“Congratulations on winning the Fields Medal, NoName Wizard! You’re set to receive $30,000 CAD in prize money. How do you plan to use it?”
“My little sibling is organizing a small Fan Art Contest, so I plan to contribute it all as prize money.”
“Wow… that’s the most creative usage I’ve heard so far! Wait, did you say you’re putting up the entire $30,000? That must mean the scale of the competition is going to be huge…”
“No, it won’t be much if everyone shares it.”
It wasn’t even necessary to put up a prize; there were tons of people eager to draw fan art.
The amount Adella had initially considered for the prizes was barely above minimum wage.
However, with Na-me’s generous donation, the fan art contest had far exceeded the scale that fans could enjoy together.
[NoName Fan Cafe]
[Notice: NoName 2053 Fan Art Contest (01/27 ~ 02/09)]
Hello, this is Adella, the co-manager of NoName.
To update everyone on Na-me Unni’s current situation, she is living a normal life and focusing on her studies.
Even though it may take a while, she has expressed that she won’t be returning anytime soon.
Therefore, during her reflection period, we are hosting a fan art contest to generate some activity in the fan cafe!
The winners will be showcased on the result announcement day, and Na-me Unni will join in (voiceover), so we look forward to your participation!
For details on participation methods, rules, and precautions, please refer to the next announcement post.
Contest Name: NoName Fan Art Contest
Theme: We are looking for talented artists to draw fan art featuring broadcaster NoName or streamer NoName!
Submission Period: January 27, 2053 ~ February 9, 2053, 23:59 (UTC+9)
Results Announcement: February 16, 2053
Grand Prize (1): 6 million won
Best Award (3): Each 3 million won
Excellent Award (5): Each 1 million won
Encouragement Award (20): Each 500,000 won
With the increase in the prize money, the responsibility of the managers also grew.
Adella carefully drafted the rules for the fan art competition while seeking advice from other broadcasting managers.
Sexually suggestive fan art would face legal consequences without exception, and excessive glorification was prohibited.
She also requested that those aiming for the prize include their production process and a time-lapse.
In truth, it was Adella who desperately hoped that Na-me would return to Korea.
Before March came around, Adella had to return to Korea to attend school.
If Na-me decided to stay in the United States after the semester ended, Adella would face a situation where she had to give up either her school life or Na-me.
“I don’t want that. I can’t give up either.”
Adella’s eyes burned with passion.
And on the much-anticipated first day of the contest…
Over 1,800 drawings were uploaded to the NoName Fan Cafe.
Being the first day, the managers focused on posts that had received reports and conducted thorough investigations.
[Fan Art Contest]
[One Night with NoName and Adella][13]
“These perverts just don’t know when to quit, even with a notice telling them not to!”
Adella shouted angrily as she clicked on a post with a suggestive title.
When she finally saw the fan art, her jaw dropped.
On a regal bed one might find in a European royal palace, two mature women lay with half the blanket covering them.
The soft moonlight streaming into the room quietly illuminated the bedroom.
The blonde woman had elegantly flowing golden hair.
The white sheer dress she wore hugged her body, creating a provocative silhouette.
On the opposite side, a Cat Beastman donned a contrasting black dress, their faces mere inches apart.
The skin tones subtly shone through the translucent fabric.
“No way! The moment underwear is even slightly visible—it’s an instant out!”
Despite saying that, Adella’s hands had already saved the high-quality fan art to her gallery.
In a panic, Adella deleted the post and banned the author from the fan cafe.
At that moment, she resolved to give him a separate reward.
*
“Hey, the little Fields Medal winner! How’s life at the Academy? No struggles, right?”
Evans, a fellow student she became close with during Magic Duel Practice, greeted her warmly.
Despite it being winter, his hair was completely drenched in sweat.
Not to mention his puffy face.
And the duel class hadn’t even started yet.
“You look like you’re the one struggling. Have you been in a supplementary class until just now?”
“Yep. Worked out hard with the TA guys.”
“Then why are you taking such classes and making things tough for yourself?”
Evans wasn’t formally trained in Magic Duel either.
He barely knew how to use magic and was hanging on by just being born with an Aura-type physique.
As a result, he had been at the bottom of the class of 15 students for the past month.
Well, now there were only 11 since four dropped out.
“It’s survival of the fittest, not the fittest survives. I’ve already outlasted four.”
The sturdy sandbag stated confidently.
“That’s quite impressive, I’ll admit.”
