I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 22

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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 Episode 22
Round of 32.
There was no real crisis.
Though my skill was certainly worthy of the National Strongest Division level.
I didn’t quite match Park Jun-su or Kim Tae-ryul.
“With the handicap, you’re ahead by forty-three points.”
“……Fifty-two points.”
We went to the counting, but the gap had widened considerably.
It was, in effect, a margin where continuing made no sense.
“There, good work. Have a drink, will you.”
“Thank you.”
Each time a game ended, the Branch Manager would be waiting with a beverage in hand.
I almost felt like I’d acquired a personal manager.
‘What would the staff say if they saw this.’
Part of me found it amusing.
Part of me found it strange.
But…… it felt good.
The fact that that authoritative Branch Manager was looking after me like this.
A peculiar thrill rose up—something I’d never felt once in all my years at the bank.
The quarterfinals were much the same.
Textbook flow.
When chances came, I pressed forward; with move reading, I adjusted my pace.
‘He’s being too cautious.’
My opponent was prudent, even overly conservative.
Where boldness was called for, he hesitated.
And where danger lurked, he made reckless moves.
It was as though he were playing Go with an eye always on me.
In the end.
He threw down his stones.
“I resign.”
A clean victory.
“Well done.”
The Branch Manager gave my shoulder a light pat.
“You made the semifinals, so tonight’s on me. Let’s get some Korean beef.”
“Korean beef?”
“Yeah. You need to eat well to stay sharp tomorrow. Beef’s good for mental recovery, they say. Come on.”
The Branch Manager smiled and led the way.
The car, the hotel, and now prime beef.
At this point, he was practically a patron.
A heaviness settled in one corner of my heart—the worry that I was accepting too much.
A meat restaurant near the gymnasium.
Beautiful marbled Korean beef sizzled and browned on the grill.
The moment I placed a piece in my mouth, all the fatigue accumulated throughout the day seemed to dissolve away.
“Won’t you have some soju?”
“What’s the fun in drinking alone? After the tournament’s over, we’ll have a proper drink then.”
I nodded quietly.
After the meal, we headed to the hotel.
Three stars displayed at the entrance.
He said it was the finest hotel near the gymnasium.
The Branch Manager collected two card keys at the front desk and handed one to me.
“You’ve had a long day. Get some good rest.”
“Yes, you too. Thank you so much.”
We exchanged farewells in front of the elevator and each went to our room.
I slid the card key in, and soft lighting from the deluxe room came on.
After showering, I lay down on the bed.
I lay there for a long time without moving.
Mental fatigue spreading slowly through me.
My eyelids felt heavy as lead.
‘I’m going to fall asleep like this…….’
Then.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang.
“Who is it?”
Sleep evaporated in an instant.
I rose slowly from the bed.
When I cautiously opened the door, the Branch Manager stood with his head poked around the corner of the frame.
“This.”
The Branch Manager gestured with his chin toward something tucked under his arm.
It was a portable Go Board.
“I thought you might need it.”
Looking sheepish, the Branch Manager smiled awkwardly and stepped inside the room.
He set the Go Board and the container of Go Stones carefully on the table.
It was kind of him to think of me, but……
To offer a Go Board to someone who’d just played a full day of matches.
I couldn’t help wondering if it was really what I needed at this moment.
‘Wait, surely not.’
I noticed the Branch Manager standing there hesitantly.
He should have finished his business by now.
Yet he lingered in the room instead of leaving.
I could tell the Branch Manager wanted something.
“Branch Manager.”
I called out to him.
“Would you like to play a game?”
At my offer, the Branch Manager accepted eagerly, as if he’d been waiting for those words.
With a delighted expression, he suggested with a broad smile that three stones should do the handicap.
At first we started playfully, trading laughs.
But soon we both grew absorbed in each move.
The Branch Manager had a precise understanding of Handicap Go structure.
He defended where he needed to and launched bold counterattacks whenever he spotted an opening.
‘He plays well.’
By professional standards, he was solidly between fifth and sixth dan.
There were scattered rough moves, but his overall rhythm was quite stable.
‘There’s no reason to dig at his weaknesses.’
This wasn’t a contest—it was an instructional game.
I hoped this match would help improve the Branch Manager’s skill.
Rather than moves designed purely to win, I placed stones that would make him think deeper, reconsider, and learn.
“Hmm.”
The Branch Manager was more serious than I’d expected.
He read each move with deliberate care, sometimes showing flashes of creative brilliance.
It was like watching someone break through a shell at their own pace.
As we moved into the middle game,
the Branch Manager opened his mouth for the first time during the match.
“I started playing Go after I was assigned to the PB Team.”
Without taking his eyes from the board, he continued in an even tone.
“These days there’s an overflow of customized products—ETFs, bonds, whatever. But back then, there wasn’t. The most important thing was making a good impression on your clients. That was the era.”
I listened quietly, placing stones as he spoke.
“I learned Go to impress a client executive. The people I met through Go… they’re still my major clients now.”
The Branch Manager placed another stone quietly.
His hand moved slowly, but without hesitation.
In that single move, I saw the Branch Manager clearly.
“Kim.”
The Branch Manager called my name.
“You’ll come to understand soon enough. Life changes because of the smallest moments.”
The Branch Manager smiled softly.
In those carefully chosen words lay a certainty earned through long years.
After a moment, the Branch Manager checked the time and stood up.
“Ah, I’ve kept you far too long.”
“Sir? The match isn’t finished yet…”
“We can finish it next time. Rest tonight.”
The Branch Manager gathered the stones and left the room without hesitation.
Silence returned to the room.
“A turning point.”
I turned over the Branch Manager’s words in my mind.
Perhaps right now.
Perhaps my life, too, was standing at such a trivial crossroads.
With that thought, I drifted to sleep.

