I Have Too Many Money-Making Talents - Chapter 75

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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 — Chapter 75
“It’s the same with Baduk. I concentrate better when I have an opponent to play against.”
At my words, the club president paused for a moment, then nodded.
“Ah, I see. Then… let’s give it a try.”
After that, there was nothing left to discuss.
We stepped up to the shooting line.
And then came the negotiations.
“Six ends, with a perfect score of 180 points? And no time limit.”
Three arrows per end.
Six ends meant eighteen arrows.
A friendly match with no time constraints.
I considered for a moment, then made a new proposal.
“Let’s make it twelve ends, like a formal practice session.”
“…… Won’t that be too difficult for someone who’s just starting out?”
“No. I’ll be fine.”
Actually, I preferred it this way.
Instinct sharpens the more it’s tested.
The two of us stood facing each other, taking turns raising our bows.
The first end.
He shot first.
Twang!
“Ten points.”
A club member confirmed the score through the scope.
Now it was my turn.
Breathing.
Release.
As the flag above the target rippled, I calculated that momentary tremor and let the arrow fly.
Twang!
“Ten points.”
The shooting continued.
First end, thirty points.
Tied.
I could feel the gaze of the club members behind us, watching in silence, their practice forgotten.
The second end followed.
We took turns at the line, shooting arrow after arrow.
“Ten points.”
“Ten points.”
“Ten points.”
The score remained tied.
I looked at his target through the scope.
Two arrows in the center X within the ten-point ring.
The third one slightly outside, still a ten.
A minute difference, yet the overall grouping was flawless.
‘…… He really shoots well.’
His form was stable, his release crisp.
Precise enough to easily rank in the top tier of the National Team Selection Tournament.
In contrast, my grouping fell short.
I’d only placed one arrow at the center X.
‘Not bad.’
Yet I smiled.
Third end.
‘Crosswind.’
Wind cutting across the line and target.
The most difficult wind in Archery.
Unlike headwinds or tailwinds, it couldn’t be corrected by adjusting the sight pin.
“Nine points!”
The president’s arrow had strayed outside the yellow ring.
I drew the bowstring.
The wind speed changing moment by moment.
But I could read the grain within it.
Steady breathing.
Pressure dispersed through the fingertips.
Muscle elasticity.
And a quick Release.
Twang!
“X-ring… X-ring. X-ring….”
The club member checking the scope drew in a small breath.
Perfect. Just as calculated.
The grouping, the density, the point of impact—all stable.
‘Wind is data.’
Exactly like Baduk.
Move Reading that follows from a judgment of the Board State.
The only difference is that Archery is a sport where you battle the wind, not an opponent.
“Ten points. Ten points.”
The club president echoed the assessment immediately.
Clearly there was depth to his skill.
But I paid it no mind.
Fourth End.
Rather than tracking his score, I kept reading the wind.
The flag above the target.
The grass blades beneath it.
Even the subtle tremor of the sound barrier behind the shooting line.
All of it served as my wind meter.
‘…Slight upward thermal. Two pins’ adjustment. Release pressure correction.’
Wind is data.
If you could judge it by numbers, then precise calibration became possible.
The president steadied his breathing for a moment.
Avoiding the violent gusts, it seemed.
This time I shot first.
Maintaining torque, managing only the recoil with a practiced sense.
Twang!
The arrow flew.
“X-ring.”
An exclamation burst from the club member checking the scope.
Second shot.
Third shot.
“X-ring… and another X-ring.”
One of the club members, who had been holding their breath, murmured softly.
“Insane.”
Even the person who’d spoken seemed startled, covering their own mouth.
But no one reprimanded them.
I watched the target quietly, smiling.
I read the texture from the shooting line, ordered my senses, aligned my center of gravity.
‘…Rhythm—should I push it higher still?’
Fifth End.
Sixth End.
Assuming not a practice, but actual dire combat conditions.
If I was going to do this, I’d push it to the absolute limit.
…I needed to see just how far my Talent would carry me.

* * *
Oh Gi-jun, the archery club president.
He was driving home with Byung-ju, who happened to live in the same direction.
Streetlight gleamed past the steering wheel, and Byung-ju in the passenger seat was buzzing with excitement.
