I Became a Law School Genius

Chapter 11

『 Translator – Divinity 』

The new face of Group 10 blended in surprisingly easily.

“…Is this, uh, Ms. Lee Ha-ru?”

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

“I’m a super genius. V.”

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

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

But Lee Ha-ru was two years younger than that.

Originally small in stature, she looked almost indistinguishable from a high school student.

“S-Seol unnie, can I call you that?”

Han Seol treated Lee Ha-ru like a younger sister and found her quite endearing.

There was nothing wrong with group members getting along, so it was a welcome sight.

After class, the three of us would gather to study individually, and once we finished our assigned portions, we would go to the arcade as promised, where I taught her techniques.

I showed her a few more secret moves, just in case she lost interest quickly, and her eyes were filled with admiration.

“Master is so cool…”

“I wish you’d look at ‘Minmae’ with such passionate eyes.”

“Impossible. Civil law is super boring.”

Although she was only studying out of obligation due to our promise, Lee Ha-ru had sufficient potential.

Even in the Q&A for the 100th episode of “In the Law School,” it was officially acknowledged that Lee Ha-ru was the top character in terms of intelligence alone.

We were also lucky that she hadn’t been picked for a presentation yet.

Thanks to the crash course Han Seol and I had given her in the meantime, she had roughly caught up with the pre-law syllabus.

Of course, her understanding was zero since her knowledge was built on a foundation of sand.

But there’s a big difference between being able to say something when asked and being completely clueless and turning into a statue.

The depth of understanding was something that could be supplemented later by increasing the number of reviews.

So, for now, it was fine.

Unless there was a sudden exam covering the entire syllabus.

“We will have a quiz.”

“What?”

But Professor Park Soo-geun dropped a bomb.

“You may not know this yet, but at the recent faculty meeting, we decided to change the format of the second evaluation. It will probably be… very different from the exam you’re thinking of.”

The students were in an uproar at the sudden news.

I was just as bewildered.

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

“But we can’t completely eliminate the multiple-choice and essay questions, can we? There’s no better way to check if you’re studying diligently. So we decided to have a quiz!”

The students clutched their heads and let out cries of pain.

It was only natural.

This meant they would take the second evaluation, which was just a quiz in name, and then take another unidentified exam.

“The date is next Monday, and the scope is from the court to the statute of limitations. Professor Jang Yong-hwan will make a separate announcement for criminal law, but I don’t think there will be one. That’s a bit of a relief, right? Then, let’s end today’s class here…”

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

“The scores for this quiz will be averaged by group and reflected in the group score! If there’s a group member who’s struggling, be sure to help them and study together!”

***

After class, I grabbed Lee Ha-ru and Han Seol before they could get mixed up in the crowd rushing out.

“Ah, Master! What time are we going to the arcade today?”

“Lee Ha-ru. How far have you gotten in Civil Law?”

“Up to non-corporate associations.”

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

However, it wasn’t enough.

Today was Friday.

There were only two days left until Monday, when the quiz would take place.

If I let Lee Ha-ru, who had no foundation, play around, there was no way she could catch up.

If Lee Ha-ru couldn’t catch up, my score would also go down the drain.

After much deliberation, I made up my mind.

“Group 10 will have an overnight study camp starting today.”

“…Are you serious?”

“There’s no other way, Ha-ru. If we want to prepare enough for you to be able to solve essay questions by the quiz date, this is the only way. But if you have any questions, you can text me and unnie will…”

“What text? You’re coming too.”

“W-what? Why me too…!?”

Because you have to teach Lee Ha-ru.

I have my own problems to worry about.

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

But I wasn’t.

I had to give it my all if I wanted to be properly prepared.

“Although it’s not much of a consolation, if you come along, I’ll make sure our group gets first place.”

“…For sure?”

“You want to be a judge, right? Aren’t you going to apply for the Dean’s guidance? The quiz score will be important.”

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

I nodded.

Considering that Professor Park Soo-geun was the one making this exam, there was a way to prepare for it with absolute certainty.

However, I needed Han Seol to fully equip Lee Ha-ru.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, but it’s still too sudden…”

“Well, that’s because the professor suddenly dropped a bomb.”

“That’s not what I meant, ugh. It’s pointless to talk to you.”

Han Seol, who seemed to be muttering something, finally made up her mind and spoke.

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

“Tell her there’s a girl in our group who’s so bad at studying that our group evaluation will be ruined if we don’t raise her score. Leave me out of it.”

“Hey, isn’t that a bit harsh?”

Lee Ha-ru looked upset, but there was no other way than to sell her out.

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

That woman, even in the original story, acted as if her own life would be over if she couldn’t make Han Seol a judge.

She might not want to allow her daughter to sleep outside, but she hated the thought of her “raising a judge” simulation being ruined even more than that.

It meant she had no choice but to allow it.

‘She even allowed her to go to MTs because she could use being a class president and club activities as specs.’

“Sigh. This is a bit scary.”

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

“Hi, Mom. It’s me… Call every hour? That’s all? Okay, I understand.”

“See? I told you she’d allow it.”

“…This actually worked.”

Now there was no escape.

