I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 100

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Too Many Profitable Talents — Chapter 100
People rose to their feet.
An immediate response from the audience.
A dizzying torrent of applause.
Fervor, cheers, and heat.
A thrill I’d never felt through Go or archery climbed the back of my neck, electric and sharp.
‘……I did it.’
I drew breath into the moment.
Bewildered, yet relief leaked out with my exhale.
Truth was, I’d had no time to prepare the stage, no better options to choose from.
I’d simply sung it with the best I could manage right then.
Still, the judges’ reaction hadn’t been unkind, and only then could I breathe easy.
That’s when it happened.
Across the stage.
I saw legend Shin Jae-ho, slow and quiet, looking down at me while clapping.
‘……doesn’t seem like the worst reaction.’
From my position, it had been no easy challenge.
To sing his song in front of him without proper preparation.
And now, the moment for evaluation.
“I have just one question for you.”
An expressionless face.
Measured speech.
I’d seen him clapping, but watching Shin Jae-ho with microphone in hand, I couldn’t help but tense.
“This song…… you prepared it today, yes? Is that the truth?”
‘Ah.’
My breath caught.
I paused for a moment.
Had I seemed so lacking in his eyes?
With a modulated voice, I answered carefully.
“Yes. That is the truth.”
The studio stirred.
Surprised faces.
Skeptical looks.
I would have felt the same.
“……And yet, you chose to sing this song in front of me?”
Another question.
Shin Jae-ho’s gaze held mine.
Behind the mask, it felt as though he could see straight through me.
His eyes’ meaning was difficult to read.
Yet.
“Yes.”
Neither breath nor gaze wavered.
In that brief answer lay sincerity.
The song I’d sung most.
The song I’d loved most.
The song I could pour myself into most fully.
If I could go back, I would make the same choice again.
Pitch that rose in my mind without interpretation, without deliberation, without thought.
‘In my life…… there is no other song like this.’
Exactly once.
A favorite song, a life song — one I could sing without preparation.
Legend Shin Jae-ho watched me quietly.
And spoke slowly.
“Yet what I heard from you……was your own story.”
His resonant words.
For a moment, my breath seemed to stop.
“Because it wasn’t a song for competition, that’s what made it beautiful.”
Shin Jae-ho smiled quietly.
“I’m curious what face lies behind that mask. I’d like to have a drink with you someday.”
With that, Shin Jae-ho lowered his microphone.
He didn’t say much.
He offered no commentary on the song itself.
Yet that silence was unmistakably the highest praise.
My mind went blank, emptied of all thought.
The other celebrity panelists continued with their compliments, but their words barely registered.
Once all the evaluations ended, I made my way backstage.
The mood was strange, ineffable.
Like the lingering aftertaste that comes after pouring everything out.
But there was no time to dwell in that feeling.
Round 3 began. The second performance.
The final challenger for the King of Masked Singer title, Oh Yeon-su, took the stage and began to sing.
Her choice was “Late Regret” by Bobo.
A song brimming with the deep regret and longing that only arrives after love has ended.
‘A true singer by trade.’
The idol-turned-flower girl, the musical actor turned record boy—they couldn’t match the depth of her foundation.
She was both steady and technically brilliant.
Her high notes resonated beautifully.
The celebrity panelists’ evaluations were uniformly positive.
Then panel member Yun Jin-seok picked up the microphone and delivered a razor-sharp observation.
“You really do sing well. But… didn’t you feel like something was missing? One killer blow?”
The panelists’ votes followed.
The scoreboard lit up instantly with the results.
Sixty-one to thirty-eight.
Host Kim Woo-jin seized the microphone and announced it loudly.
“And that makes our King of Masked Singer challenger: Checkmate!”
Oh Yeon-su’s identity was then revealed.
Singer Oh Yeon-su.
A vocalist from the old days, now in her late thirties. She’d been retired for so long that her face felt unfamiliar.
