Episode 11

The new face in Group 10 surprisingly blended in easily.

“...So, this is Lee Ha-roo?”

“Just speak comfortably. She graduated early from science high school and KEIST, so she’s twenty-two. She’s two years younger than us.”

“I’m a super genius, you know. V.”

Lee Ha-roo made a V-sign with her index and middle fingers.

I, or rather, Park Yoo-seung, and Han Seol had also entered law school right after graduating from university, so we weren’t that old.

But Lee Ha-roo was two years younger than even that.

She was also small, so if you just looked at her, you couldn’t really tell that she wasn’t a high school student.

“W, would you like to call me Seol-unnie?”

Han Seol treated Lee Ha-roo like a younger sibling and found her quite cute.

It was a good thing that the group members got along well, so it was something to be welcomed.

After class, the three of us would gather and study what we each had to study, and once we had finished our assigned work, we would go to the arcade, as promised, and I would teach her techniques.

I had shown her a few more secret moves, just in case she lost interest too quickly, and her eyes were overflowing with respect.

“Master is awesome…”

“Try looking at ‘Minmae’ with those passionate eyes.”

“Impossible. Civil law is super boring.”

She was still only studying because she was obligated to do so by the promise, but Lee Ha-roo had a lot of potential.

In the ‘In the Law School’ 100th episode anniversary Q&A, it was even officially acknowledged that, in terms of intelligence alone, Lee Ha-roo was the top character.

She was also lucky, and she hadn’t been chosen for a presentation yet.

In the meantime, Han Seol and I had gotten together and done a rush course, and thanks to that, she had almost caught up to the pre-law course syllabus.

Of course, since the syllabus was something that had been built on sand, her understanding was zero.

But there was a big difference between being able to say something when asked, and being a stone statue because you didn’t know anything at all.

The depth of understanding was an issue that could be supplemented by increasing the number of readings later on.

So, it was okay for now.

Unless they suddenly had a test that covered the entire syllabus.

“We will be having a pop quiz.”

“What.”

And then, Professor Park Soo-geun dropped a bombshell.

“You don’t know it yet, but at this faculty meeting, we decided to change the method of the second evaluation. It will probably… be very different from the test that you are thinking of.”

The students buzzed at the sudden news.

I was just as flustered.

The second evaluation was changing? I swear that there was no such development in the original story.

“But that doesn’t mean that we can completely skip the multiple choice and essay-type tests, right? Because there is no better way to check if you are studying diligently. So, we decided to have a pop quiz!”

The students held their heads and let out painful screams.

It was only natural.

This meant that they would be taking a second evaluation that was called a pop quiz, and then they would have to take another unidentified test.

“The date is next Monday, and the scope is from the court to the statute of limitations. Professor Jang Yong-hwan will announce the scope of criminal law separately, but I don’t think you’ll have to do that. You’re feeling a bit less burdened, right? Then, that’s all for today’s class…”

Ah, and one more thing. Professor Park Soo-geun added as if he had almost forgotten.

“The scores for this pop quiz will be averaged by group and reflected in the group score! If you have a group member who is having difficulties, make sure to help them and study together!”

* * *

After class, I grabbed Lee Ha-roo and Han Seol before they could get lost in the crowd that was leaving.

“Ah, master! What time’s the arcade today?”

“Lee Ha-roo. How far have you gotten in civil law?”

“Up to non-corporate associations.”

Considering that she hadn’t done any pre-studying, that was a very decent pace.

But, it wasn’t enough.

Today was Friday.

There were only two days left, the weekend, until the pop quiz on Monday.

If I left Lee Ha-roo to play around, there was no way that we would be able to catch up to the syllabus.

If Lee Ha-roo didn’t catch up, my scores would also be gone.

After much deliberation, I made a decision.

“Group 10 will be having an all-night study session starting today.”

“…Is this for real?”

“It can’t be helped, Ha-roo. If we’re going to prepare enough to solve essay-type problems by the pop quiz date, then there’s no other way. But if you have any questions, you can ask unnie through text.”

