Ben solved differential equations at age four.
His parents, who were physics researchers, excitedly cleared away every Lego block in Ben's room. Professional mathematics textbooks and a whiteboard filled that space.
"Hmm."
Theo leaned back in his chair, staring fixedly into Benjamin's eyes.
Arrogant, yet strangely hollow eyes. Theo knew these kinds of people well. They were the traces of isolation that geniuses who had lived scoffing at the world inevitably faced.
Just looking at the resume gave a rough guess of what had happened. Theo decided to verify this.
"Dr. Simmons. Quite an illustrious record. Receiving a Ph.D. in quantum physics at age fifteen, and in such a notoriously difficult field at that. This record might not be broken for the next hundred years."
Ben nodded as if it were only natural.
"But for the five years since, you haven't produced any proper results. You've never put your name on noteworthy research, and your papers have been mediocre at best.
More than anything, I'm curious about this. Why did you move labs three times?"
Ben's shoulders flinched.
At around age fifteen, he had been terribly arrogant and prickly.
At the time, Ben had thought of collaboration as a desperate measure chosen by low-intelligence researchers to compensate for each other's lacking abilities.
"They couldn't keep up with my speed. Meetings were garbage time wasted trying to make my idiot colleagues understand the conclusions I had derived.
In the end, I had no choice but to do everything alone. After about a year, my desk had disappeared?"
Nngh—
Theo pressed his hand to his forehead.
He had no idea where to begin correcting him.
"What about the second one?"
He decided to exercise patience.
"The second lab was even more of a sight. They hawked my name to investors and fervently preached about how promising their research was. A mascot role, hahaha!
I had to show those degenerate scum that justice was still alive in this world. At the investor briefing, I conclusively proved just how chaotic the data they had prepared was."
A genius for display.
It was something that happened not infrequently in academia. He himself had once had a similar experience.
"Tell me about the last place you were at too."
"Hmm. Something quite spectacular happened there. My idea was stolen."
Whether it was a pleasant matter, a smile spread across his face. Just as Theo was momentarily puzzled, Ben began telling the story as if recounting a tale of heroic exploits.
"A professor quite renowned in academia took my research draft and pushed me down to third author. When I protested, this is what he said?"
He cleared his throat and imitated a solemn voice.
"Ben, you're still young, and receiving public attention could be poisonous for you. Please understand that this is a measure to protect you."
Theo's face scrunched up. It was a typical power-based extortion.
"So did you dispense justice again?"
"Tch!"
He raised his index finger and shook it left and right.
"I didn't have the chance. He thoroughly hid my existence. So I implanted an elaborate time bomb in the core formula of the paper's idea.
At first there was no problem, but later it would cause contradictions and collapse.
In the end, the paper was retracted and the professor was thoroughly humiliated. Of course, I was kicked out of the lab too. Honestly, I have nowhere left to go now. He was quite the powerful man in terms of connections."
Ben smiled a self-deprecating smile.
For five years, he had been branded as a maladapted underachiever by his parents and a dangerous element who challenged authority by academia. During that time, he had been thoroughly alone.
Rustle.
In the resume Benjamin submitted, data from his research at previous labs was attached as a QR code.
Click.
"Wow!"
The moment he scanned the code with his phone and checked it, Theo's mouth fell open.
The datasheets were impeccably organized. All variable values were aligned to ISO (International Organization for Standardization) standards, and each formula had hyperlinks that immediately connected to the paper pages.
Gulp.
Theo swallowed hard and managed his expression.
"You've mostly done research alone, but did you handle all the administration, budget processing, and data archiving yourself?"
Ben nodded.
"I wrote macros so that scanning receipts would automatically classify them. Administration is also a type of algorithm.
For things like monthly reports, after creating automation templates, you just push in the data and it's done in fifteen minutes."
"Even the federal grant settlement documents? That picky audit?"
He looked at Theo as if to say, what on earth are you talking about?
"Is that difficult? You just analyze the guidelines and normalize the input values.
Seeing people groaning for a whole month doing such easy work makes my blood boil.
