I Became a Law School Genius

Chapter 2

『 Translator – Divinity 』

The first episode of the webtoon “In the Law School” begins with the opening ceremony of the Pre-law program at Hankuk University Law School.

Pre-law, simply put, is a kind of preliminary learning period conducted by the school before admission.

As students from various majors who haven’t studied law in their undergraduate years enter, it gives them a chance to adapt to the unfamiliar field of law before they begin their studies in earnest.

Of course, there are always exceptions.

“We will now have the entrance ceremony oath. Student representative, Shin Seo-joon!”

Shin Seo-joon, the protagonist of “In the Law School,” walked briskly towards the auditorium.

His tall stature, well over 180cm, his neat and handsome face, and his broad shoulders captured the attention of his fellow classmates.

With the establishment of law schools, undergraduate law departments in top universities have almost disappeared.

However, the Police University, a special institution, still maintained its law department, and Shin Seo-joon was set to have graduated at the top of his class from that very department.

This was the reason why he maintained the undisputed top spot in his first year throughout the story.

With his exceptional abilities and sociable personality, Shin Seo-joon quickly takes control of the atmosphere among his classmates.

Naturally, he gained the support of many fellow students and became the first-year representative of the student council, solving various incidents that occur in the story.

He is a multifaceted character who appears perfect at first glance but hides a dark narrative beneath the surface.

“As an entering student, I pledge… One, we, the students of Hankuk University Law School…”

As his masculine and beautiful voice resonated, exclamations of “Oh!” arose from various places.

I didn’t realize it when I first read it, but this scene depicted most of the characters who would play important roles in the future narrative.

The woman with the tied-up hair sitting in the front row of the auditorium is Han Seol, the second-ranked student.

She is a “manufactured genius” type, perfected through her parents’ thorough management and education, who later clashes with the protagonist, Shin Seo-joon, over a legal training position at the court.

Three seats behind her, the short guy who’s stuffing a handful of chocolate jelly candies from his pocket into his mouth must be Jeong Min-sik, the third-ranked student.

A member of the study group Shin Seo-joon forms in the beginning, he becomes central to the midterm exam leak incident, one of the main episodes.

Although initially portrayed as somewhat unpleasant, he is eventually revealed to have a good nature and becomes a character who greatly helps the protagonist.

And, all of these people, I…

“Hey, Park Yoo-seung. Are you sleeping?”

“…No.”

I was not outside the screen, but sitting in the same auditorium, looking around.

What’s there to hide?

To put it bluntly, I was possessed.

Into the body of “Park Yoo-seung,” a third-rate villain who only picks fights with the protagonist’s group and then exits the scene, in the world of the webtoon “In the Law School.”

This morning, when I woke up in an unfamiliar room, in someone else’s body, everything was confusing.

My face, well past thirty, etched with the hardships I’d endured, had vanished.

Staring at the somewhat sly-looking young man in the mirror, I soon realized it was Park Yoo-seung’s face.

Was I reincarnated?

What was that voice of my junior I heard before losing consciousness?

Who is that guy?

Countless questions arose, but I decided to push them aside for now.

There was no way to find answers immediately anyway.

There was something more important.

Park Yoo-seung enters Hankuk University Law School with the protagonist’s group.

In other words, it meant I was given the “opportunity” I had longed for.

A third-rate villain? Even better.

According to the setting, Park Yoo-seung was born into an extremely wealthy family and, due to his bad personality, was treated as an outcast and neglected.

This meant no financial problems, no family responsibilities.

The protagonist would take care of the incidents in the original story, so it was literally an environment where I could focus solely on studying.

“You seem to be in a good mood?”

The guy sitting next to me spoke again.

What was his name? In the original, he was the character who echoed Park Yoo-seung and mocked the protagonist…

I couldn’t quite remember.

Not just his name, I didn’t even know how he became friends with Park Yoo-seung.

To avoid unnecessary suspicion, I had to avoid further conversation.

Fortunately, a good excuse presented itself.

“Well… Ah, he’s here.”

“He’s here? Who?”

“The Dean.”

Thump. Thump.

The old floorboards of the podium creaked.

The students, who were dozing off or chatting with each other, quickly came to their senses.

Everyone’s gaze was drawn to the figure who stepped onto the podium.

Standing there was an elderly man of small stature.

But his presence was by no means small.

His graying hair seemed to exude a formidable dignity, and his sharp eyes flashed with an intelligence undimmed by age.

Even the cane he leaned on beside one leg felt less like a sign of frailty and more like a symbol of authority, like a judge’s gavel.

Former Supreme Court Justice and Dean of Hankuk University Law School.

Professor Kang Chang-soo stood there.

“You all…”

Without any introduction, or rather, as if such a thing was unnecessary in the first place, the Dean began to speak in a low voice.

“You must be very proud of yourselves right now. Am I right?”

“Yes,” replies popped up sporadically.

“That’s because you passed the difficult entrance exam and got accepted to Hankuk University Law School, the best law school in Korea. You have proven yourselves to be geniuses within the top 1%. Am I right?”

“Yes,” the voices grew a little louder.

“No, you’re wrong.”

But the old Dean shook his head.

“Because there is no such thing as a genius in law.”

Silence fell instantly.

“Law is a study for ordinary people. Perhaps it’s even a study for the slow-witted. Those who read and write more, harder, and with more intensity, even if it’s just one more time, will always achieve greater things. I’ll ask you this.”

The Dean raised his hand.

“Among you, those who have experience preparing for the bar exam, raise your hands.”

I flinched for a moment, but didn’t raise my hand.

Maybe in my original life, but there was no way the good-for-nothing Park Yoo-seung would have prepared for the bar exam.

I glanced around, and as expected, no one raised their hand.

