The Spring Camp from Hell
Mir Guild’s spring camp—written as 'spring camp,' read as 'hell'—had officially begun.
6 a.m. wake-up call.
The raid team, beaten senseless the night before, woke up perfectly fine.
“My arm…… is still attached…… right?”
“Damn it, it’s fine.”
“Ah, I had a nightmare. Getting knocked out by a shield……”
“That wasn’t a nightmare. Today it’s wooden clubs. Heh heh.”
Relieved that their limbs were back in place, the raid team was also deeply depressed. They had to go through that hell again today. They flinched at the sight of trees now and broke into cold sweats at the mere mention of shields.
Before long, glaring at the healer team with eyes full of curses had become part of their daily routine.
6:30 a.m. Breakfast.
They had to eat with mouths that felt like sandpaper.
Yesterday’s excuses—arms crushed, fingers severed, legs bent into right angles—no longer worked.
They had no choice but to eat. After all, the breakfast had been prepared by none other than Representative Lee Shin.
“Grab your trays and come get it!”
“……”
“Good, good. You all look in great condition.”
“……My hand was cut off yesterday.”
“No wonder your shoulders looked so pumped. Rain makes the ground firm, after all.”
“……”
“Come on, everyone smile. You don’t smile because you’re happy—you’re happy because you smile. Eat up. Anyone short on the stir-fried pork? Why’s everyone so weak? Core up! Core up!! Shout it out with spirit~! Aja! Aja!”
Rain makes the ground firm? Want me to check if it’s firm by asking you once? And happiness? Smiling? Let’s see if you can still smile after your limbs get bent. Come here.
—They only thought it. If it weren’t Lee Shin, they would’ve beaten him senseless right then and there. But he was the representative……
They didn’t get it.
Why the representative followed them all the way into the gate just to cook breakfast.
They really didn’t get it.
Why he put on an apron fashion show every morning.
No, they didn’t get anything. Nothing made sense. And they didn’t want it to.
7:30 a.m. Hunting time.
……Time didn’t stop just because they didn’t understand.
They continued their ultra-high-intensity raids until evening.
“Hey, fix the line.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, hold aggro properly.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, pass me an energy bar.”
“Here?”
“That last hit was good.”
“Your tanking was solid too.”
The raid team that used to raise their voices just days ago was gone. With hell waiting right around the corner, fighting among themselves was pointless. Conflict had lost all meaning.
With half their souls already departed, they formed up and gripped their weapons. Then they moved like machines.
Lee Shin’s “get hit while you adjust” method had finally borne fruit. They were becoming raid-clearing machines.
6 p.m. Dinner time.
The condemned prisoner’s last meal.
Their stomachs already felt off. But skipping the meal wasn’t an option. The reason was the same as breakfast.
“Alright, tonight’s menu is abalone porridge packed with ‘good stuff’ for the body!! Don’t worry about throwing up~. I even added a digestion aid so you won’t vomit, heh heh. Dig in. Eat up and then get hit…… Ah! This mouth of mine just can’t behave. Haha!”
……There had been a line that could’ve sparked anger, but no one got mad. Silently, they all thought about the hell ahead and ate their abalone porridge.
He said he’d packed it with good stuff, and sure enough, they felt energized. Then the thought of getting hit again made them depressed just as quickly. And why did it have to taste so unnecessarily good?
Finally, the time had come.
Time marched on mercilessly. Even a 9th-class archmage couldn’t stop it.
Eventually, that hour arrived.
7 p.m.
“Aaaaaaaaagh!!”
“My leeeeg!!”
“Moooom!!”
And so they passed out.
The next day, the raid team woke up staring at the same ceiling.
“……I’m awake.”
“This time it was my leg.”
“I had a nightmare.”
Once again, they followed their routine and glared resentfully at the healer team.
But they didn’t know.
While they suffered through that hell, the other side wasn’t having it easy either.
“Damn it! You think I’m having an easy time?!”
“!!”
“Guys, stop the Princess!”
“Hey! Because of you all, I can’t even sleep at night, and I’m doing things I’ve never done in my entire life!!”
“Whoa, Princess!!”
“Alright, our Princess is getting excited.”
“Grr! Stop calling me Princess!!”