“Hahaha! I finally added a draw last week, so it’s about time for me to score my first win. Who’s my duel partner today?”
“It’s me.”
“Meh, there goes today. Take it easy on me, buddy; your hand is pretty deadly.”
“That’s up to you.”
We chatted as we entered the Philips Academy Coliseum Hall.
On the first day, they had class on outdoor grass, and from the second day, they utilized the formal duel arena.
When he was set to fight against me, I intended to control my strength and adopt a mindset of teaching him rather than going all out.
He applied for the Magic Duel to gain more experience as an offensive tackle.
I don’t quite see the connection between American football and Magic Duel, but at least I was glad he was improving daily.
Bweeek-!
Using what we learned in class, we exchanged a few convincing blows for several minutes.
Evans pounded my Barrier mercilessly with his impressively muscled arms.
Shoooook-
A fist the size of my face swished past my line of vision.
It felt unnaturally slow today.
Upon investigating, I found out my shoulders were unusually tense.
When the Aura keeps circling around like that, the effective radius shrinks, weakening the force of the punch.
“Evans, you need to keep your rotation going. If you tense up your shoulders from the start, your fist’s going to slow down. Just focus on the impact.”
The Aura spins around my body vertically like a hurricane.
The Aura pulled up from my toes to my torso, concentrating towards my arms and hands to amplify striking mass.
The moment my fist connected with Evans’ Barrier, a torrent of high-density Aura burst forth from the escape route.
BOOOOM-!
My weight, about six times that of my body, went flying into the wall pads of the Coliseum arena.
“Duel ended! Next pair, get ready to come out!”
While other students fought fiercely, we had to draft duel logs while reviewing the recording.
In this class, writing the feedback was far more important than merely fighting.
Finishing my self-feedback, I had time left and helped Evans with his.
“Evans, can you take me back to the main building today?”
“Heading to Open World Engineering, huh?”
“Yep.”
“NoName, we have plenty of bikes at our school. Can’t you just go alone for once?”
“My legs are too short to reach the pedals.”
“Ha ha!”
“Are you laughing?”
I grabbed the back of his neck and started shaking him back and forth.
“Ahhh! Nooo!”
“Didn’t you say it was an honor to give me a ride back? Gotta keep that glory alive.”
“Because of you, I have to go home sweaty after not even being able to shower here. Fine, fine, I’ll give you a ride.”
“Thanks! I’ll even use Clean Magic later.”
“No thanks, it feels even weirder. How do you not sweat at all? Seriously, you’re a monster.”
Grumbling, Evans took the elevator down to the Coliseum’s basement.
Before long, a red Honda sports car rolled out and stopped in front of me.
“Close the roof; it’s cold.”
“I’m warning you, I’m only tolerating this because you’re cute.”
“What are you going to do if you don’t tolerate it?”
“Honestly, there’s not much I can do about it.”
“Ha ha, what does that even mean?”
It’s amazing that such a leave-the-skater-alone type has a cheerleader girlfriend.
Thanks to my dependable shuttle, I could directly enter the class without getting hit by the cold wind.
There were about 20 to 30 minutes left before class began.
Students like me who had entered early were all busy coding away.
It had already been a month since we received a perplexing assignment to create an open-world game.
Thanks to how user-friendly the game engine provided by Resonance was, we managed to avoid countless all-nighters.
Game development can be broadly classified into planning, art, and programming.
Avatar modeling, which was our last assignment, went smoothly.
Since I had clearly remembered the appearances of my past life characters, I saved time on conceptualization.
However, game planning was still a thorny issue.
I hadn’t yet decided on the core concept and fun elements of the game.
Most students seemed to be settling on a storytelling 3D puzzle or shooting game.
A game that yields good results relative to the effort put in, commonly referred to as good cost-performance.
“But I don’t want to leave out combat elements…”
Instead, just like I trained the Verstappen AI in the past, I’d have to create combat AI myself.
Yeah, trying to cover everything in two months is a bit ambitious.
Let’s only make one enemy that allows the combat gimmick to work.
Ding-
Just then, a message from Adella arrived.
[Adella: The fan art contest has ended!]
Oh, has it already been that long?
I should send her a message to thank her for her efforts.
[Adella: Honestly, don’t you think this is the kind of work that deserves the grand prize? Haha!]
[Adella: (So sad that NoName got stuck at 140 cm height.jpg)]
[NoName: Do you want to die?]
