Chapter 33
Chapter 33
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 33
Chapter Title: The Distorted World of Gifted High School
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In a certain apartment in Daejeon, Park Sung-dae, the math teacher at Gifted High School, stared at the towering stack of reference books on his desk and rubbed his forehead.
The night was already deep, and it was pitch black outside the window. His mind felt the same way.
A few days ago, when he received the new student roster from the academic affairs office, one student's name had caught his eye.
Yoo Seo-ha, age 13.
Individual first place at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO),
an elementary school student who had perfectly solved what was said to be the most difficult problem in IMO history.
The word "genius," overused these days, couldn't even begin to describe that child properly.
His heart felt as heavy as a stone.
"What the hell am I supposed to teach him?"
With a master's degree in mathematics from Seoul National University,
Sung-dae had taught countless prodigies over the years, but he'd never once felt inadequate in his mathematical abilities.
Yet now, he wasn't so sure.
There was pride at stake among teachers too.
And his resume—having gone through science high school and Gifted High School—was solid proof of his credentials.
People always asked why someone from such a top university would bother becoming a teacher, but there was something irresistible about being a math instructor: you got to witness students' growth firsthand.
Students who mechanically solved problems alone would open their eyes to math through his lectures. They'd go through intense thinking and rigorous logic, finally arriving at a complete proof.
In that moment, their eyes would change.
Teacher Park loved witnessing that moment.
Math wasn't about finding answers—it was the language of exploration and proof. But what could he offer a boy who was already walking that path?
His worries only deepened.
Seo-ha walked along the commute path.
Spring sunlight filtered through the leaves, shattering into fragments on the road.
Cherry and zelkova trees lined both sides of the path,
and beyond them lay a floral tunnel where azaleas and lilacs intertwined.
It was a beautiful scene, but Seo-ha sensed a strange, barrier-like air that had settled over the school.
Today marked his third day at Gifted High School.
Seo-ha had come to a conclusion.
This place was a kind of other world.
A space that existed in reality but wasn't quite real—a twisted dimension.
And there was clear evidence for it.
There were 120 first-year students in total.
Not a single one came from a single-parent household. (The principal had proudly announced this during orientation.)
Seo-ha had looked up the statistics office data.
According to the '20xx Single-Parent Family Survey,' single-parent households made up 9.3% of all households in the country.
No calculation needed.
The probability that every single new student came from a two-parent home was 0.000818%,
or 1 in 122,000.
About the same as flipping heads 17 times in a row.
"Scary... sample bias."
It was astonishing how powerfully the entrance exam filter could skew a sample.
So, logically, calling this an other world where even the laws of probability and statistics were warped made perfect sense.
Someone was approaching.
'Ah! An otherworlder.'
Kim Eun-bin from his class.
In a place with a male-to-female ratio of 8.5:1.5, she was a rare specimen.
"Hello."
Seo-ha bowed politely in greeting.
She was in the same grade, even if their ages differed—maybe this was a bit much.
But through the IMO experience, Seo-ha had learned that treating older people with maximum courtesy, regardless of reason, made life much easier.
No response came.
Seo-ha looked up at her.
One trait of otherworlders was that they were always doing something.
Were their ears sensitive? Outside of class, they always protected them with earphones.
They always had something to read in their hands.
Thud, thud.
Eun-bin walked by, met Seo-ha's eyes, and passed without a reaction.
Seo-ha nodded, murmuring, "As expected..." The probability had just dropped further.
To 41.4%.
Another law of this other world.
Growing up in the countryside, Seo-ha greeted every neighbor he passed on the road first. And 100% of the time, the greeting came back. It was as natural as breathing.
But not here.
Students passing in the halls or on the paths always had their eyes glued to books or tablet screens.
Even if eyes met, they'd look away and pass by, just like now.
Seo-ha had detected this anomaly within two hours of enrolling and was now collecting data for his research.
'Mom, Dad, and Seo-eun.
This place has twisted math laws and doesn't even uphold humanity's most basic social contracts. Think I can make it?'
It hadn't even been days since he left, but Seo-ha already missed home.
At the fast-food chain in front of the school,
Seo-ha sat at the table with a tense expression. Across from him, Im Soo-jung—now his school senior—propped her chin on one hand, smiling at him with crinkled eyes.
"Is the world ending or something? Me going to school with you."
Her words said one thing, but her face screamed she was having the time of her life.
She was now a third-year; Seo-ha was a freshman.
Until recently, the gap between them had been that of an elementary kid and a high schooler. But now, they were school seniors and juniors.
'He's obviously going to struggle, but I can't just ignore him.'
As someone who'd been through this school first, the senior had plenty to tell this pitiful little lamb.
In truth, Soo-jung was a bit excited. She'd entered elementary school a year early and graduated middle school ahead of schedule.
