I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 141

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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 Lucrative Talents — Episode 141
‘……He was simply from an entirely different dimension.’
Shame burned through him.
So intensely he couldn’t even lift his head.
Facing him across the Chess board made it undeniably clear.
His inability to follow the moves meant there already existed a gulf in skill that defied measurement.
They had never been the same class of player to begin with, yet he’d stubbornly refused to acknowledge it, holding his chin high — and that pathetic obstinacy now sickened him.
Suddenly, a phrase echoed in his mind — something the legendary former world champion Jose Raul Capablanca had once said.
—I did not spend much time learning Chess. There was no need to.
That talent’s magnitude equaled strength’s magnitude.
His claim that he understood Chess as naturally as language itself.
At the time, he’d dismissed it as mere arrogance.
But now, standing before the name Kim In-ha, he felt its truth.
It wasn’t arrogance.
Humans like that truly existed.
He could only grasp it by confronting it directly.
Ryu Hyun-sang felt a chill spread through his fingertips as his head dropped.
‘Even with a lifetime of effort, I have no confidence I could catch up.’
He’d faced Grandmasters before at the Chess Olympiad.
Though outmatched, he’d thought it manageable.
There had been hope — perhaps one day he might reach that realm.
But Kim In-ha was different.
The depth of his Move Reading, his calculations, his intuition, his genius — none of it was on any scale he could measure.
Like standing on a hill, gazing up at a giant towering above.
It was pitiful.
So Ryu Hyun-sang had no choice but to acknowledge it.
‘I’ve lost.’

* * *
‘It’s finished.’
I’d calculated all ten or so variations on the board.
No matter what White played, he was already in the snare.
‘The only move left is to surrender the Rook and Knight…….’
But that was meaningless thrashing.
Buying time.
A futile gambit — hoping for an opponent’s blunder to salvage a losing position.
In Baduk, when the Territory Count shows a margin of more than a point and a half, it’s customary to resign.
How much more so in Chess Endgame — a Rook and Knight’s difference is absolute.
In such circumstances, relying solely on the opponent’s error was tantamount to resignation itself.
Eventually, unable to find a solution, Ryu Hyun-sang extended his hand.
An admission of defeat.
His lips, pressed tight and stubborn until moments ago, now hung loose.
“I’ve lost.”
Short and clear.
Then, in an even tone, he added:
“That Queen Sacrifice there. Brilliant.”
I smiled faintly.
He could have let pride wound him and stormed away from the board.
Instead, he first conceded the loss, then complimented my tactic.
“There was no other move. And without the Queen, I wouldn’t have been able to shake you.”
“……!”
At those words, something flickered in Ryu Hyun-sang’s eyes.
I met that gaze steadily and smiled quietly.
‘He truly is a remarkable man.’
Korea is a wasteland for Chess.
Overshadowed by Baduk and Janggi, starved of popularity and infrastructure, yet in such a place—
I could well imagine how grueling it must have been to build this level of skill.
As a Chess player, my respect for him dulled even the friction and tension that had accumulated between us.
Ryu Hyun-sang exhaled a long breath, released his hand, and bowed respectfully.
“I apologize for the inflammatory remarks on my broadcast. Back then…… I was simply narrow-minded.”
I smiled as I looked at him.
I liked his honesty.
Even though he had feelings for me, the way he brushed them aside in the end—I found that admirable too.
“The feeling’s mutual. As a fellow Korean, it means even more to me that we’ve come this far in the very birthplace of Chess itself—England.”
It was a curious sensation.
Two strangers, meeting like this.
Both of us foreigners, climbing undefeated through the to Round 7 and facing each other.
Just as I’d said at the press conference at the beginning, here we were—two Koreans from a Chess wasteland—making our mark and spreading the word about Korean Chess.
Kang Seung-hu, who’d been watching from the side, threw an arm around my shoulder and teased me.
“Congratulations on making the Round 8 finals! This is what it means to bring honor to your country through Chess, right?”
I laughed softly and shook my head.
“Not yet. Not until the championship.”
That’s right.
Not until my name—Kim In-ha—was etched next to the champion’s name here in London would such talk be anything but premature.
Sara Linova added her thoughts quietly.
“That was an excellent match. You were aiming for psychological warfare with the Queen, and the Double Trap as well, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
I nodded.
“As expected, I can’t escape your eye.”
Ryu Hyun-sang hadn’t spotted the Double Trap, and once he took the Queen, he’d walked straight into the snare.
But she, a Grandmaster, seemed to have read the move all along.
She shook her head with a faint smile.
“……Even if I had known, the outcome wouldn’t have changed. It was a position beyond recovery.”
The smile on Sara Linova’s lips deepened.
Blonde hair, that mesmerizing quality unique to mixed heritage.
Even the slight sleepiness in her eyes carried a subtlety I hadn’t noticed before.
‘Is it just my imagination?’
Then Ryu Hyun-sang spoke up hesitantly, looking awkward.
“……Um, I have a favor to ask.”
When I turned my gaze toward him, he hesitated for a moment before gathering courage to continue.
“Would it be possible to take a photo together?”
An unexpected request.
I smiled quietly and readily nodded.
“Of course. Shall we all four take one?”
And so, Kang Seung-hu, Sara Linova, Ryu Hyun-sang, and I.
Four of us stood in a line facing the camera.
He struck a slightly withdrawn pose with a peace sign, while Kang Seung-hu grinned with his characteristic playfulness.
Sara Linova stood beside me with a natural smile.
As I noticed how close she was standing—quite close, actually.
Click.
The shutter sounded, and the moment was preserved.
Day 4.
A perfect way to end a wonderful day.

