National Team Consulting
A new building had risen at YooBaek, and Baek Ajin moved her office along with it.
Headquarters, 34th floor.
The entire floor housed the department in charge of Baek Jinwoo's item purchases and sales. Ajin held the rank of Director, and with a fair-sized staff hired beneath her, she rarely had occasion to visit the Samsung-dong market anymore.
"CEO."
"Yes, Director Baek."
She and Yoo Jia had grown close enough to bicker like sisters, but during business hours the two of them addressed each other strictly by title.
At the moment, they were pulling out all the stops to acquire Versatile Runes.
"We've combed through every market in the world. Counting only what's actually listed, there are about twenty-five."
Twenty-five was a fairly rare find, all things considered.
At least there was stock to be had.
"And the prices?"
"All over the place. Averaged out, roughly 150 billion won apiece?"
It was a staggering figure.
Considering the market rate for a top-grade Light Speed Rune had been 15 billion, the comparison was almost laughable.
Then again, it made perfect sense.
A Light Speed Rune only served attack-speed summons that wielded staves, but a Versatile Rune was, quite literally, versatile — universal enough to suit any summon in existence.
"Hmm. Jinwoo wants eighteen, and the budget is two trillion... so we're falling well short."
"Exactly."
To buy them all, even the crudest back-of-the-napkin math came out to 2.7 trillion won.
Yoo Jia rapped a fingernail against the documents Ajin had brought — tak, tak! — and continued.
"Besides, we can't take those asking prices at face value. Plenty of sellers will string you through the whole negotiation, right up to the brink of purchase, and then pull out at the last second."
"Testing the waters in case it'll fetch more later?"
With high-ticket goods, the psychological war between buyer and seller was always especially brutal.
"Exactly. So even when we buy, we have to do it quietly, piece by piece, without word getting out. Buy slowly, one at a time, and they all start calling each other and jacking up the price."
"...Then how do we handle it?"
"We play them."
Yoo Jia's answer was crisp.
Play them?
"We'll fabricate a separate identity for every purchase. Disguised as buyers with real purchasing power, we approach all of them at once — before anyone has time to compare notes."
"...Oh."
"And Director Baek, I need you to write up a purchase listing for Versatile Runes. Priced far below market... hmm, say, six for 100 billion."
"On the world market?"
"Yes. And each week that passes, we shrink the quantity — five, then four, then three."
"Ah!"
Ajin clapped her hands.
"So we're manufacturing urgency?"
"Precisely. It won't land perfectly, but it'll do real damage. Inventory still sitting on the market means no buyer has appeared who can absorb those prices. And in that climate, we keep showing them the goods moving at below-market rates. Over and over."
"Wow...!"
Watching Yoo Jia at work, Ajin felt a great deal stirring inside her.
So selling was one thing — but buying, too, demanded this kind of strategic approach!
"What about the budget shortfall?"
"We'll try to squeeze it out of the national budget somehow. And if that truly fails... we'll secure them even if it means spending YooBaek's own money."
With limited-edition runes, speed was everything.
The more of them they locked down, the more unique the runes Baek Jinwoo wielded would become.
"Then let's move fast!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
The promised Saturday.
The day of the first national team assembly.
Baek Jinwoo spent the morning setting his high-tier daily dungeons running on repeat, then headed out to the Player Hall.
Assembly time: ten in the morning.
Even though he arrived at 9:40, a full twenty minutes early—
"Huh...?"
All nine rankers were already there.
They had clustered in little groups of friends, chatting away, but the moment Jinwoo stepped through the door, every mouth snapped shut. Those leaning on one leg straightened up, and every face settled into an expression of polite, humble deference.
Ki Jaehyeok and Kang Jiho — famous as the high schooler rankers — especially so.
"Good morning, sir!"
"Good morning, sir!"
They stared up with bright, eager eyes, then bowed at a crisp right angle toward Jinwoo.
What's gotten into them?
It was a bit much, honestly.
Then again, seeing the kids act like that was kind of adorable.
"Haha, good to see you all."
Jinwoo bowed in return before stepping inside, thinking to himself.
Is this a ranker thing?
Their punctuality was impeccable.
First impressions: all pass!
Nobody had kicked up a fuss about the captaincy being handed over, and there was none of the cold-shouldering or turf-guarding you might expect from former national team members.