Two years older than her peers.
She'd always felt a distance from her classmates.
Surrounded by older people, Seo-ha was the only younger one she could talk to.
So Soo-jung decided to pass on all her hard-earned know-how without holding back.
"Okay, what did I say?"
Seo-ha flinched at her question.
"That 90% of students who ask me questions already know the answer..."
Snap!
Soo-jung flicked her fingers.
"Right! Isn't it hilarious? If they know, why ask?"
Seo-ha's face went blank.
"Maybe to confirm if what they think they know is really right?"
What other motive could there be?
"Tsk tsk! The exact opposite."
Soo-jung narrowed her eyes mockingly and shook her head.
"Huh?"
Soo-jung looked at Seo-ha with pity, her face saying, 'What am I to do with this poor lamb?'
"It's to check if you might not know what they know."
Seo-ha tilted his head, still confused.
"Showing off...?"
"No? More like protecting themselves.
'Even Yoo Seo-ha, who's supposedly amazing at math, doesn't know this—I do!' Something like that. Securing even a tiny bit of proof that they know something better than you lets them cling to a shred of dignity."
Soo-jung blushed, embarrassed by her own words.
She'd once felt something similar toward Seo-ha. But exceptions like him made everyone equal. She'd realized and accepted that early on.
'Is he the pitiful one, or are the other kids hopeless...'
Staring at a tree you can't climb doesn't just hurt your neck—it wounds your heart. Soo-jung knew a few boys who'd turned dark from jealousy.
If only he'd overwhelm them like he did her, everyone would be more comfortable...
They should just accept him after seeing his IMO first-place record, but the bloated egos of Gifted High students didn't yield superiority so easily.
'Was I like that too?'
Probably. She'd seriously believed no one could beat her.
Her face burned.
Besides, Seo-ha had this subtly infuriating side.
His face seemed to say, 'I'm different from you all—I don't feel jealousy.'
"Why don't they return greetings?"
Seo-ha asked Soo-jung about something else that had puzzled him.
"They were all wearing earphones, right?"
"Y...eah, I think so."
Soo-jung nodded knowingly.
"It's like an unwritten rule here. 'I'm busy with something else right now, so no greetings given or received.'"
She twirled her cola straw and laughed.
"Selfish, right? Skipping even basic courtesy to protect their own world. Hate it when your problem-solving flow breaks? That's the vibe here."
"Oh!"
Mystery solved.
Soo-jung beamed at Seo-ha's admiring gaze.
"See how worried I was? A country bumpkin like you struggling here."
It wouldn't be easy, but it was definitely intriguing.
Seo-ha thanked Soo-jung profusely and headed back to school.
On the way to the dorms, he organized his thoughts.
So, the people here were...
"Strong egos, selfish. No interest in others, extremely individualistic. Potential for exclusivity toward outsiders from different populations."
The more he put it into words, the worse it got.
Seo-ha, who'd never had major issues with peers before, now faced a massive challenge.
Contrary to Seo-ha's thoughts, his classmates were subtly interested in him. Their approach was just a bit twisted.
On the surface, they flipped open workbooks and scribbled equations on tablets, pretending nonchalance. But their eyes kept drifting to Seo-ha in the front row.
Of course, each had different thoughts.
'Is he really on another level?'
'Is he actually not that different from me?'
'The kid's got skills, whatever.'
'Might blow up big later—better befriend him now?'
'Mom said to bring him over sometime...'
'Heard he's the genius Shin Woo-hyun mentioned.'
'Got a really tough problem—should I ask?'
'Aw, should've greeted him back then.'
As everyone pondered their own things, math class began.
Slide.
Teacher Park opened the classroom door and entered.
This was his first class with them.
After agonizing all night, he'd decided he needed to gauge Seo-ha's true skill first.
"Pop quiz today."
"From the first class?"
"What's the range?"
"Does it count toward grades?"
Various reactions poured from the students.
Gifted High exams were infamous for their difficulty.
Last semester, the top student across the school averaged 57, and the bottom was 46.
But Teacher Park had designed this test to average around 30 points, to properly assess Seo-ha.
IMO was different.
Solving many problems in limited time required proficiency.
Shuffle.
He distributed the pre-made test papers.
Four pages, ten questions total.
Next to each was a tiny 'key concept': invariant, expected value, rationalization, symmetry, limiting structure, graph connectivity, pigeonhole, generating functions.
The students' eyes scanned those first.
Key concepts weren't hints for answers—they guided how to approach the problem.
'Can't make it too brutal without them...'
"35 minutes!"
The classroom fell silent at Park Sung-dae's words.
"I'll be looking at the flow of your solutions more than right answers."
Scratch, scratch.
Pencils began moving in unison.