The Profit-Driven Tyrant
Turning back time to the early days of the season.
― When it comes to guilds, I fall short of Lee Shin.
That was the day Lee Myeong-hwan fully acknowledged his own shortcomings. The moment he smashed every single treasured liquor bottle he had been cherishing, everything about him changed completely.
It began with moving his belongings from a luxurious hotel suite to the guild representative’s office.
From flashy designer clothes to plain shirts and slacks.
From contact lenses to glasses, from dress shoes to sneakers, from long flowing hair to a slick pomade style.
At first glance, his entire outward appearance had flipped one hundred and eighty degrees from his previous image. Even the front desk staff who saw him every day were so shocked by the transformation that they nearly asked, “Who are you?”
However.
His longtime lover and partner, Jeong Su-mi, actually found the new look more familiar.
Because this was the real Lee Myeong-hwan.
He was the one who had instantly pushed aside Ryu Jae-seok—who was three or four years older and had drawn all the attention—and claimed every bit of the Lee Do family’s spotlight for himself.
Gossipers liked to say it was only natural because of Ryu Jae-seok’s inherent limitation of carrying the “Ryu” surname.
Nonsense. That was what people who didn’t understand the Lee Do family would say.
In the iron-blooded empire built by Lee Sang-byuk—the man said to have neither blood nor tears—could someone really rise in status just because of a single character in their name?
The Lee Do family judged by skill and spoke only through results.
That was the kind of empire it was.
This was more than proven by the title “Treasure of the Lee Do Family” that Lee Myeong-hwan had earned inside this den of demons.
No matter how much of a good-for-nothing someone was, they couldn’t obtain that title without real ability. When you considered that before taking over the guild, the only title left for Lee Shin had been “the world’s greatest degenerate,” it made the point even clearer.
All guild staff have gathered.
“Everyone here? Then I’ll speak. I admit that I looked down on this guild scene. No, on this entire industry. I confess my arrogance in thinking that throwing money around would make everything move. Therefore.”
He didn’t trust people. He looked at money. He wasn’t swayed by emotion. He only moved according to numbers.
Lee Myeong-hwan no longer got angry. He didn’t get excited, nor did he reprimand his subordinates for incompetence.
He simply.
Fired them.
Emotions lead to mistakes. Numbers don’t lie.
To Lee Myeong-hwan now, these people were nothing but numbers. A collection of figures.
That was why he could cut anyone for incompetence—even if it was the president’s son. Conversely, if someone was competent, he could offer them hundreds of millions in annual salary even if they were a one-legged gorilla.
In this process, there was absolutely no sanctuary.
If there was one, it was only profit.
From the front desk staff to the executives who had built the guild, and finally even the main starting hunters.
Before anyone realized it, half the guild had been carved out and replaced with talented individuals Lee Myeong-hwan had personally evaluated using nothing but cold numbers.
When you thought about what Lee Shin’s first action had been upon arriving at Mir Guild, the approach was eerily similar.
Having finished all preparations, Lee Myeong-hwan rose from his seat.
In the end, the core of any guild was its hunters.
That was his declaration.
He was officially reaching out to raiding parties.
He had been far too lenient until now. After all, he used to think of them as nothing more than a corner store.
But Lee Myeong-hwan had clearly referred to it as an “industry.”
To him now, a guild was a corporation, and a raiding party was no different from field employees. If their work performance (stats) was poor, of course they should be cut. Right?
Once again, to the ultimate profit-driven monster Lee Myeong-hwan had become, there was no sanctuary. While he was reorganizing the raiding parties, he received some interesting news…
This wasn’t just empty acknowledgment.
After recognizing Lee Shin, Lee Myeong-hwan had observed his every move and made an effort to understand him.
As a result, during the chaotic early season flooded with unprecedented FA listings, when everyone else was only paying attention to Lee Shin’s movements, Lee Myeong-hwan had caught the foul, fishy stench wafting through the market—the exact moment Lee Shin was trying to inflate the “bubble.”
Soon after, Lee Myeong-hwan showed Jeong Su-mi exactly why she rated him so highly.
His strength in crisis, and his colder-than-anyone demeanor.
After closing his eyes for a moment and reopening them, Lee Myeong-hwan spoke with certainty.
To cut straight to the conclusion, Lee Myeong-hwan recruited the “Wooden Elf”—the very first prospect Lee Shin had contacted—and shoved every guild in League 2 straight into “bubble hell.”
A strategy of giving flesh to take bone, perhaps? Although there was some bleeding from selling the Wooden Elf at a discount, because he bought and sold it at the very beginning of the season, it ended up being a profitable trade.
Results, after all, are relative.
When he took a scratch, the other guilds were having their guts torn to pieces.
But if he simply continued to parasitize off Lee Shin’s board, it would ultimately mean he could never defeat Lee Shin.
Lee Myeong-hwan didn’t want that.