Isn't opacity what institutions hate most? I've linked GPS tags and purchase purpose codes to all expenditure proofs.
Thanks to that, I haven't received a single document supplement request in the past five years."
In Theo's mind, Ben's position changed.
From a high-intelligence kid with a shattered personality to a human macro who could finish all miscellaneous tasks with a single click.
Last audit season, Theo had entrusted Sujeong with organizing receipts.
And Sujeong had dumped the collected receipts on Theo's desk and said:
"The receipts for last quarter."
"Don't tell me you didn't even classify them?"
"Do you take me for a fool?"
Her confident face.
Click.
With suspicious eyes, he opened the folder Sujeong shared.
-Coffee
-Coffee
-Lunch
-Plane ticket
-Late-night snack
-Equipment
-Snacks
-Supplies
-Coffee
Her mathematical abilities were of absolutely no help in receipt classification and processing.
Cecilia was even worse.
Having had maids and butlers since birth, her administrative ability was negative itself. Her desk, deeply buried in cup ramen, donuts, and chocolate bars that she had first experienced at the lab, was truly in a state of devastation.
Hundreds of cute cat photos she had seen on the internet were mixed in with the data in Cecilia's research folders. The corporate card had disappeared and they searched for it for a while, only to find it tucked like a bookmark in a book she was reading.
Seuri was the incarnation of system maintenance but couldn't throw things away.
She would furtively take parts meant for disposal and put them in storage, and now she even piled them on her desk. Boxes of unidentified origin had labels only she could read.
-Cable #4
-For later use
-Needed someday
-Spare parts #3
-Do not discard
Theo pressed hard on his temples.
Seoha had said she would respect each person's way. But the reality was that she was merely a bookworm who knew nothing but math.
The common point among the four was that they had zero social life experience; Theo felt as if he had become a kindergarten nanny.
But then—
'Found him! The unicorn who will extend my lifespan!'
"Dr. Simmons."
He said with a deliberately serious expression.
"I believe you are exactly the talent our team needs. When can you start?"
Ben's eyes widened.
"...Are you serious?"
The joy was brief. Cold cynicism spread across his face.
"Theodore. I'm not a fool. I know better than anyone that I'm not someone welcomed by most labs.
Yet you say you need me? Are you ultimately planning to exploit me too?"
Twinge.
He had nearly revealed his inner thoughts.
Theo desperately put on a solemn expression.
"Doctor, we are not such a lowly group. You can tell just by looking at the results the team has produced so far, can't you?"
A bit of wariness softened in Ben's attitude.
"Will you not steal my ideas?"
"We won't. Seoha extremely despises monopolizing achievements. You can tell just by the fact that my initials are in ST Compression."
"Useless meetings are out of the question."
"If you're so outstanding that meetings aren't needed, that would rather be welcome. Though I doubt such a human exists on Earth."
"Hmph! Congratulations. You'll be witnessing such a being for the first time. I also refuse mascot roles."
"You don't honestly think your name is worth more than Seoha's, do you?"
It was a reasonable point.
"I also hate miscellaneous work that isn't mine. Because I want to focus only on research."
Theo, who had been answering without hesitation, put his hand to his chin and fell into thought.
Ben snorted as if he had expected that. There was nothing more to see. As he was trying to get up from his seat, Theo raised his hand to stop him.
"Doctor. Our team doesn't have separate miscellaneous staff. Even janitors can't enter the lab. We have a history of a foreign spy getting caught trying to steal data."
Even then they had said they managed security thoroughly, but they hadn't expected someone to rummage through the trash cans. After that, Apex Lab's security level rose by two more tiers.
"So?"
"It means someone must absolutely do the paperwork. From the perspective of efficiency, who do you think that should be, Doctor?"
"Obviously the person who is least helpful to the team. It may sound cruel, but it's right for the relatively low-intelligence person to be in charge of miscellaneous tasks."
Snap!
Theo snapped his fingers as if to say 'correct answer.'
"That's exactly what I'm saying. Then I suppose you have no complaints about that principle."
