I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 155

—————
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 155
Click.
O Su, 9-dan, placed a black stone with deliberate quiet.
Not merely one stone, but the entire world, the whole universe seemed to be drawn in through his fingertips and seeping into the board.
The very air vibrated faintly, and a tension that swallowed even breath came crashing down.
‘…… As I thought. My eye does not deceive.’
Kim In-ha, 9-dan.
The heretic of Baduk in this age.
Everything—from his first appearance to the path he had walked—shook the existing order.
And now, he was the most captivating presence in the Baduk world.
‘This is the kind of Baduk I wanted to play.’
In-ha before his eyes was still playing Baduk with a lethal, mesmerizing beauty.
Unlike other players who chased only calculation and probability, aping AI.
The courage to fear no risk.
The audacity to calculate risk and savor it.
Yet at the decisive moment, a coldness that pierced through the opponent’s psychology.
Any single one of these would have classified him as a top-tier player, yet he possessed all three.
Click.
White’s destabilization move.
A stone that burrowed deep into the enemy’s influence.
AI would never have chosen this path.
‘…… Coming back was the right call.’
Before his retirement, his reason for leaving the Baduk world had been simple.
All standard sequences had become reference boards for AI analysis, and Baduk—the art of philosophy and contemplation—had fallen into a cold, computational diagram.
Then he felt it.
That there was no longer any reason for him to play.
But Kim In-ha was different.
He did not follow the path of AI.
He boldly left his own color even on spaces AI did not point to,
and proved through results that it was right.
‘This Baduk…… shows that human Baduk is still alive.’
Click.
In the moment Black tried to convert influence into actual territory on the upper edge, White invaded.
A move to create fracture, suppress thickness, and expose the depths of territory.
O Su, 9-dan, narrowed his eyes.
‘A dangerous move…… but beautiful.’
He felt his chest swell.
This tension that did not fade even with the passage of years,
this tremor in his fingertips—it was for this he had returned.
Yet he did not stop here.
Outwardly composed, his competitive fire still burned fierce in the depths of his heart.
Victory.
Those two characters had always completed his life and his Baduk.
‘Two moves will suffice.’
No more, no less—exactly two moves.
Kim In-ha’s destabilization carries lethal risk.
At the level of professional players, or rather the world’s highest masters, a single wasted move often decides victory or defeat.
If he responds with correct moves for two moves, it becomes even Baduk.
Three moves, and he will be ahead by half a stone to a stone and a half,
and four moves or more, this game cannot be lost.
“…….”
O Su’s 9-dan’s gaze settled into focus.
The entire board spread clear before his vision.
Destabilization is a move the opponent does not foresee.
A move he has not seen.
A gambit that threads through that blind spot.
Yet now, in this moment, he saw everything at once.
Click.
Black’s single move blocked White’s advance.
The correct response.
A position that sees through all momentum.
“……!”
Kim In-ha 9-dan paused for a moment.
He’d noticed that the destabilization had failed.
Yet almost immediately, his eyes sharpened again as he picked up a stone.
‘That’s right—shake me some more.’
A faint smile crossed O Su 9-dan’s lips.
This was not a mere exchange of brilliant moves.
Baduk that spoke only of pure calculation.
A moment that saw beyond the immediate sequence, grasping the larger picture and piercing the very heart of the world called Baduk.
Clack.
The Go stone that fell from Kim In-ha 9-dan’s fingertips now.
O Su 9-dan did not miss the keenness hidden within it—sharper than a wolf’s fangs.
‘……I see it all.’
He picked up a black stone without hesitation.
In that moment, he was no longer a symbol bound by legend or past glory.
He was a single player breathing in sync with the present Baduk world alongside Kim In-ha 9-dan.
A current professional, sharing the rhythm of today’s Baduk world with Kim In-ha 9-dan, proving once more that he still lived.
It was the return of a king.