He wanted to win. He wanted to stomp on that bastard Lee Shin’s face no matter what it took.
Therefore, Lee Myeong-hwan had to take one more step forward.
In order to defeat that degenerate bastard…
* * *
Baekgeom Guild.
“Just a moment. Hold on.”
The man with his head deeply bowed, rubbing his dry face, was none other than Baekgeom Guild’s representative, Jang Yo-han.
Jang Yo-han glanced up furtively at the man sitting across from him, let out a hollow laugh, then lowered his head again and let out a deep sigh.
“Hoo… damn it……”
The rumor that Jang Yo-han and the Sword Master’s relationship had gone sour was true.
A front office employee who had been close to him had embezzled guild funds, and in the end, Jang Yo-han had no choice but to fire that employee.
Normally, considering both sides’ reputations, he should have quietly buried the matter… but the amount was simply too large. Sixty billion? Was that even human?
The crime was so severe that there was no other option.
A guild was still a kind of corporation. There was no way investors would smile and say, “Oh, an employee went ‘shoop~’ with our money? No big deal, hehe.”
Besides, wouldn’t the other employees naturally think, “Wow, even after doing that he doesn’t get fired? Does that mean I’m the idiot for working hard?”
For the sake of guild discipline and the morale of the other staff, he had no choice but to let the man go.
Yet the Sword Master had flown into a rage over the fact that his close friend had been fired without a single word of discussion with him.
Without knowing how Jang Yo-han felt inside.
“Hoo……”
Perhaps the weight of reality was too much; Jang Yo-han’s face seemed to age in real time.
He still couldn’t understand.
What exactly had he done wrong? What had he done so terribly that he was now being toyed with by a mere second-division guild representative?
That’s right.
The man sitting in front of Jang Yo-han right now was Lee Myeong-hwan.
Completely opposite to Jang Yo-han, he sat with his legs crossed, wearing the smile of a victor.
Jang Yo-han had done nothing wrong.
Where in the world was there a representative who wouldn’t fire an employee who had embezzled sixty billion?
However, from Lee Myeong-hwan’s perspective, it had been foolish.
If the goal was to maintain corporate discipline, there had been plenty of more elegant ways to handle it.
Even Lee Myeong-hwan could come up with several methods off the top of his head.
But because Baekgeom Guild’s representative came from a front office background, his “political” handling of matters lacked finesse.
“……!!”
As long as they’re alive, that is.
At Lee Myeong-hwan’s bright smile, Jang Yo-han, who had been rubbing his face, turned his head at an angle and looked up.
At Lee Myeong-hwan’s gesture, Jeong Su-mi, who had been standing behind him, placed an elegant wooden box made of rosewood on the table.
Then she slightly lifted the lid.
What emerged was a long object radiating a multicolored glow.
◈ The legendary blade with a devouring instinct
◈ Desired by the Sword Master above all else
Well, it wasn’t important, so they moved on.
“God damn it……”
He was right.
There was currently no way to change the Sword Master’s mind other than that sword. That was why he had squeezed out time during the hectic season to fly to Japan.
He had lost the auction and failed to obtain it.
“Hoo……”
Thinking about the real deal that was about to be presented, he knew he should refuse, but the words wouldn’t leave his mouth. He was that cornered—both as a representative and as a man.
In the end, Jang Yo-han bowed his head.
The two profiles he slid forward belonged to the 20th-ranked Fighter and the 16th-ranked Hwarang.
Bang—!!
The table split in half from the force of his slammed hand. In his agitation, mana had burst out unconsciously.
A startled Jang Yo-han tried to apologize, but Lee Myeong-hwan didn’t even blink at the violent scene.
At Lee Myeong-hwan’s gesture, Jeong Su-mi handed over a photograph.
Lee Myeong-hwan stabbed it vertically into the broken table.
“I am certain that the Baekgeom Guild representative will accept my deal.”
“!!”
Jang Yo-han froze while holding the photo.
In it was the Sword Master. Standing together with someone he absolutely never wanted to see.
The more he spoke, the more Jang Yo-han’s head spun. Every single sentence pierced straight into his lungs.
Where on earth had he gotten all this information? More importantly, losing a core hunter to a derby rival guild? Forget the hunters’ complaints—the representative’s head would roll for sure.
Regardless of combat power, Joanna Lee would accept the deal even if it was just to screw over Jang Yo-han. No one knew that better than Jang Yo-han, who had been growling at her for twenty years.
He had to press hard on his forehead to endure the headache.
Only then did Lee Myeong-hwan relax his posture, pick up the profiles that had fallen to the floor, and hold them out.
“……”
A brief silence flowed between the two men.
It was over.
Lee Myeong-hwan smiled faintly and handed over the fountain pen from his pocket.
After all the transfer contracts had been signed a short while later, as Lee Myeong-hwan turned to leave, Jang Yo-han spoke.
Lee Myeong-hwan turned around and smiled.