Chapter 16
—
Office worker Park Seong-cheol (32) is a perfect individual in many ways.
“Good morning, manager! You look tired today. Here’s a coffee. Haha. Oh, and you’re treating us to lunch, right?”
“Huh? Oh! That document—I finished it yesterday. Here it is. You can submit it directly. Just give it a look.”
Whether it was his ever-present smile, his impeccable personality, or his incredible competence, even his bosses feared his potential resignation and didn’t dare mistreat him.
But.
Despite his ability, his personality, and everything else seemingly perfect, Park Seong-cheol had a secret that no one knew…
His room was filled with Mir Guild uniforms and signed memorabilia.
That’s right.
The one flaw in his otherwise spotless resume was that he was an extreme “Dragon Buff.”
It all began twenty years ago, on a particularly sunny day. Lured by his father’s promise of pork cutlets, ten-year-old Park Seong-cheol was dragged to the stadium.
Maybe it was the electrifying sensation of the Gate’s magical field. Maybe the subpar guild players had somehow taken performance-enhancing drugs, putting on a godlike show. Whatever it was, his first experience left an indescribable impression on young Park.
That day, he became a Dragon Buff. And for the next twenty years, he dedicated himself to supporting the Mir Guild.
And the result?
They failed miserably.
“Let’s see. It’s bound to be chaos again today, right?”
After a fresh shower, Park sipped a can of beer and clicked his mouse.
“Mir Guild Gallery” appeared on the screen, its forums predictably brimming with hellish flames of absurd jokes and colorful curses.
It was a bumper harvest—a veritable field of madness.
Such was the life of a Dragon Buff.
A dark swamp of despair, rotting with defeat after defeat. No matter how much bottled water you poured into the sludge, it wouldn’t make a difference. Trying to say something rational here was equally futile.
Politeness? Forget it. Here, “hello” was a barrage of curses, and every sentence ended with a search for “dog.”
To converse with these people, you had to go mad yourself. And once you became comfortable in this chaos, you’d find that you could instinctively spew out hellish memes that would instantly ruin your social standing in the real world.
“That’s why I tried to escape.”
Like the protagonist of a certain viral meme, Park once attempted to break free from the cycle of defeat and misery.
But when Lee Shin, that infamous troublemaker, booted out Mir’s last ray of hope, Yang Pan-seok, Park felt his blood boil and his breath catch in his throat. Staying with this cursed guild seemed a surefire way to an early grave.
So he made up his mind. He even posted, “I’m done with this godforsaken guild” on the forums, vowing to escape this abyss for good.
And yet…
Here he was, beer in hand, chuckling at the forum’s nonsensical jokes.
“Heh, this is why I can’t quit.”
For a moment, he had considered supporting another guild.
After all, leaving the league entirely wasn’t an option. Maybe rooting for a more stable guild—like NG Jaguars, a neighbouring guild that had climbed from the 5th to the 3rd League in just four years—would solve all his problems.
But of course not.
After twenty years of being marinated in this hellish swamp, supporting another guild felt… bland. Like eating pork soup without shrimp paste.
And so, like a salmon returning to its birthplace, he inevitably found himself back with the Dragons.
Blame it on the damned threshold of stimulation.
Anyway, here he was.
“But seriously, there’s still no news from these idiots. Are you guys just winging it now? I’d like to crack your skulls open. The season opener is right around the corner, so how is it possible that you’ve registered zero Hunters?”
Park checked the league’s official site for Mir Guild’s roster. Nothing.
At this stage in the offseason, it was common sense for guilds to bolster their rosters.
But common sense didn’t apply to Mir Guild.
Despite releasing Yang Pan-seok and the entire raiding team, they hadn’t announced a single new recruit.
On a whim, Park visited the guild’s official website, but all he found was:
<(official) Mir’s Next (D-1)>
…Plain text written carelessly on a white background.
“What’s that D-day supposed to mean? Is this some kind of joke?”
Park let out a bitter laugh.
The season was imminent. No recruits. No announcements. A website under construction.
