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Chapter 1
“Young Master Hoyeon is such a kind person.”
The social worker said this to me just after I put down my beer glass.
“Am I?”
“Of course. These days, what public-service worker would go all the way to a funeral home because an elderly person at his institution passed away? And on a Friday night, too.”
“So thoughtful, so thoughtful.”
I felt a little embarrassed by the caregivers’ praise, so I awkwardly bit down on a piece of pickled radish.
“I’m off tomorrow anyway.”
“Come on. You’re in your twenties. You should be out enjoying Friday night.”
“I’m not really like that.”
When I added, ‘Because I’m single,’ the caregivers laughed.
“Is this your first time at a funeral, Hoyeon?”
“It doesn’t seem like your first time.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Today was the second funeral I had attended in my twenty-one years of life as Chu Hoyeon.
The first was when I was a second-year high school student. I belonged to the school’s judo team and, as usual, was training when my coach approached me with an extremely serious expression and told me that my father had passed away.
That had been my first.
This was my second. I was currently doing my mandatory public service work at a nursing home in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province. An elderly resident there had passed away earlier that day. Since the person had been one of the elderly residents on the floor I was responsible for, I had made time after work on Friday to visit the funeral home with the other caregivers.
Whether it belongs to someone you know or not, a funeral leaves a strange feeling of regret in a person.
After all, there are few things that make you think about death as deeply as a funeral.
Without realizing it, you start asking yourself questions.
How will I die? And how will I live until then?
“What are you doing this weekend, Hoyeon?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really have any plans.”
“Don’t you have any hobbies?”
Most of the people I worked with as a public-service worker were good people. But most of them were middle-aged women, so perhaps that was why they were extremely talkative.
“A hobby… I just go for walks sometimes and play games.”
A hobby.
If you asked young people these days what their hobbies were, how many would actually have a proper answer?
Korea had always been a pretty harsh country when it came to letting teenagers enjoy hobbies, hadn’t it?
You spend your entire childhood and teenage years studying or exercising until you’re nineteen, and then when you enter university, people suddenly tell you to enjoy your hobbies.
What are you supposed to do then?
“What about something you want to do? You know, something you’ve always thought, ‘I want to try this,’ or ‘I want to live like this.’”
“That too… I don’t really have anything.”
Honestly, I had lived without anything like that.
Until my third year of high school, I had devoted myself to judo. But toward the end of that year, I suffered a serious injury at a judo competition in Gyeonggi Province and quit.
It wasn’t as though I had considered judo the ultimate goal of my life, but after giving it up, I had never really poured my passion into anything again.
“You’re tall and you’ve got a good build. Why don’t you keep exercising?”
“I’m kind of sick of exercising. My back hurts, too.”
“Oh, right. You came here for public service because of your herniated disc.”
I was 189 centimeters tall and weighed 93 kilograms.
I used to be nothing but muscle because of all the exercise I did, but after quitting everything, I had put on some weight.
I should probably exercise just to lose that weight, but for now, I was still taking a break because of the lingering feelings I had about it.
“If I were as young as Hoyeon, I would’ve already done everything I wanted to do.”
“You can still do whatever you want now.”
“Ha-ha! I suppose that’s true. People should live doing what they want.”
The caregivers laughed and clapped among themselves.
Yeah. They’re right.
People should live doing what they want.
But what do I do if I don’t even know what I want to do?
“Phew…”
I enjoyed the pleasant buzz from the alcohol as I walked home.
But there was one thought that wouldn’t leave my slightly drunken mind.
What I want to do.
Maybe it was because I had just come back from a funeral, but I kept thinking about it.
I had a strange feeling that if I couldn’t find something I wanted to do now, and couldn’t devote myself to it, I would spend my entire life regretting it and eventually die that way.
I had never worried about this before because I had devoted myself to sports from such a young age.
But after falling off that path, not going to university like everyone else, and having no goal at all, it was actually quite frightening.
Maybe I should decide what I’m going to do with my life soon.
If possible, I want to enjoy everything I want to do and live a happy life…
To be more precise, it wasn’t that I had nothing I wanted to do.
I simply wasn’t ready to devote myself entirely to just one thing.
If it were possible to become good at everything I liked, so that it didn’t matter what I chose to do, how happy would I be?
Ding!
“Huh?”
At that moment, a strange sound rang inside my head.
Then—
[Congratulations on awakening.]
[In response to your intense desire, you have awakened the ability to become good at everything you enjoy.]
“Whoa!?”
A holographic window suddenly appeared in front of my eyes, making me jump in surprise.
Fortunately, the alley was dark in the middle of the night, and there was no one around.
“W-What is this…?”
Words were floating in front of me.
They looked just like a game interface.
“An ability?”
[That is correct. Your ability is ‘Hobby.’ You will be able to perform every activity you do as a hobby at a professional level or higher.]
The words floating in the air immediately answered my question, as though they could understand everything I said and thought.
[Selecting hobby.]
[Selecting hobby..]
[Selecting hobby…]
[Your first hobby is ‘Coding.’]
“Coding?”
Coding?? You mean writing computer programs?
An ability to code suddenly appeared in someone like me, who had spent his entire life exercising?
I can’t even assemble computer parts.
Click—
Whirr—
During the short time it took me to get home, I asked the hologram, which I would later refer to as the System, all sorts of questions.
“Status window.”
Following the System’s instructions, I opened the status interface and turned on my home computer.
= = =
[First Hobby: Coding]
-Description: You possess the coding ability of the best programmer in the industry.
-Duration: Permanent
-Cooldown: None
= = =
“Seriously…?”
