Chapter 207
Translator: Dreamscribe
Fallen leaves drifted down onto the bench.
Seo-ha looked up at the sky. Late autumn. Whether it was because he had made up his mind, or because of the crisp night air, the tightness in his chest seemed to loosen all at once.
"Ngyaaah!"
He stretched.
"That's for later. For now, I need to finish my service properly."
Daisy smiled gently.
[That is right, Master. I will make my preparations and wait for the right time.]
Seo-ha rose from his seat and walked along the trail.
Fallen leaves crunched underfoot. Seo-ha shoved his hands into his pockets and walked the path, not another soul in sight.
Daisy thought.
The history of mankind was one in which the freedom of the powerless had always been trampled.
'A lion can be free on the savanna because every creature there fears it. Of course, Master surely knows this well too.'
But Daisy said nothing.
Her Master was so kind and gentle that he would want to deny the fact that he himself could become something to be feared.
* * *
Apex Lab Korea.
The lights of the research facility stayed on even after nightfall.
Theo glanced sideways at his coffee cup. The coffee had long since gone cold. Still, he picked up the cup and downed it in one go. Taste wasn't the point. With caffeine in his system, his brain seemed to start turning at its usual speed again.
The board was covered in equations.
He pulled his chair in close and glared at them with his arms crossed. The sense that something was out of place had been tormenting him all day.
"Where on earth is it?"
Swish.
He picked up the eraser, then set it down again.
The instinct of a seasoned mathematician. Sometimes a breakthrough hides inside an equation that looks wrong.
Trudge, trudge.
Footsteps came from the hallway.
The team members rarely left on time these days. The concept Seo-ha had proposed was simply too vast and too difficult. They could tell there was something tremendous inside it. But the deeper they dug, the harder it got. Like sinking deeper into the mud with every step.
Smack, smack!
He slapped his cheeks with both hands.
"Pull yourself together!"
Lately, the team's growth had been steep enough to see with the naked eye.
More than once he had marveled at the sharp insights they showed in every meeting. He had prided himself that no one but Seo-ha could rival him, yet the team members were already digesting the concepts Seo-ha had thrown at them, each in their own way.
Knock, knock!
"Still here, I see?"
Ben carefully opened the door and stepped inside.
At the sight of the sudoku puzzles in his hand, a snort of laughter escaped Theo.
'He really knows how to hold a grudge.'
Apex Lab Korea housed more than a hundred researchers from both Korea and the U.S.
Many of them wanted to follow Seo-ha to America after his discharge. Each time, Ben stepped in to sort things out.
"Take your time. It's just an ordinary sudoku puzzle."
Ben's face was all smiles as he handed out the sheets.
He urged the researchers on, as if to say, hurry up and try this fun little thing for yourselves.
"You do know that if you can't solve this, you've got no business touching the unsolved problems, right?"
The duty roster, decided every quarter.
Seo-ha's sudoku puzzles were updated every single time. Ben still hadn't climbed out of last place, but he was only minutes behind the rest of the team.
"Come on, come on! Give it a try already!"
Ben watched with pitying eyes as they sat down and began filling in answers right away.
Ten minutes.
Twenty minutes.
If they had realized something was wrong even then, they would have been lucky.
Seo-ha's puzzles were so utterly vicious that one might not notice until the very last moment.
Then they would have to go back to the beginning, and the frustration of that moment was something no one who hadn't experienced it could ever understand.
Urgh.
Groans rose here and there.
The researchers' faces shifted by the second. Ben beamed as he encouraged them.
"An hour already? I didn't think it would take this long... Everyone on the Apex team, myself included, finishes in fifteen minutes at most. Still no one done?"
Theo shook his head.
"You really are a piece of work."
Ben shrugged.
"I'd call it mercy. At least I didn't hurt anyone by saying it to their face."
"That's worse. And how about you? Don't you miss home?"
It had been three years now since he left Germany.
But Ben showed no sign of loneliness at all.
"I miss the food sometimes, but it doesn't matter. Here, every day feels like opening a Christmas present. I couldn't live a life like this anywhere else. Wherever Seo-ha is, that's home to me."
"Haha! That much is certainly true. So, what brings you here?"
With a look of sudden recollection, Ben pulled out a document.
"Another official letter came."
Theo frowned as he took it.
It was a courteous request to discuss the lab's next project. But that was only a pretext; this was already the third one in the past two months alone. And the sender changed every time, each one higher in rank than the last.
His expression turned grave.
"The interference is getting worse."
"Maybe because we delivered results early? Looks like they're getting greedy. Are you going to report it?"
Riiip-
Theo tore the document apart right where he sat.
"We've already exceeded our targets. There's no reason to keep being dragged around. Maintaining Utopia is more than enough of a role for Apex Lab Korea."
It hadn't been much different back in the States.
Official letters aimed at Seo-ha had poured in from every kind of institution. Cooperate once, and the next request would come as if it were owed; in the end, the letters would arrive reading no different from orders.
"Do you think Seo-ha knows?"
"Who's to say."
He was indifferent to most things, yet at times startlingly perceptive. Unless one was Seo-ha himself, telling which was which was beyond even Theo.
But one thing was clear.
"We block it at our level for now. We can't have Seo-ha's mind wasted on pointless things."
Seo-ha had been born to the noblest of destinies. Theo had no wish to see such a person wallowing in the mud.
Ben nodded, his face resolved.
