I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 35

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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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Talent That Pays: Chapter 35
“Let’s go see.”
With quiet confidence, he took a step forward.
The first-floor lobby was already crowded with people.
Tournament organizers.
Journalists.
And professional Go players gathered from various countries worldwide.
The third-floor corridor leading to the preliminary match rooms was already thick with palpable tension.
‘……So “a war among stars” wasn’t just an empty phrase.’
It was a sight he’d never seen before.
Never in one place had he witnessed so many professional Go players.
Never had he faced the focus and momentum they radiated.
Meanwhile, several Chinese players were loudly chattering in Mandarin in the corridor.
The Korean players clustered in small groups, conversing quietly.
The Japanese players were nowhere to be seen.
Or rather, it was more accurate to say they didn’t stand out.
Among the crowd, familiar faces appeared.
Park Jun-su, likely ranked first among amateurs.
Kim Tae-ho, ranked first in Research Group 1.
And Shin Myeong-hwan of the Professional Research Association.
‘……He hasn’t been back to the Dojang.’
Whether he’d lost to him that day and couldn’t gather his thoughts.
Or whether losing to an amateur burned with frustration and anger.
He couldn’t say for certain either way.
‘I’ll just pretend I didn’t see him.’
Their eyes met, but he didn’t greet them.
A sensitive moment.
A careful consideration so as not to become a distraction to each other.
In the meantime.
Other professional Go players preparing for their matches in their own ways caught his attention.
A person meditating with closed eyes.
A player with earbuds in, tapping out a rhythm.
Someone reading a book.
Players stretching in odd postures.
Each drawing up their focus in their own unique way.
“Hello, brother.”
It was Yu Zuha.
Her hair gathered in a round topknot.
A comfortable hoodie and jeans.
She smiled warmly at the sight of him.
“What are you doing?”
“Just…… watching how others prepare, that’s all.”
Yu Zuha nodded and glanced around the corridor.
Whether because of the striking visuals and bearing that drew attention wherever she went.
Several players were caught glancing in their direction.
Yet Yu Zuha herself seemed not to notice.
“That, though.”
Yu Zuha stepped closer and whispered softly.
“It’s all jinxes.”
“Jinxes?”
“Each player has their own compulsions. That wearing formal clothes brings victory, or that washing the night before a tournament leads to defeat. Or that you must always hold the Go stone container with white stones in the first draw.”
“……Isn’t that just superstition?”
That rational professionals.
Would become so obsessed with such things, he couldn’t believe it.
“It is superstition. But when you repeat it……it becomes a routine.”
“A routine?”
“Your own preparation method. An action you repeat to win. Sometimes it becomes such an important habit that it can affect the outcome of matches.”
To him, it sounded like a way of saying the world of professionals was that fiercely competitive.
Win, and you survive.
Lose, and you’re weeded out.
Perhaps even crueler than the jungle itself.
Yu Zuha studied my face and asked.
“Do you have a routine like that?”
“Me?”
I paused for a moment, then shook my head.
“I don’t think I do, really.”
“……People without routines fall into one of two categories, they say. Either they’re confident they’ll win, or they don’t care about winning or losing.”
Yu Zuha’s eyes curved into crescents.
She met my gaze, then spoke in a voice pitched just lower than before.
“You’re the former, aren’t you?”
I laughed softly.
Maybe so.
“What about you? Do you have one?”
“I do.”
“……You do?”
“Yes.”
Yu Zuha glanced around, then pulled gently at my arm and whispered.
“Only you know about it.”
“Huh? What do you—”
“I…… didn’t put it on.”
‘What?’
Yu Zuha lowered her head shyly, suppressing a smile at the corners of her mouth.
My mind went blank for a moment.
Didn’t put it on?
So she wasn’t wearing—
Could it be……
Just as the suggestive words stirred my imagination and my gaze was about to drift downward, she spoke.
“I’m serious. Today, I didn’t wear socks.”
“……Socks?”
I’d been holding my breath, and suddenly I burst out laughing.
“Don’t laugh! If my feet feel cramped, I can’t concentrate, and I have no choice about it.”
Yu Zuha pouted her lips and bashfully hiked up her pant leg slightly.
