I Got an Omnipotent Brain Chapter 98

Translator: Dreamscribe

A new sester had begun.

Once again, Su-jeong was the first to arrive at the lecture hall.

The vast, empty room with no one else in sight, the sound of her footsteps echoed unusually loud.

Front row, center.

It was the seat Su-jeong always sat in. By now, even if she was a little late to class, everyone left this desk empty for her.

Su-jeong opened her notebook and sharpened her pencil. She still loved the feeling of pressing the lead against paper, writing out equations by hand.

"That's Lim Su-jeong!"

"I heard she was Top of the Departnt all through freshman year?"

"They say she studies every single day. She's a total Math Demon."

"What a waste of that face. I heard everyone who confessed to her got rejected?"

"Apparently she didn't even listen to what they had to say before walking off. They didn't even get properly rejected."

The whispers drifting from the back rows were a mix of curiosity, awe, and, sowhat tiresoly, sothing like admiration.

'Hm? Tireso?'

The old her would have enjoyed the attention. But the Su-jeong of now felt nothing from any of it.

Co to think of it, her last year at Gifted High School hadn't been much different from now. She had simply wanted to keep up with him.... With all her focus poured into that alone, she'd had no energy left to look anywhere else.

'It doesn't even make happy like it used to.'

Su-jeong shuddered, struck anew by how much she had changed.

Ever since returning from the colloquium, her head had been a ss. How could she stand beside him? What did she, a re undergraduate, need to accomplish to earn recognition?

Two years left until graduation.

If she graduated early and went abroad to study where Seo-ha was, would that close the gap?

She shook her head.

Probably not.

The right to stand at his side wasn't sothing a degree could grant. It was sothing more fundantal than that.

Her thoughts were a tangled ss. She needed to do sothing, but there was no one to show her the way.

Tick, tick.

The second hand of the clock moved.

Su-jeong returned to reality with that sound.

"Alright, let's review last session. Everyone rembers the blank we left here, yes?"

The professor began his explanation.

"Does anyone have a good idea?"

Before the professor even finished speaking, every pair of eyes in the room turned to Su-jeong.

"Ms. Lim Su-jeong?"

"Yes!"

Su-jeong had been rolling a pencil in one hand, just like a certain soone, and slowly rose from her seat.

She had been lost in thought, but it was no problem.

By the ti she reached the board, she had already finished organizing it all in her head.

"If we rearrange the terms here and then apply Condition 2, we can establish an upper bound."

The chalk moved without hesitation.

Several students let out sounds of admiration.

The professor nodded with a satisfied smile.

"Exactly right. As expected from our top student."

Su-jeong gave a brief bow and returned to her seat.

Even hearing praise, even being looked up to by others, her heart was not the least bit satisfied.

Because she knew that no matter how hard she struggled in this small world, the distance between her and him would only grow.

She felt like she was suffocating.

Sothing heavy and rigid was pressing down on her heart.

'If I'd known it would be like this, I should have at least talked to Seo-ha.'

She had tried to play it cool and just left without saying anything.

If she t him, would this maddening frustration go away?

She didn't know.

But she felt that nothing would be solved by running away.

In the end, for the first ti in her life, she skipped class and boarded a flight to Boston.

* * *

"Here I am again."

The cold air unique to airports, the bustle of people on the move, the murmur of languages blending together.

Alone in the midst of it all, Su-jeong quietly swallowed a breath.

'What do I do now? Do I just... go see him?'

She had asked herself that question dozens of tis on the way here, but never found an answer.

Clap, clap!

She patted her own cheeks as if to encourage herself.

"Let's just go!"

Su-jeong gripped the handle of her carry-on tightly.

"Is this the place?"

She checked into a four-star hotel near MIT and unpacked her things.

A room neither too wide nor too narrow, beige wallpaper and dark wood furniture that gave off the neat, understated atmosphere typical of New England.

After eating breakfast at the hotel, she felt a little more energized.

She put on her coat and slipped her passport and phone into a small shoulder bag.

Standing in front of the mirror, her skin looked duller than usual today. Su-jeong pulled a cap down over her head and stepped out of the room.

