I am Smart

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“Hey, Miss! Do you want to play soccer with us for a bit? We’re short one person!”

“…?”

Suddenly?

“I’m sorry. I’m not very good at soccer.”

I didn’t want to raise my voice, so I took a step closer and said,

“Come on! You’re really good at it! Just play with us once! One of our team members didn’t show up, so we’re out of balance!”

“Yeah!”

“I bet it’ll be fun with you here!”

The students eagerly rushed toward me, all wearing bright, cheerful smiles.

Watching them brought back memories of my own school days. The kids in the back row were particularly loud about soccer.

“…”

What a good time that was.

Back then, I didn’t like how noisy those kids were.

But at the same time, I was curious about what made them so happy.

Yeah, I have plenty of energy and time lately. Maybe I should give it a shot.

I stood up and stretched my body lightly.

“Don’t get your hopes up too high, though.”

“Wow!”

“Nice!”

Their faces lit up, and they started high-fiving each other. It must have been really unbalanced for their game.

Students surrounded me as I continued to stretch. With dozens gathered, the typical male student sweat was palpable.

“Hey, Miss, how old are you?”

“21.”

“Oh! Our older sister is also 21. Are you in college? Which one?”

“I’m attending Korea University.”

“What!? Wow… Hey! She goes to Korea University!”

“But why are you using politeness? We’re in the same grade.”

“I feel more comfortable this way.”

… They sure ask a lot of questions that have nothing to do with soccer. I answered them adequately while continuing to stretch.

After loosening up my legs, I stood and looked at them. Some students were taller than me, but there were quite a few shorter ones too.

“Wow, how tall are you?”

“I haven’t measured, so I don’t know.”

“… You haven’t measured?”

“168 cm?”

“Nonsense. You look taller than that.”

“Hey, didn’t you say you were 170 cm? How are you shorter than her?”

“W-what? Maybe she’s 173 cm.”

They assigned me the role of midfielder and roughly explained what I should do. I didn’t understand well, but I nodded.

The game began.

As various curses flew around, the male students started to run.

They moved according to the rhythm of the forwards and defenders in the game. It was kind of similar to Fiore, so I adapted quickly.

Whenever the ball came my way, I passed it forward. I didn’t have enough data to do anything else.

“Miss!”

Again, when I received the ball, one of my team’s forwards suddenly sprinted and raised his hand.

I predicted his path and threw the pass. The pass landed perfectly.

“Nice pass!”

“Whoa! Miss!”

It looked like my initial beautiful pass wasn’t a fluke. The male student who received the pass made a good run but then lost the ball.

Afterward, the ball was passed to the other side.

“No way, idiot! You let them take it!”

“Yeah, deal with it! You should have stopped it.”

“…”

They’ve been cursing a lot since earlier. Swearing isn’t good from a young age.

The ball, passed to the other side, was received by an opposing attacker, who carried it straight to our goal and scored.

The cheers and curses bounced off each other in an instant, making me reflect on the events that had just unfolded.

My mind was racing. It felt strangely familiar.

“… Hmm.”

So that’s how soccer flows.

Nodding to myself, I watched the male students quickly move on the opposite side.

Blame, blame.

I lightly jumped a few times in place.

The girl who ended up joining us was much better than the male students expected.

Even though she hadn’t run much, perhaps because she wasn’t fully adapted yet, her initial passes were sharp, making it clear she wasn’t just a beginner.

Every male student instinctively ran hard, trying to impress her with their skills.

When they failed at their intended plays, they watched her expression, and when they succeeded, they paid attention to her as well.

At such intense motivation, the girl’s team nearly allowed another counterattack, but the center back barely managed to steal the ball and passed it to her.

“Miss!”

As soon as he did, the forward excitedly raised his hand and sprinted forward again.

But the ball didn’t come. The boy came to a stop.

With a confused expression on his face, he turned around to find the girl still holding the ball. She slowly dribbled it into enemy territory.

As she got closer, a defender stepped forward to block her.

“…”

This one was different from the others, bigger and serious, with a slightly displeased expression. He seemed unsettled by the girl disrupting the flow of the game.

The girl examined the boy’s body before lowering her center of gravity.

She shifted the ball from her right foot to her left and then nudged it forward with her left foot. She took off after it.

The boy smirked silently.

It was simple and effective dribbling commonly used by beginners. He was well accustomed to it.

As the boy ran to block her, he meant to do just that.

“!?”

In that split second, the girl rolled the ball through the gap between the boy’s legs. The ball rolled far ahead.

Thus, the boy got a taste of being ‘nutmegged.’ The girl took off in full sprint, while the boy desperately chased her down, but once you’ve been nutmegged, catching up is nearly impossible.

And surprisingly, she was much faster than anticipated. The rear was wide open.

“Ha! Idiot!”

Feeling a sense of satisfaction and relief at the humiliating sight of my ‘rival,’ the defenders rushed to block her.

“Miss! Over here!”

A support player waved his hand. She seemed to notice and dodged it. Suddenly, her center of gravity dropped again. She easily bypassed the defenders.

“What the!?”

“Everything’s open! Damn it!”

It was chaos. The boys had abandoned their previous leniency and were now willing to roughhouse as they usually would.