"As long as the process is fair, it doesn't matter. Even if the sky splits in two, it wouldn't be me."
Swish.
"Then please sign here."
Theo held out a prepared contract. Seoha trusted Theo enough to entrust him with the whole recruitment process.
The matters discussed by the two were newly added to the contract. Ben carefully examined the documents and then coolly wrote his name.
***
Smack, smack!
Ben slapped both his cheeks while looking in the mirror in the restroom. It was a lab on a completely different level from anywhere he had been before.
"I did it!"
After washing his face, he roughly pushed back his wet hair. Life had returned to his eyes in the mirror after a long time.
After five years of patience, an opportunity to finally unfold his genius had come.
He burst out of the restroom and headed toward the research room.
Theo had gathered the team members and introduced Ben.
"Now, everyone, attention! I told you yesterday, right? This is Dr. Benjamin Simmons, who will be with us starting today."
Clap, clap, clap!
'Good people.'
Led by Seoha, everyone wore exceptionally bright expressions.
At the unexpected welcome, Ben's face relaxed.
"Then starting now, we're going to decide the team member in charge of miscellaneous tasks."
"Miscellaneous tasks?"
Sujeong tilted her head while gulping an iced Americano. Cecilia looked at it with an arrogant expression, as if it were some bizarre drink.
"It was Dr. Simmons' proposal. The person with the lowest 'intelligence' in this team will be in charge of all paperwork for this quarter."
Low intelligence....
At the violent word choice so uncharacteristic of Theo, the team members' eyes widened.
Cecilia stopped chewing her donut and stared at him. Then she discovered Ben standing with his arms crossed, wearing an arrogant smile, and nodded her head.
Slurp.
"It's been a while since things were this fired up after the Logia Ranking Battle."
Sujeong put her empty cup down on the desk.
Seoha wore an expression of being lost in thought. Ben added as if making an excuse.
"It's only natural. For those with high intellectual ability to devote themselves to productive work. This has been the fundamental principle of human development for the past several centuries."
Theo called out to Seoha.
"Let's have Seoha give the problem. Make it discriminating, please."
Seoha looked at Theo and let out a small sigh.
It was the result of entrusting work to him while turning a blind eye all this time. Since Theo guaranteed his potential was certain, it wouldn't be bad to slightly dampen Benjamin's spirit.
"What category? Mental arithmetic? Chess?"
Thinking that an opportunity to show his ability had come early, Ben's voice rose in pitch.
Seoha's gaze stopped on a morning newspaper that had come in at dawn.
"How about Sudoku?"
Ben made a puzzled expression. Then he shrugged as if he understood.
"If that's fine with you. For your information, I graduated from Sudoku at age five."
In contrast to his confidence, all the Apex team members wore nervous expressions.
Gulp.
'Please, just keep your mouth shut.'
'Idiot! There's no way Seoha would give an ordinary Sudoku puzzle!'
'Without Seoha, I'm definitely first place!'
'I have to manage the servers too; aren't they going to let me off?'
Seoha walked to the chalkboard and picked up a piece of chalk.
Scritch-scratch.
"I'll use a standard 9x9 grid."
A numerical puzzle formed in Seoha's mind.
The minimum condition for a Sudoku to have a unique solution is seventeen number hints. Seoha constructed the logical chains required to determine a single number into ten or more steps.
If you tried brute-force substitution, you would only realize your error after several dozen steps.
"I'm done. You'll still solve it within twenty minutes, right?"
Seoha smiled and stepped back.
The four existing team members spread out their paper and attacked the puzzle with exceptionally serious expressions.
Glancing at them, the corners of Ben's mouth rose.
'It's no use. This is a pure battle of talent.'
He looked at the seventeen numbers written on the chalkboard and unfolded a virtual grid in his mind. Then he began substituting numbers at a ferocious speed.
"Hmm?"
One minute.
Two minutes.
Ben's relaxed expression began gradually hardening.
He tried X-Wing and Swordfish logic (candidate elimination logic in Sudoku).
After five minutes, beads of sweat had formed on Ben's forehead. But he still hadn't managed to fill in a single blank.