Ch.307302 – KGSAT

*Whoosh-*

“Ugh, it’s cold.”

The frigid Siberian wind cut right through my coat.

I think the only day that could actually be called autumn was when the Academy Competition was held.

Maybe we should rename the seasons from spring and autumn to “rainy” and “freezing” instead.

“I miss summer with the cicada sounds. Achoo!”

Yuna sniffled beside me.

I immediately pounced on the bait she threw with predator-like focus.

“Speaking of cicadas, did you know American periodical cicadas live underground for prime number cycles before emerging all at once? Like 5, 7, or 13 years. Especially the Brood-9 species that stays as pupae for a whopping 17 years! Aren’t you curious why they evolved this way? The answer lies in the relationship between prime numbers and predators—mmph!”

“Please, NoName! Don’t open your mouth!”

Haru thoroughly covered my mouth from behind.

“Phew. You guys who don’t appreciate the beauty of prime numbers are so pitiful—mmph!”

“Eww, you got saliva on my hand! Stop sticking your tongue out!”

“Bleh.”

To think they’d shut down a lecture from a prime number authority who proved the twin prime conjecture.

People would pay good money for this information.

“I wonder how the upperclassmen are feeling right now? They must be so nervous.”

Yuna and I turned our attention to the street.

In Korea, approximately 300,000 “cicadas” emerge at once.

Children who’ve been holding their breath for 17 to 19 years finally take flight into the sky today.

Looking at Koreans these days, it’s hard to call even people in their 20s adults.

I tightly held my frozen friends’ palms while raising a placard high above my head with my other hand.

[You’ve done well so far, and you’ll continue to do well!]

We were standing in front of a regular high school’s main gate.

The Academy “forcibly” arranged for us to cheer on the seniors taking the KGSAT.

Even penguins protect their young by placing them in the center, but I was positioned at the very edge, unavoidably serving as a pitiful windbreaker.

And I just realized why I was placed here.

Otherwise, passage would be impossible due to the crowd.

“NoName! Which number should I pick for my sister!”

“Hold my hand once! Let me get some energy!”

“Name, please, I’m retaking the exam and I really need to do well today…! What do you think? I’ll do well, right?”

Why are they asking me?

The crowd swelled like a tsunami, filling the school grounds.

Some superstition must have spread because all the high school seniors and repeat test-takers were desperate to hold my hand.

It’s a once-a-year exam, so I’ll allow it today.

With a bright smile, I made electromagnetic interactions with the students’ blistered palms.

“If you don’t know, pick 3.”

Because three chances are enough in life.

* * *

I just remembered there was one more person I knew taking the KGSAT.

The content-obsessed girl, Kariri.

[Seol Yoon-sul: Fighting fighting >< I’ll mark 100 answers and get 99 right, so look forward to it!]

Yoon-sul, who will have her coming-of-age ceremony next year, prepared for the exam aiming to enter a broadcasting arts college.

By now, she must have finished the reading comprehension test and be working on composition and language.

I came home, took off my coat, and collapsed onto my bed.

Everyone is finding their own path, but I can’t shake the feeling that I alone am stagnating.

Proving the unsolved problem wasn’t entirely my achievement.

A significant portion came from my past life’s knowledge, borrowing from Master Maria’s research.

What remains of me if you take away my past life?

Am I merely a vessel to appease the pitiful soul of my previous existence?

It’s fascinating how interpretations change depending on how I define myself.

If I define myself as a continuous being from my past life, I am undeniably male.

Conversely, if I deny my past life, I become a little girl with a mental illness pretending to be an adult.

Neither perspective leaves room for my second life.

Yet paradoxically, the largest part of my current personality comes from my second life—Estasha.

If I only knew the principles behind reincarnation, all questions would be answered at once.

‘Well… I guess that’s why it’s an unsolved problem.’

Let’s not overthink this.

I can’t question whether I’m male or female every time I put on a skirt.

Life is too short for such inefficiency.

If I find it difficult to define myself, I can borrow others’ perspectives.