“Those who have experience with or have passed other exams that require law, such as the administrative or legislative exams, raise your hands.”

Again, no one.

“Those who have acquired professional qualifications that include law subjects, such as certified public accountants or patent attorneys, raise your hands.”

Again, no one.

“Those who have graduated from a law department and have properly completed a full cycle of study, even if it’s just the basic three laws, not all seven, raise your hands.”

This time, one person, Shin Seo-joon, raised his hand.

“One person. Only one out of 150 students. Of course, that’s possible. Many young and promising talents enter our Hankuk University Law School.”

“However,” the Dean continued,

“There are many law schools out there that are not like that. There are places that gather people who have already acquired professional qualifications in law or passed the bar exam to produce output.”

It was the plain truth.

“Their study materials are worn out and tattered from use. But if you were to compete with them in legal skills right now, would you stand a chance?”

“Of course not.” The Dean shook his head.

“You are excellent and intelligent. You are young and have unlimited potential for growth. However, or rather, precisely because of that, at least in the field of legal studies, you are the most lagging group in the country.”

Murmurs spread throughout the hall.

It was only natural.

The people gathered here were elites who had been praised for their excellence their entire lives.

“But there’s no need to worry.”

As if to stop them, the Dean declared.

“Hankuk University Law School will teach you to surpass those who are ahead of you. If I were to ask you what the statute of limitations is now, you would be speechless, but by the time you graduate, you will be experts who can recite all the latest precedents and complex legal principles of the seven codes and resolve any issue.”

“We will make you that way,” he added.

“So, trust and follow us. This two-week pre-law school will be the beginning. That is all.”

***

“Is he crazy?”

“Are we the ones to be told we’re lagging behind?”

“Honestly, I think we can catch up to those kids from the third-rate universities in half a year, even if they’ve studied a lot. Why is he scaring us like that?”

The Dean left the auditorium, leaving only the announcement, “You have free time until six o’clock.”

That was why the place was filled with the chatter of students gathered in twos and threes.

Most of the freshmen appearing in “In the Law School” were from Hankuk University, and they already knew each other through law school prep academies or the school’s law society.

Therefore, it wasn’t strange that they were already gathering together as if they were close.

However, the elitist consciousness that emanated from their conversations had an unpleasant edge to it.

In the original story, the Hankuk University students’ “pure-blood” mentality became a source of major conflict in the mock trial competition episode, one of the main storylines.

“Wow, law school doesn’t seem easy.”

“Still, we have to work hard. We all gathered here after going through a tough entrance exam because we want to study law. Haha.”

Of course, not everyone was obnoxious. Many were sharing their expectations and excitement, like young people just starting a new life.

The protagonist, Shin Seo-joon, was already surrounded by the four main characters from the original story.

It seemed likely that the future developments would also follow the original storyline.

‘Kang Chang-soo’s speech was also exactly the same as in the original.’

It was a scene I quite liked.

The idea that law is all about who studies harder and more aligned with my own belief from my bar exam preparation days.

Just because someone is talented doesn’t mean they can pass without studying.

It just means they can study twice or three times in the time it takes others to study once.

Anyway, if everything that happens from now on follows the episodes of the original, there was only one thing I had to do.

Thump.

I rummaged through my bag and took it out, placing it on the desk attached to my seat.

[Untying the Knots of Civil Law]

“Untying the Knots of Civil Law,” a study guide nicknamed “Minmae.” It had a slightly different title in my original world, but perhaps due to copyright issues, it became “Untying the Knots of Civil Law” in the webtoon.

That’s right.

I have to study.

And right now!

There’s no need to look for people to form a study group with like the others.

The guys Park Yoo-seung knows, or will get to know, are all bad news anyway.

Actually, a few guys, including the one who talked to me earlier, approached me with a grin, but I shook them all off and hid in a corner seat.

Studying was more urgent.

Even though I had a score close to passing on the bar exam in the past, that was over ten years ago.

Moreover, those ten years weren’t just any ten years.

It was a time when I was forced to shut myself off from studying and work myself to death.

My meager study skills had long been swept away by the river of oblivion.

“Especially considering ‘that’ which is coming up…”

I had to recover whatever I could salvage from that river right away.

The study guide, which I was opening after a long time, was both familiar and unfamiliar.

General Provisions of Civil Law, Property Law, Law of Obligations, Family and Inheritance Law…

The table of contents, in the familiar Pandekten system, held memories of my old days studying it.

Turning the page on the principle of good faith, I recalled the moment I first moved into my tiny room in Sillim-dong, full of ambition to pass the exam.

Skimming through the creditor’s revocation, the taste of the tear-soaked cupbap I used to eat downstairs at the cupbap restaurant after a tiring day came to mind vividly.

In other words, I had completely forgotten the things I actually needed.

Of course, it wasn’t like nothing remained.

Concepts that initially made me wonder, “Did this even exist?” would come back to me as I read, “Oh right, that’s how it was.”

The pages that wouldn’t turn easily, as if blocked by something, were now turning smoothly.

It was truly rehabilitation training.

Like an athlete who had been bedridden for a long time practicing how to walk again, I was reawakening my brain that had forgotten how to study.

It’s enjoyable.

Some might point fingers and say I must be crazy to find studying law enjoyable.

Of course, it’s not like studying law isn’t hard or difficult for me either.

Even now, my head feels like it’s about to explode from trying to cram in even one more letter.

But being able to experience this kind of pain is also a grace and a blessing.

Having been deprived of it once, I know.

The weight of tears shed from not being able to study is far heavier and deeper than the weight of sweat shed from studying…

Just as I was turning the pages with a big smile on my face…

“…!”

I felt a gaze and looked up.

At the end of it, Professor Kang Chang-soo was looking this way with a strange expression.