Translator: Dreamscribe
Five minutes before the test,
The two proctors simultaneously looked up at the clock.
“Entry is now closed. If any electronic devices are found, your score will be zero, so please turn them all off and put them in your bags.”
The students sat in their chairs and lightly stretched their bodies.
The sound of chairs scraping, coughing, and then soon, silence descended.
The test papers were distributed.
As the second hand of the wall clock passed the 12, the proctor's opened their mouth.
“Begin.”
Rustle.
The papers were flipped over all at once.
Yu Seo-ha was confident in mathematics and science, but he was worried about the other subjects. Since he had skipped the middle school curriculum, Korean and social studies were particularly difficult. At the Gifted High School, even in liberal arts subjects, simple memorization could not solve all the problems.
Seo-ha’s conclusion about this was simple.
Memorize and understand everything.
As a method, he decided to use a mind map.
Seo-ha memorized the entire textbook.
Since he usually paid close attention in class, the main framework was already in his head. On top of that, he memorized reference materials and notes, trimming the branches.
The reason mind maps are not widely used despite their efficiency is that drawing the physical map takes a lot of time and effort.
But Seo-ha didn’t need to draw the map himself. Just by recalling it in his mind, the map spread out systematically.
This wasn’t simply because Seo-ha’s brain was exceptionally brilliant.
His childhood experience of making knowledge maps while reading encyclopedia collections made such performance possible.
First period, Korean.
The moment he opened the test paper, Seo-ha immediately immersed himself in the passage.
Long texts, difficult vocabulary, convoluted sentences.
Other students frowned, but Seo-ha’s eyes remained calm.
In his mind, a massive tree like the World Tree unfolded its trunk.
At the first sentence’s “philosophical discourse,” the trunk split once, and from there it branched into countless sub-branches. Seo-ha’s consciousness moved rapidly along the trunk, searching for the needed information.
This was the efficient study method that Seo-ha believed in, namely the structuring of thought.
‘Number 2.’
He chose the answer with ease.
The moment he read the question, the location of the information was already identified in his mind.
‘Question 3 is the speaker’s internal conflict, connected to the second branch on the right, ontology.’
The pencil glided through the paper smoothly.
Seo-ha didn’t need to read the passage twice. Information that had once been placed in the structure was not easily forgotten. The parts that other students had to go up and down to check again were already ‘recorded information’ for Seo-ha.
Even literature, which required metaphor, symbolism, emotion, and nuance, removed its mask in front of Seo-ha’s logic.
The thick trunk was the background of the work, and the branches extending from it were the speaker’s emotions and recurring symbols. No matter how metaphorically the sentence was covered, Seo-ha’s mind map categorized and interpreted it into structured language.
‘Good! I think I can get everything right.’
The mind map was a combination that suited Seo-ha, who liked systematic classification.
But was he perhaps overconfident?
As he solved the problems without hesitation, Seo-ha’s hand suddenly stopped.
‘Huh? A novel I’ve never seen before.’
A passage outside the scope had been included.
Seo-ha broke out in cold sweat as he read it. He tried to match the new passage to existing data, but it wasn’t easy.
Deconstructing the ambiguity of an unfamiliar literary work required a much larger volume of data.
Seo-ha decided to remember this type of problem well.
Second period, Mathematics I and II.
As the test papers were distributed, the atmosphere in the classroom turned cold.
It was the infamous math test of the Gifted High School.
Groans of “Ugh…” were heard here and there.
Of course, it didn’t apply to Seo-ha.
When he had first entered the school, he struggled with the high school-style problem-solving, but the current Seo-ha was different.
By answering countless questions on the anonymous board, he had learned what kind of solutions the teachers wanted.
Problem 1.
[Given any 2n+1 integers, prove that the sum of some non-empty subset of them is divisible by n.]
It was a problem at the level of the Olympiad, but Yu Seo-ha was able to solve it even with mental arithmetic.
What was needed to solve this problem was just two steps of the thinking process.
But Seo-ha didn’t do it that way.
He picked up his pen and calmly began to write down the solution.
A kind and thorough proof consisting of five steps.
「...Therefore, among any 2n + 1 integers, there always exists a non-empty subset whose sum is divisible by n.」
It was actually a very concise proof, but for Seo-ha, this was the best choice. Fortunately, the answer was within the acceptable range that would not be penalized.