I stood silent, looking up at the stage.
Gyeon-woo, who had been sitting on the throne, slowly rose and came down.
It was nearly time for the final performance.
The studio dimmed again.
I stood in the wings backstage, breathing quietly and steadily.
‘…So he’s a singer-songwriter named Gyeon-woo.’
By now, the identity of King of Masked Singer Gyeon-woo was long known.
That utterly unique voice, that unconventional sensibility.
Husky mid-range and textured high notes.
A vocalist whose individuality couldn’t be hidden or masked.
Today too, he’d brought an experimental piece.
“Departure” by Ha-rim.
A song with restrained sorrow and lyrics that clawed at the chest.
He unfolded it all in a timbre that only he could produce, impossible to imitate.
‘Wow, he’s good.’
Admiration escaped me.
Unshakable completion.
A resonance that commanded the stage without need for high notes.
Even his seemingly casual breathing carried emotion within it.
‘…That’s a seasoned professional with real inner depth.’
The persuasiveness of how he embodied the lyrics was on another level entirely.
Soon Gyeon-woo’s performance ended.
A silence so complete that you couldn’t even hear breath.
When the resonance faded, the panelists burst into applause as one.
“Gyeon-woo! Gyeon-woo!”
The celebrity panelists’ evaluations were, naturally, nothing but praise.
For those seasoned veterans, it was more than fresh—it was a shock.
The same held true for legend Shin Jae-ho.
“…Without a single tremor of tears, I felt as though I heard a scream from the depths of the soul. It’s been a very long time since I wanted to hear a performance again.”
But panel member Yun Jin-seok’s assessment differed.
“Everything was excellent, but Gyeon-woo’s song felt even more challenging today. So I enjoyed it, but the outcome… I’m not sure. We’ll have to see, won’t we?”
After Gyeon-woo’s evaluation concluded, I took the stage.
Kim Woo-jin stood at the center of the stage, with Gyeon-woo and me flanking him on either side.
There was a peculiar tension threaded through Kim Woo-jin’s voice.
“Now then! Will we see the birth of a new King of Masked Singer, or will Gyeon-woo successfully defend his title!”
The entire audience held its breath.
“……The person who will take the seat of the 246th King of Masked Singer is!”
A moment of suspended silence.
Tension building upon itself.
Without meaning to, I swallowed hard.
Numbers flashed across the screen amid the swelling sound.
51 to 48.
Only a three-vote difference.
Kim Woo-jin’s voice boomed across the studio.
“Checkmate!”
In that instant, the entire studio erupted.
Cheers.
Gasps of astonishment.
Some audience members leaped to their feet, rising to applaud.
‘Really…… me?’
A stage I’d barely had time to prepare for.
I’d challenged it simply hoping to capture one more moment of attention.
Yet fortune had smiled on me.
Gyeon-woo’s esoteric song choice.
The general audience voters’ indifference as a result.
And my own heartfelt rendition of my signature song.
The unexpected synergy had created this outcome.
“Checkmate, congratulations! You’ve become the new King of Masked Singer! How are you feeling right now?”
I drew in a breath slowly.
I chose my words carefully, unsure what to say.
Then I answered in my artificially altered voice.
“Thank you. To be honest, I feel far too unworthy of this position. I promise to work harder and repay your trust with even better performances.”
I paused briefly to collect myself.
I hadn’t yet shown my true music properly.
I thought the courteous thing—toward those who’d chosen me—was to deliver a stage worthy of that.
And.
“I’ll do my best to make every future performance count. Thank you.”

* * *
The Masked Singer broadcast was scheduled for three weeks later, the first week of the new year.
Year-end award shows and special holiday programming had created gaps in the regular schedule.
A sip.
I was now in the Inhaive Office.
Standing by the window, I took a drink of coffee.
Beneath the steaming mug, a massive tree glittered.
Christmas Eve.
