MTLNOVEL Chapter 37
Chapter 37
『 Translator – Divinity 』
“You had your materials stolen?”
Han Seol’s eyes widened.
“Yes. To be precise, I let them be stolen.”
“…You let them be stolen?”
A puzzled reply came back.
After the gathering in the lounge last time, I had firmly instructed everyone to always carry their important books and materials with them or keep them at home.
So it wasn’t surprising that she reacted this way when I, of all people, said that I had been robbed.
“It doesn’t really matter since I still have the original.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“Now we just have to wait.”
If things went according to the original story, there were about two days left until Shin Seo-joon started solving the problem.
An opportunity to catch the culprit would definitely arise before then.
‘Most likely today… wouldn’t the showdown happen there?’
Now, I just had to wait for the poor prey, who had taken the poisoned bait, to unknowingly digest it.
“Really, what are you thinking?”
Han Seol let out a small sigh as she watched me nonchalantly take out the original notes, compare them with “Minmae,” and start studying.
***
The incident occurred during Professor Park Soo-geun’s Civil Law I lecture.
“Then, this concludes the lecture on unauthorized agency and apparent authority. We’ve covered all the material for the midterm exam, so does anyone have any questions?”
“Yoo Tae-woon, Professor.”
“Yes. What are you curious about?”
Professor Park Soo-geun, who had quickly finished the syllabus as always, took questions, and Yoo Tae-woon raised his hand.
“There’s one more lecture left before the exam, so what will we be covering then…?”
“Ah, don’t worry. We’ll have a lecture, but it won’t be included in the midterm exam.”
At those words, the students’ faces brightened.
It was like the story of “giving three in the morning and four in the evening.”
Saying that it wouldn’t be included in the midterm exam meant that it would be included in the final exam scope.
Even if it was easier now, the work wouldn’t disappear.
But for the law school students who were facing the unfamiliar enemy of law for the first time, it was only natural to be happy about the immediate reduction in burden.
The first semester of the first year, where everything was new and confusing.
Even just adapting was not an easy task.
“Are there any more questions? Alright, then…”
Professor Park Soo-geun began, glancing at the clock.
There were still 15 minutes left until the official end of the lecture.
The students had a hunch.
‘It’s time for that.’
“Now that I’ve answered all your questions, it’s my turn to ask a question, isn’t it?”
Professor Park Soo-geun operated his laptop, and the lecture slides on the screen flipped rapidly.
Soon, a page titled “Practice Question” appeared.
“Anyone want to solve this problem?”
If Professor Jang Yong-hwan’s class had ‘assignment scores’, Professor Park Soo-geun’s class had ‘participation scores’.
The total score was 10 points.
The evaluation method was simple. Like this, at the end of each lecture section, he would reveal a practice question and give the students a chance to solve it.
And at the end of the semester, he would rank the students based on the cumulative number of participations and the results of their solutions.
1st to 5th place would get 10 points, 6th to 10th place would get 9 points…
It was a structure where scores were differentially awarded according to the ranking.
From this perspective, it seemed beneficial to always raise your hand and volunteer. But it wasn’t that simple.
While correct solutions were counted as participation, incorrect solutions actually deducted one participation count.
— Getting the solution wrong for the content I just taught means you weren’t paying attention in class, right?
Therefore, it was only natural to receive a penalty in the ‘participation’ score, according to Professor Park Soo-geun’s explanation.
In the end, you couldn’t raise your hand carelessly without sufficient confidence.
Indeed, there were quite a few students who had volunteered needlessly since the beginning of the semester and ended up with a negative participation count, making it impossible to recover.
Therefore, at this point, with the midterms approaching, the students who volunteered to solve the problems were mostly fixed.
Shin Seo-joon, Han Seol, a few other top students, and me.
But today, the situation was a bit different.
“Professor, I’ll try it.”
“I want to solve it too!”
“Me too…”
There were quite a few volunteers who usually didn’t raise their hands.
‘Oh?’
Of course, there could be various reasons for this.
Since half the semester had already passed, they might have calculated that they needed to participate actively to make up for their scores.
