Chapter 71
Chapter 71
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 71
Chapter Title: Picking Up Seo-eun
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The sun was already dipping toward the horizon.
Yoo Seo-ha finished the assignment he'd been working on and closed his laptop.
One of the best things about this school was that nobody batted an eye no matter where you studied. Hallways, lawns, even the bleachers in the gym—everyone just naturally whipped out their books or laptops.
Seo-ha had recently discovered his own little spot.
Tucked under the old stone stairs between buildings two and four, where hardly anyone ever passed.
During the day, the tree shadows provided shade. As the sun set, the reflected glow from the glass windows quietly painted the area in warm hues.
-Picking up my little sis and heading to the clubhouse.
He fired off a quick message to Root, pocketed his phone, and made for the bike racks.
The afternoon sunlight bounced off the glass walls, stretching long shadows across the ground.
Seo-ha scanned the rows of parked bikes until he spotted the familiar worn gray frame.
“Ugyagya!”
He stretched his arms high overhead before swinging onto the saddle.
As he exited the dorm path, he spotted the school bus crawling along in the distance.
Seo-ha picked up speed on his bike.
“Gotcha.”
He pulled alongside the bus and waved at the window.
Seo-eun's eyes went wide with surprise before she broke into a huge grin and waved back.
“Oppa!”
The kids inside burst into laughter at her quirky foreign pronunciation.
He arrived at the stop and waited a moment. Seo-eun's bus rolled in, slowing to a stop with a hiss before the doors swung open.
As Seo-eun bounded down the steps, greetings rang out from behind her.
“Bye, Sunny!”
“Bye, bye!”
The kids stuck their hands out the windows, waving frantically.
Seo-ha couldn't help but be impressed by his sister's popularity.
He hadn't even properly greeted his own classmates yet...
“Oppa!”
Seo-eun came dashing over.
She clutched the beaver doll he'd given her a few days ago.
“See you!”
“See you tomorrow!”
Was it her sunny personality? She exchanged goodbyes effortlessly with the other kids who'd gotten off.
“I got 100% on my spelling test today! Nailed all the math too! And in PE, I jumped rope twenty times.”
Seo-eun rattled off everything she'd done at school, not missing a beat.
Seo-ha had worried she'd struggle with English at first, but her well-trained mind was adapting to the new environment at an astonishing pace.
“You said it was tough, but you've already made friends?”
“Yeah! They're all so nice. Lots of them want me to teach them Korean.”
At lunchtime, the girls would crowd around her, spouting words like “annyeong” and “saranghae” they'd picked up from songs or dramas.
Seo-eun was starting to get a little tired of it.
‘Oh, the land of K-pop indeed.’
Lately, even MIT's speakers were playing Korean tunes more often. Having strong cultural influence from back home was definitely a perk when living abroad.
Seo-eun hugged her beaver doll tight.
“They all know her name now. The kids greet her every break.”
Seo-ha had coded some fun features into the doll while tweaking it.
Say “Hi Beaver!” and it'd greet you back. Praise it with “Good job!” and it'd wag its tail. And that was just for starters...
From the day he'd given it to her, the beaver had become Seo-eun's best friend.
She was blending into American life faster than he'd expected.
‘At this rate, she might forget Korea altogether?’
Seo-ha shook his head.
She'd be fine.
He'd just make sure she didn't forget.
“Hop on the back!”
He plopped a cute ducky helmet onto her head.
Once she was settled behind him, he started pedaling.
Kyahaha!
The autumn breeze brushed across their faces.
Fallen leaves rustled under the tires, tickling their ears.
The road was a gentle downhill.
The wheels rolled smoothly without him even pushing hard on the pedals.
Seo-eun threw her arms wide and shouted at the top of her lungs.
“The weather's amazing!”
Seo-ha grinned and gave it a little more speed.
The maple trees lining the slope were starting to turn color.
Sunlight peeked through the branches, intermittently caressing their faces.
“Hold on tight—you might fall!”
“I won't!”
Seo-eun let out a bubbly laugh as she reached for the sky.
A breeze from the river lifted her hair.
The scent of sunlight, trees, and the distant sea mingled in the crisp early-autumn air of the city.
The Martin Trust Center's coworking space.
Spectra Works had been assigned workspace in this very building.
Root waved as Seo-ha opened the door.
“Finally here. I've been waiting forever.”
Entropy was already running two PCs side by side.
“Your sister likes the beaver?”
She asked without taking her eyes off the monitors.
“Yeah. Tweaked the code a bit, and now she takes it to school every day.”
“Worth all the hard work.”
Spectra Works' logo popped up on the server screen as soon as Seo-ha booted his laptop and connected automatically.
Root slid a few sheets of paper across the desk.
“Legal team's given the green light. Parents' signatures are notarized too.”
“Contract's official now. TLO signed off, no issues.”
Seo-ha gave a quick nod.
