I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 47

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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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A Talent for Profit — Episode 47
The break vanished in a blink.
My body had cooled, but my mind still hummed with anticipation.
I rose from the chair five minutes ahead of schedule.
The Branch Manager looked at me immediately.
“Already heading down? Rest a bit more.”
His tone was casual, but concern threaded through every word.
The Biryong Tournament finals.
Best of Three Format.
30-Minute Time Limit.
The moment one game ends, the next begins.
And I’d just finished the Challenger Qualification Final before this.
The Branch Manager knew that rest itself was part of the match.
“I think I’ll concentrate better if I go down now and prepare instead,” I said, offering a brief smile.
He shook his head, bewildered.
“You never let your guard down, do you?”
There was humor in it, and sincerity too.
I didn’t answer aloud.
Instead, I swallowed the words.
‘I hate losing.’
Go is a peculiar game.
The word “absolute” holds no sway there.
Rank proves nothing.
A first-dan player can defeat a ninth-dan master.
That’s Go.
I left the Waiting Room and walked down the corridor.
When I stopped in front of the elevator, Jeong Su-yeon spoke to me for the first time.
“Nervous about the finals?”
I turned, and the camera angle shifted to catch my face.
Mildly uncomfortable, but I didn’t avoid it.
“Nerves always come with competition.”
Jeong Su-yeon pressed further. “So you might make mistakes?”
I paused, considering, then shook my head lightly.
“No. This is the good kind of tension.”
Not anxiety—the tremor that draws me deeper into focus.
This sensation always raises my concentration to its peak.
Ding.
The elevator doors slid open smoothly.
I stepped in first, followed by the Branch Manager, Jeong Su-yeon, and the camera crew.
We descended to the first floor and entered the Studio, where Lee Gwang-seop approached me.
“Welcome. Please take your seat whenever you’re ready.”
“Thank you.”
I nodded to the Branch Manager behind me and made my way toward the Go Board.
It was the same spot as thirty minutes ago.
Yet the weight of the word “finals” made it feel like somewhere entirely different.
More than anything else.
Prize Money of thirty million won.
An amount that dwarfed my entire annual salary.
Fifteen million secured already as the Runner-up Prize, with another fifteen million if I won.
‘I will win.’
Hunger stirred in me.
Money was part of why I played Go.
And that money was the reward given to those who won at the board.
Even a small vehicle to drive to and from the Research Institute came with victory.
I couldn’t abandon any of it.
Then.
Park Jun-su entered the Studio and sat across from me.
“…….”

Our eyes met, but neither of us spoke.
We exchanged only the briefest of nods.
Perhaps it was just my imagination.
I knew his face, yet something seemed different today.
I could see it in his eyes—the resolve to avenge his last defeat.
“We’ll begin in thirty seconds!”
I waited, watching Lee Gwang-seop’s lips form the words.
Once the appointed time passed, we lowered our Stone Containers and covered the stones.
Click.
‘White.’
Park Jun-su, holding black, played his first stone.
It was the 3-3 Point in the lower right.
Tap.
I responded with the 3-3 Point as well, then pressed the Chess Clock.
Thirty minutes on the clock.
With Rapid Go, there was no room to waste time from the opening.
Park Jun-su seemed to share that thinking—he played without hesitation.
The third move was the 3-4 Point.
The fourth was a High Pincer.
Classic Opening patterns from the AI.
But by the tenth move, black began to deviate.
Breaking away from the standard sequence.
Leaving shapes incomplete.
Targeting only the essence of Joseki across the entire board.
‘That’s not how I remember him playing.’
In my memory, Park Jun-su was a Profit-Based player.
Neither too fast nor too slow.
Building pressure from practical advantage, forcing his opponent into overextension.
But now.
Each stone carried density and weight.
A will to seize control rather than be swept along.
He’d abandoned the safety of mere Joseki compliance, playing stones laden with calculated subtlety and rhythm—moves compressed with intent.
Tap.
I withdrew my hand and invaded the 3-3 in the upper left corner.
An attempt to break the flow he was setting.
But Park Jun-su responded with composure.
He yielded ambiguous ground, creating space.
Yet that very ambiguity left me uncertain whether to press further or retreat.
‘His entire level has changed.’
It’s evident in this moment too.
Tap.
I attached to the edge, inviting a two-space jump.
But Park Jun-su capped it lightly, locking the stone flow into an iron cage.
Though we were only in the early-middle game after the Opening, his play remained unruffled.
Solid. Unshakeable.
In that brief span, his strengths had been refined further, and his former weaknesses were now compensated for in different ways.
‘He’s formidable.’
If I lose the current momentum, I could find myself dragged along instead.
But.
‘You’re not the only one who’s grown.’
Tap.
My stone angled toward the lower left.
At first glance, the shape of black’s stones posed no obvious problem.
Yet a weakness lay concealed within.
Park Jun-su masked it with a gentle move, but I caught the opening.
Tap.
A single white stone pried its way in sharply.
Tap.
One more, pinning black’s lower left waist in place.
A play of keen intuition.
Moves grounded in data.
Two sets of stones that should play separately weave together organically, cycling into one another.
Push and pull unfolding in the lower-left corner.
Enclosure and deflection playing out along the upper-right edge.
This was no brute-force battle.
A clash of instinctive timing.
A weight class match in reading ahead.
And in this kind of Go, I wouldn’t lose to anyone.
‘Not to a soul.’
I sank into the highest state of play I could muster.