“What text? You’re coming too.”

“Oh, oh? Why me too…!?”

Well, because Han Seol, you have to teach Lee Ha-roo.

I was in a dire situation myself.

Han Seol was at a level where she would get a pretty good score even if she took the test right now.

But I wasn’t like that.

I had to give it my all to prepare properly.

“It might not be the best trade, but if you follow me, I’ll make sure that our group can get first place.”

“…For sure?”

“You want to be a judge, right? You’re going to apply for the Dean’s guidance program, aren’t you? The pop quiz score is going to be important.”

“Can you guarantee it? Do you know something?”

I nodded my head.

If you considered that Professor Park Soo-geun was the one who was giving this test, then there was a way that I could prepare for it perfectly.

But I needed Han Seol to be able to fully equip even Lee Ha-roo.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, but this is all so sudden…”

“Well, it’s only because the professor suddenly dropped a bomb on us.”

“That’s not what I meant, sigh. It’s a waste of my breath.”

What was I supposed to say to this law-obsessed fool? Han Seol, who seemed to be muttering to herself, soon opened her mouth as if she had made up her mind.

“Alright. I’ll go. But what do I tell my mom…”

“Just say that there’s a girl in your group who is so terrible that if you don’t raise her score, the group evaluation will be a disaster. And leave me out of it.”

“Hey, isn’t that too harsh?”

Lee Ha-roo had a flustered expression, but there was no other way but to sell her out.

Han Seol wanted to become a judge because of her mother’s influence.

In the original story, that woman acted as if her life would be over if she couldn’t make Han Seol into a judge.

She probably didn’t want her daughter to sleep outside, but she hated it even more when her simulation of raising a judge was ruined.

In the end, she would have no choice but to agree.

‘She even let her go on MTs because she could use her activities as a spec, after all.’

“Haa. This is a bit scary.”

Han Seol closed her eyes tightly and took out her smartphone and pressed the call button.

“Oh, mom. It’s me… You want me to call every hour? Is that okay? Okay. I understand.”

“See? I told you she would agree.”

“...This worked.”

There was no place to run now.

I pushed the two of them on the back and began to march forward with energy.

* * *

“You said it was a studio apartment?”

Han Seol muttered blankly as she opened the front door of the house.

“It is?”

“Where does someone live in a 60-pyeong [approx. 2134 sq ft] apartment as a studio apartment….”

“Master, you were a gold spoon.”

Lee Ha-roo also agreed with her mouth agape.

‘Well, it is wider than the house I lived in in my previous life.’

Park Yoo-seung’s parents, who had run out of affection for their son, but not for money, had abandoned him in an apartment near the school as soon as he had gotten into law school.

Thanks to that, I was living a very luxurious studio apartment life.

I coughed, feeling that I had gotten too used to this material abundance.

“Alright, alright. Let’s go inside.”

We sat around the living room table and took out the things that we had each prepared.

Lee Ha-roo had the lecture materials that I had copied for her, and Han Seol had a basic textbook that was full of precedents.

“And, you’ll get tired if you study for too long, so here.”

As she said that, Han Seol laid out a lot of snacks such as chocolate and chips.

That was good preparation.

The act of chewing on something itself would help to keep you awake, and studying consumed more energy than you would expect, so supplementing sugar was essential.

“And I have this.”

Then, Lee Ha-roo resolutely presented something. It was high-caffeine energy drinks such as 0-ster and 0-six.

“If you mix this with vitamin water at a 2:1 ratio and drink it, you won’t be able to fall asleep even if you die. I used to use it when I was trying to meet project deadlines.”

“…You won’t be able to fall asleep even if you die, or you’ll actually die?”

“Ah, that’s kind of familiar. I also used to make that often during my undergrad exam periods.”

“Please value your bodies a bit more, you guys…”

From my position, where I had overexerted myself, lived with caffeine, and died from overwork, I couldn’t help but feel worried.