* * *
Park Ji-man’s Baduk channel.
An overseas tournament realized after more than a decade, and moreover, a clash between Korean professionals.
That fact alone was enough to explode the Baduk fans’ interest and attention toward the Geumran Cup.
But today’s match was something far more special.
The Divine Calculator O Su 9-dan, making his return after a full decade,
and Kim In-ha 9-dan, the number one sensation and prodigy.
The news that these two men, who couldn’t see even an inch ahead, were clashing for the championship drew even the most lapsed Baduk fans back to their monitors and televisions.
Thanks to that, Park Ji-man’s real-time livestream viewer count broke the record at 60,000.
And so the gathered Baduk fans were already waging heated debates before the match even began.
-No matter how you look at it, Kim’s going to win.
-That’s ridiculous. You think O is water or something?
-But how could Kim possibly lose? That’d be even stranger.
-True, he is undefeated.
-O is living history. Plus his style directly counters Kim’s Baduk.
-The break was long, but…… seeing how he crushed Ci Hao, I don’t think he’ll lose.
-Man, this is so hard to call.
The Baduk fans’ opinions were split right down the middle.
And Park Ji-man felt exactly the same way.
‘I can’t predict this.’
He was a professional who had played in the same era as O Su 9-dan.
He’d climbed to the top 20 in domestic rankings, but he’d never once beaten O Su 9-dan.
In short, they were on a different plane.
And Kim In-ha 9-dan was another monster standing in direct opposition to such an O Su 9-dan.
Different in background, temperament, and Baduk style—but a man who broke the AI trend through his own unique Baduk, sweeping world championships in record time.
‘Even the viewer polls…… it’s five to five.’
Literally even.
A match for an era where either outcome would be unremarkable.
Park Ji-man’s heart could only race from before the broadcast even began.
‘I’m really looking forward to this.’
What kind of Baduk would they show?
As both a Baduk fan and a fellow professional, he wanted to see every single move of today.
But then.
Barely 41 moves in.
Just past the opening, his voice—which had been subdued by tension—began to tremble.
“……O-our In-ha, he can’t even breathe right now, everyone.”
He fell silent for a moment, his eyes fixed only on the sequence before him.
Clack.
Even the sound of the stone settling seemed to ring out like a thunderbeat against his heart.
“Wait, is this…… even possible? I’m not misreading this, am I?”
Disbelief flowed through his voice, almost beyond comprehension.
O Su’s Baduk held no flaws.
Perfect.
Flawless.
Living up to the nickname Divine Calculator, he countered with correct moves and systematically dismantled Kim In-ha’s destabilization tactics.
“This doesn’t make sense. O Su’s strength shouldn’t be this overwhelming.”
Park Ji-man’s expression on camera had frozen into shock.
“As you all know, In-ha excels in intuition and sense. Beyond that, he possesses computational ability rivaling AI—he’s essentially the apex of creative human Baduk, the total synthesis of what a person can achieve on the board.”
He sealed his lips and stared silently at the monitor screen.
This was the Baduk that Kim In-ha had always played.
Subtle and sharp, piercing at the heart, unsettling the psyche to steal the initiative.
All while commanding the entire board with unpredictable, ever-shifting variation.
“But right now…… it’s not working.”
Click.
Another black stone was placed.
A vital point.
The third in a row, no less.
It strangled White’s lifeline in the upper side and eliminated every variable In-ha could introduce—a decisive move.
“Ah…”
A low gasp escaped Park Ji-man’s lips.
The depth of this move, which sealed off destabilization entirely.
Even borrowing an AI analysis board wouldn’t fully explain half of it.
He exhaled deeply and spoke in a hushed voice.
“Aging curve? Retirement? Time away from the board? When you watch O Su play, all those words become completely meaningless.”
Brief silence.
The win-rate curve on the auxiliary monitor tilted sharply toward Black.
White’s winning chances had fallen to just 38.5%.
And with each stone placed, even that was being chipped away.
“This is not merely one game.”
He swallowed quietly.
Feeling the overwhelming reality of the sequence unfolding on screen, he moved his throat as though swallowing his own emotions.
His voice was low, but its resonance was unshakeable.
“Right now, it looks as though O Su is directly refuting In-ha’s Baduk itself—the very essence of it.”

* * *
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Time passed, but my hand remained still.
Even with time left before speed reading mode, I couldn’t find the next move.
‘I can’t see it.’
Several attempts at destabilization had proven useless.
Black stood solid as an ancient tree, instead probing my weaknesses and striking at my blind spots.
Even the desperate gamble I barely managed to play scattered into nothing.
‘There’s no point in continuing.’
It was the first time.
My Baduk had never felt this powerless.
‘Don’t let yourself drown in the feeling of defeat.’
My first loss in an official match.
That weight pressed against my chest, but if I held onto it, I’d ruin tomorrow’s match as well.
I withdrew my hand from the Go Stone Container.
I set the stones beneath the lid and forced myself to speak.
“I resign.”
O Su bowed his head.
“Well played.”
I pointed to several moves on the Go Board with my finger.
The correct moves that had directly countered my destabilization attempts.
“Those moves…… they were truly beautiful.”
He answered with a smile, humbly.
“I struggled a bit to find them.”
The post-game review that followed was brief.
To the questions I posed, he had simply found the answers.
That was the reason for my defeat. The whole of it.
I bowed.
After offering a final courtesy, I rose quietly from my seat.
……
It was the same match hall, the same lighting and air, yet somehow everything felt strange and askew.
A bitter hollowness settled in my chest, and above all, a burning frustration.
I came down from the platform with a wry smile.
Park Sang-won approached with an awkward grin.
“……Thank you for your hard work, Kuksoo. Will you be heading upstairs right away?”
“Yes. I’m going to rest.”
“Ah, I understand. I’ve arranged the interviews to be minimal.”
I nodded, and Park Sang-won withdrew with a deferential bow.
The moment I stepped outside, Chinese journalists swarmed around me as if they’d been waiting.
Shutters clicked and flashbulbs blazed.
This moment, which I’d always enjoyed, felt strangely unfamiliar today.
I took my place at the photo wall quietly.
The moderator threw out the first question.
“You lost narrowly to O Su in Game One. What do you think was the cause of your defeat?”
“He played better than I did. That’s all.”
I kept my words to a minimum.
The words of the defeated are nothing but excuses, and there is nothing uglier than excuses that grow longer.
The next question came.
“It was a crushing defeat. Do you have confidence that you can make up for it in Game Two tomorrow?”
“Yes. Today’s defeat is not tomorrow’s defeat.”
I answered plainly and lowered the microphone.
Several journalists raised their hands to detain me, but I politely declined and left the photo wall.
‘I don’t have time for this.’
I felt the shutters and flashes fade as I walked down the corridor.
The scenes from today began surfacing one by one in my mind.
O Su’s Correct Moves.
The moments my Destabilization failed.
The warmth of stones lingering at my fingertips.
I steadied my breath for a moment, then murmured quietly to myself.
‘……There was no lack of moves.’
Destabilization failed.
That does not mean the limit of my Baduk.
Only that today, I failed to find a sharper move and keener Destabilization.
Deeper.
More relentless.
More chaotic.
O Su’s strength was undeniable, but the true cause of defeat lay not with my opponent—it lay with me.
Then.
Ding-dong.
My reflection appeared on the surface of the elevator doors as they opened in the lobby.
Defeat had mixed exhaustion and tension into my face, but above it all, a clear smile shone through.
……Yes. I was smiling.

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