Pale, slender ankles.
She really was wearing nothing but sneakers on bare feet.
“But socks aren’t ‘put on’—they’re ‘worn,’ aren’t they?”
“Huh? That’s, well……”
Yu Zuha flushed at my correction, embarrassed.
The way she trailed off made her look like a bashful squirrel.
“This is when you can tell you’re Japanese—your Korean is so natural that sometimes you slip up on these things.”
“Ah. I hear that often.”
Yu Zuha shrugged with a bright smile.
The atmosphere became noticeably easier.
Then.
‘……Hm?’
I felt a gaze from somewhere in the distance.
When I turned, my eyes met those of a man standing awkwardly at the far end of the corridor.
Byeon U-bin, five-dan.
His expression was rigid.
There was a subtle displeasure in his eyes.
‘He’s looking at me like that again.’
It was similar to the look I’d seen at the Go Cafe that day.
Cold curiosity.
Or perhaps baseless antipathy.
Either way, he didn’t look particularly pleased.
Meanwhile, I noticed players beginning to head toward the preliminary match rooms one by one.
The preliminary matches were about to begin.
“Well then, I’ll be heading to the women’s match room.”
Yu Zuha waved lightly.
“Let’s win and see each other again!”
She turned away with a graceful flutter and departed.
I steadied my breathing and entered the preliminary round playing hall.
Most of the participants were already seated.
I made my way to my designated seat.
As I sat down, my opponent came into view.
‘Kim Dong-gyu, seven-dan.’
Shaggy hair, hunched shoulders.
An unwrinkled shirt.
Even thick-framed glasses.
At a glance, he was the type who paid no attention whatsoever to his appearance.
Yet his eyes, fixed on the Go board, held a peculiar intensity.
“Today’s referees will be the professional players here. Now we’ll begin the first round of the Ciel Bank Cup unified preliminary tournament.”
With the announcement, stones clattered across the board in all directions—a sound that echoed throughout the hall.
We too opened our stone containers and revealed our colors.
‘Black.’
I slowly composed myself and picked up a stone.
My first move.
The hoshi.
I placed the stone on the board and pressed the chess clock.
Most amateur tournaments I’d entered so far had been rapid games.
Ten to twenty minutes per player.
You had to move frantically, fight hard, and calculate on the fly.
But this.
The Ciel Bank Cup unified preliminary was different.
Each player had two hours.
With five one-minute overtime periods.
When all time was spent, a single game could stretch well over four hours—a long game of Go.
‘There’s so much to learn from this.’
Not just quick reflexes and intuition, but patience and stamina too.
Long games ran deeper, heavier.
You had to sketch the larger picture first.
Gauge the position.
Even calculate how to distribute your time.
Click.
Kim Dong-gyu’s response came back.
A slow placement.
Despite only a handful of moves, the tempo was already measured.
‘…Just as I’d heard about his style.’
Go grounded in fundamentals—pragmatic, solid.
A stable opening.
Development without greed.
The kind of Go people called fundamentally sound.
‘My game against Shin Myeong-hwan is paying off.’
This style had few weaknesses, but it was predictable.
Against such an opponent, reckless tricks became poison.
You could end up losing ground.
‘He’s going to follow joseki, build the flow slowly.’
I too moved my next stone with composure.
A smooth opening that seemed to flow in perfect rhythm.
In such moments, I had to guard against impatience.
‘There’s no need to force the game into chaos.’
My playing style is combat Go.
Intuition over calculation.
Momentum over position.
It starts from reading moves with precision.
But.
‘I can play other styles too.’
Follow the AI’s lead, yes.
But don’t chase it.
I don’t have to rely on the Blue Spot.
Accurate position assessment.
A somewhat more efficient move.
This was the Go I had prepared for now.
Click!
Second line, a single space jump.
A move that violated the old maxim: “One stone spreads by two spaces, two stones leap by three.”
Counterintuitive, but I was certain.
Slowly.
Gradually.
Gradually.
A ship could strike an iceberg and sink.
But what was truly frightening
was the slow submersion—water seeping in inch by inch.
Now, I had chosen the latter.
Boring in through silence.