“Yup. That’s Mir Guild for you.”
It was maddening. It was infuriating. It was intoxicating.
The guild filled his mundane life with the same chaotic excitement as the smell of sweat on his scalp. Once again, Mir Guild was ablaze with the crazed curses of its Dragon Buffs.
And perhaps because of that chaos…
No one noticed.
<(official) Mir’s Next (D-1)>
00:05:00… 00:04:59… 00:04:58…
No one realized that the countdown on the website was almost up.
00:01:00… 00:00:59…
At that moment, all outdoor billboards across Korea went dark.
Small, large, bus stops, highways—it didn’t matter. In an instant, the entire Korean peninsula lost its light, as if it were experiencing a nationwide blackout.
What’s going on?
As people scrambled to figure out what was happening, a number appeared on the blank screens.
5.
Drivers on highways turned their gaze to the screens.
4.
People waiting at bus stops looked up.
3.
Pedestrians on nighttime streets paused.
2.
Even the city that never slept came to a halt.
1.
As all eyes converged on the screens, the countdown ended.
Starting with Mir Guild’s website, the billboards nationwide began to light up.
From the center of the darkened screens, a figure emerged from the shadows.
“A person?”
“A man.”
A broad back, square shoulders, a solid figure.
The silhouette of a man walking through the pitch-black darkness was unmistakable.
The silence was heavy, the darkness suffocating—as if reflecting a guild’s prolonged era of obscurity.
Yet the man pressed forward.
In the oppressive darkness, he found sound. In the dizzying shadows, he found a path.
The man seemed to convey a message with his every step:
That even in this darkness, there was an exit.
And when he reached the faint glimmer of light—small, fragile, but precious—the man continued.
As he stepped forward…
Flash!
A spotlight illuminated the stage.
Waiting there was another man, dressed in a pristine white suit. He extended his hand.
The man who had traversed the darkness took it.
Black and white.
The contrast between light and shadow.
As the camera zoomed out, the once-hidden faces were finally revealed.
And then—
“What?”
Park Seong-cheol, watching through his monitor, those staring at the billboards, and everyone captivated by this unprecedented spectacle all gasped simultaneously.
Because.
The two men holding hands…
Were Lee Shin and Kim Jong-pil.
And the two were smiling.
<(official) Mir’s Next>
<Welcome Mountain King>
* * *
“This is insane.”
“It’s amazing.”
A thunderous cheer erupted within Mir Guild’s office.
Everyone hugged each other, jumping up and down in delight, while Lee Shin trembled in excitement amidst the chaos.
“Yes! This is it! This is it! Isn’t this just perfect?”
Actors, directors, production—everything was spot on.
Even the insane amount of money he had extracted from his grandfather for the billboards had contributed to creating a legendary showcase in the Korean guild world.
“Perfect. Just perfect.”
There was no time to waste.
They had shaken up the market, and now it was time to ride the momentum.
Lee Shin’s eyes gleamed, and he hopped onto a table.
“Attention!”
As he stomped his foot and called out, the guild staff, who had been cheering moments ago, turned to face him.
“Alright! That’s enough. Let’s stay calm. It’s too early to pop the champagne.”
He pointed his finger like a host on stage.
The staff snapped back to reality and began reporting their tasks one after another.
“Mir Guild is trending #1 on all major portal sites!”
“Second place is Lee Shin! Third is Mountain King!”
“All the online communities are flooded with Mir Guild news!”
“Not only the broadcasters we contacted, but other stations’ reporters are also reaching out to us nonstop!”
“Even the magazines we interviewed before are—”
The frantic reports kept coming.
Attention, buzz, and headlines.
Whatever adjectives people chose didn’t matter.
What mattered was that, at this moment, every pair of eyes and ears in Korea was focused on them.
Busan, League 4, the fallen noble house…
“Our Mir Guild has been reborn. A dragon hatchling with sparkling, fresh scales.”
Baby Mir has arrived.
This was the critical moment.
How well they nurtured their growth during this stage would determine their future.
