I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 137

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

Too Many Lucrative Talents – Episode 137
The more I play chess, the more I feel how different it is from Baduk.
The most immediate difference is the direction of thought.
Baduk is a game where you open possibilities within infinite space.
Chess, by contrast, is a game played from the start on a confined board where a decisive conclusion is inevitable.
Sixty-four squares—that is all that is permitted.
And the pieces allotted to you are fixed; you must win with only those.
In essence, chess is far closer to war.
You establish strategy, execute through tactics, seize advantage in local skirmishes, and gradually command the field.
Each move is a gunshot; each exchange is an explosion.
Victory comes only at the end of an inescapable war of attrition.
Perhaps that is why.
Where Baduk is fluid, expansive combat, chess is an unbroken chain of calculation and trap.
If Baduk is a contest of invisible influence, chess is the mathematics of ruthlessly computed exchange.
‘Gain or loss.’
The moment you lose a queen, it is not simply nine points.
It means losing the commander of the battlefield, the detonator that collapses your entire line.
But there is a piece more absolute than the queen.
The king.
Weaker than any other piece, restricted to a single square of movement—yet the instant that king falls, the game is over.
So the king always hides in the rear, must be protected after securing safety through castling.
The final symbol that must never take the field.
And yet I had pushed my king to the front.
The Bongcloud Opening.
To any observer, ridiculous. Madness.
But my king was no mere target.
Advanced forward, it did not flee—instead, it pressed my opponent.
With each step the king took, my opponent’s attack routes twisted and their calculations crumbled.
Like a commander driven into an impossible position, seizing control of the center of the battlefield itself.
Suffocating pressure.
Overwhelming dominance.
That bewilderment was plainly written across Yakub Hromadko’s face.
‘…Experience it yourself. What it feels like to be dismissed, to be looked down upon.’
He gripped his forehead with both hands, struggling desperately to break free from the suffocation.
Time drained away uselessly.
And at last he moved his rook, threatening my queen.
Piece exchange.
If I captured his rook with my queen, his queen would capture mine. Then I would recapture with my rook.
His intent was to thin the pieces on the board and break through the strangled position.
‘You think I’ll fall for something so obvious?’
Swish.
I pulled my queen back three squares.
I saw Yakub Hromadko’s jaw tighten.
What followed was something close to desperate resistance.
He tested his queen, pushed his pawns, searched for openings—but each was blocked.
My pieces were woven so densely that they choked off every passage.
Blockade.
Obstruction.
Seal.
This was not merely a disadvantageous position.
Black’s board state—trapped and flailing helplessly on the board.
Humiliation was etched plainly across Yakub Hromadko’s face.
“This… this.”
Fury and degradation.
And a reality he could not bear to acknowledge.
A position already shattered beyond recovery, pressed into the defensive.
At last, having wasted only meaningless time, Yakub Hromadko irritably knocked over his king.
Thud.
The king—the heaviest, most deliberate piece on the board—toppled like a toy and rolled away.
A symbol of defeat’s acknowledgment.
But he didn’t even offer the basic courtesy of a handshake.
Whish.
He thrust himself up from his seat with irritation, grabbed his coat roughly, and moved to leave the salon entirely.
Toward that retreating figure, I spoke calmly.
A sentence I’d memorized beforehand through a translator last night.
“Chess, and manners, both— you lost them to the race you scorned.”
Yakub Hromadko turned, his eyes sharpening with a dangerous glint.
He looked ready to throw a punch at any moment.
But I didn’t back away. I met his gaze directly.
“……In-ha.”
A startled Kang Seung-hu placed a hand on my shoulder.
Sarah Linova and the film crew watched in held silence, eyes wide.
But no incident occurred.
Yakub Hromadko, still seething, hurled the scoresheet at the arbiter as if discarding it, and left the salon.
“…….”
The salon fell silent for a long moment.
The air that had been taut with tension eased, leaving behind a strange, lingering resonance.
I looked down at the black king toppled on the chessboard.
The sight of it rolling away suddenly felt real.
‘My first championship.’
My heart didn’t race wildly the way it had after my first Baduk tournament victory.
This was the moment I’d taken my first step onto a new path.
A gentle, serene joy sank deeper instead, settling into me more profoundly.
Just then, a low murmur spread among the spectators.
“S takovou silou, a přitom bez ratingu.”
“Poprvé vidím, aby někdo zahrál Bongcloud tak atraktivně!”
“Byla to hra lahodící očím a plná věcí, ze kterých se dá poučit.”
Though the words were foreign to me, their meaning came through clearly from expression and intonation alone.
These were the same faces that had shown displeasure when I first deployed the Bongcloud Opening.
For those who cherished chess sincerely, it must have seemed an ungentlemanly move.
But now their eyes had changed.
‘I reaped what I sowed.’
Yakub Hromadko’s refusal to shake hands and his discourtesy.
Reading the history between us in their eyes, they granted legitimacy to my choice as well.
Above all, in a match that was nothing short of a final, I had overwhelmingly triumphed even with the Bongcloud Opening—the worst possible start.
