The Number One Star in the Interstellar Era

ASTRID was on the way to the filming location of [Fieldtrip] – the variety show where he, Lauren, and Miria would appear for their next episode. Just like the name suggested, it's a variety show where guests were taken to a place where they would have to spend a day doing missions given by the program team.

It sounded like an ordinary variety program. But the one thing that made it different from other programs was because they provided a whole-day broadcast of the episode. Of course, there was an official episode. After all, not everyone could watch the broadcast the whole day. The official episode would be the edited version with only the important events included.

Despite that, many still preferred the live broadcast. Because they could watch the celebrity guests unfiltered. If they exhibited bad behavior, it couldn't be edited out. That's why actors/actresses with serious bad character never tried to guess at the show. Or at least, their agent prevented them to.

But that didn't mean that it was an unpopular show. In fact, it's one of the most popular variety shows right now. One reason was the live broadcast and the other was the interesting missions the program team came up with.

"Miria's MV has pretty good result. Her song had now entered the top 10 of a couple of music charts," Ellis said while looking at her Terminal.

Yesterday, Miria's song – New Horizon – dropped, alongside its MV. Being part of [The Sleeping God]'s OST, it was already garnering attention before it was even released. Not to mention, Miria's own fame. So, the moment it dropped, many people listened to the song and watched the MV.

With the movie still trending, the MV and the song also quickly trended. In particular, Astrid's appearance in the MV gained a lot of attention. He had already been gaining a lot of attention from the movie but with the addition of the MV, the attention increased even more.

As evidence, his followers on [Cyberspace] had now increased to two million. Even now, it's still increasing. And once this variety show aired, Astrid had a guess that his followers would probably increase to five million at most.

That's never a bad thing. After all, the number of followers was a good gauge of one's popularity. And it's one of the criteria taken into account when including artists in the [Star List].

The list was being 'refreshed' every three months. So, it's like a quarterly event. This month was actually the third one this year. By the end of this month, a new list would be revealed.

Astrid would probably make it to the list this time around. Although it would definitely not be too high up. And that's completely fine. Because his goal was the next refresh round of the list. Which would be at the end of this year.

His plan was to be able to enter top 100 by then. It would be his first step to the top.

"There are a lot of comments shipping you with Miria," Ellis added. "Just yesterday they were shipping you with Lauren. Tsk, tsk, these fickle kids."

Astrid had also read those comments and there's one particular wolf who's not too happy about it. Wulfric had been arguing with a lot of people online since the day before yesterday. Even Astrid was surprised at the other's tenacity.

"Well, that's a hundred times better than getting hated by their fans," he said.

He's familiar with fans wanting the celebrities their stanning to only 'belong to them'. It's actually kind of amazing that most of the comments about him being shipped to Jean Evans, Lauren, and Miria were positive. If this was his past life, he would have probably already been bombarded by hate comments.

"It's because you look good, not to mention, talented," Ellis reasoned out in a wry tone. "If they find the smallest flaw on you, I'm sure they'll be the first to turn their backs against you."

"Let's hope it won't come to that," Astrid said in an amused tone because of how Ellis said it.

"If we just consider your character, I doubt that would ever happen," Ellis said. "But we both know there are villainous people in this industry who would do everything in their power to twist the perception of others against those they find an eyesore. And you, my dear Astrid, is a prime target."

Astrid understood what his agent was trying to say. "Don't worry too much, Sister Ellis. I'm not careless enough to let those kinds of people get the best of me," he said and then added playfully, "Besides, Sister Ellis is here to protect me, right?"

Ellis glanced at him with an equally amused expression. "You cheeky kid."

She looked back at her Terminal to continue reading comments related to Astrid. Then, a particular handle caught her attention - @astridsnumber1fan. She normally wouldn't notice such a thing but this person's handle had been appearing from all the trending post related to Astrid.

[@astridsnumber1fan: How many times do I have to tell you people not to ship Astrid to others? If you're really a fan, you should focus more on his talent!]

[@astridsnumber1fan: As expected, even in something simple as an MV, Astrid still shined like the star he is.]

"Have you seen the comments made by this person named 'White Wolf'?" she asked. "He seems to really like you. All his comments were either praising you or fighting others who said bad things about you."

Astrid was surprised when Ellis suddenly mentioned Wulfric's secret handle name and then he chuckled. "Well, he did say that he's my number one fan."

"Oh, so you had read his comments."

"He's kind of hard to ignore," Astrid said and added in his mind – [Both online and in reality.]

"Then, maybe once the agency establishes an official fan club for you, we can invite him as the president."

Astrid burst out laughing at Ellis' suggestion. "Weirdly enough, I actually think he'd like that."