* * *
The season changed, and before anyone knew it, winter had come.
In front of the venue for the second round of the Korean Mathematical Olympiad. Among the crowds of students and parents, one child stood out above all.
Seo-ha looked down at his little sister, shivering in the cold.
A baby-pink padded jacket and mittens. Her cheeks were flushed red from the biting winter wind. Feeling sorry for her, Seo-ha cupped Seo-eun's cheeks warmly in both hands.
"Seo-eun, it's time to head in."
Woo-hyun, who had come along to the venue, said as he checked his watch.
"Yes, seonsaengnim."
"Solve them however you like, so there's nothing to be nervous about. Your oppa even wrote wrong answers on purpose before walking out."
Remembering that time, Seo-ha smiled sheepishly.
With Woo-hyun's letter of recommendation, she could have gone straight to the third-round preliminaries, but Seo-eun had politely declined.
"Oppa, I'm off!"
"Okay. I hope the problems are fun."
A girl who looked strikingly young among the high schoolers. But her presence was greater than anyone's. The moment she passed the first round, the media had splashed the news across their front pages.
[A Gold Medal Contender as a Middle School First-Year? Brain of the Century Yu Seo-ha's Little Sister Advances to KMO Round 2]
[God Is Unfair. Superior Genes Yu Seo-eun!]
[KMO Round 1 Venue in an Uproar, Yu Seo-ha's Sister Submits Her Answer Sheet in 25 Minutes with a Perfect Score]
└So jealous. What good deeds did those parents do in a past life?
└They could go days without eating and still feel full just looking at those kids. I heard they've never even sent them to an academy.
└Don't they live in Okcheon? Even Seoul barely has academies that could teach kids at that level. Shin Woo-hyun, maybe, but that's it.
└Why would you need an academy when Yu Seo-ha lives in your house lmaooo
└The photo's adorable lol she's really pretty.
└We placed 2nd at the IMO this year, right? Lost to China again. Maybe next year's worth looking forward to?
└We used to be 4th-5th. Even placed 7th once. After Yu Seo-ha, the kids who would've gone to med school flocked to Science High Schools and Gifted High Schools, that's the only reason it improved.
└Haven't kids from Yu Seo-ha's alma mater been sweeping the KMO these past few years? This year should be fun.
The Olympiad, once far removed from public interest, was now under the media spotlight. This too was part of the landscape that had changed since Seo-ha's appearance.
Reporters were already out preparing their coverage. Seo-ha pulled his cap down low so his face wouldn't be recognized.
"It wasn't like this in my day."
"These are the seeds you sowed. Win a gold at the IMO and every university is a free pass. Your going overseas played a big part in that, I'd say."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I sat in on the meetings myself. Just a few years ago, there were barely any IMO bonus points in college admissions. So of course the prodigies turned their eyes abroad. And there you were, the perfect example."
"I had no idea."
"Let's get inside. Things get tiresome once your face is spotted."
The two of them hurried into the car.
Seo-eun glanced back over her shoulder, then steadied herself. She could already hear whispering around her.
"Hey! It's Yu Seo-eun."
"Oh, her? Isn't she getting some kind of special treatment?"
"They say it's not like that. Apparently she's the real deal."
"So jealous. Her big brother's the number one math guy on the planet. I have to ask my academy teacher every time there's something I don't understand."
"Right??"
As the benefits of placing at the IMO grew, so did the competition.
Talent was now pouring into mathematics to the point of threatening China. In a scene like that, the flesh and blood of a genius couldn't help but become a target of envy and jealousy.
When Seo-eun turned around, the whispering students jumped in surprise. But then, seeing the wide grin on her face, they looked puzzled.
'Well, my oppa IS pretty amazing!'
Seo-eun's shoulders rose with pride.
Screech.
Leaving everyone's attention behind, she sat down at her desk in the exam hall.
The truth was, she had never planned to enter competitions at all. She had worried that a mistake of hers might chip away at her brother's reputation. But as she grew older and learned what he had accomplished, that worry vanished completely.
'Even if I were the biggest idiot in the world, it wouldn't affect oppa one bit.'
People don't wonder about the siblings of Newton or Gauss.
People already great by their very existence.
Before long, her oppa would rise to stand among them.
It was around then that she came across a story about Eve Curie, Marie Curie's second daughter.
The author of the worldwide bestseller Madame Curie, and a recipient of the Légion d'honneur, France's most prestigious order, she once said the following in a press interview.
"I am the disgrace of my family."
Mother, father, older sister, brother-in-law, and even her husband, six Nobel Prizes in one household.
Her witty joke only made her great mother shine all the brighter. And it was a joke that worked precisely because she herself had lived a life that was nothing to scoff at.
'I'm going to do that too!'
For that, she would need to win at least one prize or medal everyone knew. Just thinking about it made her so happy that Seo-eun couldn't hold back the smile spilling out of her.
She was optimistic by nature. With her worries gone, the jealous whispering around her didn't register in the slightest.
She flung off her mittens and took up a neatly sharpened pencil. On top of it hung the Beaver Figurine her oppa had made for her with a 3D printer.
"It's a present. Justin can't go into the exam hall."
No electronic devices allowed.
Seo-eun's eyes had wavered at that. She had never once thought of Justin that way. Justin had always been with her, after all.
The moment she took out the pencil, her unease disappeared.
And by the time she received her test paper, Seo-eun was more focused than she had ever been.
*****
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