“I’d send them off.”

Maru said to Daemyung, who was next to him.

“Competing against someone full of talent is a stupid thing to do. If you overpace yourself to catch up to a person running on a different track than you, then you’re bound to end up exhausted. That’s why you have to send them ahead. When you see geniuses running far ahead of you, you have to look at them and learn what you can, instead of actually trying to run next to them.”

“I guess that’s one way of thinking about it.”

“You’ll get hurt if you try to chase them. I don’t like the saying ‘know your place’, but there is definitely a need to keep that in mind to a certain extent.”

“Don’t you want to try going against them once?”

Maru turned his head to the left. It was Jiseok who said those words.

“A genius is not a genius in all aspects, are they? There should be something they’re bad at. Don’t you think you would be able to find a way to win if you dig into that part?”

“Maybe, but there’s no need to clash, is there? I clearly know that I’m going to get hurt, so I should avoid it if I can.”

“There are definitely things you can earn by being defeated.”

“If you can’t take care of the aftermath of the defeat, then you get into trouble.”

“Challenge always comes with the risk of failure. It might hurt,...