Unable to hold back any longer, Seo Ye-na—the healer team’s youngest member, their icon, and their Princess—threw a towel and started pointing fingers. The older healers promptly lifted her up and carried her outside.
That’s right.
If some trained while others slacked off, that was discrimination.
Lee Shin hated discrimination.
Teams had to be equal. Weren’t healers part of the same team?
Just as the saying went—if there were no teeth, there were gums. If the raid team was grinding their bones to dust, the healer team had to put in equivalent effort.
For example……
“Ughhhhhh!!”
“Come on! Just three more! Three more!”
“Aaaaaagh! That damn ‘three more’!! Why! Won’t! It! End!!”
“If your form is wrong, it doesn’t count! Muscles don’t lie! Up! Up! Up!”
“Aaaaaagh, seriously──!”
Muscle, muscle, muscle……
* * *
At first, it had seemed fine.
Or rather, they thought they’d be doing normal work and then get beaten.
Just as tanks tanked, dealers dealt damage, and supporters supported, what was normal work for healers? Healing. Treating injuries.
In that sense, Seo Ye-na and the rest of the healer team had finally received proper work.
“Aaaaaagh!!”
“Moooom!!”
“My leg, my leg.”
The field hospital that opened every evening. The screams of their comrades sprawled out like rags seemed to say:
Time for the heroes to earn their keep.
Though they felt sorry for their twisted-limbed teammates, the healer team was secretly relieved.
After all, they’d been wondering why so many healers had been recruited. Having an entire team of healers—when most guilds only had two or three—was bewildering. With so many people, they’d felt like they were just idling around, restless and anxious……
Then, finally, a reason appeared. So this was why! They’d brought them along just to beat people up!
Of course, since the real battles happened in the evening, the healer team had to flip their days and nights to patch up the raid team’s self-inflicted injuries and get them back on the field the next day.
But even if it meant working harder, it was far better than floating in anxiety without knowing their purpose.
Seo Ye-na, the healer team’s youngest, icon, and Princess, had thought so.
That is, until she saw that horrific sight.
“……Hong-seok oppa, what…… what are these?”
“Huh? You don’t know these, Princess?”
“Guys, the Princess doesn’t know!”
“These are precious for newbies.”
Normally she would’ve snapped at being called Princess, but Seo Ye-na couldn’t. She was frozen by the bizarre tools and equipment in front of her.
“Princess, this is a barbell, and this is a dumbbell.”
“This is a weight plate.”
“This space here is a rack.”
“This is a leg press—great for lower body……”
“I know! I’ve seen them at the training ground!!”
That’s right.
They were gym equipment.
Those lumps of iron that made you sweat just looking at them.
Seo Ye-na wasn’t curious about what they were. She had a more fundamental question.
“So…… why are those gym machines in a gate, right next to our healer team’s quarters?!”
“Ah, Ye-na-ssi. I’ll explain that.”
“……?!”
At that moment, Representative Lee Shin arrived like the wind.
He dragged over a whiteboard from the side, put on his spinning glasses, and spoke.
To put it bluntly, they should’ve gagged Lee Shin’s mouth by any means necessary at that moment.
Because of that cursed mouth, Seo Ye-na’s fate had changed.
“From now on, we will open a new horizon for healers.”
A position that restored allies’ stamina and treated injuries, greatly affecting loss rates. An indispensable noble in high-level gate raids.
But from another perspective, that meant healers weren’t really needed in low-level gates.
Because.
“Ultimately, the parts that score the most points in league raids are ‘clear speed’ and ‘monster kills.’ Objectively speaking, healers have nothing to do with either.”
It was more efficient to put a dealer in that spot and stock up on potions. That was the current trend.
So these days, many healers learned offensive magic or buffs instead. Some of them had done so as well.
But Lee Shin claimed there was a far more efficient method.
“In the end, the keywords that define healers are stamina and healing. So what does raising damage mean? Equipping a new weapon. In other words, creating something from nothing. That’s extremely inefficient.”
“Supporters have some correlation, at least. But even that, when you think about it, is just equipping a new weapon—it’s not connected to the healer keywords.”
Lee Shin insisted they look at it more fundamentally.
Stamina and healing.
Where could these two symbols of healers achieve maximum efficiency?