Many people had helped Seo-ha come this far.
So he felt a heavy sense of responsibility.
‘I don’t want to insist only on my way and end up disappointing them.’
Most mathematicians of the past were aristocrats or came from wealthy merchant families.
It was a time when one had to be free from the concerns of survival in order to pursue academics, so perhaps it was natural. But not all were like that.
Gauss’s father was a bricklayer of the lowest class, and his mother was illiterate.
They were so poor that they couldn’t even remember the exact day their son was born. (Later, Gauss calculated his own birthday based on what his mother told him.)
Even in such circumstances, he stood out and became a great scholar remembered in history.
Seo-ha, who had a much better environment than that, could not allow himself to fail an exam simply because of laziness.
***
Tae-jin stared intently at the problem.
‘Just as I heard, it’s difficult.’
Last year’s first-year average score was 47 points.
And the math score was even lower than that.
Tae-jin realized that there was a killer question at every 10-point interval that acted as a filter.
‘Still, it’s not something I’ve never seen before.’
Through the ‘Duck Lord's Solutions Compilation’ series, he had experienced countless problem types. This was a question that Seo-ha had written an especially long explanation for.
Tae-jin felt like he knew how to find the answer.
At the Gifted High School, where only the top 0.1% of geniuses from across the country had gathered.
The standard deviation among students was astonishingly small. Just getting one problem wrong could cause your rank to fall by dozens of spots.
He barely solved the problem and moved on to the next.
It was catastrophically difficult, but not to the point of being unsolvable.
Suddenly, he remembered the sight of his parents smiling while talking about him. Tae-jin truly wanted to be a son they could be proud of.
Tae-jin shook his head.
‘No idle thoughts allowed.’
No one here was without a goal. And there were no untalented students here either.
A bitter smile formed.
Wasn’t this place like a colosseum?
Those with better talent rise to the top.
Since everyone puts in effort anyway.
Tae-jin suddenly thought.
Was the cold atmosphere at the beginning of the semester because everyone was thinking like this?
Among them, there was one person who felt different.
The student who accepted everyone’s questions throughout the night, the presence of the Duck Lord changed how students perceived each other, from rivals to collaborators.
Tae-jin seriously wanted to ask Seo-ha, “Hey! Isn’t your very existence itself cheating?”
***
“Stop!”
The proctor announced the end of the test.
“It’s over.”
Ki-bum shouted briefly and then slumped over his desk with his head down, unmoving like he was dead.
Everyone was in a similar state. They wanted to cheer, but didn’t have the energy. For the past three days, they had only allowed the bare minimum amount of sleep needed to concentrate.
“Let’s go.”
Tae-jin, who had come over before they realized, grabbed Ki-bum’s arm and pulled him up.
Ki-bum staggered as he stood up from his seat.
“I seriously thought I was going to die.”
“Me too.”
Maybe it was because they had gone through a hard time together, but a sense of camaraderie had formed.
“Seo-ha, let’s go!”
“Yes, let’s go eat.”
As they exited the classroom, the hallway was already filled with students from other classes.
Someone raised both arms in liberation, and another collapsed on the hallway floor.
Their bodies were tired, but the students’ faces looked brighter than ever.
After finishing their meal and returning to the dorm, Seo-ha was finally able to get a good night’s sleep for the first time in a while.
***
A week after the exams ended, and following several days of correction period, the report cards were distributed.
‘Thank goodness.’
Yu Seo-ha let out a sigh of relief.
Unlike what he’d seen in dramas, there were no announcements of full rankings posted on the wall.
“Yu Seo-ha, what was your score?”
From time to time, Ki-bum or Tae-jin and other soccer team members persistently came looking to dig out his scores, but Seo-ha managed to protect his results without leaking them.
On the anonymous board, there was a rumor spreading that the first-place student among the first-years was definitely Duck Lord, so Seo-ha was desperate.
Before the afternoon class, a static noise of “Bzz-” came from the classroom speaker, followed by an announcement.
-All students, please gather immediately in Seminar Room 1. I repeat, all students...
The students looked at each other.
“Seminar room? What for, all of a sudden?”
