Chapter 333 - 249: Opening of the Finals

Chapter 333: Chapter 249: Opening of the Finals

Lori was caught in the crush of the crowd, pushed all the way into the Grand Arena.

He hadn’t expected so many people to come watch the finals of Feilin’s Best Songs.

He looked up at the largest arena on the Continent. It held fifty thousand seats, and the last time it had been a full house was eight years ago, for the World Sports Games.

Events held here after that were considered a success if they drew twenty or thirty thousand people.

Even the Yo-Yo Championship hadn’t filled all fifty thousand seats.

No musical performance had ever been held in this arena before. For musicals or operas, an audience of a few thousand was considered the limit.

So this final was truly an unprecedented spectacle.

The stage wouldn’t be using the central floor of the Arena, so an extra ten thousand seats had been added there.

And yet, it was impossible to snag any of the sixty thousand tickets.

Zog Group had set up an online ticketing system. Each account, verified with a real name, could purchase one ticket on the platform.

After purchasing, you had to verify your account at a designated location in the city to claim your ticket.

The original base price wasn’t expensive, so Lori tried to buy one.

The page stuttered for a moment, and then a "Sold Out" message popped up.

Lori even started to wonder if they had released any tickets at all.

The tickets were transferable—the associated real-name account could be changed at any time before the finals began.

Unwilling to give up, Lori went to check the resale prices.

One look at the prices made him question just how much money people had these days.

’How could they be so expensive?’

Even though he’d become a fairly well-known guide writer on the forums and had even landed a major gig writing an instruction manual for the Magic Language, he still found the price unacceptably high.

’Were there really this many rich people in the city?’

Speaking of which, writing that Magic Language manual was a real headache.

It had this bizarre quality: when you used it, it was clearly Magic, but it didn’t feel like Magic at all. It was also incredibly slow to learn.

Just as Lori was debating whether to give up on seeing the show live—convincing himself it was better to watch the broadcast on his Magic Vision Device and avoid the crowds—or to just bite the bullet and shell out a fortune for a scalped ticket...

His roommate saved him.

His roommate had managed to snag two tickets using his and his family’s verified accounts, and he offered the second one to Lori at face value.

Now that their tickets were checked and they were inside, Lori finally asked the question that had been weighing on his mind.

"Why’d you buy an extra ticket? And why sell it to me at face value?"

"Do I need a reason? It’s because you’re my best friend," his roommate replied, but a flicker of pain that crossed his face gave him away. That wasn’t the real reason.

At least, not the whole reason.

"Really? You didn’t even make me call you Dad. Usually when I ask you to grab me a meal from the cafeteria, you make me call you Dad first, or it’s a no-go."

Lori wondered if their friendship was about to take a weird turn, if his roommate wanted to develop a "more-than-friends" relationship with him.

"Okay, fine, I admit it. I was originally going to invite Chloe."

"Chloe? The girl you have a crush on? And she turned you down?"

"She didn’t just turn me down. She bought two tickets herself and invited a guy from the Plastic Energy School to go with her."

"Oh. That’s a truly unfortunate story."

Lori decided to console his poor roommate. Sometimes, hearing about someone else’s even greater misfortune is more effective than direct words of comfort.

"I heard about this guy at our academy who invited a girl to a concert. The girl went, and during the part where they interact with the audience, she got called up on stage. She said she came alone! Hahaha, can you imagine how awkward that must have been? Hahaha..."

"I can imagine."

"Right?!"

"Because that was me, too."

...

Now it was Lori’s turn to be embarrassed.

"Oh, dude, I didn’t mean it. I honestly didn’t know it was you."

The two of them lapsed into silence. Anything said now would just feel forced.

Once inside the arena proper, the crowd began to disperse, heading for their respective sections.

Unlike typical concerts, the audience sections for this final were determined by which contestant you supported.

Fans supporting different finalists were assigned to different stands, separated by stands for neutral audience members.

The fans here were a little *too* full of fighting spirit.

Since the show began airing, there had been numerous documented clashes between fan groups.

The largest one even involved over a thousand people.

He’d heard rumors of a bizarre incident where a few dozen people chased down and beat up several hundred.

Until the Guard Corps issued a statement about it, everyone had thought it was fake news.

’To these kinds of fans, the best way to lower a rival’s vote count was to just eliminate the voters.’

To ensure that no riots broke out in the stands during the live broadcast of the finals, one-fifth of the entire city’s Guard Corps had been deployed here to maintain order.

Lori and his roommate found their seats in the neutral section.

It was, however, very close to the fan section for Saintess Astrid.

The Saintess had the largest fanbase by far.

She was also the clear favorite to win.

With her immense talent, the Saintess had managed to unite two groups that were usually at odds: the general audience and the professional music critics.

Her fans were dressed in uniform white outfits. They had meticulously designed chants and choreographed moves, and even a cheering anthem adapted from the Saintess’s song from the first round.

They had even unfurled an enormous banner that covered their entire section of the stands.

’It was like they’d come to wage war.’

Lori noticed a small package resting on every seat.

"What’s this?"

"Souvenirs. The ticket info said that every member of the audience gets a take-home souvenir package."