Kang Seung-hu and Sarah Linova were the first to offer congratulations.
“Congratulations, In-ha. You did it!”
“Congrats on winning. I always knew you had it in you.”
“Thank you, both of you.”
I answered with a brief smile.
In that moment.
-Ding!
A notification chimed—audible only to me.
I glanced subtly toward the system message window.
[Congratulations. You have won the Classic Division of the .]
[Championship Achievement has been added to the Talent ‘Chess’.]
[Congratulations. You have fulfilled all conditions for upgrading Talent ‘Language’ to Grade C.]
[Talent ‘Language’ Grade C is now updated in the system.]
[System Talent Slot expands by +1.]
[All accumulated Victory Points are erased. Achievements, however, remain.]
“……!”
The moment I read the message, sparks erupted in my mind.
A foreign current pierced my brain, forcibly pouring new knowledge into it.
The sounds and structures of countless languages.
The unique intonation and stress of each.
Grammar, word order, and the social context and cultural background woven within them.
Everything flooded in systematically and orderly, engraving itself into my mind.
‘Just as I expected.’
The Talent ‘Language’ was fundamentally the same class as ‘Archery’.
A talent encompassing language as a whole, not confined to English, Chinese, Japanese, or any single tongue.
Just as I could freely handle compound bows, recurve bows, and traditional archery through a single Archery talent.
In other words, from this moment forward, no matter which country I traveled to, language would no longer be a barrier.
Whoosh.
I reached toward the system window.
[Will you use the Platinum Enhancement Roulette Ticket to strengthen the Language talent from C-grade?]
‘Yes.’
I used the enhancement ticket I’d been saving without a moment’s hesitation.
[Congratulations. The Language talent has risen from C-grade to B-grade.]
A smile spread unbidden across my lips.
Even with just a B-grade in the Chinese language, everyday conversation, communication, and even interviews had posed no problems.
With Language at B-grade, every barrier that had stood before me simply ceased to exist.
That instant.
“That guy’s a genius.”
“……An Oriental winning the championship. Another page of history written in our salon.”
“This is the charm of chess, its greatness.”
I heard it.
Czech was no longer a foreign tongue.
As though I had known it for years, the meaning carved itself into my mind without need for literal or free translation.
“In-ha, they want to do an interview in a bit. Have something prepared to say.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve always got that right here.”
I pointed to my head with confidence.
Soon enough, all six rounds of chess games concluded.
The arbiter collected the scoresheets, and my name was registered on the International Chess Federation server as the champion of the Classic Division.
The awards ceremony was held at the Cafe Chess Salon.
I climbed onto a small stage beneath a weathered but grand wooden ceiling.
The arbiter handed me a small trophy and an envelope containing the prize money.
I held it to my chest and surrendered to the brilliant camera flashes.
A chess magazine photographer fired off shot after shot, and the chess players gathered in the salon applauded with bright faces.
In this moment, there was no race, no language, no strangeness of being a foreigner.
What remained was only one thing: pure respect and celebration for those who played the same game.
By contrast, Yakub Hromadko, his pride wounded by defeat, did not show his face at the awards ceremony despite finishing second.
Then came the question from a chess specialist journalist.
“You participated from abroad and despite having no rating, you managed to win. How do you feel now?”
The interpreter standing beside me stepped forward.
But I gently raised my hand to stop him.
“It’s all right.”
I gave a brief smile, and the interpreter’s eyes widened in momentary surprise.
Kang Seung-hu and O Hyun-mu could not hide their astonishment either.
As though savoring their stares, I answered in Czech.
“I’m so happy to have won this tournament. Though I am a stranger to this place, I am honored to have left my first footprint in chess here, in a place steeped in the history of the game.”
“……!”
I steadied my breath and slowly surveyed the audience.
I steadied my breath and slowly surveyed the audience.
Kang Seung-hu, Sarah Linova, and the entire film crew wore expressions of shock.
The local chess players’ gazes were much the same.
Just minutes ago, an Oriental who had been impossible to converse with without an interpreter was now speaking to them in their own language, hesitantly but clearly.
‘……Let the pronunciation and accent be imperfect.’
That would feel more natural.
If I spoke too fluently all at once, they would only grow suspicious.
Surely some would think, ‘He memorized that speech ahead of time.’
And truthfully, that was easier for me anyway.
What mattered was not perfect language, but that I was conveying my feelings through words I chose myself.
“The fact of having no rating didn’t matter. My opponents will always stand higher than where I am now.”
I paused, and as though gazing down at a chess board upon the stage, I quietly steadied my gaze.
A single word resonating in my chest.
Challenge.
Nothing made me feel more alive than that.
I continued my resolve slowly, in a voice no one could shake.
“I will not forget this day. As the champion of this tournament, I will become something you can be proud of…… I will advance toward the world stage, toward the World Chess Championship. Thank you.”

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