“Yeah, doesn’t our school not even have regular assemblies or anything?”
"Maybe a professor came from somewhere? It might be a special lecture."
Seminar Room 1 was a large lecture hall used for research presentations or special lectures.
The first-years, looking confused, began to move while gauging the situation. Soon, the second and third-year students joined them in the hallway.
“Is it Lim Su-jeong again this time too?”
“Probably not. There are tons of students out for her blood.”
“She’s super tough though. She never backs down, right?”
“Still, she’s a bit weak in chemistry.”
It seemed like something that had happened several times before, as the upperclassmen calmly walked down the stairs.
By the time they reached the seminar room, teachers were already lined up on the stage. The floor sloped down toward the front, so the entire interior was clearly visible.
“Hey, something’s definitely going on.”
“Is this some kind of event?”
The students, eyeing one another, moved to the designated areas by grade level and filled the seats.
Once everyone was seated, the event began.
-Ah ah, mic test. We will now begin the commendation ceremony for outstanding academic performance.
Seo-ha was momentarily surprised and looked around for someone to explain. Lim Su-jeong, sitting across from him, gave him a playful look as if to say, “You didn’t know, huh?”
The vice principal, who was hosting the event, continued speaking.
-As you all know, our school does not publicly announce rankings. However, we believe that announcing the top performers by subject and overall is a fair reward for their hard work and serves as meaningful motivation for all of you.
The vice principal unfolded a sheet of paper.
-Third-year, top performer in mathematics: Lim Su-jeong from Class 2!
Applause erupted.
Su-jeong stood up, bowed slightly, and walked up to the stage.
After that, she was called up three more times.
Because she was the top scorer in mathematics, physics, earth science, and also the overall top performer. Before long, she was holding several certificates in her hands.
When the second-year announcements ended, tension spread through the section where the first-years were seated.
The vice principal pulled out a list and looked at it with a meaningful expression.
-We will announce the first-year results all at once.
“Why just us?”
“What’s going on?”
The students whispered to each other.
-In Korean, English, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology, Earth Science, Physics, Social Studies, and even the college-level advanced course program, in all subjects, the top performer was Yu Seo-ha from Class 1.
The difference was so overwhelming that we even considered excluding this student’s scores from the standard deviation calculation.
-Yu Seo-ha, please come forward!
Seo-ha, his face turning red, hurriedly stood up. Then he walked up to the stage.
Clap, clap, clap!
The applause slowly spread, soon filling the seminar room completely.
The principal, looking as if this was exactly what he expected, awarded Seo-ha the certificates with a satisfied expression.
Tae-jin heard some third-years whispering beside him.
“What are the others even supposed to do now? At least we tried to take her down.”
“Yeah, recruiting a hero party was fun. The study groups were really active too.”
“But that’s like planetary destruction-level, isn’t it?”
“He’s ranked number one in the world. At that level, it’s expected. Even Lim Su-jeong lost to him, I heard.”
-There will be a commemorative photo, so please come together.
All the top-performing students gathered on the stage.
In the other grades, several students stood on stage, but for the first-years, it was just one person.
Click.
“Congratulations!”
As the ceremony ended, Seo-ha hurried down the stage and looked for an exit.
‘I need to get out of here quickly…’
But Ki-bum grabbed him tightly from behind.
“Where do you think you're going!”
Seo-ha’s arms were sealed, rendering him completely immobile. Then, his classmates surrounded him.
"Search him."
At Tae-jin’s command, the soccer team members began rummaging through Seo-ha’s school uniform. And before long, they uncovered the report card he had hidden in his back pocket.
“Got it.”
Ki-bum quickly took it and unfolded it.
“Hey! Me too, me too!”
“Let’s look together.”
In an instant, a crowd gathered around.
And everyone covered their mouths, swallowing their screams.
“Oh my god.”
“What is this? I don’t know, I’m scared.”
“I figured he’d be first, but I didn’t think it would be to this extent."
All five math subjects were perfect scores of 100, all four science subjects were also 100, Korean was 91, English 94, Social Studies 96, and even the college-level advanced course was an A+.
The overall average score for the exam was 48 points.
From that day on, Seo-ha was removed from the list of competitors in the minds of all students in the school.