Or, with the midterms approaching, everyone might have studied harder than usual, so they might be more confident in volunteering.
‘But… there might also be those with other reasons.’
I carefully observed each person who raised their hand.
Most of the faces were unfamiliar, but there were a few familiar ones among them.
Yoo Tae-woon and Kim Seung-pil also volunteered for the problem-solving session today, and there were also several mid-to-low-ranking students who appeared in other episodes of the original story.
Seo Hui-jin, the younger sister of the Property Law Society president, who was crying about her lost book in the lounge the other day, was also cautiously raising her hand.
And one more person.
“P-Professor, I want to try it too.”
‘Huh? Isn’t that Bae Hyun-jung?’
Bae Hyun-jung, who had been taught a lesson by me before, also hesitantly raised his hand.
Since that day, he had been so dejected that he didn’t cause any trouble and kept a low profile, so I had completely forgotten about his existence.
Anyway, since he was a person of interest, I decided to pay attention to him.
However, the chance to present didn’t come to Bae Hyun-jung immediately.
“Alright. Student Park Young-hoon, why don’t you try this problem?”
“Yes, Professor!”
Another student, who jumped out with an eager attitude, glanced at the question on the PPT slide and explained,
“This is a question related to the scope of third parties protected from unauthorized agency and apparent authority under Article 133 of the Civil Act.”
Park Young-hoon pointed out a few basic issues and then neatly concluded,
“C is an assignee of the claim, but since he hasn’t met the requirements for assertion against third parties, he doesn’t fall under the third parties protected by Article 133. Therefore, B acquires the claim due to the retroactive effect of ratification.”
I carefully reviewed the logic and grounds presented by Park Young-hoon in my mind. There was nothing particularly wrong. The content was a bit lacking, but that was unavoidable since it involved the concept of assignment of claims, which we hadn’t learned yet.
‘Hmm, okay. Pass.’
“That was a good explanation. You may return to your seat.”
“Thank you!”
Professor Park Soo-geun dismissed Park Young-hoon and moved on to the next slide. Another question appeared on the screen.
“This time, let’s have student Bae Hyun-jung solve it.”
“Yes. U-understood…”
Perhaps he had lost a lot of confidence since that day, as Bae Hyun-jung stood on the podium with a timid attitude, even stuttering.
His usual arrogance was nowhere to be found.
‘Was it that much of a shock? Then could it be?’
I focused on his presentation with a glint in my eyes.
“Uh, so…”
Bae Hyun-jung kept glancing around nervously and then explained the problem with a trembling voice.
“Wh-whether sub-agency can be the basis for apparent authority under Article 126 is the issue…”
Although he seemed to be driven by anxiety, he steadily continued his explanation.
He laid out the relationships between the underlying concepts, cited the precedent’s stance in a similar factual situation, and drew a conclusion.
“Th-therefore… the principal A is only liable for the 20 million won portion where the sub-agency act occurred.”
‘Hmm, not bad.’
Although he had lost his confidence, Bae Hyun-jung’s explanation had actually improved compared to the last time I saw him.
It was evident that he had put a lot of thought into covering all the issues.
‘But that means it wasn’t you.’
While I was lost in thought, Professor Park Soo-geun nodded and patted Bae Hyun-jung’s shoulder.
“Well done. You can return to your seat.”
“Y-yes…”
Professor Park Soo-geun moved on to the next slide.
‘Oh, this is a rather complex question.’
As I thought that, Professor Park Soo-geun also nodded.
“This is the last question for today. It’s also the most complex one. Is there anyone who wants to try solving it?”
[Practice Question 3.]
A is B’s cousin, and being close to B, he often handles personal matters on B’s behalf, such as taking out loans from the bank in B’s name at B’s request.
One day, A secretly took B’s personal seal and signed a contract with his close friend, C, to purchase C’s X apartment in B’s name. Then, A withdrew 100 million won from B’s account and paid it to C as a deposit.
A heard from C that there would be an announcement of a redevelopment plan for the area near X apartment, and fell for C’s trickery, thinking this was his chance to secretly purchase X apartment and make B happy.
