Episode 35

[Notice Regarding Restrictions on the Use of Study Rooms]

"What's this?"

As usual, I headed towards the study room, only to find a 'No Entry' sign hanging there.

Apparently, there was a minor issue with a drainpipe running through the ceiling of the study room, so its use was temporarily prohibited.

If that was the case, they should have at least posted a notice on the website. What was the point of only putting up a sign at the scene?

"This is troublesome."

If I was just studying alone, I could have just gone back to the reading room.

But today was a bit different.

"What's up? Can't use the study room?"

Lee Ha-roo poked her head out from behind me.

"Looks like it."

Right now, I had the Constitutional Law study group with me.

I had gotten along so well with these people that we had decided to study other subjects together as well.

Studying was always a good strategy since we could fill in each other's gaps and also enforce the study schedule.

"We'll have to find another place."

Kim Seung-pil said.

"Somewhere with enough seats for six people, and somewhere where it's okay to discuss things out loud."

"How about the lounge? There's a big table there."

Han Seol suggested.

It was a pretty plausible solution.

It was originally a place for resting and chatting, so it was okay, and there weren't many people who used it, so it was less likely to be disturbed.

The rest of the group agreed, as if they thought it was a good idea, so we packed up and headed to the lounge.

The problem arose there.

"What are all these bundles?"

The table was piled high with bags, tumblers, books, and other things that someone had left there.

Judging by the Commercial Law and Criminal Procedure Law textbooks, it was clearly the work of a second-year student.

It was difficult to use it like this.

But it also wasn't very appealing to touch a senior's belongings recklessly.

As an awkward atmosphere settled in, Han Seol stepped forward.

"It's a violation of the rules."

She walked up to the table without hesitation and cleared the items away into a corner of the lounge.

"Leaving personal belongings in the lounge or privatizing a specific seat is prohibited by student regulations. If you have any complaints, go complain to the student council."

"......Are you sure about this?"

It was a refreshing move, but in the legal profession, where connections, reputation, and information were more important than anything, openly clashing with a senior could potentially work against them.

That was why I had to ask.

"You're aiming to become a court researcher, right? I heard that public positions also do reference checks when appointing people."

Reference check.

A system where, before appointing someone to a public position or selecting someone for a law firm, they would contact the people around the candidate to check if there were any flaws in their character or reputation.

Because of the existence of this reference check, it was common for people to let things slide with a 'good things are good' attitude, even if they didn't like each other.

"Ah, don't worry about that."

At that moment, Yoo Ye-seul interjected.

"Looking at the bag design, I know that senior. I heard that they applied for an internship at Taejong this year...... Reference check? It's not Han Seol who should be worried about that, it's that senior. Hehe."

Come to think of it, we had the representative daughter of the large law firm Taejong with us.

Among students who wanted to go into the law firm route, there were few who hadn't applied to Taejong.

As Yoo Ye-seul had said, it wasn't us who had to worry about our reputation.

'It's reassuring, though.'

To be able to exercise your legitimate rights according to the rules without any repercussions. This was the taste of power.

It might sound strange, but in the legal profession, which was riddled with all sorts of bad practices and authoritarianism, you had to have power to act like a straight arrow.

Anyway, thanks to that, we were able to comfortably secure our spots and proceed with the study session as planned.

We had each solved the internal exam questions in advance, and we were sharing our answers and filling in any misconceptions or missed issues.

"I got stuck on this question here."

When Yoo Tae-woon handed over his answer sheet, I took a quick glance and answered.

"Ah, that one. You misjudged the timing of when the retroactive effect of the registration of the real right applies. That's not the first provisional registration, it's the registration of the real right based on the second provisional registration."

"Oh? Ah, that's right! Then, the mortgage registration isn't erased here, but......"

Since they hadn't not studied, everyone understood quickly even if I just pointed out minor errors.

"There's a precedent with the exact same facts."

"It wasn't in the basic textbook?"

"It's a recent precedent. It came out last year."

"Ugh. I'll have to add it again."

It wasn't like we were just giving out help.

In some of the problems that I had solved using general legal principles, there were precedents that exactly matched the facts.

They were somewhat minor or recent precedents that were missing from the basic textbooks.

Han Seol would miraculously memorize those kinds of cases from somewhere and add them.

'It's a good thing I found out now.'

You would get points for solving the case by applying the legal principles.

