Translation: Dreamscribe
It had already been decided.
Just before fully immersing himself in filming Iyota Kiyoshi's past scenes, Woojin had been reviewing roughly nine different assignments, yet only one thought remained in his head.
'Kiyoshi. And Corporal Jin Seoncheol.'
Role fusion. And the timing marked in the script.
In this scene, Kang Woojin intended to fuse Kiyoshi with Corporal Jin Seoncheol. He was trying to blend the two characters together.
Why Corporal Jin Seoncheol?
Because it seemed like the most natural choice. On top of that, Corporal Jin Seoncheol had a dual nature. Even when summoned, he had shown two distinct sides: a timid side and a rough side.
By that logic, one person alone could cover two roles. In fact, the internal image Woojin had of Corporal Jin Seoncheol felt almost like two different people standing there.
'Alright, then let's mix Kiyoshi with the timid one.'
Corporal Jin Seoncheol was cunning. Both sides of him were the same in essence. But as time passed, the timid side had become several times more vicious than the rough one. That nature had not slowly developed while he was on Island of the Missing. The timid side had been cunning from the beginning. He had merely pretended otherwise.
And now he was going to combine someone like that with Kiyoshi.
Kang Woojin was not worried. He had already done it before.
But how would other people react when they saw this performance? What would the acting look like to them? What would the audience think? The actors? The director and the countless staff members? The moment the slate clapped, Woojin felt a different kind of thrill.
'If it fails, then I can just do it again. Judging it is other people's job. Yeah, let's try it.'
Kang Woojin's acting had always been compelling, no matter the role. He had already reached the point where he could experience a role's world and feel it completely through the character.
But now, a different kind of anticipation had begun to sprout inside him. It felt like unveiling a new product to a customer for the very first time.
That was all.
"Ready—action!"
A faint trace of Kang Woojin's own unique mood seeped into the acting for this scene.
"Creepy. Doesn't his face look unpleasant every time you see it? Like some kind of robot."
Of course, the power of the void space still played a major role in Woojin's astonishing acting. More than ninety percent of it came from that influence. Kang Woojin did not deny it. He needed that power.
But if that power were taken away from him now, the Kang Woojin of today would not exist. That was why he intended to keep using it in the future.
Still, he could not forget the mindset of an owner.
It did not matter whether the void space saw it that way or not. What mattered was Woojin's own attitude. In that sense, the newly granted role fusion ability was positive. It gave Kang Woojin a focal point for maintaining that attitude of owner. For example, if I cook, then I am a chef. Whether unconsciously or consciously, that subjective mindset had awakened in him.
"Don't look at me like that. Say something. React. Hm?"
Yeah? React.
The actors, the director, everyone was watching. The camera was right beside Woojin. Having already become a perfect Kiyoshi, Kang Woojin casually summoned the timid side of Corporal Jin Seoncheol.
More precisely, it was his timid side.
The moment it was summoned, that presence obeyed its master's command.
The fusion of the two summoned beings happened in the blink of an eye.
Kiyoshi's dry foundation remained intact, but over it he layered the sly cowardice of Jin Seoncheol's timid side. And so, a truly bizarre person was born. A man walking carefully across dry ground. Rustle, rustle. Even with trembling steps, he did not stop walking across that endlessly barren land.
Fear and emptiness coexisted.
"Stop, stop. Don't do that. I'm scared. Don't hit me. I gave you money, didn't I?"
That strangeness was unmistakably present even in the way the words came out of Woojin's mouth. His eyes, nose, and mouth were unchanged. The furrowed forehead, the expressionless face, the nose and lips that barely moved.
And yet, in Woojin's eyes, the artificially created persona gave the faintest tremor.
He had thrown it out there.
What did everyone think?
Kiyoshi carefully examined the nine assignment students tormenting him, one by one. The biggest reaction came from Shinnosuke, the one who had just hit him. He flinched and froze.
Was he startled? Or frightened?
A closer look showed that all nine wore similar expressions.
Kang Woojin—no, Kiyoshi—called back Corporal Jin Seoncheol.
In an instant, his face returned to normal.
There was almost no gap. It was a bizarre transformation. Back as the original Kiyoshi, he looked at the nine of them expressionlessly.
His part was over. Now it was their turn.
But Shinnosuke had lost his composure.
"······Ah."
As a result, he struggled to get out his next line, unable to grasp the situation properly.
"Good, right? What was that? Are you saying you'll do anything if we tell you to?"
