<230 - The Point-Preserving Event>
From a player’s perspective, there’s no event happier than a weekly event that gives out loads of points.
In that sense, the upcoming Grand Sports Festival is the happiest event of the first semester.
“Before the sports festival, students from all grades will form teams of around 50. We’ll start with individual record competitions, followed by matches within the same grade, and even cross-grade competitions!”
The head of the first-year students, Professor Mahabharata, patiently explained what the sports festival was to the students who were dumbfounded at the mention of it.
In a fantasy world where compulsory education doesn’t exist, the concept of a sports festival was foreign.
It was merely a vile marketing tactic created by game companies to trigger the nostalgia of adults!
People initially cursed it out.
Until they discovered that it was an event that gave out a ton of points.
– Can we have 12 sports festivals a year?
– I just want a sports festival every week!
– Agreed!
Once they realized the reality, players quickly withdrew their light criticisms like flipping their palms.
Anyway, to summarize the Grand Sports Festival:
━━━
◎ Grand Sports Festival Guide
◇ Scoring
*Individual Competition
1st place: 10 points, 2nd place: 8 points, 3rd place: 5 points
*Team Competition
1st place: 100 points, 2nd place: 80 points, 3rd place: 50 points
*Grade Competition
1st place: 1000 points, 2nd place: 800 points, 3rd place: 500 points
◇ Grand Sports Festival Events
*Individual Events (100 types)
– Running 4 types (1km run, obstacle course, tightrope walking, fantastic magical running)
– Throwing 7 types (paper airplane throwing, dart throwing, frisbee throwing, desk throwing, javelin throwing, rock throwing, column throwing)
– …
*Team Events (10 types)
– Athletics 4 types (tug-of-war, relay race, breaking bricks, long rope skipping)
– Ball Games 3 types (huge strength dodgeball, human billiards, Shaolin soccer)
– …
*Grade Competition Events (1 type)
– ??? 1 type
※ The points earned in the Grand Sports Festival have a value of 1 point for each point scored
※ If match-fixing is detected by the Student Council, the scores of the offenders will be forfeited
※ Cross-grade competitions are absolutely forbidden for safety reasons
※ For safety reasons, grades 3 and 4 will hold individual and team competitions in different locations, so rest easy!
※ The grade competition will be held in the same space, so be careful not to faint!
━━━
“Oknodie. Did you make a template for your classmates to see it easily? How nice.”
“Nope! I’m selling each one for 5 points!”
“……”
Tsk tsk. Isabel is still clueless as an NPC.
To earn points, you can’t miss out on these small opportunities!
“Oh, this is good!”
“Oknodie, sell me one!”
“I’ll take three! I plan to sell them to others at a higher price!”
“Ah, then I’ll take ten.”
“See, Isabel? They’re selling like hotcakes!”
“…Then give me three too, one for Jezel and Son Ohchun.”
Ultimately, on the day of production, a whopping 800 templates sold out completely.
“Oh right, Isabel. Keep this to yourself.”
“Why?”
“This template is made with duplication magic, so it’s only valid for 24 hours, you know? Make sure to copy it down somewhere else before that!”
“!!”
I need to duplicate and sell a thousand more tomorrow!
After finishing the lecture, watching students wandering around the campus, all holding templates and discussing which events would be advantageous to participate in.
Among those students were Titosso, Prill, and the Kanilian Truffle trio.
“Doesn’t the paper airplane throwing feel like an easy win? Even without skill, I think I can win by luck. I bet I’d look super cute throwing a paper airplane.”
With Prill’s princess-like comment, Kanilian snorted and pointed out the harsh reality.
“Are you serious? Of course, cheaters using magic will show up. It’s essentially a magical competition to see who can enchant their small paper better to get a higher score.”
“Ugh. Is that how it is? What a letdown…”
Next to them, Titosso also became deflated.
A sports festival teeming with points.
If played right, they could reap huge gains from this opportunity.
Naturally, it was the lower class student’s instinct to find even the slightest chance to gain an advantage!
But there was also worry.
‘Arcadia… It seems like Oknodie is going to push themselves really hard.’
Is it alright to be leisurely searching for easy events?
Let’s just decide on an event and go help Arcadia.
After all, I’m not exactly skilled.
With a lack of confidence in both physical and magical battles, I even ran from the Administration and Production Departments and ended up in the Adventure Department.
What I have are just determination and passion, but I can’t turn my back on Arcadia while chasing after my own gains.
Ignoring the kindness of being hired as a close aide by someone so humble among the throngs of followers isn’t how a person should behave.
