Mental torment

"What's going on? Why did that Takasugi Ki lose all his lives in the second level?"

"Maybe he's just too nervous?"

"But no matter how nervous you are, at least you can still do some basic maneuvers, right? Even in a nervous situation, I'm much better than him."

"Who knows."

On the stage, Takasugi Ki had already lost all his lives, only lingering at the end of the second level.

At this point, Takasugi Ki was sweating profusely.

In the slightly chilly November weather, he felt like his autumn clothes were about to be soaked through by his own sweat.

"It's okay, you can start over."

Takayuki kindly comforted Takasugi Ki.

Takasugi Ki could only awkwardly click the option to start the game again and start over from the beginning.

Of course, starting over wouldn't give him another chance to recalculate his completion time.

By this time, Taiga Oono and the third-place player had already jumped to the fourth level of the game, about to jump from the second level of the fourth level to the eighth level.

But Takasugi Ki was still stuck in the first level of the game.

However, this time he was a bit better and didn't die too quickly.

But his maneuvers were obviously not as smooth as the other two.

This was definitely not a quality that a speedrunner should have.

The seed of doubt had already been planted in the minds of many players in the audience.

In the end, when Taiga Oono successfully completed the game in 6 minutes and 48 seconds, and the third-place player in 9 minutes and 21 seconds, Takasugi Ki was still cautiously navigating through the second level, far behind in speed compared to Taiga Oono and the others.

"Alright, thank you very much for the performance from the three players. Next, let's announce the speedrun results for Contra. Please welcome Taiga Oono, Takemoto Kusen, and Takasugi Ki."

The third-place Contra player, who had been waiting below the stage for a long time, happily walked up.

But as he walked up, he deliberately glanced at Takasugi Ki.

This guy didn't look like a true speedrunner at all.

Was it just his illusion?

Was he just hiding his abilities?

"Next, we will have another small interaction, which is the Contra speedrun competition."

Again?! When will this end?!

Takasugi Ki felt a bit overwhelmed.

It was already difficult enough for him to hold on earlier.

Now they're saying another performance competition.

"Takasugi Ki, what's wrong with you?"

"It's nothing, just... a bit nervous."

Takasugi Ki was extremely uncomfortable all over now, embarrassment bursting from within, difficult to contain.

The Contra performance competition began again.

And this time, there were even more doubters.

Because Takasugi Ki's maneuvers seemed quite clumsy.

In order to avoid death, he deliberately took each step cautiously, fearing sudden death.

But Taiga Oono and the other player manipulated their characters with ease, as if they could predict everything, and both completed the game in 15 minutes and 13 seconds and 19 minutes respectively.

Meanwhile, Takasugi Ki had only just reached the fourth level.

Whispers among the audience grew more and more.

Is this really the skill of a first-place winner?

He completed Contra in five minutes on the leaderboard.

Now? He hasn't even reached halfway in twenty minutes.

As the time approached half an hour, players began to feel a bit bored, and Takayuki decided to stop Takasugi Ki's challenge altogether.

"Thank you very much for the performances from the three players. Now let's invite the three winners of Tetris, Taiga Oono..."

The third-place Tetris player also happily stepped up.

Then, Takayuki once again had the three of them perform again.

This was easy for Taiga Oono and the other player.

But for Takasugi Ki, it was a continuous mental torment.

This was really painful!

And this time, Tetris wouldn't give Takasugi Ki much time to wait.

Because the falling blocks would accelerate with time.

Taiga Oono and the other player each held on for 15 levels at 13 seconds and 14 levels at 2 seconds respectively.

As for Takasugi Ki, he was defeated at level 12 speed.

Earlier, Takasugi Ki's cheating method in Tetris was to directly tamper with the game's data.

After all, the production of Tetris itself is not complicated, and if it weren't for game development patents blocking the way, it would be easy for an ordinary programmer to make, and cracking it would be just as easy.

But now, he couldn't cheat in front of everyone.

Until this moment, he finally realized that something was wrong.

And in the audience, the voices of doubt grew louder.

"Is that Takasugi Ki really the first place? He doesn't look like it at all!"

"That's right, no matter how you look at it, he doesn't seem like someone who can break records."

"But how do you explain why he's ranked high on the leaderboard?"

"I don't know, does anyone understand this?"

People in the audience looked at each other, beginning to doubt whether Takasugi Ki could really have won first place.

Not to mention first place, he didn't even have the skills of the top one percent.

Many players felt they could do better than him.

"Takasugi Ki, you don't seem to have very good maneuvers. Why is that? Your performance in the challenges was outstanding."

At this moment, the timely voice of the sweet female host sounded from the stage.

It wasn't necessary for Takayuki to address the doubts, as it would lower his status.

Just now, the audience had already communicated with the host, and the host had already understood the situation.

That Takasugi Ki was just a clown, and now, the goal was to make him embarrass himself.

If a host really wanted to mock someone, there would be no mercy.

After a few words, Takasugi Ki felt a bit dazed.

Takayuki smiled and waved his hand, saying, "Alright, it seems that Mr. Takasugi Ki isn't feeling well. Let's just end the award ceremony quickly. Please invite the three winners of Metroid onto the stage, and then we'll have another performance competition."

Another one?!

Takasugi Ki completely broke down, unable to hold himself together anymore.

Everyone looked at Takasugi Ki in silence.

Those players who had admired Takasugi Ki just now had strange expressions on their faces.

"Sorry, everyone, we've just received some sudden news, which may be a bit unexpected."

Just then, the sweet-faced hostess once again stepped onto the stage, bowing slightly apologetically to the players, then took out a piece of paper.

"Just now, after inspection by engineers from GameStar Entertainment, it was discovered that there were traces of data tampering on a gaming console used for challenges in Adachi Ward. This kind of tampering can allow players to complete challenges by cheating, which is extremely despicable. In more serious cases, it can even be considered fraud. So, we immediately chose to report it to the authorities and properly preserve the physical evidence to ensure that fingerprints are not destroyed, and the award ceremony may be temporarily suspended. We will reschedule the ceremony after everything becomes clear."

"What? Data tampering? Can you cheat in electronic games too?"

"Heh, you're really ignorant. Of course, you can cheat in electronic games. Electronic games are also a type of program. As long as programmers who understand programming can have the ability to cheat."

"Such a thing happened unexpectedly. This must be fraud. But who could have done such a thing?"

Just as someone raised a question, almost the next second, everyone looked at the dazed Takasugi Ki on the stage.

Why does it feel like... there's a high possibility that guy cheated?