“Sir, aren’t you supposed to enter the National Team Selection Tournament this year? With 355 points, you’re practically at athlete level. I got chills watching.”
Oh Gi-jun turned the wheel quietly, his smile quiet too.
Byung-ju wasn’t wrong.
The wind had been difficult, practice time sparse lately—for those standards, it was quite a high score.
A score that would’ve ranked him near the top in the first National Team Selection event.
And yet.
Oh Gi-jun felt oddly heavy at heart.
“Senior? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Ah, just…… thinking about Kim In-ha.”
Byung-ju blinked at that.
“He’s quite remarkable though. Self-taught, and shooting 50 meters for the first time, yet…….”
Byung-ju trailed off, sensing something.
“I never thought he’d tie with you.”
355 points tied.
Thirty-one arrows hitting ten points, five hitting nine.
In case of a tie, the X-ring count determining the winner was also tied at sixteen.
The friendly match ended in a satisfying draw.
But.
Appearances could be deceiving.
The gap in experience was far too stark.
Oh Gi-jun spoke quietly, his gaze elsewhere.
“Do you really think it was a draw?”
“What?”
Byung-ju tilted his head in confusion.
“The scores were tied. With you.”
“You…… didn’t notice it.”
“Notice what?”
Brief silence.
Oh Gi-jun lowered the car window with one hand.
Cool, strong wind whipping through the hair.
Before he spoke, there was no hesitation.
“Kim In-ha chose to shoot only during the worst wind conditions today.”
“What?”
Byung-ju turned, his face startled.
“No way. There’s no reason for that. Didn’t you misread it?”
The car stopped at a traffic light.
Oh Gi-jun’s expression was more serious than ever, gazing into the distance.
“……At first I thought he simply couldn’t read the wind. But that wasn’t it.”
Before his eyes, the moment Kim In-ha had shot, the flag above the target appeared in memory.
Turbulent wind.
What people called cross-currents.
The worst kind of wind, with irregular, chaotic flow.
He continued quietly, eyes ahead.
“He was simply…… deliberately practicing under those conditions.”
“De, deliberately practicing?”
“I don’t know. But from the start, that man had no intention of winning.”
Byung-ju opened his mouth to argue, then closed it.
It would have sounded like nonsense coming from anyone else.
But because it came from Oh Gi-jun, whom he trusted and followed, he couldn’t dismiss it easily.
The light changed, and the car began moving again.
The row of plane trees, swaying in the wind, quietly slipped past.
Breaking that silence, Oh Gi-jun spoke his final words.
“……Maybe the Taegeuk Mark will end up on his chest.”
Byung-ju could neither agree nor deny it.
He simply gazed out the window without a word.
The Taegeuk Mark.
Kim In-ha’s world championship victory in the shortest conceivable span—despite being only an amateur.
The two somehow naturally overlapped in his mind.
‘No way.’
Though he knew it was absurd.
He felt the hair on his skin rise.

* * *
Korea Baduk Association.
It was his first visit since the Rank Promotion Ceremony.
Even though his primary profession had changed to “Professional Baduk Player.”
As the year drew to a close, there weren’t many tournaments scheduled, so there was little reason to venture out.
“The preliminaries run for two days, right?”
The Kuksoo Tournament preliminaries used a group tournament format.
Playing two games a day, you needed four wins over two days to advance to the main round’s round of sixteen.
But because I held a high seed in the Player Ranking, I received a bye straight into the third preliminary round.
So it wasn’t until today, the second day, that I found myself at the Korea Baduk Association.
“……It’s convenient, I’ll admit, now that the Player Ranking points are climbing.”
The current number one player in the domestic ranking was Jeong Si-hu, a 9-dan.
His rating: 10,500 points.
The system awarded points per victory, with bonuses added based on tournament tier.
Second place was Kim Eun-woo, also 9-dan, with 9,980 points.
And me.
“Ninth in the Player Ranking.”
Rating: 9,450 points.
Initial rating upon professional promotion: 5,000 points.
Add to that the 4,450 points from winning the international Ciel Bank Cup, and that’s the total.
Thanks to that, I’d broken into the top ten and earned a bye in this tournament.