Shh… Shh…
After roughly targeting an event that seemed easy, Titosso realized that a suspicious figure had approached their table.
Donned in black armor that covered their entire body, this figure exhaled roughly through the gaps of their helmet, despite summer approaching.
His identity was.
“Yikes! Is that a points thief?!”
“Not at all. I’m here to sell information from the Dark Trading Company.”
It was the Black Knight Mob, who had come to sell information as a side job.
“Cough cough. Sounds about right? Buying info, where are you going to use that?”
“That armor looks very heavy. You’re the Black Knight Mob, right? If you’ve got nowhere to go after graduation, come visit Truffle City in the Southern Sacred City-State Federation. We’ll see if there’s a spot for you.”
“Thank you. Ah, this isn’t the time to dawdle. How about buying this info?”
Kanilian flatly refused.
“I have enough information already.”
When Kanilian showed the template for the Grand Sports Festival, Mob instead cheerfully encouraged him.
“It’ll be even more useful. The information in this issue is a predicted list of individual event participants from upperclassmen. It will be a big help, whether you gain or lose.”
“Hm… Surprisingly good? Sounds enticing.”
As Kanilian bought the information, the sharp-minded Agassi wouldn’t miss out, so Prill and Titosso quickly purchased it too.
“[Paper Airplane Throwing] Predicted Participant: Oknodie. Wow. I didn’t see that coming. Our top student loves to play, so there’s no doubt they’ll participate in this playful event.”
“Look here. [Desk Throwing] has Oknodie’s name too. Wouldn’t it be cute for a girl to compete in something like this?”
“[Balloon Height Raising] is also mentioned. Before cuteness, isn’t it funny that Oknodie’s name appears only in these quirky events?”
Kanilian doubted the reliability of the information!
Mob shook his head.
“That’s why it’s more validated. That person is truly unpredictable. Anyone who knows her will understand.”
“Come to think of it, Titosso was quite friendly with Oknodie, right? Is this part-timer telling the truth?”
Titosso recalled their interactions with Oknodie.
-Titosso. They say there’s a Cerberus in the restaurant that eats leftover food. Wanna go fight it and loot the leftovers together?
-Ugh. What’s that? No way. That’s scary.
During lunch today, they had such a conversation.
-Just now at the third-year research lab, there was a huge explosion. Wanna climb the building walls to check it out?
-You’ll die!! A good first-year shouldn’t sneak into an upperclassman area, especially where something dangerous is happening. Tell the instructors instead!
They talked about this just yesterday evening.
-Look, Titosso. It’s a blue light tick spider. Hehe. Isn’t it awesome? It’s a rare spider that’s hard to collect, and I caught two at once. Want one?
-Yikes! That’s poisonous! Let it go! If it bites, you’ll die!
Even two days ago on the street, they had such conversations.
Titosso’s focus started to blur.
“Um… Can we really trust this info 100%? It must be true. The weirder the event, the higher the chance Oknodie will participate.”
“Well, since Titosso’s official trust level is 100%, if it turns out wrong, we can just feed him a bad snack as revenge.”
“Don’t mention it. I’d be suspicious too if I didn’t know Oknodie.”
“Wait, aren’t you treating me unfairly!?”
Kanilian and Mob finished their deal happily with a friendly handshake.
However, as Prill diligently reviewed the information by herself, her expression turned serious as she tugged on Titosso’s sleeve.
“Tito. We need to look at this.”
“Your expression doesn’t look good. What’s up?”
“The princess.”
“Huh?”
“Her name is mentioned.”
“Of course, she would be. Arcadia is upperclassman too.”
“It’s not just one. It’s tons!”
Titosso realized what Prill was trying to say once he saw the list of events.
“What’s this?”
From 9 AM to 9 PM.
Monday to Friday.
Excluding team events and accounting for travel time, Arcadia’s name appeared in all possible individual events without exception.
“Hey, part-timer. What’s going on? There are way too many predicted events for Arcadia.”
“Oh, that’s not speculation; it’s almost certain. I hear Arcadia has declared that she will participate in as many individual events as she can.”
“N-no way!?”
Those unaware might think that Arcadia, who recently overcame her family’s crisis, was just gnashing her teeth, trying to regain her influence by showing off her skills.
However, Titosso, who overheard the conversation between Arcadia and the foundation scholarship student Jaku, discerned another intention.
This was a strategy to draw attention.
To absorb all the gazes of the foundation scholarship students.
The easiest target among the border-born upperclassmen they were aiming for was Arcadia, who had foolishly increased her participation in events.
She had set up a reckless strategy, making herself the bait and the target.