* * *
Casting amateur matches is always difficult.
Even in a game like the Biryong Tournament finals, where the strongest amateur is determined, it’s no different.
Through a professional’s eyes, there are plenty of flawed moves.
But pointing them out directly, offering such commentary, creates problems.
When the players’ level appears too low, it breaks the viewers’ immersion.
In that respect, Yun Jin-seok — a seventh-dan senior commentator — was seasoned.
Drawing on years of experience casting amateur matches,
he made an effort to match the viewers’ perspective with a human touch rather than relying solely on AI-driven analysis.
But.
Today’s Go was different.
“Black’s moves are strong. White’s next response is going to feel a bit flat.”
Yun Jin-seok kept praising Park Jun-su, who held black.
His foundation and instinct were so solid it raised questions why he was still amateur.
His grasp of AI moves was exceptional, as was his improvisation in steering the opening.
‘Good sense. I’ll see him in the pro ranks soon.’
But.
-He plays well but the opponent lol
-Once we hit midgame the nameless guy gets stomped oo
-White is holding back.
-Why’s Seok-seonbae only praising black since earlier?
-Thanks for the calm commentary.
Yun Jin-seok glanced at the chat and his brow creased.
Real-time viewers: 2,100.
More than five times last year’s Biryong Tournament final.
The organizers would surely be pleased.
But the reactions were far lighter, far more emotional than typical Go viewers.
The vast majority of them seemed to have crowded in to see Kim In-ha, the nameless player.
‘His play doesn’t quite match the rumors.’
He’d heard the stories.
An amateur who made it to the Ciel Bank Cup main bracket.
He’d heard that the nameless player who sparked a sensation in Three Kingdoms Go was Kim In-ha.
But that was all.
Whether Kim In-ha or the nameless player — he’d paid them little mind.
He had more important things: running AI, analyzing games, keeping his senior-division record sharp.
So watching Kim In-ha’s actual play was a first, there at the Challenger Qualification Final.
But even that match left the true strength hard to gauge.
Kang Sung-joong had crumbled of his own accord.
Then came the moment.
Tap.
White’s stone was placed.
As they pushed past the early-middle game, the board’s momentum began to shift.
‘What…?’
Yun Jin-seok felt a stir of confusion.
Until now, White had been trailing, pulled along by Black.
But.
From this move onward, something distinctly changed.
‘…It’s turned around.’
It was hard to say precisely what had shifted.
The moves themselves carry no flash.
But White was severing Black’s flow, beginning to redirect the momentum.
Solid, unbroken sequence.
Timing meshed with exquisite precision.
He seized the vital point—something no single stone could explain on its own.
-He’s here.
-That guy showed up ㄷㄷ
-Where did Yun go?
-Fired up midway ㅋㅋㅋ
-Watch closely.
“An unusual move. For now, it seems Black’s best joseki would be to yield…….”
Yun Jin-seok let his words trail off.
There was no other move for Black to consider here—yielding was the only option.
Shape, momentum, intuition.
It wasn’t the AI’s blue spot recommendation.
Yet anyone sitting before that board would have answered with the yielding move.
Snap.
Park Jun-su responded exactly that way.
That was human instinct.
The sequence flowed on.
Snap.
White’s stone came down again.
In that instant, Yun Jin-seok’s expression went rigid.
“This…….”
He closed his mouth.
Black’s yielding move just now.
Kim In-ha had prepared a cutting response—one premised on the most natural choice.
Perfect timing.
Predictable answer.
A sequence that bred no suspicion.
And within it, a hidden counterattack that pierced like a poisoned needle.
-Looks like he fell into it.
-Yeah, looks that way
-White’s game is just beginning now.
-If he loses control here he won’t recover
-So will Yun’s #1 pick Park Jun-su hold up
Yun Jin-seok straightened in his seat.
He replayed the sequence in his mind.
Black’s yielding move.
Connect anywhere and it breaks.
Block anywhere and it crumbles.
‘It was all…… calculated?’
Black’s choice was not a mistake.
But Kim In-ha had constructed the board on the premise that anyone would make that one inevitable move.
He induced the most standard joseki, then cut most sharply.
That wasn’t mere reading ahead.
It was a sense that pierced human feeling and psychology.
‘It’s Go played as a tool to manipulate the human being itself.’
The hair on Yun Jin-seok’s neck stood on end.
Go that tunneled into human depths.
A current running counter to modern Go, which defers to AI’s established joseki.
Snap.
The sequence accelerated.
Black retreated, White surged forward.
Not hurried, not crude.
Simply steady.
Yet that steadiness felt as though it swallowed the entire board.
“The AI says Black should pass—not be dragged along by White.”
Yun Jin-seok swallowed hard.
“But can he? Most humans fear and can’t play it. By human instinct…… it’s a position where he has no choice but to respond.”
He didn’t force an explanation that wasn’t there.
The admiration flowed out in words, exactly as it was.
“Withdrawing your hand here—that takes perfect read-ahead ability and nerves of steel. To reach that level…….”
He swallowed the rest.
He wasn’t sure if such language had a place even in an amateur final.
‘Elite-class player.’
Only someone of that caliber could manage it.
Because you had to gauge the depth of moves based on perfect read-ahead.
-Yun Jin-seok’s shift in composure lol
-This is what Nameless is
-Park Jun-su’s mentality starting to crack?
-The sheer pleasure of watching this is different
-An ordinary office worker’s greatness lmao
The viewers’ response made sense to him.
Even Yun Jin-seok, a 7-dan now, had to acknowledge it.
That sensibility—the mark of an elite-class player.
Right now, Kim In-ha was dominating the board with that very sensibility.
“I’d like to see this person on the professional stage soon…… or rather, on the world stage.”

