Invasion from Seoul (15)

The venue was swept by shock. Cameras vividly captured the bands’ inability to accept the reality of the Round 3 mission: ‘The eighteen bands will be disbanded and randomly re-formed.’

While this was happening, the MC had somehow already gone down, and the main PD we had seen once before climbed back onto the stage. He seemed to have decided that this was a situation the staff could not handle on their own.

“The Round 3 mission is Free-for-All, exactly as just announced. The eighteen bands will be disbanded, then form random bands to carry out the mission. As for how it will proceed…”

What appeared on the screen was typography in a completely different format from the broadcast graphics: a PowerPoint designed to be as practical as possible for explaining the rules in detail.

“First of all, the disbandment of the bands is only ‘temporary.’ They will be temporarily disbanded for this round, and in the next round, the bands will compete against one another normally again. Each band will discuss who will lead its ‘temporary band’ and submit the name to us next week. Naturally, it will be impossible to select members from the same original band.”

“Then how will eliminations be decided?!”

A hot-tempered voice cut into the calm PD’s explanation.

“That’s probably the most important part. First… the competition will not be conducted in a head-to-head format. The eighteen bands will perform one after another, and we will rank them from first to eighteenth based on their scores, eliminating the bottom six bands. At that point, a band’s score will be…”

On the screen appeared the typography: [Team Leader 50% + Team Members 50%].

“For example, suppose there are five random bands, numbered one through five. If the leader of Band 1 drafts one member each from Bands 2, 3, 4, and 5 to form Band A, and Band A receives a score of 90, the leader receives 45 points, or 50% of 90.”...