Being a minor had made the process a hassle, but MIT handled this stuff routinely—it had all gone smoothly.
“Alright, let's get started then.”
Tap, tap.
Seo-ha started typing code into his laptop.
“First up, swapping out the core. Node count... hmm, minimum 18,000.”
“Classrooms, labs, library, dorms, cafeteria, gym, hallways combined—that's best split into around 40,000 space cells.”
Tadadadadadadak—
“Grids are wasteful with all the curvy paths around MIT.”
“Hallways between buildings as polygonal meshes, nodes centered on entry portals and event points with weighted edges...”
Entropy pulled her hands from her keyboard and leaned in close to Seo-ha's screen.
“Hold up! Mesh reduction first? Wouldn't it be better to slap on the agents?”
“We're clearing the paths for the agents to move first. Think of it like plumbing to carry our intent—makes it easier.”
Whoo—
Cypher let out an impressed whistle from the side.
“I thought you were just a math whiz, but your programming's insane too.”
Whirrrrr—
Seo-ha's laptop was already straining with a high-pitched whine.
Root glanced at it, then shot Cypher a look.
“This won't do. Let's build our mathematician a proper rig first.”
“Huh?”
While Seo-ha blinked in confusion, Cypher cleared a spot on the table for assembly.
The storeroom door swung open to reveal parts piled high like a mountain.
Memory sticks, motherboards, coolers, case fans, power supplies—even individual sheets of thermal paste rolling around.
“High-spec so it doesn't stutter.”
The priciest components from the storeroom started coming together.
“Use that graphics card we got as a promo item.”
“No decent CPUs left though...”
“Yeah, blew through 'em on the servers.”
Root scratched her head, then shot to her feet.
“Heard the robotics team next door's getting samples?”
“You gonna snag one?”
“Borrowing. Trust me!”
Five minutes later, Root returned beaming, CPU in hand.
“Engineering sample. We can pay 'em back with something better later.”
True to their expertise, assembly was a blur.
The flashy parts slotted into the case one by one, cables neatly managed right down to the last.
“What OS?”
“Ubuntu, please.”
Kernel, drivers, programs—all configured perfectly.
“Give it a spin!”
Seo-ha sat down at the new machine.
His first high-end desktop ever.
He launched the program right away, ported over his synapse engine, and loaded the MIT dataset.
The progress bar filled up, and tens of thousands of nodes and connections materialized on screen.
“Whoa...”
The awe slipped out unbidden.
“Nice, right?”
Root grinned with her arms crossed.
“Lab server tier. Should handle sim compute and rendering no sweat.”
Seo-ha's hands flew across the keys.
“Let me test real-time event integration.”
He typed, and it responded instantly.
In the virtual MIT, rain icons popped up. Students popped umbrellas or ducked inside. Someone slipped, and nearby kids rushed to help them up.
“Whoa, that's killer.”
“Even behavior variables are fully linked.”
The trio couldn't stop marveling at the intricate algorithm.
Seo-ha's fingers danced over the keyboard.
“There were features I skipped due to load worries—let's add 'em all now.”
He hopped onto GitHub and copied the conscience indicator code he'd used for QuackQuack.
“Wait, hold on!”
Cypher spotted Seo-ha's GitHub profile and his eyes went wide.
“You're Ducky?”
Nod.
Seo-ha had been dipping into GitHub on the side to build his programming chops.
“That Ducky?”
“No way.”
Entropy and Root crowded over, stunned.
“Remember when Ducky's open-source automation patch gave our server admin a meltdown?”
Seo-ha gave an awkward laugh and waved it off.
“I just helped out folks with buggy code. Couldn't scroll past questions on the boards.”
“Helped? You nuked the admin's mess with three lines.”
His face flushed.
“Total fluke. Just spotted the tangled recursion...”
“Forums were buzzing he might be an AI.”
“Shot in like a comet, fixing everything in sight.”
“I got helped by him once too.”
Seo-ha smiled sheepishly and turned back to the screen.
Tadadadadak.
His fingers moved like they were playing piano, new lines scrolling up as Spectra Works' complex algorithms streamlined before their eyes.
Watching him debug in real-time left the three shaking their heads in disbelief.
“Major imposter syndrome kicking in.”
“Let's not compare. Great mathematicians make killer coders.”
“Pray he skips systems engineering. Steals our lunch.”
On short breaks, Seo-ha refreshed his mind browsing the MIT internal dev forum.
His ID 'Ducky' now sported a blue verified badge for insiders.
Gulp.
The sound of someone swallowing carried oddly loud.
Root turned to Seo-ha with a grave expression.
“Need more equity?”
Seo-ha startled.
“No way! It's already too generous. I'll earn my keep—don't worry.”
“If we've done anything to upset you, speak up. Don't bottle it up, okay?”
“Got it!”
Seo-ha was thrilled he could be of help to these fun, kind people.