People walked the streets in heavy coats, couples arm in arm.
Cold wind, brilliant lights, and the faint echo of carols.
Yet I didn’t feel particularly lonely.
Or rather, I hadn’t had time to feel it.
‘What a relentless year it’s been.’
Go.
Archery.
And singing.
Looking back, it had been a year that transformed my entire life.
And it was still transforming.
Beep, beep, beep.
Jung Soo-yeon entered, disengaging the door lock code.
She wore a winter coat with a scarf draped over it.
“You could have just called, but you came in person,” I said, setting down my coffee cup.
I lowered my cup and spoke.
“I thought it’d be better to talk face to face. Two lonely people might as well share a little Christmas cheer.”
She raised the corners of her mouth slightly and pulled out the wine she’d been hiding behind her back.
“I thought we could share a celebratory drink.”
“……A celebratory drink? Soo-yeon, surely you don’t mean……?”
Jung Soo-yeon’s eyes crinkled with amusement.
Then she drew an iPad from her handbag and showed me a small image on its screen.
—Netflix Original Project Checkmate (Working Title)
And she added one more thing.
“It was finalized in this morning’s meeting, and production is confirmed.”
I swallowed quietly.
“……Really, you’ve worked so hard.”
“It’s thanks to In-ha doing so well. The Masked Singer format we sold to the US is performing better than expected. The King of Masked Singer…… it’s resonating more than I thought it would, you know?”
We smiled at each other.
“The format is a hybrid of documentary and variety entertainment. It’s a bit unfamiliar, but since it’s a production company that’s worked with Netflix, there shouldn’t be any communication issues.”
“When does filming start?”
“Early next year. Major chess tournaments are scheduled to begin in spring, apparently. They want me to build up an International Rating before then.”
Where Go has the barrier of Professional Promotion, chess has what they call an International Rating.
Only by participating in offline tournaments and accumulating an International Rating can one compete in higher-level events.
‘……The fortunate thing is that chess tournaments are held constantly all over the world.’
Chess is the world’s most popular board game.
Unlike Go, confined to East Asia, chess dominates in every category—player population, media exposure, prize money, public appeal.
Chess is even included in Western elementary school curricula.
The global population capable of playing chess is said to exceed seven hundred million.
“And while it’s not confirmed yet, they want to cast one more promising chess player.”
“Another promising chess player?”
“Yes. Not so much a rival, but more someone to guide In-ha along the way? In the early episodes, they’d also explain chess culture and tournaments. They need contrast and structure to the narrative.”
“Who is it?”
“Still undecided. Netflix said they’d contact us separately about that part.”
Jung Soo-yeon added as if to reassure me.
“But honestly, whoever it is, In-ha doesn’t need to worry. The narrative will be entirely different anyway.”
Go—East Asia’s greatest board game, the counterpoint to chess.
A man who has reached its pinnacle, its summit.
A man’s journey into chess.
Climbing painstakingly from local tournaments, diving headfirst into unfamiliar terrain.
Everyone couldn’t help but be curious.
Unlike chess, conquered by AI long ago.
Go endured longer, and there exists a professional player who was the first to defeat AI.
For those who had, over the years, quietly debated which was superior—Go or chess.
This story could become one answer to that eternal question.
“……I’ll handle Netflix, so In-ha, please focus on your match next week. It’s about time we finalize the main sponsor.”
I nodded quietly.
New Year.
An exhibition match scheduled against O Su, the living legend of Korean Go, a 9-dan master.
Single Color Baduk.
A variant rule where only stones of a single color are used.
Memory, strategic thinking, and instinct become all the more crucial in such a format.
Despite being an exhibition match, the attention of Go enthusiasts across Korea, China, and Japan had already converged intensely.
For me too, a match this nerve-wracking was rare.
“Don’t worry. I’ll play the way I always have.”
I set down my glass and gave a short laugh.
“……With undefeated Go.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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