“Haah. Now I need to craft the helmet...”
Streamer Nova leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Beside him stood a huge, beautiful war hammer.
‘How many hours have I been streaming?’
In the upper left corner of the monitor, the numbers “LIVE 17:42:13” blinked red.
He had been streaming all through the night, and he was still going. But even that was starting to reach its limit.
“Guys, I’m gonna close my eyes for a bit. I’m not ending the stream. I’ll rest for exactly thirty minutes, so just chat among yourselves.”
He took off his headset and reclined his chair.
└LOLOLOL
└He’s sleeping again.
└Is deep sleep Nova’s content now?
└It’d be hilarious if an event happened while he’s asleep.
About thirty minutes passed like that.
Suddenly, the screen froze, and a gray pop-up appeared in the center.
[Connection to the server has been lost.]
└LOLOLOLOLOL
└AFK kick lolol
└Guess they patched it to 30 minutes?
└They must’ve shortened the time because people never leave rooms.
└What’s Nova gonna do now lolol
Nova’s eyes flew open at the sound of the alarm he had set for thirty minutes.
“What? Did I get kicked?”
He hurriedly moved the mouse. The pop-up was still on the screen.
“Hey, hey! What did I even do to get kicked?”
He quickly pressed the reconnect button.
[The server is currently full.]
[You have been added to the queue.]
[Current queue: 3,127 people]
“Three thousand? Hey, does that even make sense? Until yesterday it was only around a thousand!”
The chat window went insane.
└First time I’ve seen 3,000.
└Didn’t Nova cause all of this?
└The guy who made the war hammer probably raised half of it.
└What is this, a lottery? Thirty people was honestly too much.
└It’s an indie game. Isn’t it too shameless to not pay a cent and still expect free server costs too?
Nova stared blankly at the screen. He watched the queue number drop to 3,126, then shook his head.
“I think so too. I shouldn’t complain when I’m not paying anything. So I hope they officially release it soon. I’d like to play some other game in the meantime, but that helmet keeps flickering before my eyes, so I can’t focus on anything else.”
At that moment, something flashed in the upper right corner of the screen.
It was an icon announcing a notice.
Click.
[Notice: MIT Simulator Crowdfunding Announcement]
-Hello. This is Spectra Works.
Thank you for your support. Over the past week, far more users than expected have come to MIT Simulator.
But was it too early for us?
We have reached the point where we can no longer handle the servers. Even as we write this, we are buying donuts for the person in charge so we don’t get kicked out of the school’s shared server room.
Nova spat out the coffee he had been drinking.
“These guys were really in a desperate situation.”
└Donuts lololol In America, you can’t work without donuts.
└These guys learn fast, huh? Even at companies, when there’s a problem, you bring donuts first.
└Somehow, it feels young and fresh. Enviable youth.
└Should I help them out a little? I’ve already gotten more than 10 dollars’ worth out of what I’ve played so far.
Spectra Works is a team of four. Three engineering geeks and one genius mathematician.
We have received several offers.
“If you hand over the engine, we’ll give you enough money to live on for the rest of your life.”
But the designer of the engine did not want that. The rest of the team feels the same way. We want this engine, and this game, to belong to everyone.
That is why we would like to ask you first.
Starting now, we are launching crowdfunding to expand MIT Simulator into a larger world.
If you participate in the funding, you will receive the right to take part in testing before the official service, as well as special rewards.
With your help, we would like to complete this grand project together to the very end.
-Spectra Works.
(A photo of four people sitting on the floor eating donuts)
-$10: Game key for the official release version.
-$30: Early access and inventory.
-$50: Limited-edition Founder’s skin and badge.
-$100: Sponsor name inserted on an advertising board on campus.
-$1,000: Exclusive secret space within MIT Simulator.
First goal: $500,000. Stretch goal: $2,000,000.
Nova read the notice carefully.
“Exclusive space? This is huge, isn’t it? That means I’d get a safe hideout.”
└But it’s a thousand dollars, right?
└For Nova, that’s probably the price of a cup of coffee.
└I think around 30 dollars is just right for me.
└Putting my name on an ad board sounds pretty good too.
└I want the developer skin and badge. These guys are dangling some pretty decent carrots, huh? Makes me want all of them.
└It’s kind of admirable that they rejected an offer from a big company and want to try doing it themselves. If a big company ate them up, who knows how hard they’d push microtransactions lolol
└Yeah, it’s admirable. They could live comfortably if they took investment.
└I just hope they expand the servers already. I’m suffering too much right now.
“Guys! I’m going for the thousand dollars!”
Nova took out his wallet and entered his card number.
[Your funding participation has been completed.]
* * *
At the same time, in Spectra Works’ clubhouse.
While Cypher had briefly gone to the restroom, the number on the monitor went up again.
[Current funds raised: $102,414 (20.4%) – 3,102 participants]
Entropy pointed at the screen, unable to close his mouth.
“Guys, isn’t this a bug? We’ve already raised a hundred thousand dollars!”
“It was fifty thousand two hours ago!”
Root shouted in an excited voice.
Seoha, who had been eating cup ramen in the back, walked over with his chopsticks in his mouth.
“Oh! It’s going smoothly.”
“Right? I’m glad we listened to you. Perks work better than revenue sharing.”
During the funding process, Seoha’s suggestion had been accepted.
“In psychology, it’s called hyperbolic discounting.
