I Became a Law School Genius

Chapter 11

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?”

“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?”