I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 46

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

Too Many Talents That Pay 046
Click.
Kim In-ha’s opening move, playing black.
The star point.
Kang Sung-joong responded as if he’d been waiting for it, placing his stone at the opposite diagonal star point.
‘He’ll play the small corner.’
Mu-myeong prioritized balance between territory and influence in the opening.
The kind of Go that seized solid advantage in local positions rather than the center.
Click.
It was exactly as expected.
Kang Sung-joong suppressed a smile and answered with the small corner.
‘Let my rhythm carry the game.’
He continued without breaking the sequence he’d prepared.
Black’s three-three invasion.
He blocked on the left and seized the initiative.
He placed a diagonal stone against black’s small corner to gauge the response.
The side narrowed the extension, preemptively cutting off the fight.
This was the flow he’d intended.
‘The center can stay open. I can afford that.’
The AI era had arrived, and the value of thickness and influence was being re-examined.
But only top-tier players could truly understand and harness it.
The center was a place that might become territory—or might not.
It could collapse into illusion at any moment.
Click.
Kang Sung-joong unfolded his positioning with territory as the axis.
Slowly, relentlessly.
He minimized opportunities for combat and concentrated on avoiding engagement.
The flow had slowed somewhat, but he paid it no mind.
The board grew wider.
Black’s influence accumulated.
Yet his territory accumulated just as steadily. And he had the advantage besides.
Still.
The territory gap was smaller than he’d prepared for.
‘…It’s fine. It’s okay to fall slightly behind in the opening.’
He steadied his mind.
Kim In-ha’s opening was fiercer than expected, but still within his calculations.
‘Hold on. Once we reach the early-mid game, mistakes will come.’
Kang Sung-joong continued with a conviction bordering on certainty.
A narrow pincer on the edge.
A light reduction.
A ko created by white’s retreat.
He placed stones only in positions skewed heavily toward territory.
Patience.
Wait, and it comes.
Endure, and the opening will surely appear.
Between AI’s flow and human intuition.
The moment of transition.
He waited for that moment with his heart in his throat.
‘The chance will come.’
A conviction bordering on certainty.
And yet.
Click.
One stone.
Click.
Another.
Something felt wrong.
Every move Kim In-ha made was far too smooth.
There wasn’t a single jarring, unsteady move.
Some stones were slow, others quick.
Yet each was placed exactly where it belonged—as if within a completed design.
‘Why… why this?’
Kang Sung-joong couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
No mistakes.
No wavering.
Not even a hint of hesitation.
His eyes trembled violently.
The pattern he’d envisioned and the actual game progression had begun to diverge.
‘This… this can’t be. There must be a weakness in that gap somewhere….’
Click.
In that instant, a black stone drove into the space between the center and the upper-left corner.
On the surface, a gentle, quiet move.
Placed on a boundary line that had hung uncertain until now.
‘I have no choice but to take it.’
He bit his lip.
At any other moment, he would have refused this stone entirely.
But at precisely the moment when he had to respond, when it came down exactly where it had to come down, he couldn’t help but answer.
No—it wasn’t just this stone.
Click.
Every black stone that followed slowly erased his design.
‘Ah.’
Kang Sung-joong picked up a stone, then froze for several seconds.
Then he set it down quietly, only to repeat the motion again.
Only then did understanding settle upon him.
The ‘turning point’ he’d been waiting for had already passed.
If this moment could be called a threshold, then the early-mid game ended here.
‘From the start… there never was a weakness at all?’
The territory he’d been holding down.
The flow he’d been enduring by evasion.
The gap he’d been anticipating.
All of it had become meaningless.
Now there was no reason to wait, no grounds to resist.
From here on, it was chase Go.
He held white, not black.
Now—or rather, already for some time—he’d been falling behind.