“Energy drinks are banned. If you’re too tired, just take a two or three-hour nap. I’ll set an alarm that you’ll never be able to sleep through.”

“There is such a thing?”

Yes, there was.

The most terrifying alarm in the world, that anyone who had served in the military would know.

“Then, it’s my turn.”

I went into my room and came back with a pile of printouts.

“What is this?”

“They look like problem sets.”

The printouts that I handed to each of them had multiple-choice and essay-type questions, categorized by syllabus.

“To put it simply, yes. It’s a ‘족보’ (jokbo).”

A jokbo was a kind of collection of past exam questions that was used to prepare for the tests of professors who didn’t make new questions every time, but reused the ones that they had made before.

It had the effect of significantly compressing the scope of what you had to study because you only had to study the questions that came out.

Of course, there was also the opinion that you couldn’t build a foundation if you only studied like that, but the questions that came out every time always covered the most important content.

It was enough to do that properly in the pre-entrance preparatory course.

In the first place, it wasn't like we had the luxury to be picky right now.

“Huh? Really? Professor Park Soo-geun takes back all of the test papers, so they say that you can’t make a jokbo. All the seniors said that they didn’t have one either… How did you get this?”

“Money can do anything.”

That was a lie.

I had made it myself.

In the original story, there was an episode where Professor Park Soo-geun’s problem material was leaked.

The culprit was Lee Ha-roo, who was eating chocolate with a pure face in this world.

With her genius-level talent, she had created a hacking program that couldn't be detected by any antivirus software and stole the exam problems from the professors’ computers and distributed them to all the students.

Lee Ha-roo’s motive was that she hated studying for exams, hated failing, and hated getting a good score all on her own by using the hacked materials.

‘She’s strangely diligent in a weird place.’

Anyway, what was revealed at that time was that ‘Professor Park Soo-geun only used questions from the mock bar exams from the past three years.’

During the pre-law program, he would take the questions from the June mock exam, for the midterms he would take them from the August mock exam, and for the final exams he would take them from the October mock exam.

Professor Park Soo-geun was always in charge of the first-year and prospective freshmen courses every year.

It was rare for prospective freshmen to have seen the past mock exam questions, so no one had noticed.

I, who knew that, had made this material myself by editing the mock exam questions that I had intended to use on the last day while preparing for the second evaluation.

Of course, they had said that the second evaluation had been changed to something completely different. But the pop quiz was a test that they were giving to replace that role.

If it was Professor Park Soo-geun, who had consistently followed his own principles in his exam strategies, then he would definitely reuse the questions for the second evaluation for the pop quiz.

But there was no way that I could explain it like that.

Since it had turned out this way, I decided to push forward with the gold spoon concept.

“Just in case.”

Han Seol asked with a hesitant expression.

“This isn’t something that you got through some kind of illegal means, right? I can’t be a part of it if it is.”

“No. It’s something that someone made with blood, sweat, and tears while trying to remember things. I got it after paying a fair price.”

I had tried to remember things ‘from the original story,’ and since model answers for the essay-type questions weren’t publicly available, I had frantically searched through basic textbooks and precedent collections and written the answers, so it wasn’t a lie.

‘If this wasn’t blood, sweat, and tears and a fair price, then what is?’

At my heartfelt plea, Han Seol nodded as if she had been convinced.

If the source was messy from the start, it would have gone way beyond her principles, but it was within her acceptable range to just study with a jokbo that she had gotten normally.

“Focus on the parts that the problems came from and teach Lee Ha-roo.”

“Okay. When I look at it, they’re all problems that focus on the important issues… Yeah. If I think of it as reviewing while teaching Ha-roo, it’ll be beneficial for me too. We can finish this in two days.”

I also added to Lee Ha-roo, who had a grim expression.

“If our group gets first place on this test, I’ll teach you the 5-second wind move that I showed you last time.”

“We have to get first place for sure.”

I liked the way that she changed her attitude as if she was flipping her hand.

“Then, shall we start?”