However, later in court, B and C could not prove the existence of these facts.
But right after the sales contract was signed, the area near X apartment was designated as a restricted development zone.
As a result, the market price of X apartment plummeted, and B, who learned of the situation, refused to pay the interim payment and balance of the sales contract.
Question: When C demanded that B pay the interim payment and balance,
(1) B argued, “I don’t know anything about this, and since A is the one who signed the contract, I have no obligation to fulfill it.”
(2) Then, C claimed that this sales contract falls under ‘apparent authority’.
(3) Furthermore, C claimed that if apparent authority is not established, A should be held liable as an ‘unauthorized agent’ under Article 135 of the Civil Act.
Discuss the validity of each argument (40 points).
‘…That’s a lot of demands.’
It wasn’t a real exam, so the 40 points didn’t mean anything.
Still, the reason for explicitly stating the points was to indicate that this was a major question with more than one or two issues to address.
Someone, seemingly overwhelmed by this, muttered,
“Ugh, this is a bit much.”
As expected, even those who usually eagerly raised their hands were hesitant this time.
This was because, even if there were many questions, the number of participation counts wasn’t higher than for other questions.
Rather, the chances of making a mistake increased, so the possibility of losing out was greater.
‘Hmm, is this not going to work?’
Actually, there was a reason why I was paying close attention to the students’ presentations.
The material I had been robbed of, or rather, allowed to be stolen, yesterday.
It contained the practice questions that Professor Park Soo-geun would reveal today, along with their answers.
Professor Park Soo-geun had previously mentioned that he had his own rules when setting exam questions.
That he only used questions from the mock bar exams of the past three years.
Similarly, there was a rule for the practice questions he brought to class.
Before becoming a law school professor, Professor Park Soo-geun was a renowned bar exam instructor in private academies, and he had published a concept check workbook with his name on it.
Unfortunately, this workbook was ignored by the market.
The reason was that, from the perspective of the examinees, they already had a mountain of studying to do with just the past exam questions, and they didn’t have the time to buy and solve additional practice problems.
In the end, this ambitious work was soon discontinued and forgotten by everyone.
Professor Park Soo-geun’s practice questions for presentations all came from that book.
It seemed like he was quite attached to it, perhaps because it was like his child.
Knowing this, I extracted the main issues from the book that were relevant to the current exam scope and included them in the material I let the culprit steal, along with explanations.
I even kindly added the subtitle, “Civil Law I Concept Check Examples.”
‘But… I planted a trap in each one.’
I deliberately mixed in incorrect information for each issue.
For example, when citing a precedent, I would write the case number and general content correctly, but slightly change the wording of the conclusion to make it incorrect.
I thought that if the culprit who stole my materials studied them, they wouldn’t be able to stay silent when they saw a bunch of familiar issues being discussed during the presentations.
It was someone desperate enough for grades to steal someone else’s belongings, and someone who wasn’t confident enough in their own abilities to do so.
It would be difficult to just ignore such a golden opportunity.
Therefore, there was a good chance that someone who presented today would blurt out the traps I had set.
‘But it was just a possibility.’
It seemed like the culprit hadn’t appeared yet.
At least no one had spouted the nonsense I had mixed in.
Personally, I was slightly hoping that Bae Hyun-jung was the culprit, but it seemed like he wasn’t.
Perhaps overwhelmed by the complexity of Practice Question 3, no one else raised their hand.
The students who usually actively participated in presentations seemed to be holding back this time, as they had already earned a lot of points.
It was fine.
Even if it wasn’t about Civil Law I, there were plenty of other traps hidden in the material, and there were still a few more opportunities to use them.
Now wasn’t the time to be impatient, but to hold my breath and wait for the opponent’s mistake.
It was at that moment, as I was looking away from the podium,
“Professor, I’ll try it.”
“Oh, good. What’s your name?”
Someone raised their hand and stood up.
“It’s Seo Hui-jin, Professor.”
The reason I got involved in this incident.
It was Seo Hui-jin, the younger sister of the Property Law Society president.