But something felt off. There should have been contact, a tussle of arms and shoulders. Yet, they didn’t collide.

She wouldn’t give them the angle. Even if they did come into contact, she brushed them off lightly.

There were no flashy techniques. Just her innate reaction speed and keen eye for openings that allowed her to slip past the defenders.

She made her way to the penalty box on her own. Then, as soon as a gap opened up, she kicked the ball with all her might.

– Swish!

The ball flew precisely into the corner of the goal.

“…”

The male students were stunned by the sudden turn of events.

Then, they snapped back to reality.

“… Wow.”

“What was that? Hey, what just happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nice job, Miss!”

“Seriously, wow…”

Time passed. My body, which had cooled down, became sweaty and out of breath.

“Hey! Game’s over!”

When I scored my third goal, one of the boys took out his phone and shouted that it was over. The final score was 3:2. We won.

My teammates ran up to me, surrounding me once again.

“Whoa… Nice!”

“High five!”

“Me too!”

“M-Me, too!”

“You said you weren’t very good!”

“Miss, why are you so good? Are you a player? A pro?”

“No.”

“Miss! Do it with me! SIUUUUU!”

“Uh, SIUUU…?”

“Hey, you idiot! That’s not it, Miss! Don’t ever do that! And moron, Miss’s style is like Messi!”

I couldn’t instantly adjust to their sudden high energy.

As the voices of the big and small male students blended and blurred together, I finally felt the situation fully.

Everyone was moving with passion toward one goal.

The pure heat of concentration.

The thrill of scoring a goal and winning.

Memories of the noisy kids from my school days resurfaced.

So this is what it felt like. Not bad at all.

“Good job.”

“Yeah!”

“You too, Miss!”

“Miss, come here often! Even if one of them has to sit out, we’ll squeeze you in!”

“… Hee hee.”

The boys’ typical over-the-top enthusiasm made me laugh.

I was dripping with sweat. One of the droplets rolled down my forehead and streamed down my face.

I briefly grabbed the hem of my shirt and wiped my face.

“…”

The once noisy boys suddenly fell silent.

“?”

Then, as if on cue, they all looked away.

After the match, about half of the boys left, saying they’d just step away for a bit.

“…”

I stayed to rest, but my curiosity urged me to check the corner they disappeared to.

– Step, step

I turned the corner and, of course,

“Ah.”

“Ugh.”

“Whoa.”

As soon as the boys noticed me, they jumped in surprise and hid whatever they were holding.

“…”

I stared at them intently and slowly approached.

Then I held out my palm to them.

“Uh?”

At that, the boys’ faces lit up.

“Oh, do you smoke too, Miss? Here, take mine!”

“No, take mine, Miss.”

“Hey, you jerk. Just stop it. Yours are too strong. Miss, mine is the mildest!”

Several cigarettes were offered to me, each one by one.

I gazed down at them before reaching out past the extended cigarettes.

– Tap, tap, tap

“Uh?”

“Ah?”

“Huh?”

Then I slowly grabbed one cigarette pack after another from their hands.

I stacked the confiscated cigarette packs neatly.

“These are for adults. It’s better not to do it when you’re not able to judge well.”

While saying that, I pulled out a few 10,000 won bills from my wallet and handed them to the boys.

I was about to leave when something else bothered me. I pulled out a bag of chocolates I had brought.

I got one after another and handed them to the boys. They stared blankly for a moment before taking them one by one.

“And try not to swear too much. It’s not good for your soul.”

I nodded and left the sports field. Throughout that time, the boys’ voices didn’t reach my ears.

… Did I regret taking those?

My wallet was empty again. Instead, I had several cigarette packs in hand.

But even if they were middle school students, I couldn’t just overlook them smoking.

And half my chocolates were gone. I didn’t feel regretful, but a little sad.

… I guess I’ll think about it later. It’ll work out somehow.

More importantly, there was something I wanted to do quickly.

“Today, I’ll play Fiore.”

After starting the stream, I immediately booted up Fiore.

Lee Da-ram had occasionally told me to share some of my daily life too.

… It seems like it’ll take a while, so I’ll talk about soccer once Fiore is done.

―――
Ah…
Si-hyun, please fix the graphics somehow.

‘That clay…’

ggggggggg

Can’t we just chat instead?

It’s fun, but my quality of life is plummeting…

Buy a graphics card, Si-hyun…

―――
“… Hmm.”

But it seemed like many viewers were in pain.

I was fine. It looked like many viewers didn’t like what they were seeing.

I didn’t have money to buy computer parts yet… What should I do?

―――
User ㅇㅇ donated 1000 won.

What’s your computer’s specs?

―――
As I pondered, a donation came in.

“Um, it’s this one.”

I recalled how to check computer specs and told them.

―――
User ㅇㅇ donated 1000 won.

That should work if optimized, you can probably run medium settings at max.

―――
“Really?”

Did such a thing exist?

“Could you teach me?”

―――
ㅇㅇ

Of course!

Medium settings will probably be great!

Really?

Cool!

Fiore isn’t very optimized, so you have to do it separately.

You didn’t do that?

ㅇㅇㅇㅇ

First, go into Windows.

I thought it was a complete junk computer, but it was just not optimized!

―――
“… Alright, so press Windows, then type Control Panel… Yes. What’s next?”