blow a mission like this?

So confident, I grabbed my wife’s hand and headed straight for the ground.

I’m excited about what to eat to celebrate my wife’s return to earth.

One, what I thought was a mission to eat raw food turned out to be fraught with traps.

That’s right, my wife was a ghost.

I couldn’t feel the warmth or texture of the hand I was holding, and my voice was limited, so I couldn’t answer the question asking if I was following along well.

After a while of walking through the darkness, I suddenly began to feel anxious.

Am I holding my wife’s hand properly?

I really wonder if my wife is following along well.

It was the anxiety brought about by the darkness of the underworld.

Even for a moment, I felt like looking back to check,

I couldn’t break my promise to the king, so I tried to suppress my anxiety and hurried my steps.

How long did it take to walk like that?

From far away, a warm light began to shine on the ground.

After passing through the long cave, I finally arrived under the sunlight and my tension suddenly relaxed.

The moment I looked back and burst out the longing I had been holding in,

?!

My wife’s frozen face came into view.

The gaze slowly turned downwards.

Her lovely heels… were unable to escape the shadows of the underworld. Haha, damn it.

My wife smiled bitterly and made a face.

‘Ahhh···.’

There were even worse comments like, “You’re so impatient,” and “I bragged to my friends in the underworld that my husband came to pick me up, but now it looks ridiculous,” but I’ll leave that out.

Anyway, my wife ended up being dragged back to the underworld.

I hurried back to the underworld and asked the boatman to take me on board once more.

However, the boatman, whose tear ducts had already dried up and who could no longer shed tears, refused my request.

So I came back alone like a cripple.

A week after that.

I spent my time abstaining from food and drink.

I didn’t even sing a song.

Because a song that my wife didn’t listen to was meaningless.

I’d rather die and go to the afterlife to meet her.

It must have been around that time when such thoughts were occupying my mind all day long.

Someone came to me.

It was he, or maybe she, wearing a robe.

A woman who introduced herself as a messenger sent by the mistress of the underworld spoke to me.

The merciful companion of the King of Hades has given me one more chance.

I immediately bowed my head before the lion and prayed.

I am grateful for the mercy of the Queen, who is like Hahae, and if you give me the opportunity, I will follow any word or command.

The lion’s lips quirked upward at my words.

And then, the lion’s lips opened.

If you want your wife back…

‘Go down to the summer.’

*

Unlike the previous two hints, the third hint boasted a vast narrative volume, describing the latter part of the story where Orpheus’ wife was bitten by a poisonous snake.

It was a familiar mythological anecdote about Orpheus.

However, it was strangely different from what Sungjun knew.

First things first.

“Orpheus was not given another chance to rescue his wife.”

Orpheus, who lost his wife through a foolish act, lives like a loser, and is brutally murdered by the followers of the drunken god.

It’s a bad ending.

No, I guess it’s a happy ending since he died and went to the afterlife and was reunited with his wife?

Anyway, the story of someone appearing in Robe was nowhere to be found in the green window that Sungjun was searching through.

And another one,

“I’m sure you mentioned words like ‘game’ and ‘hidden achievements’ along the way.”

These are the words that the speaker, Orpheus, put into his mouth.

I felt this way last time too, but I thought the speech was very modern, but this time, modern words were just popping out.

Here’s what we can guess.

“It was in the ‘modern’ era that Orpheus recorded his voice on a music box.”

And this guess was naturally connected to any word that appeared in the very last line of the music box.

“summer season.”

The world where gods reside is often called heaven or the upper world, while the world where humans live is called the lower world or the lower world.

And the robed woman told Orpheus to ‘go down to the underworld.’

Common sense would dictate that Olympus is superior.

The human world where Orpheus lives is the Underworld.

But then you go even further down ‘summer’ from there?

At first, it felt inconsistent, but then suddenly I had a gut feeling.

That ‘summer’… might be the world I live in right now.

‘Of course, it’s not certain yet.’

Everything is just speculation based on circumstances and hints.

The next time I turn the clock, I’ll know for sure.

The true identity of ‘Raising a Neglected Singer-Songwriter’.

And about the purpose of creating this game of Orpheus.

[Record # P]

Seongjun put the third LP in the item window.

*

The next day.

While working in the studio, a system message popped up.

[Guild member SHYine’s personal mission has arrived.]

[Participate in writing lyrics for a new girl group’s title song once.]

