Wrapping Up the Event (3)

Exactly as we'd predicted.

Watching the rage over the update delay(?) set the gallery ablaze in an instant was almost satisfying.

"…Just as we expected. There's a lot of anger over the delayed-update notice."

"Tell me about it."

Jessica, watching the whole mess unfold in real time right beside me, made the observation, and I could only nod in agreement.

And at last, one hour later—

It wasn't just the global chat window packed wall-to-wall with people.

Even the gallery users were all howling in unison, waiting for the update to go live. I was no different — seated in the command chair, waiting for the event message that would pop up in a few dozen seconds.

"This is a moment worth looking forward to, isn't it?"

"It is, Commander."

At some point everyone in the gallery had stopped updating their average point totals, so even ballparking a figure had become nearly impossible. Still, even giving ourselves a generous margin of error, I was confident we'd land in the top 50% at minimum.

Then came a cheap little ding-a-ling of a notification sound, and an update notice popped up right in front of my eyes with a flimsy little boing. I went straight for the ranking section.

But in that exact moment…

…Huh?

My points had clearly been sitting at just 697,004 — and yet somehow another 820,000 had been tacked on. I couldn't help but feel genuinely, thoroughly bewildered.