The Genius Representative
The phrase Genius Representative had become a title attached to Lee Shin ever since Mir Guild began writing its legends. If someone asked whether the Yongbung fans had created it, the surprising answer was no.
To the Yongbung fans, Lee Shin was religion. He was a god. How dare mere mortals apply human standards to such a divine being? Utterly disrespectful.
That was the stance of the fans drunk on Yongbung power. To the vast majority of regular viewers and the general public, however, “Genius Representative” had simply become a meme.
To the average person, Lee Shin was known as the guy who handled controversies well, someone unpredictable whose streams were always entertaining. That was the extent of his image.
If you added the recruitment of the Mountain King, and a little more, he was seen as the lucky representative who had obtained the monsters Park Su-bin and Yu Ri-ra.
This was exactly why Lee Shin’s broadcast before the match had drawn so much criticism.
Nobody expected him to show any kind of magical theory insight or strategist-like qualities, yet here he was going full throttle, babbling about awakening probabilities and strategies.
The strategic insight part especially received a brutal amount of hate.
Here are some of the most memorable comments:
In truth, this wasn’t solely Lee Shin’s problem.
Historically, it was rare for a representative to interfere with a raid team’s operation and strategy and produce good results.
The raid team belonged to the hunters’ domain, while the front office belonged to the business domain. The representative’s role was to harmonize the two and take responsibility for both.
Yet the moment a guild did well, the representative would suddenly act like he was Zhuge Liang, pretending to be a strategist and spouting nonsense about “fifteen minutes” or whatever. How ridiculous.
Even the Yongbung fans, Lee Shin’s die-hard supporters, felt the same way about this particular issue.
Whether they supported Lee Shin or not, everyone had their doubts.
But once the match began, everyone’s reaction was:
Lee Hye-jung’s tearful struggle, the teamwork, the sharp operation.
No, setting all that aside.
Everything Lee Shin had said came true. And they won.
That was the only result that mattered.
Fine. Let’s say it happened once. People can make mistakes.
Honestly, Set 1 was pretty much a cheese strategy, right? Agreed? Yep!
Everyone dismissed it as a fluke and waited for the next set, but…
─ “Again! It’s happening again!! Bi-yeon’s Seven Star Sword is only destroying empty jungle, and Lee Hye-jung is missing it!”
─ “Ah! Did they not learn enough from Set 1?! Lee Hye-jung was told not to follow them!!”
─ “Ah!! Again!! Baeksa Guild is helplessly losing the objective in the exact same pattern!!”
Again! Again!! Again!!!
No skirmish within 15 minutes.
One major objective within 15 minutes.
This ridiculously simple strategy, which could be described in less than twenty characters, was landing perfectly once more without a single deviation.
Once can be a mistake. Twice is skill.
The funny thing was that this principle now applied to Lee Shin—the very person everyone had been cursing.
The first time could be dismissed as a surprise strategy or sheer luck, but when it happened a second time, perfectly on target, the raw criticism suddenly vanished.
Right on cue, the Yongbung fans rushed in with pinpoint support fire.
Little by little.
Just a tiny bit at a time.
The atmosphere in the chat was shifting, slowly but unmistakably.
And so, once again, Mir Guild maintained a 30-minute kill score of 0:0 through truly astonishing operation.
The similarity to the previous games might have created immense pressure. It could have been Bi-yeon’s impatience, realizing they couldn’t continue like this. Or perhaps both.
What mattered was that Bi-yeon and Baeksa Guild eventually couldn’t hold back and pressed the happiness button first.
─ “Baeksa Guild is hovering in front of the Hydra. Are they going for it?! Are they seriously going for it?!”
─ “They’re going! Baeksa Guild is attacking the Hydra!!”
─ “A-an extremely bold move! If they secure the buff here, they could flip the game, but if they fail, there’s no coming back!”
─ “It already looks too late to turn back! They have to go for it, win or lose!!”
It was a gamble made on such flimsy grounds that even the casters and commentators were flustered. If Mir Guild could be shaken by such a reckless move, their number one ranking all this time would have been meaningless.
Of course not.