* * *
‘That’s strange.’
It had been that way from the moment of the first move.
His eyes were clearly alive.
Tension coiled in his fingertips.
The rhythm of picking up stones.
Intent woven into every move.
It was clear he was playing to win.
And yet.
The Go board told a different story.
An inexplicable unease kept surfacing.
Eyes that seemed to be aiming at something.
But white’s moves were utterly timid.
‘Why this obsession with territory?’
Dodging.
Retreating.
Shrinking back.
Abandoning both influence and thickness, clinging only to territory.
Moves filled not with the confidence to win, but with careful caution to avoid loss.
‘There’s definitely a hidden aim here….’
There was no lack of momentum.
Yet he wasn’t playing uncontrolled Go either.
But the momentum and the substance of the moves never aligned.
As his opponent, I was growing more confused.
‘Let it go. I just need to play my own Go.’
My human instinct and intuitive sense came alive.
I stopped relying on the AI’s suggestions, instead weaving data and intuition together to guide the board’s center.
Slowly and deliberately, yet densely packed.
I breathed my rhythm into the tightly woven structure.
Click.
Kang Sung-joong’s response remained cautious.
Retreating, dodging, always giving ground.
But that was precisely what I needed.
‘Predictable moves are easy to exploit.’
I struck at the weakness he was trying to hide.
The stones I’d positioned in advance transformed into an assault.
……
Kang Sung-joong picked up a stone, then set it down again—several times over.
His confusion was palpable.
His lips were sealed tight, but his eyes spoke volumes.
Click.
After his long deliberation, he made his move.
‘That’s overextended.’
Once, twice……
Mistakes in rapid succession.
A clumsy pivot forced to break the flow.
It felt hollow—as if he’d abandoned his own Go.
As these flawed moves accumulated, the position tilted sharply in my favor.
Click.
I deployed my prepared variations in sequence.
White had sacrificed thickness in pursuit of territory.
His large group, struggling to survive in that territory, had lost its way.
White’s group thrashed, giving up two points just to stay alive.
But the price he paid me—control of the center—was far too high.
Like a group drowning in water, it had nowhere left to breathe.
A decisive block.
The critical move.
I pressed down hard from the head, preventing his large group from surfacing.
Finally, all strength drained from White’s group.
Drowned.
Dead, without a single breath to spare.
Kang Sung-joong’s shoulders visibly collapsed.
I could hear him struggling to steady his breathing.
His head, barely held up until now, fell heavy.
“……I’ve lost.”
His voice was small.
Yet that whisper seemed to settle over the entire board.
Seconds later, Lee Gwang-seop, the association chairman, made a quiet gesture.
“We’ve paused the broadcast, so please clear the stones and come out.”
Kang Sung-joong began collecting his stones without a word.
His hands moved with a peculiar haste.
It was as if he wanted to erase the scene of defeat itself.
Once he’d cleared the board, he bowed slightly and rose.
“I’m sorry—that didn’t feel like your Go at all.”
I meant every word.
I’d sensed it dimly around the midgame.
He hadn’t played his own Go today.
Fixated on me, chasing me, he’d lost his own rhythm and center.
Of course, I wouldn’t belittle his preparation and effort.
His approach was simply wrong.
He stiffened.
Kang Sung-joong turned his head slightly.
Had I struck a nerve?
More than confusion—shame flickered across his face.
It seemed he already knew the truth: today, his Go had been destroyed by no one but himself.
“Thank you for your time.”
With a brief farewell, he hurried out of the Studio as though fleeing.
Watching his departing back, an unfamiliar feeling struck his chest.
‘……A hunted man.’
It was the first time someone had made him their target.
They analyzed him thoroughly, sought to dismantle his game, pursued him relentlessly.
Perhaps it would continue this way for some time, but he found he didn’t resent it.
It was proof that he was moving forward.
He wanted to stand at that position, always reaching higher.