“The games themselves……I’ll make them up in the main round.”
The condition for maintaining professional status was sixty games per year.
It applied from the moment I quit my job as a bank security guard.
Sixty matches—it sounded like a lot, or perhaps not, depending on perspective.
‘Simultaneous exhibitions don’t count, anyway.’
Friendly matches and practice games were excluded.
Only official domestic and international tournaments counted.
Considering international majors, domestic tournaments, and leagues, there were at least fifteen tournaments I could participate in annually.
Simply advancing past preliminary rounds would be more than enough to meet the quota.
Outside the preliminary game room on the third floor of the Korea Baduk Association.
The moment I stepped out of the elevator, I felt the shift in how people looked at me.
Faces that would have passed me by without notice before now turned to watch.
Wariness that came with my changed reputation and standing.
Vigilance.
Caution.
And awareness.
‘Things really have changed.’
When I was competing in the Ciel Bank Cup preliminaries, hardly anyone paid attention to me.
But that was no longer the case.
An unprecedented case: winning an international tournament in the shortest span of time.
Breaking into the top ten rankings immediately after professional promotion.
The difference in how I was treated was unmistakable.
Especially the top-ranked players—they watched me now with a weight in their gaze.
And there was one more thing.
People had begun to look up to me.
“Um…….”
Two young players approached hesitantly.
They looked like either researchers who’d passed the amateur selection tournament or newly promoted first-dan professionals.
“Would you possibly sign something for us?”
An autograph sheet and pen extended toward me.
I smiled quietly.
“Of course. Want to take a photo together afterward?”
“Really? Yes!”
I wrote my name in Hanja on the first sheet they offered.
“Your name?”
“I’m a researcher—Park Ji-an.”
Below my signature, I added a brief wish for her professional promotion.
“Th-thank you so much!”
Next was the other young player standing beside her.
About the same age, but with a quieter demeanor.
“I’m Kang……Chan.”
“Kang Chan?”
The name sounded familiar from somewhere.
A moment later, it came to me.
“You turned professional this year?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
A promising newcomer who had defeated the number-one amateur ranker Park Jun-su and achieved professional promotion at the youngest age.
He was hailed as a prodigy destined to lead Korean Baduk into the next era.
And.
“Will you play me today?”
“Pardon? Ah, I—yes!”
Color rose all the way to Kang Chan’s ears.
Beneath his bewildered gaze lay something like trembling.
I smiled lightly and finished signing the autograph sheet.
“Thanks for today.”
“I’ll learn from you, sir.”
As he spoke with his head bowed deeply, I merely shrugged.
“Learn from me? You turned professional before I did. I’m the one who should be learning.”
“No, no! That doesn’t matter. You’re already a title holder, and—you’re my idol.”
“Me?”
Kang Chan nodded earnestly, again and again.
Each word carried weight. It was genuine.
Hearing that, something became real to me.
Being someone’s object of admiration, standing in a place they yearned to reach.
Something I’d never even imagined before.
‘I was always at the bottom.’
I who had only ever looked up to others.
Now I had climbed to a place where someone gazed at me and dreamed.
‘Strange, isn’t it.’
I laughed softly and spoke again, quietly.
“Then today, let’s play without any regrets.”
“Yes!”
After we parted, I entered the preliminary round game room.
Fifteen minutes later, the arbiter entered and began explaining the rules.
And.
“We will now begin the Kuksoo Tournament preliminary round, third-round match.”
I met Kang Chan’s eyes lightly across the Go Board and exchanged greetings.
Clink.
I drew for color.
‘White.’
Tap.
Kang Chan played the first move.
The Opening Formation unfolded from there.
Following the AI Standard Pattern, yet deliberately deviating the sequence to induce variation—a bold, unrestrained development.
No caution, no hesitation. Raw and daring.
‘This Baduk……’
In the play that Kang Chan said he would learn from, I felt something suddenly familiar.
Disruption.
Bestial intuition.
A strange knot of sensation tangled with calculation.
Déjà vu and alienation intermingling, pulling me step by step toward certainty.
Yes, I knew this Baduk.
Perhaps no one alive knew it better than I did.
Because.
‘……he’s playing like me.’
My own Baduk was now challenging me.

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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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