* * *
Jeong Su-yeon didn’t understand Go.
To her, it was simply one among countless board games, nothing more.
The Ciel Bank Cup was no different.
An event that repeated every year.
Obligatory promotions and marketing, building up yet another set of results.
For the team leader overseeing marketing, it was a tournament with neither enjoyment nor purpose.
But then.
This time was different.
On her raised smartphone, the Biryong Tournament final was streaming live.
Though she didn’t understand Go, she paid close attention to the viewers’ reactions.
‘They’re going wild.’
Over Nameless.
From amateur ranks.
From an ordinary office worker.
People couldn’t help but anticipate and root for him as he climbed step by step toward success.
‘They’re projecting themselves onto him.’
A kind of vicarious satisfaction.
And the hope that they, too, could become like that.
That’s what marketing and promotion were.
Packaging something that didn’t exist, making people believe in it.
‘This will absolutely catch fire.’
Her instincts didn’t lie.
Search volume was still meager, and public interest remained thin.
A few articles, a handful of interviews—no one was paying attention yet.
But this story had only just begun.
A late-blooming Go newcomer reaching the peak of the amateur ranks in mere months.
Now moving beyond the threshold of professionalism, heading toward the world championship stage.
And above it all.
Jeong Su-yeon had just one sentence in mind to post.
-Kim In-ha, Security Guard, Ciel Bank.
The completion of a narrative.

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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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