Whoosh...

The mont she stepped outside, Boston's cold wind hit her face.

It sharpened her mind.

Walking the road that led to the MIT campus, passing the now-familiar scenery, Su-jeong finally arrived at the building where Seo-ha was.

She received a visitor badge at the reception desk and went inside.

The sight was overwhelming.

The Infinite Corridor stretching on and on, with chalkboards lining both walls.

Click, click.

Su-jeong walked along the corridor.

Students glanced at the visitor badge around her neck as they passed. Their faces were full of pride in their school. But Su-jeong felt nothing.

Two consecutive IMO gold dals.

If she set her mind to it, there was no university she couldn't have gotten into.

If anything, a sense of relief washed over her, that places where people lived were all more or less the sa.

'This is....'

A familiar handwriting.

On one of the corridor chalkboards, traces of unfinished equations remained.

Su-jeong stopped walking and slowly read through the expressions written on one side of the board.

Was it because she was seeing them without context?

The contents of the equations simply wouldn't sink in.

Complex differential equations, and a conjecture appended beneath them. What was he trying to do?

And then, a mo in Seo-ha's handwriting.

'Check again.'

It was a habit of his.

The mont she saw his writing, a wave of longing crashed over her.

Following the corridor, she spotted Seo-ha.

'Boys really do grow up this fast.'

He had grown yet again compared to just a few months ago.

A black knit sweater layered over a white shirt. Wrinkle-free slacks. A clean, unassuming outfit.

Su-jeong could no longer find any trace of the country boy from Okcheon in him.

Seo-ha stood with a piece of chalk in one hand, deep in thought about sothing.

Those slightly parted lips that appeared whenever he was concentrating. A smile spread across Su-jeong's face.

Her heart was racing for no reason.

Just as she was about to call out to him, soone raised a hand and blocked her path.

"Huh?"

Startled, Su-jeong looked to the side.

A handso man with red hair.

He quietly shook his head as if to say don't. Then he gestured for her to co this way.

Only after they had walked a good distance did he turn around.

"Sorry about that. It looked like Seo-ha was in the zone."

Su-jeong dipped her head in a bow.

"I'm... Lim Su-jeong. I'm a friend of Seo-ha's from high school."

At her introduction, Theo flashed a grin.

"Theodore Langford. I'm a doctoral student here."

'Theodore Langford?'

She had heard the na before.

The person who had co-authored a paper with Seo-ha when he solved Smale's an Value Conjecture.

Su-jeong's eyes went wide.

"A friend from Korea.... Seo-ha will be thrilled. It shouldn't take him too long. Well then, I'll be on my way."

He offered a bright smile and began to step away.

"Wait!"

Su-jeong grabbed him instinctively.

Theo looked at her with a puzzled expression.

"Could you spare a mont? There's sothing I'd like to ask you."

Theo lowered his gaze as if thinking it over, then nodded.

"Sure. There's a cafeteria nearby. Seo-ha won't move for at least an hour."

He pointed toward the end of the corridor and walked on ahead.

Su-jeong took a small breath and followed after him.

* * *

The place Theo led her to was a small cafe tucked between the laboratory building and the lecture hall, hidden as if on purpose.

The mont they stepped inside, the faint aroma of freshly roasted coffee drifted through the air.

Low ceilings and generous natural light made it look like a great spot for studying.

By each window, graduate students sat quietly reading books or papers, coffee cups in hand.

A tucked-away corner, a spot where hardly anyone's gaze could reach. Theo picked a table there as if it were second nature to him.

A few minutes later, two cups of coffee sat on the table, steam rising gently from each.

Slide.

Theo pushed a cup toward her.

Tense, Su-jeong couldn't bring herself to touch the cup, fidgeting with her fingers under the table instead.

"Alright, let's hear it. What is it you want to ask?"

Her lips went dry.

Now that it was ti to actually speak, she had no idea where to begin.

But she decided to muster her courage.

"I'm studying math in Korea.

Seo-ha and I made a promise back in high school. I told him I wanted to help him prove the Riemann Hypothesis.

But at this rate...."

