Chapter 98

Maybe it was because I and my classmates chatted and walked slowly our way to the dorm.

When I arrived at my dorm room, it was a little late.

‘Too bad Green Min wasn’t there.’

To support me, Green Min drew me a portrait.

I wanted to buy her dinner, too.

Plus the 8 classmates that haven’t come to school yet.

‘Can’t do that yet, huh.’

I turned on my device and saw a lot of unread messages.

First of all, I decided to send a message to Green Min.

[Me] I saw the portrait, thanks.

[Me] Do you want anything to eat? I’ll bring some tomorrow.

I was left on unread, so she must’ve gone to bed early, or was in a situation where it was difficult to check her device.

If there is no answer, I’ll just buy her cake or cookies from the bakery at the west gate, ‘MITRON.’

I exited the chatroom of me and Green and checked other unread messages.

Nam-wook and Sang-hoon’s chatroom caught my eye first.

[Sang-hoon Yoo] (Link)

[Sang-hoon Yoo] GRATZ

[Nam-wook Jang] why’d you send that link? It’s a chess tournament results page.

[Nam-wook Jang] OH, Ui-shin’s participating! He won today! Congrats!

The link Sang-hoon Yoo sent was the tournament results of today’s victory posted by stalemate.

They were congratulating me on my first and second rounds, but it was surprising that Sang-hoon knew.

[Me] TY how did you know?

Sang-hoon answered a little while later.

[Sang-hoon Yoo] miss sanghee yoo

He calls his sister that.

It was understandable, considering his reactions every time he heard the title ‘Sang-hee noona.’

[Nam-wook Jang] You heard from Sang-hee noona? Is she interested in chess?

[Sang-hoon Yoo] N. Student council junior support

[Nam-wook Jang] what?

[Nam-wook Jang] Oh, you mean she isn’t interested but she went to cheer for her student council junior and saw Ui-shin there.

[Sang-hoon Yoo] Y

[Nam-wook Jang] ······Sang-hoon, spell it out, will you? I kept thinking about what it meant.

[Sang-hoon Yoo] K

[Nam-wook Jang] ······Never mind.

Nam-wook seems to have improved his ability to recognize Sang-hoon’s short messages.

Sang-hoon was probably making them even shorter because Nam-wook understood them all.

Even if I pointed this out, Nam-wook would try to translate Sang-hoon’s messages anyway, so I decided to stay still.

‘So Sang-hee Yoo also came to the chess tournament.’

The student council junior who she came to support was probably Jun-yeoul Yeom.

My disciple Jun-yeoul passed the first and second rounds with ease.

She must’ve seen me when she came for Jun-yeoul.

When I checked my inbox, there was also a message of congratulations from Sang-hee Yoo.

‘She healed Red Tiger and all…… I want to give her a thank-you gift.’

She’s not going to accept a huge gift, so I’d better figure out a gift not so extravagant.

Next were texts from Chan-sol Geum and Wang.

[Chan-sol Geum] Our suspicious junior won! congrats.

[Chan-sol Wang] GRATZ.

‘Suspicious junior,’ did they somehow see my classmates cheer slogan?

The Geumchan-Wangchan Combo must’ve come for Garam Yeon.

[Chan-sol Wang] I thought Garam would win cuz Dong-ha Cheon didn’t enter this year. Garam is the boss of chess.

[Chan-sol Geum] Yeah, since you beat boss Garam, you need to win!

[Chan-sol Wang] If you lose, it’ll make boss Garam look weak. Get the championship!

[Chan-sol Geum] Get first place! Suspicious junior!

Last year’s winner was Dong-ha Cheon, huh.

Dong-ha is a playable character who is currently in second year and is in the student guidance department.

Just like the game depicted, he was writing a legend here.

I didn’t know he was last year’s chess champion, though.

[Me] Thanks for rooting for me. I’ll do my best.

[Chan-sol Wang] ? Never did that?

[Chan-sol Geum] ? Whacha talking about, we ain’t rooting for you??

[Chan-sol Wang] How is this rooting for you? Anyway, win or else, junior!

I read their messages again, but it seemed like they were rooting for me.

I ignored them “yelling” at me and read my other messages.

The next one was from Seung-hyun Park.

[Seung-hyun Park] I survived too.

[Seung-hyun Park] I saw the tournament schedule and we don’t meet until the finals·····

[Seung-hyun Park] See you at the finals.

He won all two rounds, too.

I also wished him luck and told him to meet at the finals as well.

Finally, messages from the three siblings of Silver Tiger.

[Yi-ho Eun] Ui-shin oppa! Congratulations on passing the second round of the chess match!

[Seo-ho Eun] We heard from Mr. Golden Tiger, congrats!

[Jaeho Eun] Congrats, hyung.

