Coder Lee Yongho – Chapter 110: Becoming a New Person Every Day (4)

A long letter.
And the photos containing the memories up until now were displayed throughout the house.
100 roses were in Dave’s hands, and the candles on the floor were organized in the shape of a heart.
All of this was possible because of YongHo’s and Na DaeBang’s assistence.
“Is it alright if you do this so suddenly?”
“… It’s not so suddenly. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Moreover, if we’re going to Jeff’s company, then I need to finish this before going.”
“Well, you’ll do well yourself.”
A relationship between a man and a woman was only known to those involved.
YongHo thought that this wasn’t something for him to become involved in.

*Ding dong* (bell chimes)
*Knock! Knock Knock!*
Jessie seemed to be unable to endure any longer as she knocked on the door.
“Dave, open the door.”
“I’m coming.”
YongHo and Na DaeBang had already left. There was no one else in the house.
It was evening. What lit up the room was not electronic lights but hundreds of candles.
“Wh, what is this?”
Dave was in a suit, which he didn’t even wear to his graduation, while he held out roses towards Jessie on one knee.
“Please accept it.”
Jessie absentmindedly accepted the roses that Dave were holding. Dave lightly grabbed Jessie’s hands after he stood up.
Jessie’s cheeks became red in the reflection of the candle light.
Grabbing Jessie’s hands, Dave walked on the path in the middle of the candles.
“Wh, what are you doing?”
Jessie was dumbfounded at Dave’s unusual actions.
She just moved according to Dave’s lead.
Normally, she would shake his hand off asking what he was doing along with a giant slap on the back.
But there was nothing she could do under the overwhelming atmosphere.
“……”
Dave only quietly walked forwards while he was holding on to Jessie’s hand.
As the house wasn’t very big, they quickly arrived at their destination.
A heart made of candles.
Around that were photos with the two of them until now.

“This is when we first took a photo in the first year of college.”
Dave took each of the photos as his precious items.
Jessie only quietly listened to him.
“Everyone went to the theme park, but I was too scared to ride anything.”
Dave looked at the photos and he felt like he was immersing himself in the memories.
He hadn’t let go of Jessie’s hand this whole time.
Rather, he put more strength into it as time went on.
“When my parents passed away……”
Dave’s voice started trembling for the first time.
“I decided.”
Jessie still couldn’t say anything.
She didn’t know what would come next.
She was only looking at Dave with a rose in one hand.
“That you’re the only one for me. I’m too late, aren’t I?”
Jessie swallow dry saliva while blinking her eyes several times over.
With each blink, transparent drops of liquid started welling up.
Dave took out a small black box from his pocket.
Then he opened it carefully.
Inside was a golden ring.
“When my mother passed away, she told me to hand it to you.”
Jessie stood their absent-mindedly in disbelief, when she heard Dave’s confession. (T/N: That was a confession?)
Her tears just flowed from her face..

Meanwhile.
Having left the house, the two had no good place to go so they headed towards a coffee shop inside a nearby hotel.
Na DaeBang said to drink alcohol on a day like this, but YongHo didn’t want to get near any alcoholic drinks.
“Hyung-nim, when are you planning to get married?”
“I… will have to do it sometime.”
“I see that you’re quite popular nowadays. Don’t you just need the intention?”
Said Na DaeBang with a smirk.
“Nonsense.”
“You know what’s going on. A man shouldn’t be like that.”
“… I don’t know. I don’t get it.”
“You know and get everything. Stop running away.”
“Just take out your laptop already.”
“…I really like you, hyung nim. I… really do……”
Saying that while biting his lips meant the otherwise.
YongHo didn’t mind his words and opened up the internet on his laptop.
“Didn’t I say it? One needs to become the examiner, not the examinee.”
“If it were as easy as you say……”
Complained Na DaeBang.
“If you’re only going to do easy things, then why did you come to America?”
“……”
With that, Na DaeBang could only become quiet.

What YongHo was doing with Na DaeBang was raising his reputation in Top Code.
To become a person that didn’t need checking, there were various methods.
Becoming famous through an open source, or through receiving prizes in competitions, or through websites such as Stack Overfly.
Or becoming the top coder in Top Code.
YongHo already had made an open source and even had experience winning a competition.
However, he hadn’t raised his name in Top Code.
That, had provoked YongHo’s challenging mindset.
“If I become a red coder, then no one would say something like that.”
His final objective was to become a red coder.

Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, Grey.
5 tiers in total.
Rankings started with the grey tier, and on the website, there were around 5000 people who were ranked.
Amongst them only 6%, 300, were red coders.
‘Korea is in 11th.’
Coder ranks would be factored into calculating country ranks.
On the website, Korea was ranked 11th.
1st was China, 2nd was Russia, 3rd was US, and 4th was Japan.
‘Naturally, I will have to make it first.’
Since the points of the people of each country were averaged, it was better for there to be more people with higher ranks.
This was also why YongHo had brought Na DaeBang here.
‘So people were right in saying that people become patriots when they were in another country.’
Although he hadn’t lived outside Korea for a long time, he often thought of Korea.
He wanted to be acknowledged by people when he said he was Korean.
Like what people felt when a person said he/she was from America, he wanted to be like that when someone found out he was Korean.
“You aren’t going home until you reach blue today.”
“Hey, hyung-nim!”
“Well, we can’t go back anyhow.”
Na DaeBang’s face became red, it seemed that he was imagining something.
“H, hyung-nim. Wh, what are you saying?”
“So do your best. It’s also good if you reach first.”
“…….”
“So start.”
The method was like playing games – logging in and acquiring points for solving questions.
1st place would be awarded with the most points, and there would be bonus points when one found bugs in another person’s code.
The points would be added and would be ranked.
The current first place had 3758 points, and was taken by a Chinese person.

Just the question had 50 lines.
As a simple example, the input and the output was given.
3 would be the result when inputting 1 and 2.
Or something like that.
What the user needed to do was to make the process for the result to be 3.
‘This is also a probability problem.’
It was a question to find out the time it took for one to get home from the company. The precondition was that a crime had occurred. And one had to be checked at each checkpoint.
There was a P% chance of being delayed, and it would take much more time to get home.
The checkpoint would be continued until the person got home.

‘Let x be the distance of each rodes, and let y be the checkpoints. Then, I need to add the time taken on the roads, and on the time taken on the checkpoints, and also, the delayed time.’
YongHo expressed the question into an equation.
Now, he didn’t stop when he was writing mathematical expressions. He skilfully wrote mathematical expressions containing letters such as x, y and p.
He was solving the problem like that without a care in the world.
Dave’s marriage.
The worry about moving work.
And the well-being of his parents in Korea all made YongHo’s thoughts become complex.
Only when solving questions like what he was doing right now could he forget about everything.
‘So delay may be added indefinitely.’
Checkpoints would continue until the car passed, so delay time could be lengthened indefinitely.
YongHo concentrated while thinking about the meaning of the question.
20 minutes passed like that.
Thinking that he finished the question, YongHo clicked on the submit button.
1st place.
He solved the question the quickest, and submitted first.
‘Is this enough for a Chief-tier?’
YongHo placed a lot of importance on the word ‘Chief’.
The peak a programmer could climb to in a company was a Chief-tiered engineer. (T/N: Looked some stuff up to find out there is a ‘principal engineer’, probably doesn’t apply to all companies)
Within a year, he took such a position.
He was proud of himself.
He was full, no, overflowing with confidence.
That was why he lightly ignored the Koogle person’s ‘check’.
YongHo, who was immersed in his emotions, turned his head.
Na DaeBang was still having a hard time solving a question.
“Hey, how long are you going to take?”
Na DaeBang didn’t seem to hear him as he hadn’t even turned his head around.
“You ignoring me?”
“You’re the one who’s strange. If you aren’t going to help, then don’t talk to me.”
As he had no intentions on helping him, YongHo turned his gaze back towards his own laptop.
The results of the code was completed.

Success : true
Status : 0
Execution time(ms) : 0
Peak memory used(kb) : 5713 (T/N: WHAT? 0ms with 5713 kb used? How is dat possible…)

Total Score : 10

There were no bugs and the execution time was 0 second.
The memory used while the code was running was about 5 megabytes. Finally, the total score was…
‘It’s a full score.’
There was a maximum score for each question solved.
The question that YongHo had solved gave 10 points max.
The questions with the highest difficulty gave 50 points as the maximum.
‘So, if I remember correctly, the rankings are reset every month.’
Points were calculated every month, and every year, and will be notified on the website.
The points YongHo checked was this month’s statistics.
‘Let’s do it.’
It was weekend anyway.
And he couldn’t go back home.
YongHo sat there throughout the entire night with Na DaeBang.

***

“What’s up with your faces?”
When they came back the next day, Jessie was the one who greeted them.
Her bright expression told them of her current mood.
“S, save me. Hyung-nim, hyung-nim has…”
“What is it? What happened?”
YongHo, who entered after Na DaeBang, spoke.
“I made him code all night.”
“Scary guy…”
Dave, who was eating soup on the table, also added. From the looks of it, it seemed to be made by Jessie.
With an apron, she was shaking the soup inside the pot.
“You guys have a taste too.”
“Yeah, have a taste. It tastes… amazing.”
Since YongHo also stayed up the whole night, he couldn’t see through the meaning in Dave’s words.
Na DaeBang didn’t even listen and picked up his spoon from the table.
“Here.”
A fine-looking corn soup was placed on the table.
*Cough*
Both YongHo and Na DaeBang spat the soup back out into the bowl without being able to swallow it.
Then, they looked at Dave with gazes mixed with admiration and pity.

‘What will you do, man.’
‘I’m also worried.’

Jessie didn’t seem to have seen the gaze exchanged between the three men and brought another bowl of soup.
Then, she spoke with a nonchalant smile.
“Anybody want any more?”
YongHo and Na DaeBang had already disappeared with the excuse of lacking sleep.
“I, I will take it.”
Only Dave, the only one who remained at the table, could answer.