It was a line that had already been set. Even in shock, Shinnosuke somehow managed to say it. Next came the handsome Kinjo's turn.
"Yeah. This guy Kiyoshi. You knew everything, and you still kept your mouth shut? That makes you seem more human. Shinnosuke, let's make him do something else this time."
"Hmm. What about getting angry?"
"Sounds good."
"Hey, Kiyoshi. You're angry now, right? Try getting angry at us."
Swish.
Kang Woojin's arm moved in an instant.
The outstretched arm grabbed Shinnosuke by the collar right in front of him. Then he yanked Shinnosuke's face close to his own.
"Hey, trash."
He had changed again.
Kang Woojin's eyes were completely different from a moment ago. There was pressure in his dry voice. In that instant, Shinnosuke felt the urge to break free and run away from his grip.
'What the hell is happening right now?'
Why did it feel as though someone else had been layered over Kiyoshi?
Meanwhile, Kang Woojin's part continued.
"Who the hell are you to order me around? Want me to coat your body in cement and throw you into the sea? Tired of living?"
That was Lee Sangman.
At that moment, Woojin had fused in the scent of Lee Sangman. But it did not last long. He used only as much as he needed, then ordered it back to return to him.
The scent vanished at once, and Kiyoshi released Shinnosuke's collar and muttered in a dry voice,
"Done."
Shinnosuke could not hide his shock.
'Acting? Can something like this even be called acting?'
Kinjo, standing beside him, thought the same thing.
"It felt like multiple souls had possessed him. It wasn't just a change in expression. He really looked like someone else."
The other actors behind them felt exactly the same.
'How many people came and went just now?!'
They could not make a proper judgment. The sight before them was too overwhelming. They were veteran actors who had spent long years in the Japanese entertainment industry, yet what they were seeing now was something they had never once witnessed before.
They had even forgotten their place as fellow actors.
They were the audience.
Of course, it was not only the actors who were the audience. The cameraman filming Woojin from right beside him, the staff member holding the boom mic to capture the actors' voices, the hundred or so crew members watching the scene unfold—they were all part of that audience too.
The set had never been this quiet.
"······"
"······"
As if they had forgotten they were in the middle of filming, the The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice crew watched what felt like a suffocating stage performance. Kang Woojin was the main figure, but there was not just one character there.
How many were there, exactly?
At that point, a few of the staff members let out low gasps without realizing it.
"Whoa······"
He was an actor.
A real actor was someone like that. So that was what acting was.
The staff arrived at that conclusion unanimously.
Especially because most of them were Japanese staff.
All they had ever seen in that market were the familiar moods and acting styles common to it. Exaggerated acting. Formulaic acting. To them, Kang Woojin's performance was revolutionary.
Meanwhile, the bespectacled assistant director finally regained his senses and whispered to the white-haired Director Kyotaro,
"Director… should we stop? It feels a little off from the script."
Off from the script?
No, not exactly.
The assistant director had the vague sense that the performance had somehow rewritten the script itself, but he could not bring himself to say that directly to the director. After all, the great Japanese master Director Kyotaro had his face buried in the monitor and was doing nothing but breathing.
"······"
About five seconds passed.
Then Director Kyotaro quietly opened his mouth.
"···No. Keep going."
"What?"
The Kiyoshi that Woojin had created had completely overtaken the script, yet to the great director Kyotaro, he was still unquestionably Iyota Kiyoshi.
He had simply become far stronger and colder than before.
"It hasn't gone off course."
It was merely a three-dimensional variation of Kiyoshi.
Later.
Since the director gave no signal to stop, Kang Woojin and the other actors continued acting. There was still a little movement left in the scene.
At that moment, Director Kyotaro slowly lifted his head from the monitor and looked at Woojin on set.
"It's only one scene."
At most, it would last a few minutes. Once edited, it might be even shorter.
And yet, it was a performance no Japanese actor could possibly imitate. Even Director Kyotaro, who had spent decades directing, had never seen anything like it before.
Perhaps—
"······"
Could what he was witnessing now be a new form of acting?
Director Kyotaro thought back on Woojin's past. He could not even begin to imagine what kind of life Woojin must have lived.
'How much training and practice would be needed to perform like that? He must have lived for acting alone. A life spent endlessly tormenting himself before old wounds could even heal.'
Director Kyotaro was deeply moved by Kang Woojin.
It was a feeling mixed with respect and misunderstanding.