Jiho must have told about me when he got home.

However, there were too many messages for saying “congratulations.”

I scrolled down to check the recent messages.

[Seo-ho Eun] We decided to learn chess, too.

[Yi-ho Eun] We played hologram chess on our devices today!

[Seo-ho Eun] Mr. Golden Tiger promised us to buy a chess set in real life. we couldn’t decide between a wooden chess set and an Other-world metal chess set, and he said that we could buy both!

[Jaeho Eun] (photo)

It seems like the three descendants of Silver Tiger were going to learn chess.

The photos sent by the youngest, Jaeho, had Jiho, who was explaining something, and Seo-ho and Yi-ho who were playing chess on the hologram.

‘My younger siblings played chess like that after they watched me play.’

I was lost in thought and saving some pictures.

‘What is this!’

I found a very much unexpected photo.

It showed Jiho Hwang and Ho-gun Baek playing chess.

The two of them were really neck to neck in the game.

It was so elaborate that one could believe they were professional chess players.

[Yi-ho Eun] Mr. White Tiger is awesome at chess!

[Seo-ho Eun] Mr. Golden Tiger was surprised too. He didn’t know Mr. White Tiger could play chess.

[Jaeho Eun] (photo)

Jiho playing chess wasn’t astonishing, but Ho-gun was.

He was more of a silent soldier type.

Of course, since ancient times, soldiers played strategic sports to train their minds, but I expected Ho-gun to play Go or Xiangqi, not chess.

[Seo-ho Eun] It was a close game but White Tiger won.

Yup, my playable character was skilled in everything.

I was wondering whether to send a congratulations message with the device code of Ho-gun that I added some time ago.

But then I found a video clip in the chat room.

‘Video?’

When I played it, I saw Jiho looking salty, but he still knocked over his king with that twinkle in his eye.

The moment when Ho-gun had checkmate and Jiho admits defeat.

[Arf Aarf!]

When Jiho’s king was taken down, Olmu appeared on the other side of the screen.

Our smart Olmu knew when the game was over.

Olmu ran to the winner, Ho-gun, and began to act cute.

The clip ended with Olmu on Ho-gun’s lap, rolling her small body here and there.

‘My Olmu even knows who won!’

I admired how clever Olmu was again.

[Yi-ho Eun] Even after this video, Shinsu kept acting cute to congratulate White Tiger’s victory!

Olmu’s victory cuteness!

That’s a thing!

If I win, I can see Olmu acting cute, can’t I?

There was one more reason to win this chess tournament.

I have to win.

[Seo-ho Eun] Shinsu kept nosing around the chessboard, do you think she wants to play chess??

[Jaeho Eun] I think she wanted to.

[Jaeho Eun] (Photo)

Jae-ho sent a picture of Olmu staring intensely at the chessboard hologram.

Of course, if Olmu wants to, I have to let her try.

I searched all over the internet to buy a chess set for dogs until just before I fell asleep, but I didn’t find any.

I bought a chess set for toddlers instead and went to sleep blaming my incompetence.

*    *    *

The next day.

When I checked the device in the morning, Green Min had answered, “Anything.”

‘But “anything” the trickiest to choose.’

After early morning training, I stopped by at MITRON.

After much consideration, the menu I chose was a Boston-style cream cheese cake, a gold kiwi tart, and a green Chinese plum tart.

The green Chinese plum tart was sour, so Han-yi, who has a sweet tooth, didn’t take one bite, but all the other menus were highly praised.

‘Come to think of it, the patissier was at the counter today as well, instead of a part-time worker.’

I guess the patissier had a lot of time these days.

*    *    *

After school.

Newspaper club room.

I had two rounds of chess matches scheduled for today too, but I did my usual club activities.

“I can’t tell whether you’re too much at ease or not at ease at all.”

Jiho Hwang commented, seeing me reading information about Jae-in Kwon that Saeron handed over to me.

‘It doesn’t matter if I’m at ease or not, I’m just doing this because it’s important.’

The materials Saeron gave me were over one thousand pages long.

There was a 50-page summary, but I decided to read the thousand pages.

‘There’s a description of psychic-made violins.’

The description of the psychic-made violin was very similar to the item that was given by the Power of Destiny, ‘Anonymous Fate.’

Saeron Moon brought information about those psychic-made violins, however, she had acquired it.

‘There are dozens of violins owned by Jae-in Kwon. There are ten violins used on stage. Then she uses different violins depending on her mood.’

Psychic-made violins are ‘card-able’ and one could carry hundreds of them without trouble, so it wouldn’t matter anyway.

As an additional material, a photo of Jae-in Kwon in a room full of blue violins was attached.

‘Just like her player’s nickname, ‘the Blue Violinist,’ she only uses blue UR or higher class psychic-made violins on stage.’