Here, Lee Shin wrote the number “1” on the whiteboard.
“Frontline tank. The future of healers lies here.”
The position where stamina mattered most, and the position that received the most healing.
Tanks.
“Approximately 70% of all metrics related to stamina, injuries, and loss rates occur right here, where the frontline tanks are. This aligns perfectly with the fact that healers’ primary targets are ultimately tanks.”
Therefore.
“If they can stand in the same position as them, wouldn’t they be able to extract maximum efficiency?”
The so-called frontline healer.
A healer who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with tanks.
A resilient healer who fought monsters alongside them and matched their lines!
How? With the equipment right in front of them.
“Shall we open a new horizon for healers together?”
Clap clap clap—!
The healer team men gave thunderous applause. For some reason, their eyes were also red.
Seo Ye-na clapped along at the time too. She didn’t understand what he was saying, but Lee Shin’s words somehow sounded impressive.
And so she missed her last chance.
“Seo Ye-na-ssi, over here.”
“Yes?”
“This is the ‘dream,’ and this is the ‘future.’”
Lee Shin casually called the barbell the “dream” and the dumbbell the “future.”
Then he told her to go. Go and seize the dream and the future, he said.
That was when it began.
“Nngh!!”
“One more!”
“Nnghhh!”
“Just one more!!”
“Damn it!! When does this end!”
“Princess! Just one more!”
“Aaaagh!!”
After healing all night with their mana holes completely drained, the healer team began strength training they’d never done in their lives. Naturally, Seo Ye-na—the team’s youngest, icon, and Princess—was included.
Just like that, they were becoming excellent gym rats.
All according to this man’s plan.
·
·
“Perfect.”
Lee Shin stood atop the hill, looking between both sides with a smile. On his left, the raid team was raiding. On his right, the healer team was letting out thick screams.
The raid team grinding their bones in real combat. The healer team grinding their muscles with iron.
And the “meals” supporting them both.
Honor: Representative Who Serves Meals Well (30 Days)
Serve meals to the hunters with love and care. Those dishes will strengthen the hunters’ bodies and minds. Do not let this time slip away. Today’s day could change the hunters’ future.
(Days Remaining: 14)
It was one of the rewards obtained after choosing 【Enhancement】 as the promotion reward for League 1. It was his first time seeing an “Honor,” but Lee Shin wasn’t flustered.
After all, this was also his first time choosing a reward, so he simply thought of it as similar to the “growth packages” he used to sell for cash.
Honestly, it didn’t matter. This was just a bonus. The main reward from 【Enhancement】 was something else entirely.
“With this, the raid team’s growth is on track.”
Lee Shin’s gaze turned skyward.
There stood Kim Jong-phil, raising his voice toward the raid team.
“If you want to play with our elder for a long, long time, we need to find ‘that place’ quickly.”
He looked at his radio and prayed.
Find it soon. Hurry.
* * *
North Korea, a gate danger zone.
A forest so dense it blocked out sunlight. Vines and grass grew thick enough to make one’s skin crawl. Through it all came thick curses and a Busan dialect.
“The brat, the items, and now even the gates—I have to find those too?! Damn it!! Hey, you’re sure this is the way, right?!”
“……This way. Correct. This is the last one.”
“Or we die?”
“Dying is. You.”
“This bastard.”
“Just shut up already. You’re giving me a headache.”
The former Russian gang, now the current trio, pushed through the forest.
They cut through the grass with their transformed claws and finally arrived at the marked point.
“Confirm.”
“Boss, this seems to be the right place.”
“……”
Jang Antonton, the head of Brothers Outsourcing, silently compared the memo’s contents with their surroundings.
— The point is around here.
The spot he pointed to matched.
— The forest is so dense it’s hard for people to approach. It’ll be well hidden.
The forest they’d grown sick of seeing on the way here proved that.
— And this is the most important part.
“……There will be gates. And a lot of them. Packed tightly in a narrow area.”
At that moment, the scene unfolded before Jang Antonton’s eyes.
Over a dozen gates were simultaneously emitting blue light. Packed so close together it was dangerous.
They’d found it.
Now all that remained was confirmation.
He stood before the largest gate.
“I’ll be back.”
Jang Antonton put a cigar in his mouth and stepped into the gate.