A scattered, rambling explanation.

But it was enough to get the aning across.

Theo's eyes grew cold.

"Help, huh...."

"Pardon?"

"That's rich. Are you really soone who can be of help to Seo-ha?"

"Ah...."

The shock left her unable to form a proper response.

"I saw plenty of them at Stanford. The types who try to ride on the coattails of a brilliant founder. Wrapping it up all nice with 'I can be a huge asset to you!'

It's common in academia too. They approach under the banner of 'collaboration' to hide their own incompetence. Not that I can't understand it. Getting your na on one of Seo-ha's papers would make for a stellar career."

Su-jeong's eyes went wide.

"That... that's not what I ant at all. No matter how hard I try, I just feel so empty.... It wasn't like this when I was working alongside Seo-ha.

And let make one thing perfectly clear, I have never once thought about freeloading. If I'm not good enough, I'll step away on my own."

Su-jeong pressed her lips together firmly and glared at Theo.

Sothing in her gaze reminded him of sothing. Of himself, the day he first set foot in Cambridge.

Zip.

He opened the zipper of his bag and pulled out his laptop.

Tap, tap.

His eyes flicked to the visitor badge hanging around Su-jeong's neck.

'Lim Su-jeong, Math'

Theo's fingers moved quickly across the keyboard.

'Papers, awards. If she's charging at the Riemann Hypothesis, there should be sothing.'

If not, he intended to send her packing as she was.

The mont he entered the search terms, a stream of articles appeared.

'Korea's genius girl, IMO gold dal at the age of 15.'

'16-year-old Lim Su-jeong wins IMO gold for the second consecutive year, a first for a Korean.'

A photo of her with Seo-ha appeared.

The two of them were beaming, gold dals in hand.

"Hmm...."

'She's got the basics down, at least.'

Theo brought his hand to his chin out of habit.

"I owe you an apology. You're not all talk, at the very least."

Su-jeong's mood softened a little at his apology.

"But my conclusion won't change. Listen to carefully, Miss."

An authority in his presence she couldn't quite place made Su-jeong shrink back.

"Okay."

"Seo-ha plans to take on the Riemann Hypothesis within a few years. But that's not sothing he can do alone. Which ans he'll need a team soon enough."

"Then...."

Theo cut her off.

"That doesn't an just anyone will do.

Let ask you one thing. Did you understand the equations Seo-ha was writing on the board in the corridor earlier?"

She couldn't say a word.

Drip, drip.

Tears fell, born of frustration, and of sha at herself for not being able to understand even that.

She knew crying wouldn't solve anything, but Su-jeong had never once in her life suffered this kind of humiliation.

Theo tossed out a remark, seemingly indifferent.

"Don't cry. It would be strange for an undergrad to recognize what that was."

Su-jeong looked at Theo through reddened eyes.

"Your email address."

"What?"

"Give your email. You ca here because you wanted to know, didn't you? Whether you're really the kind of person who can stand alongside Seo-ha."

Su-jeong wrote her email address in a notebook.

"I'm going to send you an email. Problems I was struggling with back when I was an undergrad. If you can prove even one of them, that ans you're a better mathematician than I was at the undergraduate level.

Of course, the of today is on a completely different level from back then."

Theo let out a low laugh.

"If I solve them, does that an I'll be qualified to work with Seo-ha?"

Su-jeong wiped her tears and asked.

"Let flip the question. If you can't even prove those, what exactly do you plan to contribute to the team? We don't need a coffee runner."

Clench.

Su-jeong gritted her teeth.

Her eyes burned with a fierce fire.

"Fine."

Her voice no longer trembled.

"The deadline is when you graduate. We're not in a position to wait forever."

Su-jeong grabbed her bag and walked out of the cafe.

Looking around the street, she noticed that new buds had already begun to sprout from the trees.

The fresh energy of early spring.

The fog that had hung thick in her mind was lifting.

Haaah...

Su-jeong drew in a deep breath.

Fresh air filled her lungs, sending oxygen surging through her entire body.

"Ah! I feel alive again!"

The stone that had been crushing her chest, it finally felt like it was gone.