"He prepared that kind of acting for this single short scene. As a director, I can't even imagine trying to stop it. This… this new way of acting has to be made known not only in Japan, but throughout the world."
And so, he made up his mind.
He would spread this new style of acting.
He would spread his misunderstanding to the world.
A few minutes later, he shouted across the set.
"Cut! Okay!!!"
Sending out an enthusiastic signal, he quickly rose from his seat and strode toward the actors on set. His steps were agile. After offering his approval to the actors, Director Kyotaro reached out and helped Woojin to his feet by the hand.
"Thank you, Woojin-ssi."
It was an unexpected expression of gratitude. Director Kyotaro spoke to him with warm eyes.
"Even during the difficult filming period, you stayed with us, and for the role of Kiyoshi, you prepared an astonishing performance."
Woojin was slightly taken aback. The mood had suddenly turned strange.
'What is this? It's fine. Just go with it.'
He lowered his voice as much as possible.
"No, it was nothing."
Director Kyotaro, still smiling faintly, released Woojin's hand and turned to the Japanese actors around them.
"I'd like to revise the script based on the scene we just shot. What do you all think?"
The actors said nothing. They merely nodded.
Then—
"Weren't you all trying to leave because your acting was poor? Among all of you… has anyone ever seen acting like that before?"
Still covering her mouth with one hand in shock, Megan Stone murmured something to the people around her amid the silent staff.
"At least I've never seen anything like it before."
"Didn't his face… change several times in an instant?"
"It did. But Kiyoshi himself never broke."
"Was the second one madness? But it didn't feel strained."
"Exactly. It felt like madness without any clear purpose."
The round-eyed man with the stocky build rubbed his chin.
"A new acting technique? But how does someone even learn to jump between multiple personalities that quickly?"
Megan, sweeping back her short brown hair, glanced around and continued.
"Not just that. Look around you."
The team looked around at the hundred or so The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice staff gathered nearby. There were dozens more staff assigned to the actors, and even a few actors who had come to watch. Among them, Nakajo Kimi, the rookie actress playing Misaki Toka, stood there with her mouth hanging open. Woojin's acting seemed to have completely numbed her mind.
"With just a few lines and a short scene, he captured that many people. And it wasn't even a grand sequence."
A smile spread across Megan Stone's lips.
"He is a star. That Korean actor will become a true top star."
In any case, filming began moving forward at full speed.
By lunchtime, the filming of The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice's past scenes had begun in earnest and continued into the late afternoon. Perhaps because of Kang Woojin's role fusion, Director Kyotaro, the Japanese actors, and the entire The Stranger's Grim Sacrifice team had all suddenly become more energized.
A lot of NGs came out of Director Kyotaro's mouth that day.
"Cut, NG. Mifuyu-san, it's good that Amie is showing strong emotion, but you were too angry there. Show restrained anger."
"Yes, yes! Director. I'll try again!"
He not only guided the Japanese actors' performance styles, but also revised scenes on the spot whenever he felt dissatisfied with something in the directing.
And there was only one person who had brought all those revisions to the surface.
"······Kang Woojin."
Just as the short-haired Megan Stone had muttered, that person was Woojin. Filming was unmistakably revolving around him. Seeing Iyota Kiyoshi actually walking around and speaking in front of them, it made sense.
And today's Kiyoshi was far more three-dimensional than yesterday's.
At first glance, he seemed almost close enough to grasp, but at the same time, impossible to fully catch. The Kiyoshi Kang Woojin portrayed matched the figure in the script exactly, yet at the same time seemed to step beyond the script and cast a haze over the viewer.
And yet, the acting never felt excessive.
Not only Director Kyotaro, who oversaw the set, but even Megan, who had spent a long time in Hollywood, could clearly see that.
'This isn't overacting. It's explosive growth. And he knows exactly how to handle expanded character traits. He keeps the character's core firmly in place… and only expands when necessary.'
Staying within the frame.
It might sound easy, but it was a technique only seasoned actors could master. And the level of acting Kang Woojin displayed so freely was unlike anything Megan had ever seen before.
'A new species? Is he really some kind of alien?'
He knew how to stand out as an actor. He also knew how to dominate a set and a story world.
In other words, Kang Woojin was in the absolute peak of his form right now.
At that same moment, Kang Woojin muttered quietly to himself.
Of course, only inwardly.
'Alright, so this is how you use it. I'm almost fully used to it now.'
He was talking about role integration.