It was difficult to simply dismiss it.
It was far too vivid to be a hallucination caused by alcohol. Besides, I hadn’t even drunk that much beer, and I was already completely sober.
Let’s test it.
Whether what I had seen was real or an illusion could be confirmed by trying it myself.
My computer was already seven years old, so it took its time booting up. Once it finally started, I installed a free coding program I found online.
“But what am I supposed to do?”
I had installed it, but I had no idea what to do next.
I knew that coding involved creating algorithms for programs, but I didn’t know anything about specific goals or what kind of results I was supposed to produce.
“Hmm…”
Then I suddenly remembered something one of the caregivers had said during dinner.
‘I heard there are people these days who make a living doing odd jobs through places like Gamja Market. It’s not just for selling used things. People ask others to do all sorts of things. Ticketing, or even making something for them.’
“Gamja Market…”
I quickly opened the secondhand-trading app on my phone. I hadn’t used it for about two years.
Just as the caregiver had said, there was an Odd Jobs section.
- Someone to walk my dog
“No.”
- Remove a refrigerator
“Definitely not… There it is!”
- Need someone to fix some code
- Payment: 170,000 won
I opened the post, and a long description appeared.
- I need to send this to my client today, but I’m screwed. I even ran it through several AIs and cross-checked the results, but I couldn’t find the problem.
- When I run it, the program starts up and immediately shuts down. After that, it won’t even run again until I reboot the computer.
- Please save me!
Along with the desperate message, there was a file attached.
I downloaded the source code and opened it on my computer.
“Whoa, this is long.”
Hundreds of lines of strange English letters appeared on the screen.
“…Oh my God.”
No.
They weren’t strange letters.
The moment I saw them, the ignorance that had existed in my mind until then simply disappeared.
All those countless letters and symbols suddenly became as clear to me as my native language.
“…Here.”
I effortlessly scrolled down with the mouse wheel until I spotted a particular line.
At first glance, it looked perfectly reasonable.
But if it remained like this, the order of another command being entered into the actual computer would be reversed when the output was generated.
The section itself wasn’t particularly important, but because it affected the operation of the entire program after startup, it completely ruined everything that came afterward.
Tap-tap-tap—
Before I knew it, I was typing on the keyboard as if I were possessed.
I copied the original file, created a new one, neatly corrected the code, and finished everything in less than five minutes.
“Upload.”
I uploaded both the original and modified files and left a message for the client.
- I’ve uploaded both the original and corrected files. Please check them.
Only then did I finally realize it.
I really had gained the ability to code.
“Holy shit…”
An almost indescribable feeling of exhilaration filled me.
The moment I saw those hundreds and thousands of words, I understood everything.
Chu Hoyeon, who only knew the alphabet and a single English word like Sky, was now freely manipulating code as he pleased.
This is real..!
I opened the status window again and checked my ability.
- Description: You possess the coding ability of the best programmer in the industry.
It wasn’t a lie.
It wasn’t an illusion.
I had found the problem in code that even several AIs couldn’t identify simply by scrolling through it, then fixed it without hesitation.
Bzzz—
Just as I was overwhelmed by the indescribable sense of accomplishment, my phone vibrated.
- Thank you! I ran the source code exactly as you fixed it, and it works perfectly! Thank you so much! You saved my life!!
Along with the message came a payment of 170,000 won.
After the 4% platform fee was deducted, I received exactly 163,200 won.
“…160,000 won in five minutes?”
I had made 160,000 won in just five minutes.
Of course, it wasn’t reasonable to calculate it that way, but I had essentially done an hour’s worth of work worth 2 million won.
“Let’s do some more..!”
I quickly searched through the Odd Jobs section on Gamja Market.
There had to be more coding requests.
- Thank you! I’ll put it to good use!!
Bzzz—
- 144,000 won deposited
“Done..!”
Until 2 a.m., I completed every coding request available on Gamja Market.
Some people asked me to identify what was wrong with their code, while others asked me to fix it completely and send it back.
In just over two hours, I made a total of 800,000 won.
I want to do more…
But there were no more coding requests on Gamja Market.
After all, it was primarily a secondhand marketplace, and most of the odd jobs were physical labor.
No matter how many times I refreshed the page, nothing new appeared.
Should I seriously pursue a career as a developer?
But that went completely against the original purpose of this ability.
It was supposed to make me exceptionally good at things I did because I enjoyed them, as hobbies.
If one of those hobbies became my actual profession, perhaps it would lose its meaning.
More importantly, the life of a developer in Pangyo?
That wasn’t for me.
It said this was my first ability.
The System had called this my first ability.
Some people had only one hobby, but plenty of people had several, right?
There should be a second and third hobby, along with abilities for them, waiting for me.
Ding!
Sure enough, that strange sound rang inside my head.
[You have a new quest.]
A quest? It has a feature like that, too?
[Quest (Coding): Achieve a coding rating of 2500 on a specific website.]
[Reward: Second Hobby]
Among the words floating in front of me, the phrase ‘specific website’ was underlined.
Without thinking, I touched it with my index finger.
A website address appeared below.
[Send to phone.]
I sent the address to my phone, then opened it again on my computer.
– CodeLight –
– CodeLight is a coding algorithm tournament site where programmers from around the world compete together.
– Test your coding skills for yourself.
Apparently, I could solve coding problems here like a game and accumulate points.
“Good…”
The clock was approaching 3 a.m.
Yet I wasn’t sleepy at all.
I had gained a new goal in life.
And it was an incredible one.
!Round 1!
Without hesitation, I began coding.
Give me my next ability..!