I posted a comeback notice on Twissy after three weeks away.

* * *

[NoName]

[Just Chatting – KGSAT Preview]

[Broadcast Time – 0:05:38]

[Viewers – 10755]

-I’m legendary for watching NoName’s stream right after finishing the examㅋㅋ

-You came exactly at 6 o’clock?

-I almost died without Nameㅠㅠㅠ I missed your streams so muchㅠㅠㅠ

-You don’t have to stream hard, just grow up healthy…

-Virtual reality? Even better.

-Adela just finished her stream, looks like she’ll be working two jobs hereㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Kariri’s never-ending jukebox slowly ended, and I called someone.

Ring-ding-diri-ding-

The black screen on the broadcast gradually brightened, revealing the interior of a room.

-???

-A phone call?

-OMG OMG OMG

-Hurry up and show yourself, this is frustrating!

“Hello.”

[Hello! Wow, Name!]

“You sound cheerful? Did the KGSAT go well?”

[Well you see there’s a very sad story here I definitely marked the reading comprehension correctly but accidentally my tumbler fell and water—]

“Oh, yeah, hang in there…!”

Click-

Seems like it didn’t go well.

I heartlessly hung up before she could burst into tears, as I couldn’t bring myself to comfort her.

“Hello everyone. Today was KGSAT day, right? If there are any viewers who took the exam today…”

-Like if you’re a nervous test-taker waiting for your resultsㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-‘Apart from sound, a drum is merely leather’

└ What’s that?

└ Handwriting verification phrase

└ LOLㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-I’m retaking next year, sigh… Name, don’t live like this…

“I hope you’ll quickly turn off my stream and go tell your parents how thankful you are for raising you.”

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-Praise me for watching Name’s stream as soon as I answered the phone~

-The zero-scorers really gave up right after the reading comprehension testㅋㅋㅋ

-Mom! Don’t you know I’m a high school senior? Get out of my room right now!

-So I decided to watch the stream with my parents.

“Oh, please don’t watch together. You’ll just get scolded, and that’s only a loss for you viewers.”

-Niceeeeee

-ㅋㅋ Name really is the ultimate perfect daughter.

-Seeing her in 240fps after getting tiny glimpses on Instagram feels like heaven.

└ This is like chugging Powerade after rationing water drops in the desertㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[‘Namefan’ donated 100,000 won!]

-I wonder if Name has recovered her health! We were all so happy to see you spending such a wonderful time with your father on Instagram! I hope you can stream comfortably without pressure, like you’re just hanging out with usㅎㅎ. Thank you so much for coming back so quickly!

“Thank you Namefan for the 100,000 won donation. I wasn’t even that sick, so I feel a bit sorry for only showing you my weak side.”

-What do you mean not that sickㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ

-You can show us your weak side as much as you want!

-Name’s standard for “not sick” is so high it makes me cry…

-Those journalists who insulted her father deserve to be buried even deeper

-I wish she’d tell us about going into solitary confinementㅋㅋ

“I wasn’t planning to talk about sad things today. I wanted to solve some KGSAT problems with you all. This is kind of free content, right?”

-Well, you’re not wrongㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-There weren’t many people who actually solved problems thoughㅋㅋㅋㅋ Most just talked about exam stories.

-Just Chatting = You guys chat among yourselves, I’ll solve problems.

└ So that’s what it wasㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-Your idea is so cuteㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ This is the NoName I know.

-Kariri should recruit NoName as a second-generation member right now!

“Alright, that’s enough. Let’s start a subject vote, shall we?”

Moderating the chat atmosphere is part of being a broadcaster.

When the broadcast atmosphere becomes overly favorable toward the broadcaster, it can cause discomfort or aversion for certain viewers.

These subtle skills of making the content itself the focus rather than the person were things I learned on my own in this life.

Wait, so I do have things I’m good at.

Humming a tune, I quickly created voting options.

“I’ll just go through about three to five subjects broadly. We’ll proceed in the order of the votes. Everyone understand?”

-Yes, teacher!

