Yokai Come to the Countryside Café

Chapter 63: Divine Move (8)

It was a memory from the distant childhood of Han Sewoon Kuksu.

-Tak.

A single stone was placed on the worn-out Baduk board.

So many stones had been placed over time that it had lost its shine, and the spots frequently played on were so faded that even the lines had grown dim.

This Baduk board, worn to the point where he had to check several times if he was placing the stone on the right spot when playing at the Star Point, contained Sewoon’s childhood just as it was.

“Sewoon-ah.”

“Yes, Master.”

His Master, who would go nearly half a day without a word during a match, suddenly called out to him. Sewoon widened his eyes and responded.

“Do you like Baduk?”

“Yes! I win all the time!”

“You rascal! Winning and liking something are different things!”

“But it’s fun when I win.”

“What will you do if you lose? What if you meet an opponent you absolutely can’t beat and keep losing every time?”

“Then I guess it wouldn’t be fun…”

“Will you quit if it’s no longer fun?”

“Hmm.”

His younger self couldn’t answer.

To lose to anyone other than his Master was unthinkable.

Prodigy, child genius, genius.

Those were the labels that had followed him even before he started kindergarten.

The Baduk board was like a playground, and matches played with black and white stones were games of tag to capture the opponent’s stones, games of hide-and-seek to conceal weaknesses.

After playing so heartily, instead of being scolded for staying out late, he’d receive a shower of praise.

After he had a Master, he had to sit properly and hold the stones stiffly when playing, but he also received more praise in return.

Even the distant adults who played more frequently with him could not stand against him on the board.

When they gave him a thumbs-up and sometimes handed over allowance money while saying he learned well, he would run to the Stationery Shop and become the object of envy among other kids.

The world belonged to Sewoon.

Even with two stones placed in handicap against his sky-like Master, he was considered a rival. Losing to anyone else was beyond imagination.

Only because his Master had asked did he briefly wonder, “What if I lost?” before the thought slipped away.

“I won’t lose! That’s all I need to do!”

“You think so? Even this Master hasn’t walked that path.”

“From today, a hundred games a day! No, a thousand! Then I won’t lose to anyone!”

“Oh my, this old Master’s going to be eaten alive.”

Sewoon, having drawn his own conclusion, felt as good as if he had solved a difficult life-and-death problem.

Seeing that, his Master smiled softly.

Then, his Master’s smile faded.

Once the blurred memory cleared, what appeared vividly before his eyes was a small urn.

Sewoon had grown in the time that had blurred away, but his Master had returned to the earth.

He carefully placed the bouquet of flowers he had brought beside the urn.

“I’m late. And I realized too late that the life-and-death problem I solved back then was wrong. I didn’t love Baduk.”

He had lost.

Not to a formidable pro, but to a foreigner who clumsily held the stones with thumb and forefinger while responding to something through earphones.

No—he had lost to a computer.

And that humiliation dragged the self who had never known defeat down into the depths.

“AI ends the era of Han Sewoon.”

“Han Sewoon, complete defeat by Jaypha. Retirement possible…”

“Han Sewoon’s Baduk clearly shows its limits.”

...

There were no more praises in the endless stream of articles and interview requests.

The moment the myth of his undefeated fortress crumbled, he crumbled too.

Of course, it was merely a loss to a machine; it hadn’t stripped him of his rightful title as the Kuksu of South Korea. He had even received an offer for a respectable university professor position.

But his broken heart would allow nothing in his hands except a liquor bottle.

He hated Baduk.

It was disgusting and repulsive.

And even in that pit, he had never found the answer to the question his Master once asked in childhood.

In such a moment, the game record from Dangsari sent by Park Gidong Sabom had made him face his past self once more.

The self who knew nothing of moves or opening strategies and stirred the board however he pleased.

“Dangsari, what about you? Can you still play Baduk like before, even after a loss?”

He hoped not.

He hoped that after a defeat, the wild and reckless playing style would evolve into a common style where a commentator could predict the next and the next-next move.

Because if he ended up just another ordinary player who submitted and played Baduk as a profession, then today’s despair would be inevitable.

To prevent that, he had to participate in this match.

He wanted to face Dangsari, who resembled his past self, and exchange dialogue through the placement of stones. And the one to break that stone had to be him.

“I will definitely meet you. If your playing style is like mine used to be, you won’t be able to beat me.”

Han Sewoon Kuksu took out his tablet from his bag and launched the Ongame app.

【You have entered the 2025 Ongame Masters Baduk Tournament Channel. Would you like to begin the match?】

“Yes.”

Han Sewoon Kuksu pressed the start button with his middle finger coiled over his index finger, as if placing a Baduk stone.

“There will be no defeat. Defeat comes only after everything else has fallen.”

“Understood. So that means I can comfortably play Baduk on that glass screen, right?”

“That’s right.”

Seated together with the Immortals, we were uniting in determination.

We must not lose.

Since an unexpected investment had been made, losing was no longer an option.

To participate in the tournament, of course, mobile phone identity verification was required.

The identity had somehow been created through the National Intelligence Service, but asking them to activate a phone too was too much.

In the end, I had to shell out my own hard-earned money to activate four phones. I only bought USIM chips for secondhand phones, but with four lines, even the basic monthly fees weren’t trivial.

And to handle simultaneous preliminary matches, I even rented laptops from a separate rental service.