Lee Shin scattered a stack of prepared documents across the room.
The reasons for visiting Geumgangsan, the conversations with Kim Jong-pil, and the process of separating the Mountain King from the Kirin Guild…
Every single one of these was information that the public would eat up.
And so.
“Now! It’s time to feast on the buzz we’ve spread. Devour it all and digest it. Let’s use this to grow bigger in one leap!”
The time they had was until the official season’s opening.
“Hold on tight. There are no brakes on the bus I’m driving.”
Vroom vroom.
The jaws of hell were revving up.
D-7
“We’re standardizing all communications through SNS. Take the information I provided earlier, tweak it to make it fun, and post it on SNS.”
“SNS? Not to reporters or the website?”
“No, no, no~ Who watches TV these days? Let’s go cool and sexy. A young guild that reaches fans through SNS—doesn’t that sound appealing? Got it?”
“Understood.”
[Modern-day Three Visits. Why ‘E-GOD’ Climbed Geumgangsan Three Times!]
#WeActuallyGetAlong#AgeIsJustANumber#CheersBro#GeumgangsanFoodies
[Mountain King Breaks Korea’s Highest Salary Record]
[Central Awakener Management Bureau: ‘We cannot disclose the exact amount, but Mountain King’s current salary is indeed Korea’s highest.’]
[The Class of Lee Do. If It’s Not the Best, It’s Nothing.]
[Former Kirin Insider Speaks: ‘Mountain King Wanted to Stay, but Kirin Chose All-King.’]
[Different Approaches: Is It Lee Do’s Prestige or Kirin’s Efficiency?]
D-3
“How is the Mountain King’s inauguration this afternoon coming along? The broadcast team is coming, right?”
“The MBS broadcasting team is currently checking their equipment.”
“Uh… it looks like they also want to do a personal interview with the representative.”
“We should, of course, absolutely agree to it. In fact, invite any media outlet that shows interest, even if it’s a women’s magazine from a salon.”
“Understood.”
*Mountain King Kim Jong-pil’s Inauguration Press Conference
“Phew… I’m feeling a bit emotional. As some of you may know, Yeongdo is my hometown. As a child, I often played around the sea and the mountains here.”
“I’ve always felt it was a shame that there wasn’t a proper guild in my hometown. That’s why I found those words so compelling. Let’s go back to the basics. Let’s grow and rejuvenate again. Those words resonated deeply with me.”
“It’s an honour to return to this city that holds my most cherished childhood memories. I’d like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Representative Lee Shin for making this possible.”
“I promise, on the honor of the Mountain King, that Mir Guild will achieve promotion this season.”
*After the Inauguration Ceremony – Lee Shin’s Interview
“First of all, let me just say this: can we please stop the endless talk about Yang Pan-seok? (laughs)”
“Promotion? Honestly, our Mountain King was way too humble. Forget promotion—that’s not even the issue. Give it three years. Promotion, promotion, promotion. Triple promotions! Mir Guild will be in League 1 within three years.”
“Many people have questions about the roster… wait a second, where is it… oh, here it is. This is the finalized roster. Curious?”
[The Contrast is Real: Hot and Cold Takes from the Mountain King and Lee Shin]
[Lee Shin pulls the roster from his back pocket: ‘This is the roster, folks!!’]
[Is this even okay? Mir Guild reveals their roster during an interview!]
[How radical is it? Every hunter in the roster is revealed to be a rookie.]·
D-0
[Korean Hunter Association – 202X League Stovetop League Summary]
[Guild Power Rankings Released]
* * *
League 4 Rankings
- Busan <Mir> 87 points
- Seoul <Obliviate> 71 points
- Seoul …….
- Seoul ……
.
.
- Gyeonggi-do …….
1st Place: Mir Guild
“Does it even need an explanation? The undisputed winner of this year’s offseason.”
Busan’s Mir Guild claimed first place in the League 4 Power Rankings after signing the world-class Mountain King. This marks the first time since 199X that a guild outside the metropolitan area has ranked first.
—
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