─ “Lee Hye-jung’s smoke screen spreads across the battlefield as Park Jeong-seok and Park Su-bin charge in and shatter their formation.”
─ “Right side, left side! They’re forcibly ripping apart the enemy’s defensive line!”
─ “The Mountain King seizes the river and slams down! Wide-area CC detonates! All vision is paralyzed for a moment!!”
─ “He’s coming! That man is here!”
─ “Yu Ri-ra! She kicks off the sky and becomes a white flash!”
They had achieved the “no skirmish within 15 minutes” that everyone had laughed at by sacrificing Lee Hye-jung alone.
They had also secured the “objective without skirmish” that every expert had spat while declaring impossible, thanks to Park Su-bin’s brute force and the Mountain King’s command.
And when the late game arrived, Yu Ri-ra, who had steadily accumulated kill score, delivered the finishing blow!
It was a level of play that remained incomprehensible even while watching it with your own two eyes.
As if possessed by a ghost, the match had unfolded exactly as Lee Shin predicted in a way that gave everyone goosebumps. In the end, it was Mir Guild who claimed victory.
It was absurd how convinced everyone felt, but a strange belief began to form that the remaining Set 3 would unfold almost identically to Sets 1 and 2, exactly as Lee Shin had prophesied.
The moment the nexus shattered, the flood of curses toward Lee Shin that had filled the chat vanished in an instant.
What took its place was a single question: “What if…?”
* * *
Inside the Chairman’s office at Ido Group.
Lee Sang-byuk was sharing a glass of soju with Yu Cheol-ong for the first time in a while. The side dishes were kimchi from a master chef who had been their regular supplier for sixty years, and the 150-inch TV— their company’s latest model—displayed the second Ido Derby.
─ “Mir Guild! They shut out Baeksa Guild 3:0!!”
─ “Amazing! Incredible! Lee Hye-jung’s tenacity! The guild’s perfect synergy! And most importantly, Lee Shin’s strategist talent! Mir Guild is taking away so much from this victory!!”
Pfft. Lee Sang-byuk couldn’t hide his sneer.
“……Do the commentators have holes for eyes? Strategist talent? To me it just looks like the opponent got too full of themselves and self-destructed. That’s Se-jeong’s family, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tsk tsk.”
It was a disappointing performance. So much so that the two letters “Ido” in Ido Derby felt wasted.
“They’re finished, aren’t they?”
“…….”
“Speak comfortably.”
“Young Master Lee Shin exposed their weaknesses far too clearly. Other guilds will now use this same strategy against Baeksa Guild. They’ll try with the talent pool they already have, and if they don’t have it, they’ll recruit similar hunters.”
“Then there’s nothing more to see.”
Lee Sang-byuk spoke as he rolled up a piece of kimchi and put it in his mouth.
“Add them to the cleanup list.”
“Understood.”
With that single casual remark, Baeksa Guild’s fate was sealed. Giving them two years of chances was already generous.
Chewing loudly on the kimchi, he turned his back on Baeksa Guild.
Now Lee Sang-byuk’s attention shifted to Mir Guild.
“Good grief, calling him a strategist. What exactly are they seeing in that good-for-nothing punk? Heh heh.”
“It was excellent, wasn’t it?”
Yu Cheol-ong filled the glass in front of Lee Sang-byuk and continued.
“It was a perfect counter that completely read the opponent’s tendencies. Rather than broad strategy, it dug into the individual, into the human being itself. It was a strategy very much like Young Master Lee Shin, who has an extraordinary eye for people.”
“Isn’t that a bit too results-oriented?”
“That would be the highest praise. After all, it came from the Chairman’s own mouth.”
“……You know me too well.”
He didn’t think about the process. Only the result.
That was Lee Sang-byuk’s philosophy.
Therefore, calling it results-oriented was, in Lee Sang-byuk’s own way, the highest compliment.
As proof, a smile had unknowingly formed on Lee Sang-byuk’s face. It meant he was quite satisfied. With the result that good-for-nothing had produced.
“I wonder what that kid is up to right now.”
·
·
Bang!