I continued to read the material.

Perhaps it was because I was reading too fast.

Hwang Ji-ho, seeing the speed of the hologram’s screen transition, looked over here with a twinkle in his eye.

I knew it was noticeable, but I wanted to get this over with.

‘This is……’

A thousand pages of all kinds of information related to Jae-in Kwon.

In it was also a list of staff members from Jae-in Kwon’s Ho-yeon Hall performance.

On the last page of the staff list, the names of me, Se-eum, Lenna, and Yuri were written.

It was a hastily selected staff member, so no other information about us was there.

The next page contained information about Jae-in’s new song, “Homecoming.”

Finally, a thousand pages of material came to an end.

‘Maybe the discomfort I felt against her means······ this.’

Jae-in Kwon’s remarks, actions.

Incidents associated with EverLake.

The experiences I’ve had in this world.

And these materials.

One by one, the identity of the discomfort became clear.

‘I see…… That’s why Jae-in Kwon acted like that.’

There were too many strange things to say it was all coincidence.

“That’s weird.”

“What.”

Jiho was observing me, after reading a thousand pages faster than me.

His eyes were glistening ominously.

“It looks like you found out something, but you don’t smile suspiciously.”

Yeah, I couldn’t smile because it wasn’t a thing to smile.

*    *    *

After finishing club activities.

I abandoned Jiho, who was still doubting me, and took off to the players only entrance of the chess tournament stadium.

I had two matches today.

Was it because of my classmates’ support?

When I tried to activate the chessboard with a hologram as a test, the color didn’t disappear and my view wasn’t distorted anymore.

‘I still have a bad headache, but I can handle it.’

My first opponent was a first-year student who did not appear in the game and whom I had no contact with.

I beat them within 20 turns and headed for the next round.

The second opponent was Hye-ji Oh, the leader of the student guidance department.

“Check.”

Hye-ji Oh looked down at the chessboard with a shocked face but eventually knocked her king down.

As we shook hands, Hye-ji Oh smiled coolly.

“Your hands are a little cold, like Jin-seung told me…… But you’ll be okay.”

“Huh?”

“My junior worried about you. Even though he was defeated by you in 4 turns. A stupid softie, isn’t he?”

Jin-seung Ma must’ve been concerned about me.

Hye-ji Oh and Jin-seung Ma alike, my playable characters are all kind.

If I wasn’t panicking then, I wouldn’t have done the scholar’s mate, I would have done a match that helped improve his chess skills.

I finished the second day of the chess tournament with little bits of regret.

*    *    *

1st-grade class 0, my cheerleaders decided to have Korean fast food today for dinner.

After dinner, the kids told me to let them eat beef tomorrow.

‘I want to feed them beef even if I lose tomorrow.’

I’ll make a reservation in advance, and drag them to the restaurant under the excuse that it was impossible to cancel the reservation.

I activated the hologram, made a reservation, and made sure to pay in advance.

The plan is perfect.

‘Now, I have to contact that person.’

I told the kids I wanted to prepare for the next game by taking a walk by myself and headed in a different direction than the dorm kids.

Walking down the central area pathway, I called that person.

I thought it would be difficult to reach them, but the person answered the call quickly.

“Hello, are you available now?”

[Yeah, Ui-shin.]

I’ve never given my device code to this person, but this person responded like they already knew it was me.

‘Did this person investigate me? Then they would’ve gotten my device code in no time.’

I was concerned about how they investigated me, but I said what I wanted to say first.

“I want to see you in person and talk to you, Senior Jae-in Kwon.”

<Words from the translator>

I have been noticing that situations where the characters want to buy each other food has been increasing slightly.

Today, Ui-shin wanted to buy Green Min food as a thank-you gift for his portrait. He also bought his classmates dinner.

For those of you who were wondering: Why food? Can’t thank-you gifts be something else?

In Korea, food is VERY important. It is an essential part of our culture to the extent that even a simple “Long time no see, how do you do?” greeting can be said as “Do you eat properly these days?”

In this sense, if you want to express your appreciation, it is natural for Koreans to say, “I’ll buy you food,” or “I’ll buy you dinner/lunch.” And we really do buy food. It’s a really common thing.

Also, if we want to inform someone that we would like to spend time with them and get to know them better, we say “Let’s grab something to eat sometime.” That’s why Guk-eun Song keeps inviting Ui-shin for dinner.

Oh, and one more thing. In Korea, the best way to show gratitude or love is by buying beef BBQ or beef steak. Beef is one of the most expensive meat in Korea, partly because our country’s land is too small for large cow farms to develop. There’s even a saying among the younger generation: “If someone buys you pork, it means they like you. If they buy you beef, it means LOVE.”

Hope this helps you guys understand the story more fully.