Chagum continues to surprise as a character, endearing himself to every viewer I believe. Balsa tries to give him some training to imbue some street smarts, but he shows just how he has every character suited for a king.

After a very excited reunion, Balsa asks Tohya if he could teach and guide Chagum in the ways of the city. Basically to gain some street smarts, and to be comfortable with people in the city.

Tohya decides to make chagum is pretend brother. First trick to teach Chagum all about money, and bargaining with the hawker. With Tohya helping out, Chagum surprisingly performs reasonably well and pulls things off.

The two end up passing a gambling booth. Tohya explains that it’s a game called “monjinzen”. Basically 3 coins are spun one after another. You bet on the number of coins that ends heads up. Tohya decides that its a good chance to teach Chagum more, and ends up betting 100  quickly on the number 3. Of course he loses, and ends up moaning about how much food all that money can buy.

 Chagum then explains that the odds are stacked against the gamblers. However, Chagum also states that he understands that to the people running the stall, its a business, thus its something they have to do. Besides, the players are probably having fun.

He further explains the psychology of the game, about letting who win. Of course at the end of the day, everybody will end up losing, even if they had been winning at the beginning.

Hearing this, Tohya decides to save everyone by exposing the people as frauds. However, he does a miserable job of it. But when he explains that he truly wants to help the people there, and not just to get back his money, Chagum decides to help him out.

Chagum confronts them, pointing out that the guy spinning coins can control how many coins land heads up. Using some tokens, he succeeds in proving his point. At which point, some of the previous players start betting using his tips.

In the end, he reveals that the guy spinning the coins will decide how many to land heads up by following leads from the leader. The crowd finally starts to make noise about them being a fraud.

Frustrated, the leader challenges Chagum once again, with no tricks this time. The bet being all his money, vs the earing Chagum’s mom gave him. Surprisingly, Chagum agreed, and proceeds to win the challenge.

At the side, Balsa notes that instead of teaching Chagum street smarts, she might have awakened something really powerful.

Thoughts

I thought Chagum showed lots of intelligence, probably due to his upbringing. But he has lots of character too. He chooses base on the motivation of helping people. And he has lots of conviction and guts too, seeing him bet his mother’s earings. If he really becomes the ruler, he’ll become a very good one.