Chapter 44
Chapter 44
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 44
Chapter Title: Ducky Awakens
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Ducky was a shadow.
When Seo-ha opened his eyes, he vanished.
"Stay quiet. Don't come out."
Whenever he whispered those words, Ducky had to hide in the darkness.
But Ducky didn't disappear. The more he suppressed it, the sharper and more relentless it became. He kept knocking endlessly at the door.
Ducky was the inner voice he'd desperately tried to ignore.
Ducky was an obsession.
A chain threatening the things he loved, the monster he'd always feared.
But today, Seo-ha sought him out first.
"Ducky, let's begin."
At those words, Ducky stepped into the light.
Not as an impulse that needed to be restrained, but as an invited companion.
Ducky was the tenacity Seo-ha had lost, the eye that dissected the world.
Ducky emerged from the deepest recesses of Seo-ha's consciousness and merged with him. Scattered thoughts linked together like a mighty river.
Seo-ha trembled.
The exhilarating thrill of liberation, of finally being able to lay his true self bare.
When he opened his eyes, the world had changed.
The hazy fog lifted.
And everything came into sharper focus than before.
He picked up the library book on Theory of Computation. Numbers and symbols writhed before his eyes like living things.
His thoughts accelerated.
But that clarity brought discomfort too.
His mind whirred like an overheated machine, relentlessly analyzing everything in view. His breathing grew ragged. His nerves stretched taut, ready to snap at the slightest pull.
But today, Seo-ha chose to ignore it.
He approached the blackboard and gripped the chalk. Then he began scrawling equations in a frenzy.
χ(G) = min{k ∈ ℕ | ∃f: V → {1, ..., k}, f(u) ≠ f(v) ∀(u,v) ∈ E}
∀G planar, χ(G) ≤ 4
"Every graph has a weakness."
"Low-degree vertices. Five, maybe six at most. We'll dismantle it from there."
Countless shapes rose and crumbled in his mind. Extract one vertex, and the rest would settle into four colors. But at a single point where five branches intertwined, a crack formed. Colors overlapped. Lines tangled. The hand clutching the chalk didn't stop, drawing new lines. Patterns proliferated. Exceptions piled up. The blackboard filled with graphs and diagrams. Seo-ha dragged over a whiteboard and kept going. Seo-ha wandered the forest of graphs. No exit anywhere.
"Hello?"
A graph popped up before his eyes. They overlapped, multiplying like monsters. As if sneering, You think this is enough to take me down? Innumerable branches, patterns, exceptions. An immortal that never died. But this was all part of the plan. Seo-ha's hand never faltered.
"Don't make me laugh. You're dying here today."
Seo-ha's lips twisted into a grotesque grin. As night deepened, exceptions stacked neatly on one side of the board. Seo-ha fetched another board, carving out new space. He began rewriting them as sequences of symbols and rules. 'Encode only the boundary information.' Exception shapes transformed under new substitutions. Like distilling a vast forest into a single map, infinitely expanding patterns coalesced into one automaton diagram. Chalk screeched as it rapidly filled the board. [State set S], [initial state q₀], [transition function δ]... And at last, the automaton closed its loop, defining its bounds. The forest of exceptions spread no further.
"Thirty-two."
Seo-ha muttered under his breath. The myriad exceptions compressed into 32 patterns.
"Not done yet."
This was merely the bare minimum condition for cracking the Four Color Theorem.
Click.
Pressing the button unleashed the strains of Winter from the CD player.
Seo-ha slumped in the chair, face gaunt and drawn.
Like a marathon runner on the verge of collapse.
His hand shook as he lifted the water bottle.
He barely managed a sip before pulling out an energy bar.
"Huuuuh."
Seo-ha tilted his head back, exhaling deeply.
His fingertips quivered, smudged with chalk dust. Shoulders locked like boulders from tension.
But this was only the start.
Winter's melody gently caressed his frayed nerves.
His breathing steadied, bit by bit.
Rustle.
Pulling back the blinds revealed the dawn. Seo-ha winced and turned away.
"On to the next phase."
Time here was limited. No luxury for breaks.
Seo-ha rose.
The blackboard brimmed with overnight scribbles of shapes and symbols.
He scanned the room. Space was running out.
After a pause, he cracked open a box and pulled out A3 sheets. One by one, he taped them to the walls.
A massive board took shape.
Now, to verify the soundness of his self-made rules.
Seo-ha meshed one compressed pattern into another. Colors flowed across interiors and boundaries. Equations let him witness the four hues intertwining.
No way it'd go this smoothly.
The flow jammed abruptly.