People tend to evaluate the expected value of uncertain future rewards lower than their actual worth.”
Root widened his eyes.
“You know psychology too?”
Seoha gave an awkward smile.
“I had my reasons.”
It was ironic that the psychology he had been forced to study was proving helpful in all sorts of ways.
The amount raised shot upward.
It was as if the users were screaming for them to please expand the servers.
* * *
Stanford Department of Mathematics, Edward Han’s office.
The late afternoon sunlight pierced through the window, dyeing the office gold.
Theodore sat in a chair with both hands neatly placed on his knees.
Edward gazed at him intently through his glasses.
“Why exactly do you want to go to MIT? Did you not say you would become a professor here?”
An unmistakable disappointment could be heard in his voice.
No one pays attention to something like a master’s thesis. Yet this stubborn mathematics student had invested a full two years in writing a thesis that would satisfy himself.
Edward had been happier than anyone when he heard the thesis was complete.
Theodore had long been evaluated as a “next-generation frontier.” Though he had been somewhat quiet recently, this thesis should have more than proven that his talent was not a one-time thing.
‘What a pity.’
Theo possessed the kind of stubbornness old mathematicians had.
It was a rare virtue for someone his age, and to Edward, he was a talent he absolutely had to hold on to.
After a long silence, Theodore slowly opened his mouth.
“Professor.”
“Go on.”
He let out a sigh.
“I was in a slump for quite some time. It felt as if there was no way out. The problem was that I couldn’t even guess what the cause was.”
Edward knew it as well.
It was something every mathematician had to go through.
“Have you found it now?”
Theo nodded.
“My field of vision had narrowed.”
After returning from Cambridge, he looked back on his actions over the past two years.
The dozens of notebooks he had filled during his master’s program. Analysis, differential dynamics, topology, group theory...
“All my research had fallen into the same pattern. The way I looked at problems, the way I developed arguments, my habit of building inductive structures... What I was doing was always the same.”
He gave a bitter smile.
“But the experience of those few weeks I spent there completely changed me.”
“Stanford is certainly not an inferior university to MIT.”
Edward’s expression stiffened.
“I am not trying to go to MIT. It is simply that Yu Seoha is there.”
“What?”
“He gives me flashes of mathematical inspiration. There is something different about Seoha compared to ordinary people. I cannot even begin to guess how the world appears in his eyes.
But merely imagining it allowed me to solve a problem I had been stuck on for two years. It was an approach I would never have taken.”
“Yu Seoha...”
Edward’s expression turned as though he were recalling the past.
“Now that I think about it, Professor, you’re from Korea, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I know him rather well too. It was when he was young, but we even wrote a paper together.”
“Then you must understand how I feel.”
“No. Now that I know, I want to stop you all the more.”
“Pardon?”
“Do you perhaps think mathematics belongs only to geniuses?”
Theo placed a hand on his chin and thought deeply.
“Not quite, but I do think that most great advances were made by geniuses.”
Edward shook his head.
“That is absolutely not true. True mathematical progress is made by ordinary people like you and me.”
Theo held his breath and listened intently.
“Newton, Euler, Gauss, Riemann, Hilbert. Of course, their discoveries were great.
But after they announced their theories, it took a very long time before the world changed. That is because progress comes from the process of organizing, expanding, and connecting those ideas.
And the people who do that work are the hundreds and thousands of nameless mathematicians. Could anyone call that work trivial?”
Theo hurriedly waved his hand.
“That was not what I meant.”
Edward nodded as if he knew.
“There is one more thing you need to consider.”
“What is it?”
Edward did not want to hurt Theo.
But because Theo was being stubborn, he had no choice but to finally speak the words he had only kept in his heart.
“When I am beside Hilbert, it is revealed too cruelly just how slow a person I am.”
“Pardon?”
Edward continued with a grave expression.
“Those are words Minkowski said to an acquaintance.
The two had been friends who studied together since childhood. People praised both of them as geniuses of the century.
But at some point, Minkowski realized that he was not the same as Hilbert.
What do you think happened after that?”
Theodore swallowed his breath.
“In the end, he put down pure mathematics. And he turned sharply toward physics. Standing beside a genius is a very cruel thing. Whether you like it or not, you will compare yourself every day.
There are even records that Hardy and Littlewood suffered while researching with Ramanujan. Every day, they must have had to doubt their own talents.”
Edward took a sip of tea.
“Even so, has your mind still not changed?”
Theo nodded.
“I have already made up my mind. Thank you for everything.”
He rose from his seat and left the office.
The sun was already setting. The sunset dyed the campus orange.
Theo smiled bitterly.
‘How could I not know that?’
It had only been a few weeks, but he had felt it keenly.
The sight of him pouring out proofs as if possessed before the blackboard. Every difficulty seemed trivial before him.
Seoha was too dazzling. Like the midday sun, the kind of existence that would blind you if you looked straight at it.
During that time, Theo had marveled dozens of times, envied him twenty times, and broken down ten times.
But in the end, he had made up his mind.
‘To protect myself?’
He did not need cowardly self-deception.
What mattered was the fact that he could grow by staying beside him.
If his field of vision was narrow, he would widen it.
If there were things he lacked, he would learn them.
All of those things were possible only when he could reflect himself in the mirror called Yu Seoha.
And he would lend a hand to his great journey.
Then someday...
“I may be able to see the same scenery as you.”