* * *
The next day.
The National Strongest Division finals began at ten in the morning.
Quarterfinals.
Semifinals.
To cut to the chase—I won.
Without any real crisis.
That’s not to say my opponent was weak.
‘I simply played better.’
I seized the initiative from the opening.
Never lost the momentum through the midgame.
By the endgame, precise Position Assessment and sharp Endgame technique had sealed the win.
“I really can’t believe you made it to the finals.”
The Branch Manager muttered, dumbfounded.
Only two years.
Self-taught Go.
That I’d reached the National Strongest Division finals seemed impossible to him.
“Right, Kim. If you win the championship, there’s an interview scheduled.”
“An interview?”
“Yeah. Think up your remarks beforehand. I’d be hurt if you didn’t mention me.”
I laughed softly.
As we traded jokes back and forth.
The finals opponent was announced.
“Kim Tae-ho?”
It was that boy.
The older brother of Kim Tae-ryul, whom I’d defeated in the group preliminaries.
The Branch Manager shared what he’d picked up from somewhere.
“Apparently he’s ranked first among this year’s training players. People say he’s a genius who’ll succeed Oh Soo. And his Turning Professional this year is practically confirmed.”
“He must play well, then.”
Come to think of it, it was the same name Park Jun-su had mentioned during our call.
As I sat waiting at the finals board, Kim Tae-ho and Kim Tae-ryul approached together and greeted me.
“Hello.”
A crisp beige shirt.
Eyes of studied clarity.
An expression arranged like sculpture.
A face grave and weighted—nothing like the one I’d seen during games with his brother.
“Win this, brother!”
Tae-ryul said it loudly, shooting me a sidelong glance.
It was encouragement laced with competitive spirit and deliberate caution.
I bowed first to Tae-ho, now seated across the board.
“Let’s have a good game.”
“Yes.”
Brief, economical courtesy.
In it—no arrogance, no nervousness.
Only a clear resolve: to focus entirely on the match.
—Please begin the finals match for each division.
Whisper.
I covered the stones.
‘White.’
I switched the Go bowls and the game began.
Click.
Tae-ho’s first move, holding black.
Star Point.
I steadied my breathing and placed a stone on the star point of the opposite diagonal.
Without hesitation, he responded with a small corner opening.
And there was no faltering in his subsequent joseki choices either.
Like someone who had already completed every preparation for this opening.
‘……I’ve been set up.’
It didn’t matter.
We were still only in the early opening phase.
There were still plenty of roads left to recover.
Starting now.
This was the beginning of my counterattack.

