At 9:50 PM, Mochizuki was waiting in front of his computer.
The computer screen displayed the Fujikawa novel website.
Because at 10 PM tonight, the rankings for this year's rookie light novel submissions would be announced on time.
Since the user votes this time were not real-time,
the rankings needed to be tallied before being announced.
Soon, it was 10 o'clock.
Mochizuki, full of anticipation and excitement, used his mouse to click and enter the rankings.
It didn't load successfully, and the computer interface was blank.
The bottom left corner of the webpage showed 'Loading...'.
Refresh, refresh, refresh again...
Still no response.
Mochizuki's face darkened. "The server is terrible!"
After this struggle, his heart, which had been beating rapidly, calmed down a bit.
After a few minutes of delay, the interface finally loaded successfully.
10th Place: "Record of the Otherworldly Demon King's Harem"
9th Place: "Even a Normal High School Student Can Easily Handle Things in Another World"
...
6th Place: "Yandere Little Sister, Please Let Me Go"
...
...
3rd Place: "Love Meter"
"This one sounds a bit familiar."
2nd Place: "Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World"
1st Place: "Legend of the Fantasy Demonic Blade"
These were the top ten works.
Nearly half of the ten works were of the otherworld genre, which is ridiculous! Can the industry not have some innovation?
Although he didn't get first place, second place was still pretty good.
Being able to receive a 200,000 yen prize, Mochizuki was quite satisfied. At least his living expenses for the near future were settled.
Actually, regarding Mochizuki's current writing level,
Although he had anime and novels he had seen in his previous life in his mind, and was familiar with the general plot direction,
Moreover, in "Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World", our protagonist Natsuki Subaru is not a traditional overpowered character, and his combat power is close to 0. He can only overcome difficulties by relying on special 'Return by Death'...
It also had a bit of novelty.
However,
in terms of writing skill, such as the depiction of the environment, the description of details, the portrayal of characters, the ups and downs of the plot, logical consistency, etc...
Mochizuki still had many shortcomings.
And the readers' eyes are sharp!
Therefore, Mochizuki felt that getting second place was acceptable.
He believed that as his writing deepened,
"Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World" would definitely be welcomed by everyone!
Next, Mochizuki clicked into the comment section of his work, which contained selected messages from users across the country.
He wanted to see what everyone was saying.
"In the otherworld works where overpowered protagonists run rampant, a normal male lead like this appeared. The ability concept is innovative, looking forward to the subsequent plot development."
"Keep it up, it's very good. Hope the author wins an award!"
"Emilia... White-haired Elf... My favorite... Wife, wife, wife..."
"Okay, the author has a great imagination and novelty. Everyone is already tired of those old-fashioned trope-filled stories!"
"Wuwuwu, Puck is so cute... I want to raise one."
"Damn it, it was clearly a max affection start, why did it restart!!! Wuwuwu X﹏X"
"I personally think this will be a healing anime. (Dog head emoji)"
"The beginning is quite engaging, but the author's writing technique still needs improvement."
"I bet this will be a hit..."
...
He casually scrolled through some comments. Mm, not bad. The users' comments were all lovely and brought Mochizuki quite a bit of satisfaction.
Next, Mochizuki decided to look at other works, mainly to gain some writing experience.
"Well then, let's take a look at the first place and this third place."
After all, they were in the top three. Hmm, he could also take a look at the Innovation Award winners...
Speaking of which, it seems Mochizuki's phone hasn't received any harassment from Yamada Elf these past two days?
That's because Mochizuki had set Miss Yamada's messages to Do Not Disturb!
Soon, Mochizuki finished reading "Legend of the Fantasy Demonic Blade" first.
He couldn't help but sigh, it was truly worthy of first place. He admitted defeat.
It seems there are still many talented people in the industry!
Next was a school romance light novel, "Love Meter".
Being able to stand out from so many otherworld-themed novels, it was clearly a very excellent work.
The author's name was Kasumi Shiko.
Mochizuki even knew the author personally. "Even Kasumigaoka Utaha appeared."
This reminded Mochizuki of a certain blonde twin-tailed girl.
And there was also a guy named Aki, a very self-righteous fellow!
He decided to take a look, even though the ranking was lower than his.
But Kasumigaoka's writing style definitely had areas worth learning from.
Moreover, Mochizuki also planned to write novels related to school themes next.
In a nearby residential area, close to Mochizuki's apartment complex.
In a beautifully decorated one-bedroom apartment, the living room furniture was tidy, but it was quite dark as the lights were off.
However, light shone from the room door, indicating that the owner of the apartment was inside the room.
Inside, there was a girl.
The young girl was neatly dressed.
She had straight, smooth, black beautiful hair, adorned with a white headband.
Her wine-red eyes were intently staring at the laptop screen.
The screen was filled with dense text.
She looked like a very dignified and beautiful woman, but for some reason, one of her legs, adorned with black stockings, was shaking violently.
This clearly somewhat ruined the girl's image.
"Heh, third place, huh?"
"It doesn't matter."
The young girl's eyes were full of pride and confidence. She clearly didn't care much because this was her first time writing a light novel.
And the reason she wrote light novels was simple.
In her opinion, the market was full of various garbage works. She couldn't find any novels that satisfied her.
So she decided to create one herself.
After seeing her ranking and the comment section, the young girl clicked on a book ranked above hers.
Meanwhile, Mochizuki was leaving his bank account number on the website, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to receive the prize money.
"You guys are all idiots, idiots."
The phone rang.
Mochizuki picked up his phone and saw it was an unknown number.
He pressed answer.