Which, frankly, was only natural.
This was the man who had cut down Kang Geonho, Korea's Rank 1, in under a minute. Turf wars? Against him?
When you kept a low stance, you absorbed whatever there was to absorb.
Half a year until the World League.
Long if you called it long, short if you called it short.
And if he was going to win anyway, Jinwoo would rather see South Korea win.
"Hello, everyone. I'm Baek Jinwoo. Lacking as I may be, I'll be serving as captain of this national team."
Under the weight of many eyes, he delivered the greeting with calm composure.
And then—
As if on cue, the introductions began.
"I'm Kang Geonho. Thirty-three years old, vice guild master of Baekho. Park Ho hyung-nim over there, along with Jeonghee and Sangwon, are Baekho as well. I've held the captaincy for the past three years, and I'm genuinely glad a better captain has come along."
Here, laid bare, was the Baekho roster:
Rank 1 — Kang Geonho (33)
Rank 2 — Park Ho (35)
Rank 6 — Bok Jeonghee (31)
Rank 7 — Seo Sangwon (30)
A guild of thirty-somethings, huh?
Their credentials were monstrous all the same.
Four of Korea's top ten rankers, all flying Baekho's colors.
People didn't call them the strongest of the Big Three for nothing.
The Baekho members came up one by one with their greetings.
And then—
"You all know me anyway. I'm Ahn Gijeong, of Ilwol."
Ilwol, another of the Big Three, had two members here.
Rank 4 — Ahn Gijeong (41)
Rank 8 — Hwang Juwon (53)
Gijeong was the guild master; Juwon, his vice.
Both in their forties and fifties, they counted as the elders of the room.
"Juwon hyung-nim and I have always made the national team together."
"Haha, I'm getting up there in years, but... I suppose I've kept at it long enough to make the cut again. Player Baek Jinwoo... my, you left quite the impression. Every time I go home, my wife talks about nothing but you. Never mind the matches — she just goes on about how handsome you are. Keeps telling me to bring back an autograph, that one."
With faces as warm and easygoing as any neighborhood uncle's, he seemed the somewhat extroverted sort.
The type who could melt a stiff atmosphere, you might say.
And then—
"Hello, hyung-nim! I'm Ki Jaehyeok!"
"I'm Kang Jiho! I've been your fan ever since the selection matches!"
"Just give us any task, sir! We're fully prepared to pull our weight as the youngest members!"
Those two spirited high schoolers.
The guild master and vice guild master of Carpe Diem, the guild on everyone's lips these days.
Rank 15 — Ki Jaehyeok (19)
Rank 25 — Kang Jiho (18)
Personally, Jinwoo found himself liking them.
Battle of Summoners had always demanded its share of raw physicality.
Riding a wyvern, swimming as a dolphin... there were stretches where you had no choice but to use your own body.
That was why Jinwoo never skipped his workouts.
It's like watching my younger self.
Making the national team off a low ranking meant they'd bled for every bit of it.
"Yeah, good to meet you."
Charmed, he dropped into casual speech on the spot — and the two rankers lit up as if those words alone were an honor.
And finally—
"I'm Hong Ari."
Rank 3 — Hong Ari (27)
"I run the guild Arirang. Seon-young unni and I used to be on the national team together, but this time I'm in it alone."
With that, she stole a sidelong glance at Jinwoo.
"She ran into some kind of natural disaster during the multiplayer match."
Seon-young unni...?
She meant Oh Seon-young — O-rang, the Five Wolves.
Arirang's vice guild master, a formidable player in her own right — and yet Hungyo had carved her up in ten seconds flat during the multiplayer match.
"Still, Seon-young unni says she's satisfied. Meeting someone that strong was an honor, she said. She's my age, you know — and she told me that if you ever teach her, she'll follow your lead faithfully."
"I appreciate that."
With that, every ranker's introduction was complete.
It was a genuinely curious sight.
The heads of Korea's Big Three guilds, gathered in a single room — and every one of those titans keeping a humble stance before one man: Baek Jinwoo.
Then again—
People who read a room that well, with instincts that sharp, didn't become rankers counted among the best of fifty million by accident.
How am I supposed to teach them?
The Jinwoo of old would have given their summons a cursory glance and called it a day.
Even the Five Emperors, who had known him for five years, rarely got more than the occasional hint.
But.