* * *
The next day.
Day 5, Round 8.
Gareth Doyle, hailing from Scotland, wore an expression more resolute than ever before.
Twenty-five years old this year.
Official Rating: 2,420.
International Master.
Once even a representative of British youth Chess, he had fallen into a deep slump these past few years.
For him, this was a chance to reverse his stagnant Chess career.
And finally, with seven consecutive wins, he’d climbed into the standings and was reclaiming his light.
‘……Korean?’
His opponent in Round 8 was a dark-haired East Asian.
The land of K-pop and Son Heung-min.
Beyond that, only North Korea and Kim Jong-un came to mind—a minor nation he barely knew.
Even if it were Asian Baduk, that would be one thing, but a nation with no connection whatsoever to Chess.
And now they were putting this dark-haired Oriental on camera.
He’d been displeased even when the organizers notified him beforehand.
The prestigious London Open felt as though it had devolved into a television special set for an Oriental player.
Frankly, he couldn’t understand why the organizers had permitted this in the first place.
‘A rating of barely 2,147.’
Of course, a rating wasn’t the whole measure of a player’s strength.
If he’d survived to round eight with that score, his actual skill must be considerably higher.
‘…I’ll be cautious, but I’ll win with my own chess.’
Besides, he was in decent form.
He’d crushed a local Grandmaster in round seven and completely seized the momentum.
And he had White.
Defeat hadn’t crossed his mind.
But then.
Snap.
His confidence wavered before they’d even reached twenty moves.
A variation emerging from the Ruy Lopez Opening.
The center opened, and Kim In-ha’s piece development remained utterly unpredictable.
‘Another sacrifice?’
A pawn.
A bishop.
Then a queen.
With Black, Kim In-ha surrendered his pieces without hesitation.
‘I have to take this.’
Gareth Doyle hesitated for a moment, but ultimately swallowed the queen.
The position wasn’t particularly bad.
His calculation was to press down with a material advantage.
That was when it happened.
Snap.
Black’s knight leaped to f2, delivering check.
Gareth Doyle remained composed.
‘…This is the line I expected.’
He calmly responded with Kg1.
Immediately, Black’s rook advanced.
Re8.
A sharp, linear pressure that carved through White’s position.
‘It’s fine. I can still hold.’
But soon, once more.
Black’s knight leaped forward again.
Black disregarded material loss entirely.
He drove forward savagely, targeting only the White king.
Even Black’s last remaining knight advanced.
Ng4+.
The White king was pressed back, herded into the corner at h1.
‘…Why does it feel so suffocating?’
An inexplicable unease.
It was too late when he realized that despite his material advantage, the board’s most vital piece—the king—was trapped.
Snap.
Bc5.
Black’s rook, knight, and bishop converged in a coordinated assault.
‘No, surely… he aimed for the King Hunt from the very beginning?’
Gareth Doyle’s fingers trembled.
The so-called King Hunt.
An extreme, relentless attack—chasing the king across the board and driving it into submission.
Without precise calculation and move-reading, a player would collapse mid-sequence and fall to counterattack. It was an antiquated tactic, long extinct in modern chess.
‘…I can’t hold this.’
Black’s remaining pieces positioned themselves with exquisite subtlety, strangling the White king’s escape.
In fewer than eight moves at most.
The noose would be pulled completely shut.
Checkmate.
On the board, there was no longer any room for the White king to flee.
Defeat.

* * *
Top board on the stage.
I gazed down at the electronic chess board in silence.
‘……I think I’ve found the answer.’
Round eight.
Against International Master Gareth Doyle, pursuing an aggressive King Hunt, I understood it with perfect clarity.
My chess.
Rooted in Baduk—a harmony of calculation, intuition, and feel.
At the the ratings had been too low to see it clearly, but here at the , facing IMs rated above 2300, it crystallized.
‘I want…… to play artistic chess.’
The golden age of chess—the first and middle half of the nineteenth century.
The era of Romantic Chess.
Aggressive, brilliant tactics.
An era that did not hesitate at piece sacrifice and King Hunt.
Checkmate completed through beautiful moves and harmonious piece placement.
An age that pursued not mere victory, but a finished work of art.
That was precisely what I had pursued in Baduk to differentiate myself in the age of AI.
‘A Masterpiece Game.’
Like Paul Morphy, called the ‘Mozart’ of chess.
Like Adolf Anderssen, the epitome of Romantic Chess.
Moves that are still discussed centuries later, that remain as works themselves.
I too wanted to leave behind a Game Record that would be remembered that way.
‘……It’s not that modern chess is wrong.’
It’s not that modern chess—which values the safety, strategy, and precision of AI—is incorrect.
But just as there exists a move called ‘Destabilization’ in my Baduk.
Just as I seize an unorthodox victory by playing moves far from computer preference, moves with low expected value.
I wanted to complete not a single chess game, but a work of art that two humans could create together.
“I resign.”
Gareth Doyle extended his hand.
A brief but weighty acknowledgment of defeat.
Regret still lingered in his expression, but his emotion did not spill into his manner.
“That was an excellent game.”
Before he withdrew his hand and turned away, he murmured softly as if in a daze.
“……That was the first time.”
I held his gaze.
His voice trembled as he added his final words.
“King Hunt. So extreme, so relentless that there’s no room to move…… I never knew such chess could be so beautiful.”
He stared into empty space for a moment, then smiled with quiet satisfaction and bowed his head.
And he withdrew in silence.
Turning his parting words over in my mind like an afterimage, I gazed at his receding figure and whispered.
“That’s the chess I’ve been seeking.”
In that moment.
-Ding!
A clear chime, and a system window unfolded before my eyes.
[Congratulations. You have discovered a new possibility for Talent growth.]
[The Realm of Enlightenment deepens further.]
I drew a slow breath and smiled.
Just as I had anticipated and hoped for.
The perfect development I desired.

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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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