[TSSIM] Chapter 517: Winners

[Minamiya: Alright, everyone! The deadline for our giveaway event is almost up! If you haven't joined yet, hurry up! Once the time's up, I'm locking the page, so if you still wanna participate after that, tough luck!]

[Comment 1: Already joined.]

[Comment 2: +1]

[Comment 3: Oh crap, I totally forgot! I kept overthinking it and just kept putting it off. Good thing Minamiya-sensei reminded me. Guess I'll just pick something random. Romance, wholesome, and drama sound good, I guess.]

Upon reading this comment, Homura was momentarily speechless before turning to the girls.

"Isn't this way too much of a coincidence...?"

At this, the girls' expressions turned strange as well.

Judging from the third comment, they had just randomly picked something, but somehow, they still got it right.

"Is this luck or misfortune?" Eriri's lips twitched.

If one called it luck, then somehow, panic-picking had landed them on the correct answer, but if one called it misfortune, Homura had clearly set this whole thing up as a trap, so the fact that they had just walked straight into it was in itself already misfortune.

"Well, it's too early to say." Elf shook her head. "I mean, there are only 50 winner slots. If they don't get picked, it doesn't count as lucky or unlucky."

"We should take note of their username." Nayuta suggested, squinting as she read the commenter's username. "HappyEnd—eh?!"

Everyone's expressions turned even weirder upon reading the commenter's username.

It couldn't be helped.

Someone using 'HappyEnd' as their username and then choosing romance, drama, and wholesome themes probably loved stories that were full of hardship but ended beautifully.

However, Homura's setup this time was undoubtedly full of traps, so if they really got picked, it would be a complete disaster for their expectations.

"Hey, should we rig it a little and make this guy win?" Homura asked while rubbing his chin.

Everyone: "?!?!"

Rig it?

Could he at least try to act like a decent person?

"You're joking, right?" Elf's mouth twitched. "Why are you putting all your cruelty on this one poor guy?"

"I dunno, it just feels like fate, y'know?" Homura grinned. "We just happened to notice their comment, and then we just happened to completely go against their preferences. Honestly, that kind of insane coincidence is making my hands itch."

"You know, this whole setup is already pure evil toward them, and if you intentionally make it worse..." Eriri trailed off, but everyone knew what she meant.

"Fine, fine." Homura shrugged casually. "Let's keep it random and leave it to fate then."

[Minamiya: OK! I'll lock the page now! Just wait five minutes while I pick the 50 lucky winners! Let's see who gets the prize this time!]

[Comment 1: Just a little bit more!]

[Comment 2: Bruh, you serious? You didn't join for days, and now you're here when it ended?]

[Comment 3: I freaking forgot! I didn't even think about it, then turned around and it just poofed from my brain! My friend just hit me up to remind me, and the second I log in it's over!]

[Comment 4: Lmao, I knew no real Minamiya-sensei fan would miss these five days, but damn, I didn't expect that kinda bad luck!]

[Comment 5: Eh, whatever. Missed it, so I missed it. I mean, only 50 slots, right? No way I was getting picked.]

[Comment 6: Yeah, it's no different from gacha, but hey, it's all for fun, y'know? Who knows, maybe you'd pull off some crazy luck and get blessed by RNGesus?]

[Minamiya: Well then, let's see if that maybe includes any of you!]

Homura switched back to the selection process and started filtering based on the five chosen tags.

First, he eliminated all entries with any extra tags, leaving only those that matched all the criteria. Since the requirement was to pick at least three tags, anyone who chose more than five with extra tags got filtered out.

Glancing at the list, Homura suddenly noticed that someone had actually picked all five correct tags!

As the girls also began to notice, they were stunned.

"Homura-kun, did you pick this one yourself?!" Kotori asked with a shocked tone.

It was only natural for her to be shocked since choosing tags like 'apocalypse' and 'wholesome' together was a pretty unique taste, after all.

"No way I'd do that." Homura shook his head. "It's probably someone just clicking at random? Still, this is one crazy coincidence."

"Or maybe… Ayano picked it? No, wait, this isn't her username..." Homura shook his head again. "Whatever, not gonna overthink it. Let's just start the random selection."

He quickly wrote a small program, imported the data from the giveaway event page, and started the random draw.

"Any of you wanna press stop for me?" Homura asked while watching the scrolling data.

"I'll do it!" Elf exclaimed and immediately pressed the stop button. "What? Only ten?"

"Yeah, let's have four more of you press it, so the others can pick the lucky winners too." Homura grinned.

"Eh?!" Izumi suddenly gasped.

"What's wrong, Izumi-chan?" Megumi couldn't help but ask.

"Look at this name." Izumi pointed her small finger at the laptop screen.

Everyone looked over and saw that it was a username called 'HappyEnd'.

Elf: "…"

"Seriously? One of the first ten is this guy?" Homura's lips twitched. "What kinda luck is this? Is this good or bad?"

Hearing this, the girls had no idea what to say either since it just felt way too weird.

"Keep going, there are forty left. Whoever wanna tap, just go ahead." Homura shrugged.

With things turning out like this, even the draw wasn't as exciting anymore.

Eriri, Sagiri, Honoka, and Rin each tapped once, and with that, the list of fifty winners was officially set. Shortly after compiling the fifty usernames into a single image, Homura switched back to his blog page.

[Minamiya: I'm back!]

[Comment 1: Yo, that was fast. Is it really done? Or did something else happen again?]

[Comment 2: Please, no more surprises! I'm still over here praying!]

[Minamiya: Chill, the fifty winners have been decided. You'll get a private message from me with your exclusive key. Use it to access the info submission page and fill in your shipping details. By the way, the prizes will be sent out tomorrow.]

[Minamiya: Here's the winner list.]

As soon as Homura revealed the winners, the internet instantly exploded with joy.

[Comment 3: Anyone wanna sell theirs? I'm buying for a high price.]

[Comment 4: Same here, price is negotiable.]

[Comment 4: Forget it, I actually won, lmao.]

[Comment 5: Holy crap! Not only is this guy loaded, but he's also insanely lucky?!]

[Comment 6: Damn it all! I just wanna cry!]

[Comment 7: I'm bawling like a three-hundred-pound baby, then it hit me... I won too, lol!]

[Comment 8: LET'S GO!!!]