The nation had handed over an extra trillion won. He couldn't let this slide.
At the very least, he intended to deliver consulting worth the price.
"In any case, we now find ourselves bound to spend half a year together."
Having neatly filed away everything he'd learned about them, Jinwoo spoke up.
"I don't know yet whether we'll stay together for the long haul or whether this burns bright and fades. But for whatever time we have, if there's anything you're curious about, I'll do my utmost to answer. That said — I won't be spoon-feeding anyone. Like a thirsty man digging his own well: try it yourself first, and when it doesn't work, or when you feel something's lacking, come ask me about that directly."
His honest, unvarnished opinion?
Everyone standing before him was below his level.
So far below it that he couldn't even work out where to begin teaching.
For one thing, they lacked experience. Badly.
As a kid, Jinwoo had been obsessed with the game to the point of analyzing the skills of over forty thousand summons per grade, one by one, comparing every matchup and counter.
He'd clawed out wins against rankers in the Player Hall using weak summons, and thrown himself at the extreme-difficulty Tower of Ordeal thousands of times to forge that instinct called 'feel.'
But them?
Their summons were far too standardized.
Lock yourself into a single frame and raise nothing but that, and the moment you meet an unfavorable matchup, you have no answer for it.
When could you afford to standardize?
Only when you held cheat-tier summons.
Summons like Jinwoo's EX-grades.
For ordinary players, standardizing your summons was an absolute taboo.
But then again.
Did he really need to teach them that deep?
"First, we'll begin with sparring."
One bout apiece.
He would face each of them in turn, hear their questions about whatever had fallen short or struck them as odd — and after that, he would give his feedback: better approaches, summon choices, rune setups, psychological warfare, and the rest.
That was the best consulting Baek Jinwoo could offer them.
The remote backcountry of South Korea.
An abandoned building, buried deep within it.
From that gloomy place, which looked as though no one had set foot inside for ages, a voice drifted out.
"Your thoughts?"
"..."
The man held his silence for a moment at the question, then nodded slowly.
"One thing is certain — we can't just sit back and watch."
In his hands as he answered was a thick stack of documents, and every page chronicled the exploits of a single player.
Baek Jinwoo.
The man thought.
A player strong beyond all reason.
"Then what are we to do? You can't mean to strike Baek Jinwoo, Lord Jihak?"
Jihak.
Had anyone overheard that name, their jaw would have hit the floor in shock.
Rank 30. Jo Jihak.
The head of the gang alliance that had set all of Korea abuzz, and the man occupying Blacklist slot number one.
He didn't compete in the World League, so his ranking sat a little low — but his strength was not to be underestimated.
"Idiot. Strike Baek Jinwoo?"
Jo Jihak laughed as if the very idea were absurd.
Had that fool not watched a single second of the selection match footage?
Jinwoo shredded the sitting top rankers like they were playthings. How was a gang supposed to lay a finger on a man like that?
The truth was—
that had become the gangs' great headache of late.
Jinwoo was so overwhelmingly strong that the balance of power with Headquarters had come apart at the seams.
And if Headquarters ever got serious, marshaling its full weight to control him?
That could spell the end of the gangs altogether.
"For now, round up everyone we have posted overseas. This is an emergency."
For the record: the gangs could not use Korea's Player Zones.
Seoul. Busan.
Headquarters had them all under complete lockdown.
So they went abroad.
Nearby Southeast Asian countries — the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar.
They greased the palms of those governments and quietly made use of the local facilities.
"If we can't strike Baek Jinwoo directly, then we strike him indirectly."
"Indirectly, sir?"
"First things first — how did the job I ordered go?"
"Ah, you mean Oh Jimyeong and Park Hoseop. Contact has been made. We haven't received their answers yet, but I'd say the outcome looks quite promising."
Of late, the gangs had been courting two rankers.
Rank 9, Oh Jimyeong. Rank 10, Park Hoseop.
Both had washed out of the selection matches, and both had recently aired a bellyful of grievances against Headquarters — the gangs had aimed squarely at that crack!
"Then we wait on those results first. One week from now, we meet here again."
"Yes, sir! At your command, Lord Jihak."
The underling bowed his head in deference.
Jo Jihak didn't spare him so much as a glance.
He simply swept his eyes over the abandoned building one last time — and then, with a soft swish, he was gone.