When God Made Me Chapter 10

Seung-ho sat alone in the convenience store blankly staring off into the distance. In his hands lay a single small business card.

‘Haa.’

At first he’d been happy to receive such an offer, but as time went on his worries grew bigger. Model. It was an offer he’d never thought he’d receive.

He’d heard that models earned a lot of money; the convenience store’s wages couldn’t even be compared to it. But still, he worried.

What if it wasn’t actually a shopping mall, but actually a place where people were sold off to organ harvesters or shrimp catching boats?

As he raised his intelligence he was self-aware enough to realize that his looks were good enough to be a model, but he hadn’t completely fixed his personality yet.

He feared standing in front of other people and his self-confidence was extremely low.

‘Yeah, it’s not time yet.’

At the moment, he was still having trouble adjusting to the newly-changed circumstances around him. Seung-ho felt sad, but he crumpled the business card and tossed it in the trash in order to not leave any lingering hope behind.

‘As long as I don’t get ugly, another chance will find me.’

Ding dong

“Welcome!”

A female walked in, wearing clothes that showed off her chest. She was an escort who came by often. Around the convenience store, there were all sorts of lodgings, places to get help in karaoke rooms, host bars, and all kinds of entertainment and pleasure businesses.

Due to the huge convenience store across the street, the smaller one was mostly dull. If it weren’t for them, he’d have met escorts and gold diggers every day.

‘The manager hired me back when I was that ugly, because there were no people willing to work in a place like this.’

The escort walked straight up to the cash register and placed an order.

“A pack of Soboro and a lighter.”

This girl must lose her lighter all the time, because she always bought one with a case of cigarettes.

‘Does she just throw it away after using it?’

It was simply a curiosity, but he didn’t really think too much about it. He felt that it’d be a bit scary to be tangled up with her.

“That will be 5,000 won.”

As he received her card, completed the transaction, and returned it to her along with the lighter and pack of cigarettes, the escort suddenly winked at Seung-ho and spoke.

“Oppa, you look cute. You should swing by our shop later~”

Puckering her lips, she made an “Ooh” sound as she left the store.

‘She’s been doing that lately. Is it because I’ve gotten handsome?’

Abruptly, a panel popped up in front of his eyes.

QUEST:
Go find the guest’s business and come back after receiving a service.
Reward: 10 points

“Fuck that.”

He was so dumbfounded that a swear slipped past his lips.

“I won’t do it. I’ll never do it.”

He obstinately shook his head and closed the window. Never. Even if the reward was 100 points, he didn’t want to do it.

‘With what criteria are the quests formed?’

He had completed quests for over a month, but he still hadn’t found a plausible condition that invoked quests. One thing was for sure, though: Only the quests related to the current situation appeared.

Sometimes impossible or absurd (like a moment ago) quests would pop up, but most were quests that were possible to do, as well as quests that didn’t disadvantage Seung-ho when they were completed.

‘Is it related to my ambitions?’

That was a plausible deduction. The quests could have been dispatched following his unconscious impulses or desires without him realizing it.

‘But uploading that video…’

He couldn’t deny it completely. The betrayal and inferiority he’d felt about Han Ye-hee back then had been extremely severe.

When he thought about it now, he realized that she hadn’t betrayed him at all. However, at the time paranoia had sunk deep into his bones, so he’d thought that way and that could have been a possible reason the quest popped up. Thus, he couldn’t be sure.

“Haa.”

His heart suddenly became knotted up. He became frustrated at the thought that the quests that he’d thoughtlessly completed could have hurt others.

‘I’ve started having a lot of thoughts since raising my thoughts.’

As he repented for the mistakes that he’d done thus far and pledged to not commit those things anymore, the night at the convenience store passed by.

-----

“Guys, the answers came out!”

As Sung-yun made a great muss and laid a bunch of answer sheets on the lecture desk, the students at the very front retrieved as much of the papers as there were students in their row and passed them back.

With a pounding heart, Seung-ho looked at the answer sheet and began to tally his scores.

‘I think I did really well this time.’

Since he’d raised his intelligence to 21 points, it was hard for him to fail but he was still satisfied.

The sk-sk sound of the red pens marking the answers, and the drip-drip sound of the rain falling filled the room. Problem after problem made the students feel a mixture of joy and sorrow.

Even during the emotional turmoil, Seung-ho couldn’t hide the smile that steadily crept up on his face.

‘A-awesome.’

Snow was finally falling on the test papers on which rain had fallen every time before. There were much more correct answers than there were mistakes.

‘I can go to a national university now!’

His grades up till then had been down in the dumps. Stating frankly, they’d all been a class 7. He had stood between a local college and a trade school; universities had been out of the question.

However, things were different now. Korean: 65. Math: 72. English: 61. The subjects that had never passed the halfway mark had all risen above 60.

To others these may have been incredibly low scores, but they were Seung-ho’s dream scores.

Frankly speaking, Seung-ho hadn’t studied at all before taking the mock exam. However, he hadn’t any idea that simply raising the intelligence would improve his scores to this extent.

‘To top it off, my math score is twice the previous score!’