No need to push with momentum; the flow itself would permeate.
A better move.
A slightly slower pace.
Yet already, the water had begun to rise.
The gradual erosion had commenced.
‘This too is my Go.’

* * *
“…….”
Kim Dong-gyu, a 7-dan Professional Go player, gazed quietly down at the board.
Seven years since entering the professional ranks this year.
He’d made semifinals and quarterfinals in domestic tournaments now and then, but held no title yet.
For someone who’d entered with such high expectations as a prodigy, his record was a touch disappointing for a player of his middling rank.
‘I slept well. My condition isn’t bad at all.’
A solid seven hours of sleep.
Every tournament morning, his mother prepared beef soup for him.
He’d put on the same shirt he always wore.
Everything was a perfect routine.
Moreover, today’s opponent, Kim In-ha,
‘was an Amateur.’
Granted, he was drawing attention lately, but that was only talk of the amateur circuit.
The weight of experience could not be dismissed.
Especially since the Ciel Bank Cup World Masters was…… a long game.
Two hours of playing time.
An Amateur couldn’t help but lack experience.
Moreover,
‘this is a tournament I prefer.’
Slow.
Deep thinking.
Reducing risk, playing with composure and deliberation.
The style Kim Dong-gyu had the most confidence in.
Since his professional debut, most tournaments where he’d achieved good results had been long games.
And so the game began.
His opponent was a man with a quiet demeanor.
In the first few moves, reading the flow, he sensed one thing.
‘His playing style is similar to mine.’
Then it came down to who could play better.
Click!
The moment his opponent placed a stone.
A chill ran through Kim Dong-gyu.
Certainty.
‘That move is a Blue Spot.’
The optimal placement AI spoke of.
The ability to find that single move encompassing the entire board.
Today, that sense was at its peak.
‘I will win.’
At this condition, he felt he wouldn’t fall behind even against a professional-level player.
But then.
As the game entered the middle phase.
Into that certainty crept the first seeds of doubt.
‘Why… how is it not collapsing?’
Black.
Had survived.
While gathering material carefully, it had slipped away with deft skill from positions that should have been lost.
The lower side’s Opening.
Concise Reduction.
Fluid Light movement.
All of it textbook perfect.
But then, wedged between those moves—irregular plays.
Crossing attachment.
Wedging.
Twisted vital points.
Moves he’d never seen before. Moves no one had ever shown him.
Those impossible plays piled up, layer upon layer.
Grinding him down.
The white stones.
Suffocating his territory, choking his great dragon.
‘This… am I really falling this far behind?’
His breath came shallow, caught at his throat.
His palms were already slick with cold sweat.
Kim Dong-gyu wiped the perspiration trickling down his neckline and undid a button.
The game wasn’t over yet.
He could still turn this around.
He had to turn this around.
He threw desperate fighting plays at the board.
But.
It was already too late.
He never found a single opening to reverse the flow.
Rather—he couldn’t find one.
One consistent current ran through to the very end.
Even as the final neutral stone was being filled, his opponent never wavered.
“Shall we count?”
Kim In-ha, sitting across from him, spoke in an even tone.
Kim Dong-gyu nodded silently.
Knowing it was a meaningless count.
The stones clattered.
Three and a half points, including compensation.
At the professional level, that’s a decisive gap.
“Thank you for the game.”
His opponent bowed politely and slowly gathered the stones.
Kim Dong-gyu muttered, his expression distant and dazed.
“Someone like you… why are you still an amateur…?”
Today.
He had played the best Go he was capable of.
And still lost.
To an amateur.
Kim In-ha paused and let a few words drift back over his shoulder.
“Because I started Go late.”
Kim In-ha lowered his head and turned away.
Kim Dong-gyu.
Could not rise from that spot for a long time.
‘Late.’
That single word circled endlessly.
That he started late, and was still an amateur—
A bitter smile escaped him.
He had devoted his entire life to this.
And yet he was overwhelmed by someone who had started so much later.
Clack.
With trembling fingertips, he gathered the Go stones one by one.
……
Slowly.
Without a word.
He was shrinking.
He felt himself grow smaller and smaller, boundless in his diminishment.

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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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