-Day 1 of praying for NoName to become an online lecturer…

-Honest opinion) Name isn’t that good at teaching.

-A Wolf Prize winner solving KGSAT mathㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ This is ridiculous…

-This is just flexing math skills.

-I’m curious about magic studies and composition too.

15,000 viewers showing a 95% participation rate in the poll.

[#1. Mathematics]

[#2. Natural Magic Studies]

[#3. Magic Circuit Studies]

[#4. Composition Studies]

[#5. Reading Comprehension]

“Let’s start with math.”

* * *

My brain is basically optimized for solving math and magic circuit problems.

Numbers naturally appear in my mind, and multi-dimensional arrangements of circuit formulas just happen automatically.

If someone asked me how I multiplied 9 by 8, I’d answer “just because.”

I’m someone who has more things that “just happen” compared to others.

“Why doesn’t the KGSAT include deeper number theory? It only covers congruence equations, but I think high school students could definitely learn about quadratic fields, elliptic curves, and Diophantine approximation. Is the answer 30?”

I asked the viewers a question while calculating a very simple definite integral.

-We’re already dying with the current math curriculum and you want to add more? I’ll curse you!

-Your mental math is insaneㅋㅋㅋㅋ So this is how people finish math in 20 minutes?

-My friend from Daechi-dong is crying in real timeㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-Is there a world where we don’t learn matrices, vectors, geometry, trigonometry, and sequences?

└ If that were the exam scope, it would be even more chaotic in its own wayㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-No need to see more. When the hardest problem takes 1 minute, that says it all;;

The second subject was Natural Magic Studies.

It’s actually just basic magic studies, but some influential theoretical magic scholars filed lawsuits claiming “this isn’t real magic studies.”

According to them, the ultimate purpose of magic is to break away from nature and construct circuit formulas based solely on human thought.

However, given that 99% (not just 90%) of magic below 3-circle is modeled after nature, the subject had “natural” added to its name.

The Natural Magic Studies exam never went beyond classical mechanics in difficulty.

At most, it involved describing methods to optimize static fluids.

I solved problems using a virtual reality slate provided as a product from GigaStudy.

[Record: Pressure Center Point Movement]

The dam gate drawn on the electronic paper closes.

-So relaxing

-Damn I remember that dam problem, it was awful

└ Please keep the chat clean.

-A river made of test-takers’ tearsㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-What relevance does this have to our real lives anyway?

-If heavy rain comes and the dam breaks, we’re the ones who have to fix it, rightㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Well, the criticism that problems are too contrived seems unavoidable, both then and now.

But the KGSAT is a test to evaluate individual thinking abilities, not a certification for practical magic.

“Still, the quality of the problems is quite good, isn’t it? How could they implement such interaction on electronic paper?”

-They probably kidnapped designers to create this.

-I wanted to slap that Dalmatian waving on top of the damㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-Magic really is about talent;; This is incredible

“Designers? Wow.”

I drew a line across the slate circuit to slightly modify the answer to the problem I just solved.

Then the Dalmatian was swept away under the dam.

“No! The puppy!”

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-This is so annoyingㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-In the exam hall, you can even hear the “woooo” sound effect!

-Comedy level 100ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

After about 5 seconds, the dog respawned from the sky, but… it hurts my heart too much to send it down again.

And next.

The most controversial subject in this KGSAT, Composition Studies.

Usually easier than Magic Circuit Studies, and accessible enough that even non-Academy students can tackle it through academies, online lectures, or commercial workbooks, so many regular high school students attempt it.

-The evaluation director is definitely getting fired

-100% chance

-How could they include a topic that’s common in law school exams?ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

-Let’s go~

-No way…? You can solve this too?

On the last page of Composition Studies was the “Arabesque Composition Formula” that I used most frequently in my past life.

Although there was no golden bell, I tackled this problem with the full support of the viewers.

A complex cube in 3D hologram popped out and positioned itself in front of my chest.

“Challenge accepted.”

Today’s stream seems to be the most fun.

Maybe I should become an academy instructor if I have nothing else to do later?