Even though he was smart, he didn’t know a lot of the basics in Korean and English, so he couldn’t have scored higher. With math, he could simply use the basics well and solve hard problems that way, and so it had improved the most.

‘If I really study, I’ll be able to get into universities in Seoul.’

Of course, raising the intelligence increased the scores, but there were bound to be limits since he hadn’t learned anything. If he studied hard with his current intelligence, he would be able to break through that limit.

The average person had an intelligence score of 10.

There were people who were born with extraordinary levels in stats such as strength, agility, or stamina, so there wasn’t much of a difference between Seung-ho and them, but the difference between intelligence levels was distinct.

Additionally, other statistics could generally be created with effort, but things like intelligence couldn’t be created easily even effort; the phrase ‘born with it’ was important in this case.

And Seung-ho surpassed that ‘born with it’ luck.

‘I want to study.’

For the first time in his life, Seung-ho had the drive to study.

It wasn't that he had to study, but he wanted to.

‘I can’t wait for the next exam, hahaha.’

As Seung-ho cheerfully marked the science portion of the exam, Sang-wook approached him.

“Did you do well, Seung-ho?”

“Yeah. I improved a lot.”

As soon as Seung-ho answered brightly and turned his head, he had an ‘Oh, shit’ moment. Sang-hyup’s expression had grown dark.

‘Ah, I think he got offended.’

Seung-ho lowered his excited tone right away and asked calmly.

“How did you do?”

“I completely failed.”

As if he’d been waiting for the question, Sang-hyup spat out the words rapidly.

“Mum said that she was really looking forward to my scores this time, but it looks like I’ll get in a lot of trouble when I get home. Her friend’s son has the best scores in the entire school, so I’ll probably get compared to him…”

Seung-ho pat Sang-hyup’s back, comforting the sullen boy. He wondered if he was doing the right thing, even as he raised his hand awkwardly.

‘Yeah, he said last time that he felt extremely stressed out because of his mum and academy teacher.’

Sang-hyup sighed deeply and raised his head.

“Ah, what did you get? You said you did well.”

“My average was a bit above 60 this time.”

Seung-ho answered as humbly as he could, trying not to hurt Sang-hyup’s feelings.

“Hm?”

“What?”

“Ah, nothing. Did you say you improved?”

“Yeah. I was originally in the 7th class.”

“Ah, good. Congratulations!”

Sang-hyup abruptly smiled brightly and congratulated him. Seeing his happier expression, Seung-ho felt relieved.

‘So friends should feel happy for others’ grade improvement.’

“I’ll help you later when we study.”

“Thanks.”

Seung-ho offered help in an attempt to get closer. Sang-hyup was nodding when Sung-yun abruptly approached from next to him.

“Did you do well?”

“Did you?”

“I trashed English a bit. Almost all my guesses were wrong. I barely passed 80. You passed 90, right?”

“Something like that.”

Listening to their conversation, Seung-ho’s eyes widened.

‘What person gets 80-90 points and says they failed?’

When he thought about it, Seung-ho was originally near the bottom of the scores. Even if he went up to 4th-5th class from 7th class, there wasn’t much of a difference in the score rankings. This was because there were only a high rank and a low rank; not many were in the middle rank.

‘I offered to help them, not knowing this…’

Sung-yun tapped Seung-ho’s arm and asked him a question.

“What did you get in English, Seung-ho?”

“61 points…”

His voice faded at the end from embarrassment. As if to comfort Seung-ho, Sung-yun spoke up.

“Hey, why are you so down? You should study with us. We’ll help you!”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

Sang-hyup, who had answered instead of Sung-yun, nodded as he answered. At that moment, a translucent panel appeared in front of his eyes. It didn’t faze him anymore.

QUEST:
Get a higher score in English than either Ryu Sung-yun or Lee Sang-hyup.
Reward: 15 points

This was a good quest. With it, he could get a good stimulation through competition with his friends, and he could even get points if he did well.

‘Of course I’ll accept. It’s a total thank-you from me.’

Since the guys had told him that they’d help him study, it was a good chance to kill two birds with one stone by improving his grades and getting closer to his friends.

His mood brightened by the favourable quest, Seung-ho spoke to the guys.

“Then do you all want to go over the mistakes together, later?”

“What are you talking about?”

Sung-yun looked at Seung-ho with an incredulous expression, and Sang-hyup had a flustered look. At their faces, Seung-ho suddenly became embarrassed.  

‘Did I push too far?’

Sung-yun abruptly showed Seung-ho his wristwatch.

“What?”

“Who studies the day they finish an exam? Let’s go get watches instead. Since Seung-ho’s joining us today, we can have a 6-person queue.”

Sung-yun grinned as he threw his arm across Seung-ho’s shoulders. Due to the height difference, Sung-yun was on his tiptoes and looked quite pitiable.

“The homeroom teacher said that there was no class meeting today. Let’s go right now! There won’t be any room in the PC café if we’re late.”

“Sounds good!”

Sang-wook and the others gathered around Seung-ho and left the classroom together. On Seung-ho’s face sat a bright smile that was rarely seen from him.

Chapter end