“Do you believe it?!”
Lee Shin, standing on the table, raised his beer mug high and shouted. Every guild member filling the restaurant raised their own mugs in response.
“We believe it!!”
“He really is the Genius Representative!”
“He is!!”
“He proved it, right?!”
“He did!!”
“He pulled off the 103-round undefeated record, right?!”
“He set a new record!!”
They had won today.
They would win tomorrow too.
The next round, and the one after that.
“We will keep winning. Understood?”
At Lee Shin’s question, the guild members stomped their feet hard enough to shake the building and roared.
“Understood!!”
Lee Shin flashed a dazzling smile that could blind anyone and
“Drink up!!”
raised his beer mug.
·
·
21Round
Mir Guild (3) : Baeksa Guild (0)
※ Mir Guild Victory (+3 points)
※ Total Match Time: 2 hours 10 minutes 3 seconds
* * *
Meanwhile, in an office somewhere in Seoul.
Lee Jae-pyo received a phone call from the PD of the morning broadcast.
“Hey, Mr. PD. Say that again. What did you just tell me starting tomorrow?”
─ “I said you don’t need to come to the recording studio starting tomorrow.”
“This is ridiculous. We were recording fine until yesterday, and now you’re suddenly giving me notice like this… Where in the world does this kind of thing happen?”
─ “I’m sorry.”
“Let me hear the reason at least. Why exactly am I being cut? It’s not like I’m doing this for pocket change. You’re not the kind of person who lacks basic courtesy, Mr. PD.”
─ “I’m sorry.”
The tone didn’t sound sorry at all.
It was filled with annoyance and irritation, as if saying, ‘If the old man had any sense, he’d just disappear quietly.’
A moment later, after saying “I’m sorry” five times, the call finally ended. Lee Jae-pyo’s bald head turned red like a boiled octopus from the rising fury.
“That damn brat. After I let him get away with so much, he dares to ignore me!”
Once the excitement subsided, a sense of powerlessness washed over him.
What on earth had happened? Why had he been cut? He collapsed onto the sofa and pondered, and the answer came from somewhere unexpectedly close.
The headline visible on the newspaper sprawled across the office desk.
[Mir Guild Shuts Out Baeksa Guild!]
[“You said I didn’t know strategy?” Lee Shin’s prophecy hits the mark.]
[MVP Lee Hye-jung: “Everything went exactly as Lee Shin intended. I got goosebumps the entire time I was playing.”]
[It’s no longer a meme. The real genius repre……]
Disgusting.
With rage flaring up again, he used his magic power to fling the newspaper away.
“Just because I touched one little brat, this is what happens?”
He had claimed it was due to unavoidable circumstances, but both he and everyone else knew it was the backlash from provoking Lee Shin.
Of course, even now Lee Jae-pyo didn’t think what he had said was slander. It was fair criticism.
“What a rotten world. Broadcasting stations that cut someone just for a little criticism, newspapers making such a fuss over something that just happened to hit the mark by pure coincidence. Korean media is doing just great.”
Honestly, what had that brat even done? It just so happened that the conditions aligned perfectly.
“Don’t skirmish within 15 minutes”? Who didn’t know that the counter to a rushing concept was to avoid fights?
Similarly, “Acquire a major objective within 15 minutes” was as obvious as looking at seawater and saying “That’s salty!”
What could be more important than removing the debuff you got from taking the buff in that canyon……
───This was the self-justification of an old man whose failing memory had been conveniently rewritten by senility.
Just a few days ago he had said things like “Avoiding a fight because you don’t want to fight?” and “It’s so ridiculous I feel embarrassed,” yet now he was rewriting his memory so conveniently… If anyone had seen this, their face would have burned with secondhand embarrassment.
Of course, Lee Jae-pyo didn’t acknowledge that either.
“Hmph. Just wait and see how long that lasts.”
With that, he flopped down and turned on the TV.
[It exploded! A real awakening has exploded!!]
[Person J: “My son awakened using Lee Shin’s Wave Resonance Method!!”]
“??!!”
After that, no one ever saw Lee Jae-pyo on television again.