[Reward upon completion: Silver Coin X3, Guild Fame 20]

“Oh, it really did come out.”

It was clear that Shin Jin-hee had asked Seol Hye-yoon to write the lyrics.

As expected.

A while later, a phone call came.

It was Seol Hye-yoon.

– Seongjun, it’s none other than-

As expected, what came out of Seol Hye-yoon’s mouth was that she had been asked by Shin Jin-hee to write lyrics for the title song of ‘Breeze’.

It was when Sungjun was trying to encourage her.

– I answered that I would do it.

“Really?”

Seongjun was surprised by Seol Hye-yoon’s words and asked.

I never expected that she would be the first to accept the offer to write lyrics.

“So are you now planning to seriously pursue a career as a lyricist?”

– It’s not a full-fledged thing, but I’m going to try to increase my songwriting work little by little.

Instead of jumping into the industry blindly after being intoxicated by one or two successes, it was Seol Hye-yoon’s typical answer to carefully develop her abilities.

Oh, that’s smart.

– I heard that Sungjun composed the song. Is that right?

“Yes. This is our second collaboration after ‘Cherry Blossom Road’. So I have high expectations for this one too.”

– Big expectations. Are you putting a lot of pressure on yourself just because it’s a song Sungjun made?

“Oh, I got caught. That’s what a quick-witted woman does.”

– I refuse to write lyrics?

“I’m sorry. Please just say that.”

Two people are joking around.

Then, Seongjun brought up another topic of conversation.

“Oh right, by the way, the number of views for ‘Star Friend’ that Hye-yoon appeared in this time is amazing. Did Hye-yoon watch it too? Hye-yoon is really good at taking pictures!”

-···I only wore a helmet?

Anyway, the current number of views has exceeded 3 million.

Among the flood of interview content, it wasn’t easy for a video that wasn’t even a short to surpass 3 million views.

Well, there was a good reason for that.

The thumbnail of a two-shot of a man walking along a beach with a durahan helmet over his head was too provocative for anyone to pass by without clicking.

The fact that Sungjun is the host and the guest is SHYine, a rising star in the lyricist world who is shrouded in mystery, also played a big role in driving up the number of views.

-Who is our next guest?

“My friends at Monsta Z decided to help. Their team also happened to be on break.”

– Oh, so it’s not like there are only female guests.

“yes?”

– No, I was just talking to myself.

···It was too much of a monologue.

Anyway, after finishing the call with Seol Hye-yoon, I went back to working on the song.

Composing for a full-length album.

There is no clear concept yet, and for now, I am just putting the inspiration that comes to me into song form.

The new song ‘Breeze’ is scheduled to begin recording as soon as Seol Hye-yoon’s lyrics are completed, so it may be possible to finish recording within a week at the earliest.

“Brother, let’s go now.”

While he was busy working, Oh Hae-soo carefully opened the door and spoke.

Is it that time already?

I followed Oh Hae-soo into the van.

To attend the next schedule.

The place they are headed to is the Korean headquarters of luxury fashion brand ‘KORE’ located in Gangnam.

This is because ‘KORE’ offered Sungjun the position of ‘Global Ambassador’.

As K-pop and Hallyu have become mainstream in the global music market and culture, respectively, it has become quite common for Koreans to be appointed as global ambassadors or house ambassadors for luxury brands.

Moreover, Sungjun is currently the hottest artist in Korea and is quickly expanding his popularity overseas.

As the word ‘fashion’ itself means ‘trend’, it was natural that Sungjun’s name would be included in the list of candidates for a luxury brand that emphasizes ‘trendy’ as a leader that leads the flow of the times.

Thanks to this, proposals came in from several luxury brands, but among them, Sungjun and MXM Entertainment chose ‘KORE’.

Because ‘KORE’ has been the most successful brand in the fashion industry recently.

Upon arriving at headquarters, Kore staff greeted Seongjun.

“It’s an honor to meet you like this. Wow, you’re even more handsome in person. You fit our brand image perfectly.”

“I would like to thank you for offering me this precious opportunity.”

“No problem. Okay, let’s go this way.”

We entered the meeting room prepared by KORE while having a light conversation.

As soon as the door opened, another ambassador of ‘KORE’ who was already seated waved at Sungjun.

“Brother, hasn’t it been so long since we last saw each other?”

It was Yuna.