But for questions that were openly taken from precedents, the intention was ultimately, 'Do you know this precedent?'

Therefore, it was naturally more advantageous to get points if you wrote that there was a precedent.

"From my perspective, it's more amazing that you can get the answer without knowing the precedent. How is that even possible?"

"That's because Mr. Park Yoo-seung has Dean Kang Chang-soo's blood flowing through him! With his innate legal mind......!"

"You should be quiet."

"Yes! I'm sorry!"

We almost had another one of Yoo Ye-seul's Park Yoo-seung worship times.

At first, she had tried to defame me with my blood ties to the dean, but now, whenever anything happened, she would try to praise me, bringing up my bloodline.

'It's a good thing she at least listens to what I say.'

As I was sighing, Yoo Tae-woon groaned, holding a pile of answer sheets.

"Ugh, this is really not easy."

"What is it?"

When I asked, he shook the answer sheets back and forth.

"The internal exam questions for Civil Law III. Since the model answers aren't public, we have to solve them all one by one and then compare them with each other. And even then, we can't be sure if our answers are 100% perfect."

"Ah, right."

Professor Jeon Gyu-wan, who taught Civil Law III, or Property Law, didn't collect the internal exam papers.

Therefore, all of the past exam questions that had been set were public, but the problem was that there was no material that summarized the model answers.

If the model answers were public, it would be easy to study.

You could grasp the conclusions and core issues, as well as the points that the professor would give extra points on or deduct points for, which would be a great help in setting a direction.

On the other hand, if the answers weren't public, you had to prepare for the exam as if you were hitting your head against a brick wall.

You had to go through the basic textbooks and lecture notes, checking if there were any issues that were missing, and find out the parts that the professor had emphasized by comparing each other's notes.

That was the kind of work that we were doing now.

"It definitely takes a long time, but still, Civil Law is worth investing that much time in. The more effort you put in, the more you'll remember and internalize it."

"That's true......"

Yoo Tae-woon lowered his head, as if he had agreed.

From the start, his strength was his steadfastness, where he never gave up, even if he was complaining.

There was even a new callous on his finger that I hadn't seen before, probably from writing so many answers.

It was an attitude that deserved applause, but in reality, even I wasn't without complaints.

Professor Jeon Gyu-wan, if you had to categorize him, was a professor who was of the scholarly style, similar to the Constitutional Court professor.

He tended to select issues that were more 'exam-appropriate' than the Constitutional Court professor, but he had a firm style of his own when it came to creating and grading questions.

As such, there was no guarantee that the answer that we had squeezed out would match the answer that Professor Jeon Gyu-wan thought was worth a hundred points.

"It's true that there's value in the process of trying hard...... but I still wish we had model answers."

Han Seol interjected, as if she was representing my thoughts.

I naturally took that and explained.

"Actually, it's not like they don't exist at all."

"Oh? Really?"

"Yeah. Have you ever heard of the Property Law Academic Society?"

At Korea University Law School, there were various academic societies that students had created.

The Financial Law Academic Society and the Criminal Law Academic Society were relatively famous, and among them was the Property Law Academic Society, which was led by Professor Jeon Gyu-wan.

"The Property Law Academic Society has all the data related to the exams that Jeon Gyu-wan has set."

That was because Jeon Gyu-wan had given them his entire database, telling them to use it for their research.

It was an issue that could have raised a fairness problem, but since Jeon Gyu-wan was in charge of the first-year courses and the Property Law Academic Society only accepted second and third-year students as members, it hadn't caused much controversy.

"Then, shouldn't we go talk to the Property Law Academic Society? We have two people with wide networks, after all."

Yoo Tae-woon pointed at Han Seol and Yoo Ye-seul.

"That won't work."

But, things didn't work out that easily.

"The Property Law Academic Society was shut down after the year before last."

The pandemic that had swept the entire country and the era of non-face-to-face had been the cause.

At that time, even law schools were conducting all academic systems non-face-to-face, and because of that, a considerable number of student organizations that required face-to-face activities, such as academic societies and clubs, had their lifelines cut off.

The Property Law Academic Society was one of those cases.

That was why none of the current students had been a part of the Property Law Academic Society.

"Actually, if we don't limit it to current students, there is one person......"

The last president of the Property Law Academic Society before it was disbanded.

She had failed the bar exam after graduation, so she was preparing for the retake in the law school dormitory's self-study room.