* * *
At that same moment.
4th Floor of the Go Association, another waiting room.
Amateur Ranking First.
Park Jun-su watched the Challenger Deciding Match between Kim In-ha and Kang Sung-joong through the monitor.
“He can’t even play his own game. Look at him falling apart like this.”
It was a brief comment, yet it carried both cold analysis and disappointment.
Kang Sung-joong was an opponent he knew better than anyone.
He understood his style, his tendencies.
Watching the board now, he could guess what Sung-joong was aiming for.
Likely, he’d analyzed the game between the anonymous player and Lu Wei-an 6-dan, planning to decide the match in the gap during the Early-Mid Game.
“That level of preparation isn’t enough to face him.”
Kim In-ha was no mere skilled amateur.
An unimitable sense of completion and engagement,
and an overwhelming depth of Move Reading.
He was beyond the level of most professionals.
‘Even Dong-gyu said it. A monster.’
Kim Dong-gyu 7-dan, who had lost to Kim In-ha in the first round of the Integrated Preliminary Tournament, and Park Jun-su belonged to the same study group.
Reviewing that game together, Park Jun-su had been genuinely shocked.
Kim In-ha’s Opening play when they’d faced off at the President’s Cup had gone unremarked.
Now it was different.
He understood AI moves and possessed a refined sense of structure.
The Early-Mid Game was the same.
When Park Jun-su had watched the replay of the anonymous player Kim In-ha’s game against Lu Wei-an 6-dan, the Early-Mid Game had been a mess.
The impression was strong that he’d been floundering between AI moves and his own intuition.
But not anymore.
Even that gap no longer showed.
While not yet flawless,
he certainly possessed the strength of a top-ranking player.
“……Don’t be mistaken. You’re not the only one growing stronger.”
Eliminated in the 64-strong bracket at the President’s Cup.
From that day of defeat, Park Jun-su had seized the chance to reassess his own play.
His approach to AI moves.
Reflection on his own style.
The meaning and application of Thickness.
From that day onward, Park Jun-su’s game had transformed beyond recognition.
Professionals said that skill didn’t grow steadily but rather exploded suddenly, all the accumulated growth detonating at once.
Park Jun-su agreed with that assessment.
That was exactly where he stood now.
‘Losing in the fourth round of the Integrated Preliminary Tournament was regrettable…….’
The opponent had simply been formidable.
Though he’d received no seed, he qualified as a top-tier player who could reasonably be called a championship contender.
His opponent had been Zhou Rui 9-dan.
If he’d won then, he would have claimed half the spotlight that Kim In-ha now basked in.
‘That doesn’t matter.’
What mattered was that he’d played an even game against Zhou Rui 9-dan.
Now, finally, he felt his eyes opening to his own game.
Confidence had bloomed—that even without clawing desperately for Professional Certification points, he could reach the professional stage through a Promotion Match.
In that sense, this game was different.
A rematch against an opponent he’d once fallen to.
A perfect opportunity to test my current strength.
And thirty million won in prize money.
This time I’ll show them exactly what I can do.
For that day when I face him again on the professional stage.
To wipe clean the hazy ranking
And settle everything perfectly, decisively.
Right now, who is the strongest amateur player?
“I’m going to prove it.”

* * *
I put away my stones and walked out of the Studio.
Lee Gwang-seop, the Association’s chairman, approached with a warm smile.
“That was a brilliant game. Your reading of the moves as you strangled the life out of that large group—it was positively artistry.”
“Thank you.”
“Head up to the Challenger Waiting Room and take about twenty minutes to rest, then come back down. I’m looking forward to a fine game in the finals as well.”
I bowed lightly and made my way up with the Branch Manager.
A camera trailed along beside me, but I deliberately pretended not to notice.
On the 4th Floor, I stepped into the room with the printed sign reading “Challenger Waiting Room.”
A Go board, chairs, and even a replay monitor.
It was just an ordinary match room atmosphere.
The Branch Manager pulled drinks, coffee, a banana, and some light snacks from an envelope and laid them on the table.
“You did well, Kim. Catch your breath for a bit.”
“Thank you.”
I took a sip of the cold drink the Branch Manager poured for me directly.
Then, suddenly.
‘I wonder if this is okay to film?’
This relationship between the Branch Manager and me.
I’ve grown somewhat accustomed to it by now.
But with the camera trailing over my shoulder, something about this angle felt unfamiliar.
‘If anyone saw this…… wouldn’t I look like the superior?’
The way I had the Branch Manager attend to me like a manager.
It was exactly the kind of image that could be misunderstood.
But the Branch Manager didn’t seem to mind at all.
Rather, as if it were perfectly natural, he even peeled the banana skin for me with his own hands.
“By the way, Kim.”
“Yes?”
“That Kang Sung-joong earlier—his face was completely flushed when he left. Losing that large group must have really frustrated him.”
I paused for a moment.
In the Branch Manager’s eyes, the scene had read simply as me capturing a group and winning—coldly, cleanly.
He hadn’t noticed the subtle dissonance woven through it all.
I spoke slowly, collecting my breath.
“He seemed to have prepared hard…… but I think he may have overdone it.”
“Is that so? I couldn’t quite tell. Seems there’s something only you could see, Kim.”
At the Branch Manager’s words, I gave a short nod.
The moment Kang Sung-joong lost his Go.
It was already the same as losing.
“But it was so helpless, all things considered…… or was it that you were too merciless?”
“Not giving your best is actually more disrespectful, isn’t it? I simply played with sincerity.”
This was an official match.
Not a teaching game.
One hundred twenty moves, complete slaughter of the large group, resignation…….
All of it added together left only victory and defeat in the end.
Playing with full strength was the right approach.
The Branch Manager mulled over my words and nodded.
“That’s true. That’s right. But sometimes, you know what I notice?”
He glanced sideways at my face.
“When you only speak the right words, it becomes even more cruel.”
“Is that so……?”
I laughed awkwardly and looked away.
I didn’t know if I’d been cruel.
But he didn’t give me any mercy.
That was enough.
Because I hadn’t played a shameful game of Go on my own.

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