* * *
Kim Tae-ho was deliberate in his play.
Even his breathing remained steady.
He was so absorbed in the game that it was hard to believe he was only thirteen.
‘Tae-ryul lost, and Jun-su broke too.’
His younger brother Tae-ryul was ranked first in Research Group Two.
Park Jun-su had contested for first and second place in Research Group One until last year.
And yet these two.
Had both lost consecutively to this man.
‘He’s truly strong.’
Tae-ho’s turn professional was almost certain this year.
First in cumulative research group rankings.
No research student within Group One could rival Tae-ho.
The prodigy destined to succeed Oh Soo, the ninth-dan master.
This was the cautious talk circulating within and beyond the Go world.
And the opponent Tae-ho now faced.
Had fewer gaps than anyone he’d played this year.
Even more than that.
‘He might be stronger than my teacher.’
White moved.
An intuitive move, not a formulaic one.
It was difficult to say definitively that it was correct.
And yet, strangely.
It was impossible to call it wrong either.
‘……These are moves that aren’t quite right, yet feel exactly right.’
Tae-ho had grown up on AI-based Go.
Blue spots.
Compound analysis.
Precise position assessment.
The method of internalizing the places artificial intelligence would play.
But this Go he faced now.
Those principles didn’t apply.
That’s what shook him.
Because he was not an artificial intelligence.
Subtly shifting the axis.
Probing the psychology.
Crushing the momentum.
‘I can’t just follow. I have to play my own Go.’
He’d noticed it, but it was already too late.
For dozens of moves already, White had been preparing for this moment.
Now.
The positioned white stones were quietly beginning to constrict Black’s lifeline.

* * *
I sensed immediately that my opponent’s Go had transformed.
The flow had shifted from being chased to chasing.
Tae-ho recognized the situation precisely and was recovering his momentum without hesitation.
‘I’m too late.’
The moment that transition had occurred.
It was a position I had already reached.
Black launched a counteroffensive.
But I was responding half a move faster.
‘One and a half points. That’s exactly how far ahead I am.’
The slightest slip would flip the board in an instant.
Still, I was confident.
More than that—I was thinking of widening the gap further.
Precise position assessment.
Meticulous endgame play.
Having dominated the middle game so consistently, I’d played through to counting in relatively few games.
And when I had, the margin was negligible.
But today was different.
‘I’ll decide it here.’
Tae-ho kept pace all the way through.
His focus and calculation were frighteningly precise.
Yet the momentum remained mine.
Tap!
Where I should have played the obvious move, I shifted one space sideways instead.
Disruption.
A move that invited confusion and accumulated microscopic gains.
Half a point here, one point there.
Such moves, stacked upon each other, became a chasm.
“Mm.”
Tae-ho let out a low hum.
A testament to the fact that the game wasn’t flowing as he’d hoped.
With a darkened face, he pursued relentlessly to the end, but ultimately could not close the gap.
Only after filling in the final neutral points did we both stop simultaneously.
Whoosh.
Without ceremony, we moved into counting.
“Thirty-eight points.”
“Forty-one and a half for me.”
Tae-ho’s face darkened further.
Though we’d done the count, he’d likely sensed his defeat from the position assessment alone.
After a moment of silence, Tae-ho spoke.
“……It felt like holding my breath underwater.”
The frustration came through, though he was holding it back.
“Next time…… I won’t lose.”
At those words, I bowed my head in respect.
“Well played.”
With that final exchange of courtesy—
‘I won.’
Presidential Cup Champion!
The indisputable strongest amateur in the nation.
I felt the reality of having risen to that rank sink in.
And in that moment.
—Ding!
The system notification sounded earlier than usual.
[Achievement Added.]
[Partial Talent Maintenance Conditions Satisfied.]
[Gold Roulette Ticket Acquisition Criteria Met.]
‘……Roulette ticket?’
It was a word both familiar and strange.
The catalyst that made me who I was, and everything I had.
And below that—
a message I’d never seen before appeared.
[You may discontinue the talent’s achievement pursuit.]
[Upon discontinuation, a Gold Roulette Ticket will be issued.]
[You may now convert your current held talent to a permanent maintenance condition.]
[However, in this case, the rank of some talents may be downgraded.]
[Do you wish to proceed? Yes or No]
Without thinking, I held my breath.

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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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