At least, it meant that she was still at the school.

"It's not a choice that I'd recommend."

The reason was simple.

I had actually already met her.

• Hello, senior. I'm Park Yoo-seung, a first-year student who entered this year. Actually......

• Get lost.

• Huh?

• I said get lost. You're not here to mock me for failing the bar exam, and why are you coming to bother someone who's studying quietly?

The shock of failing had turned the president into a very withdrawn and paranoid person.

It seemed that the experience of suddenly being treated like a nuisance after being an elite who everyone had expected so much from had been a great trauma.

The president had pushed me away without even giving me a chance to properly explain.

• A first-year? Goodness, my younger sister is in the same class as these guys. I have to tell Hee-jin to be careful so that she doesn't get hurt.

The only thing I had gained was the fact that the president had a younger sister who had entered the school with us, and that she still cared about her sister, even in her twisted state.

But there was nothing I could do with just that.

For now, the best thing was to steadily create answers.

We focused on our work again, and after a few hours, we were able to finish it to a certain extent.

It was at that moment.

"Huh? It's gone."

Among the students who were gathered a little further away, a female student with glasses muttered.

I couldn't quite remember her name, but she was someone that I was somehow familiar with.

Where had I seen her before?

A male student next to her asked her.

"What's gone?"

"My Civil Law I textbook and my notes are gone."

"Didn't you leave them at your seat?"

"No. I always put them in my bag."

The female student with glasses had a tearful expression, but that was just the beginning.

"Oh, you too?"

"I also lost the notebook where I organized the concepts for Criminal Law I."

"My Civil Law I lecture notes are......"

"Actually, me too......"

From all around, there were testimonies of losing textbooks, notes, and materials.

If it was one or two people, it could have been dismissed as a coincidence, but if it had reached this point, there was only one thought that could come to mind.

"Could it be that they were stolen?"

The thought that someone was deliberately stealing the books of their fellow students.

And that was the right answer.

'Hmm, it's already time.'

It was an incident that had also occurred right before the midterm exams in the original story.

The books and materials of the students who were known for being good at studying were stolen in a chain, and Shin Seo-joon was the one who uncovered the culprit.

It was an episode that had received a lot of hate comments, saying, "Why are people who are so well-educated acting like such petty thieves and hiding other people's books?", but.

The writer had surprisingly responded that it was actually based on a true story and that they were wronged.

'Well, I guess it could be true.'

I didn't know since I hadn't gone through it in my past life, but I had heard that competition in law school had an aspect that even turned ordinary people into monsters.

It was a system where your future career could be decided by your grades.

Since they had gathered people who were already good at studying, it was only natural that every single one of them was desperately trying their best and competing.

But even if everyone was doing their best, the ranks were inevitably divided from 1st to 150th place.

Even a student who had lived their entire life in the top ranks, who had never experienced a single failure or defeat, would find themselves in a position that they had never imagined in law school.

If immature students were thrown into such harsh conditions.

Some of them would be shaken, collapse, and do the wrong things.

'Well, that's not my problem.'

In the original story, the role of solving this incident was naturally given to Shin Seo-joon.

He didn't find the culprit directly, but he installed a fake CCTV and posted notices everywhere that said, "I know you're the culprit, if you return all the books and materials by today, I'll let it slide," and pressured the culprit.

Originally, there were no CCTVs installed in the reading room building of Korea University Law School, probably because of privacy issues.

Since the culprit had also noticed this and had committed the act believing that they would never get caught, the goal was to shake that confidence.

As a result, although it took some time, the culprit returned all of the stolen items to their original owners.

After all, most law school students were nerds who had never committed any kind of deviance.

If it was something that they had done impulsively in a weak state, it was a story that they could turn back from with just that much.

Anyway, because that was how the story unfolded, I, as a reader of the original story, didn't know who the culprit was.

In fact, there were ways to find out, but there was no reason for me to get involved in something that Shin Seo-joon would solve anyway.

"Oh, what do I do? The midterm exam is just around the corner, hng!"

That was why I didn't pay much attention even when a female student started to tremble and burst into tears.

Or at least, that was what I had intended.

'Huh?'

The female student took off her glasses to wipe away her tears.

'Wait.'

The bare face that was revealed then was a spitting image of someone I had met recently.

'......That person looks exactly like the president of the Property Law Academic Society.'