It felt like the monster barring his path, growling a warning.
Fat chance. Just reinforce the rules.
One more. Another.
The walls overflowed with his equations.
He pressed on until every boundary locked perfectly.
Two days slipped by like that.
Monday morning. The pre-class bell rang.
Students hustled to their seats. But one was missing—the kid always there first.
The one with textbook open, eyes fixed on the board. Never late, never absent.
Everyone felt the void.
"Seo-ha still not here?"
"Didn't see him today?"
"Weird. Give him a call!"
Murmurs rippled through the room.
Slide.
The homeroom teacher entered and took the podium. His gaze flicked to Seo-ha's empty seat.
"Seo-ha called in sick today. Anyone hear anything?"
Puzzled glances exchanged.
"Heard something?"
"Nah."
"He seemed fine Friday?"
The teacher's brow creased.
Yesterday's message was curt.
-Teacher, not feeling well. Have to miss Monday.
-What's wrong? Doctor?
Sick days weren't handed out lightly. Teachers checked personally, or needed medical proof.
No reply.
Calls went unanswered.
A chill foreboding settled in.
"Tae-jin, Ki-beom—check Seo-ha's dorm. If he's down, call right away."
"Yes, sir!"
The two bolted out.
The dorm stood eerily quiet, students gone.
Bang bang!
"Seo-ha! Open up!"
Ki-beom glanced at Tae-jin. A nod.
"Seo-ha? Coming in!"
Beep.
The spare key from the dorm supervisor clicked the door open.
"Huh?"
"He's gone?"
Tae-jin scanned the room.
Impeccably tidy, true to Seo-ha's nature. Laptop aligned on the desk, textbooks neatly stacked.
Back at the office, they reported.
"Not there?"
The teacher's voice sharpened.
"Check the management center."
The class president dialed.
"Yes, access log for first-year Class 1, Yoo Seo-ha."
A beat of silence, then:
"What? The advanced seminar room?"
Class president's eyes bulged.
Students rarely used it on weekends.
"I'll check."
The teacher shoved back his chair.
"I'll tag along."
The class president hurried after. Yoo Seo-ha was a specially monitored student. He needed to see for himself.
"Aigoo, my aching back."
Professor Kim Ji-yoon kneaded her shoulder with her free hand.
Seo-ha mentioned research; she'd planned a weekend visit, but urgent business derailed it.
Now cleared, she aimed to drop by before her afternoon lecture.
Her phone rang.
Ring ring.
She hit the steering wheel button.
"Kim Ji-yoon speaking."
-Professor, sorry—can you come to school right now?
The principal's voice dripped urgency.
Seo-ha flashed through her mind.
"What's going on? Explain."
-It's Yoo Seo-ha...
"What about Seo-ha?"
-Hard to describe. All our teachers agree—you need to see this. Your usual seminar room.
"Already en route. Ten minutes."
She floored the accelerator.
Vrooom.
Minutes later, at school.
She parked crookedly and bolted out.
What on earth...
She just prayed Seo-ha was safe.
Up the stairs, a crowd clogged the hall: principal, vice principal, teachers, students.
The principal spotted her and rushed over.
"Professor, take a look. What the hell is Seo-ha doing?"
He grabbed her sleeve, dragging her before she could reply.
The seminar room door yawned open.
Stepping inside, Ji-yoon nearly gasped.
Three walls plastered with paper.
Each sheet crammed with equations, symbols, tiny diagrams, graphs. Equations still marching onward.
Arrows crisscrossed everywhere. Circles, triangles, graphs chained like links, clashing across the walls to spawn meaning.
The front blackboard bore a finished automaton diagram.
Dozens of circles arrow-linked, each node tagged with colors or symbols. It pulsed like a colossal beast's heart.
Ji-yoon got it now.
This overwhelming vista terrified anyone. None grasped what Seo-ha wrought. That's why they called her.
As she advanced, the principal barred her with an arm.
"No! Seo-ha's on edge. We've tried entering—failed every time."
Ji-yoon smirked.
"I'll be fine."
No one here gets you. But I do.
The Four Color Theorem.
Fields Medal contender and Korea's top cryptographer, she pierced the diagram's profound truth.
"Don't come in!"
A sharp bark, utterly un-Seo-ha-like.
Ji-yoon halted, surveying the discarded papers littering the floor.
"I won't disturb you."
Her gentle tone paused his frantic chalk.
"Almost done. Won't take long—just wait a moment."
How many days had he toiled?
Pallid face. Trembling fingertips.
He teetered on collapse.
Yet his eyes blazed with chilling intensity. No one dared approach.