I pushed the two of them forward and began our vigorous march.

***

“Didn’t you say it was a studio apartment?”

Han Seol muttered blankly as I opened the front door.

“It is.”

“Where do you find someone who uses a 60-pyeong apartment as a studio apartment…?”

“Master, you were born with a silver spoon, huh.”

Lee Ha-ru also chimed in with her mouth agape.

‘Well, it is bigger than the place I lived in my past life.’

Park Yoo-seung’s parents, whose affection for their child had dried up but not their money, abandoned him in a nearby apartment as soon as he got accepted into law school.

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

I cleared my throat, realizing that I had become too accustomed to this material abundance.

“Alright, alright. Let’s go in.”

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

Lee Ha-ru had the lecture materials I had copied for her, and Han Seol had a textbook filled with precedents.

“And since you’ll get tired studying for a long time, here.”

With that, Han Seol spread out a bunch of snacks like chocolates and cookies.

She was well-prepared.

The act of chewing itself helps to keep you awake, and since studying consumes more energy than you might think, sugar replenishment was essential.

“I have this.”

Lee Ha-ru also resolutely held something out. It was a high-caffeine energy drink like 0ster or 0six.

“If you mix this with vitamin water at a 2:1 ratio, you can’t fall asleep even if you die. I used to drink this a lot when I had project deadlines.”

“…Isn’t that going to kill you rather than keep you awake?”

“Ah, this brings back memories. I used to make this often during exam periods in college.”

“Please take better care of your bodies, girls…”

As someone who used to live on caffeine and overwork, leading to death from overwork, I couldn’t bring myself to laugh.

“Energy drinks are banned. If you’re too tired, take a short nap for two or three hours. I’ll set an alarm that you absolutely cannot sleep through.”

“There’s such a thing?”

There is.

An alarm that any man who has served in the military knows, the most terrifying alarm in the world.

“Then, is it my turn?”

I went into my room and came back with a stack of printed papers.

“What’s this?”

“It looks like an exam paper.”

The printed papers I handed to them contained multiple-choice and essay questions categorized by chapter.

“To put it simply, it’s, well, a ‘cheat sheet’.”

A cheat sheet is a collection of past exam questions used to prepare for exams where professors don’t create new questions every time, but reuse old ones.

Since you only need to study the questions that appear, it has the effect of significantly reducing the scope of what you need to study.

Of course, some argue that studying only with cheat sheets doesn’t build a solid foundation, but the questions that appear repeatedly are ultimately the ones that cover the most important content.

In a pre-law course before admission, it was enough to properly cover just that.

It wasn’t the time to be picky anyway.

“Huh? Really? I heard that Professor Park Soo-geun collects all the exam papers, so you can’t make a cheat sheet. The seniors said they didn’t have any either… How did you get this?”

“Money talks.”

That was a lie.

I made it myself.

There was an episode in the original story where Professor Park Soo-geun’s exam questions were leaked.

The culprit was Lee Ha-ru, innocently eating chocolate in this world.

With her genius talent, she created a hacking program that even antivirus software couldn’t detect, stole exam questions from the professors’ computers, and distributed them to the entire student body.

Lee Ha-ru’s motive was that she didn’t want to study for exams, didn’t want to fail, and especially didn’t want to get a high score alone with the hacked data, which would be shameless.

‘She’s diligent in strange ways.’

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

For the pre-law period, he takes questions from the June mock exam, for the midterm exam from the August mock exam, and for the final exam from the October mock exam.

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

Since it was rare for prospective students to have access to past mock exam questions, no one noticed.

Knowing this, I personally compiled past mock exam questions and created this material, originally intended for the final day to prepare for the second evaluation.

Of course, the second evaluation was said to be completely different now. But the quiz was an exam to replace that role.

Professor Park Soo-geun, who consistently followed his principles and question-setting strategy, would definitely reuse the questions intended for the second evaluation in the quiz.

But I couldn’t explain it that way.

Since things had turned out like this, I decided to push the “silver spoon” concept.

“Just to be sure,”

Han Seol asked with a dubious expression.

“You didn’t obtain this through any illegal means, did you? If so, I can’t be a part of this.”

“No. This is something someone created with blood, sweat, and tears by recalling their memories. I obtained it by paying a fair price.”

I recalled my memories ‘of the original story’, and since the model answers for the essay questions weren’t disclosed, I had to desperately search through textbooks and precedent collections to write the answers, so it wasn’t a lie.

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

At my sincere plea, Han Seol seemed convinced and nodded.

If it were something with a dirty origin, it would be way beyond her principles, but simply obtaining and studying with a cheat sheet was within her acceptable range.

“Teach Lee Ha-ru, focusing on the parts where the questions came from.”

“This is good. It seems like all the questions focus on important issues… Yeah. I can think of it as reviewing once while teaching Ha-ru, so it’s beneficial for me too. We can definitely finish this within two days.”

She added to Lee Ha-ru, who was making a gloomy face,

“If our group gets the highest average score on this exam, I’ll teach you the 5-second whirlwind I showed you before.”

“We have to get first place no matter what.”

I really liked how quickly she changed her attitude.

“Shall we begin then?”