Just the expenses up to now roughly added up to a million won. I had to win the J-Pad no matter what. Otherwise, that million won would be a complete loss.

“Click-click, trying to fulfill worldly greed with divine power is why you’re being punished.”

“The tournament hasn’t even started yet.”

“Your nervous state already looks like punishment enough. Just go brew me one more coffee before it begins.”

“I need to focus now.”

“Come now, can’t you just brew one more cup?”

I could. There was still some time before it was my turn in the preliminaries.

But if this anxiety was punishment, then I wished Elder would share in it too.

* * *

“No, I can’t even reach him on the phone. Where on earth is he playing from?”

Park Gidong 9-dan kept calling Han Sewoon Kuksu’s phone, who had yet to show up at the office.

(The phone you have dialed is either turned off or…)

“This is driving me nuts.”

Thankfully, Han Sewoon Kuksu’s ID was shown as online. At least they had avoided the catastrophe of him not showing up drunk like in some past tournaments.

Even so, Park Gidong 9-dan’s anxiety was plain as day.

‘If I get stuck, I’ll need to get some hints… What if I really get knocked out in the preliminaries all by myself?’

One of the reasons Park Gidong 9-dan had managed to reach professional 9-dan status despite his modest skills was his thorough self-objectivity.

When it came to Baduk, he had an uncanny ability to assess his own strength and that of his opponent accurately.

“Win the games you can win, lose the games you can’t.”

In a game of reading moves, outcomes matched what was read. There was no greater strength in the world of professionals.

That’s how he climbed to 9-dan, navigating the constantly overhauled promotion system via the optimal route.

He had achieved a dazzling feat that fewer than 100 people in South Korea had accomplished, yet he was well aware that his skills weren’t worthy of 9-dan.

That’s why he shamelessly planned to join the preliminaries with Han Sewoon Kuksu.

In case of bad luck and meeting a master-level amateur, he intended to get help on the fly.

Of course, coaching during a match was a clear reason for disqualification.

But for Park Gidong 9-dan, who had experienced every dirty trick there was on the Baduk board, any conviction in playing by the book had long since vanished.

Fortunately, his first opponent was using up all the allotted time and playing with an old-fashioned style that might have come straight out of ancient texts, so an easy win was expected.

Feeling mentally at ease, Park Gidong 9-dan opened his phone and skimmed through posts on the Baduk community.

Title: Hey, what’s with this tournament lineup? Scary.

Post:

『Wasn’t Han Sewoon basically confirmed to be finished this year after losing the Kuksu title?

Didn’t show up for the last Dongyang Window Frame Cup, so I figured he was done, but why is he here? lol

Ongame’s going wild too, changing the event page to feature Han Sewoon just because they're riding the hype.

But aren’t these bastards just cruel?

Using that crying photo of him after getting obliterated by Jaypha as the promo image? That’s just putting him in a coffin lmao』

┗ GoGalleryUser1: What the, it’s true? I just checked lol

┗ GoGalleryUser2: Still, he’s Korea’s Kuksu. That’s harsh. No wonder pros don’t play in online tournaments.

┗ ㅇㅇ: Yeah~ AI companies pretend to be users, crush the pros, then use it for PR, so they all stopped coming~

┗ Biryuu: Just don’t get crushed then?

┗ GoGalleryUser3: Are you a genius?

‘These little punks, not a single word about me.’

It was the post with the highest chance of mentioning him, and yet even there, it was all about Han Sewoon Kuksu.

Park Gidong 9-dan began to feel a creeping anxiety.

His first prelim match had started, but there were only four viewers. One of them was himself, so only three were actually watching.

If many pro players had entered the tournament, it might have been understandable.

But it was just him and Han Sewoon Kuksu, the only two professionals.

A pro playing a match and being watched by just three people—this was a deeper wound than any loss he had yet to suffer.

“Tch, forget it.”

Park Gidong 9-dan finally hit the “Write Post” button.

Title: Anyone know the skills of Park Gidong 9-dan, who’s playing with Han Sewoon Kuksu this time?

Post:

Saw some old game records, and he seemed pretty solid—anyone know more?

He’s good at leading the early game, and his endgame is especially exquisite.

He’s turned around a lot of matches that looked lost, seems pretty skilled.

Isn’t he the dark horse of this tournament?

Frankly, only two pros are playing, so both are basically guaranteed a top spot.』

“Nice. Perfect.”

It was a relief that his first opponent in the preliminaries wasn’t too tough.

It had taken him a good amount of time to write the post, correcting typos with his thick fingers, but thankfully the opponent was also using nearly the full timer for each move.

『Your post has a new comment.』

“Yes! Prime the pump and the water flows!”

It was a message he had awaited more eagerly than his first win in the preliminaries.

But the content was brutal.

┗ GoGalleryUser1: Sabom-nim, just focus on your prelim match.

┗ GoGalleryUser2: 9-dan gatekeeper brain level…

┗ ㅇㅇ: If this guy is a pro 9-dan, maybe I should give it a shot too?

“Damn it.”

And it wasn’t just the post’s comments that turned disastrous.

“Uh, what’s with this game? Huh?”

The opponent, whose style matched their rather old-fashioned username, “Baduk Sage,” had flipped the game around in just three moves.

『Your post has a new comment.』

『Your post has a new comment.』

『Your post has a new comment.』

…

In that moment, Park Gidong 9-dan’s phone screen was endlessly flooded with new comment alerts.