You Are Tools
“You are tools.”
Tool. An implement used to get work done.
The moment that rude descriptor—wholly inappropriate for self-aware humans—left Lee Shin’s mouth, time and space froze over.
“O…… my lord.”
Guild Leader Jeong Sun-dong’s jaw dropped to the floor.
“……Kill him…… Let’s just kill him……”
Chae Dong-ha’s fists trembled with murderous intent.
The front-desk staff rolled their eyes in every direction. Is this even salvageable……? They glanced nervously at the hunters, moving like broken toys.
The hunters gathered there were even more stunned.
They had arrived tense, braced for the infamous troublemaker’s reputation. Lee Shin’s striking looks had almost eased that tension—only for his very first words to land like a straight punch to the gut.
Shock. Indignation. Rage.
One greeting had thrown the entire room into chaos.
Unfortunately, Lee Shin showed no sign of stopping there.
If this already surprises you, you’re in for a long day. We haven’t even started.
“Let’s rewind time. In the early days of guilds, raids were brutally simple. Front line holds, back line attacks. Retreat when it’s dangerous, push when there’s an opening.”
“Even my Charles could understand that. Ah, for reference, Charles is a dog. A five-year-old retriever.”
Strategies once simple enough for Charles the dog had grown more complex over time.
More multifaceted.
“Adjust the line to minimize casualties. Pursue efficiency to increase damage output.”
“Experts drone on about technological advancement, deeper understanding of mana, evolutionary perspectives, blah blah. Let’s skip the complicated stuff. What I want to emphasize is this.”
Position.
“In a raid, a position refers to the specific role, responsibilities, and optimized behavior required at a given spot.”
“As raids diversified, positions naturally subdivided. Hunters were expected to fulfill more and more roles.”
Lines once divided into front and back became first, second, and third lines. Tanks no longer just blocked—they attacked. Ranged dealers added utility to their basic damage. Even healers, once treated like nobility, were now learning offensive magic.
“So what does that tell us?”
Diversity.
Multi.
“This is the current trend in modern raiding!!”
Lee Shin thrust his hand upward like Archimedes shouting “Eureka!” from his bathtub. The reaction was ice cold.
“……”
“……”
So what?
Whether raids had diversified or positions had subdivided, none of that was what the hunters wanted to hear.
“So? What does any of that have to do with us being tools?”
“We have other things we’d like to discuss……”
“Exactly that!!”
Lee Shin pointed straight at the problem.
“The fact that even after I explained it this kindly, you still can’t grasp the context at all. That hopeless intelligence! That lack of comprehension! That is why you are tools.”
“……!!”
Modern raids demanded hunters who could handle diverse rules—multi-purpose resources. And those resources required certain virtues above all else.
High comprehension. Quick judgment. Intelligence.
In short, you had to be smart.
But the people gathered here—the ones Lee Shin had personally selected—were not.
• Intelligence 34, Wisdom 41
• Intelligence 28, Wisdom 29
• Intelligence 39, Wisdom 30
They couldn’t think. They couldn’t multi-task. They couldn’t judge.
“One-trick characters who go completely against modern raiding. Good only at following orders, incapable of any creative play beyond what they’re told.”
Passive characters whose input and output were entirely predictable.
“I decided to call that a tool.”
That was why Lee Shin had labeled them tools.
Whether they agreed was another matter.
“What the hell kind of bullshit is that?! You think being the guild leader gives you the right?!”
“This is offensive. I’m taking this public.”
“You really are a lunatic. Is that how you talk to guildmates who are supposed to eat from the same pot?”
Being called tools was humiliating enough, but now they were being told they were stupid? That they couldn’t judge situations? They were nationally recognized hunters—they had at least some pride. Voices rose as they protested.
But the man standing before them was Lee Shin.
“Now, now. Quiet. Tools don’t talk back.”
He wasn’t the type to care about complaints from people who couldn’t even assess their own level.
“You all have clear limits. The moment you start using that thing called a brain on your shoulders, you fall apart.”
If he expected them to be multi-talented or versatile, they would break. They would malfunction. So if he wanted to use them properly, he had to keep things as simple as possible.
“Simply…… Never mind.”
Explaining anything to people who broke the moment they started thinking was pointless. It would only tire his mouth.
“I’ll just show you.”
Don’t think. Don’t doubt.
With the brain I installed, in the direction I set.
Just shut up and do as you’re told.
“Then you’ll naturally come to understand.”
That the moment you shine brightest…… is when you are tools.
Mir Guild Representative’s Office.
“Hahaha! A masterpiece. An absolute masterpiece!”
Kim Jong-phil roared with laughter.
“Calling them tools on the very first meeting. I’ve met plenty of people in my time, but never someone as ruthless as you.”
Lee Shin savored the aroma of his coffee, answering casually.
“Well, I didn’t say anything untrue. The truth is often harsh.”
“Listen, young man. There’s such a thing as basic human courtesy.”
“Courtesy, in my opinion, is teaching them reality in the most straightforward way possible. That’s the real respect I can show them.”
Who had led their recruitment?
Lee Shin himself.
Characters whose software was catastrophically inferior to their hardware. People who had eaten the “stupid-stupid fruit,” where even their one advantage—their physical potential—would be eaten away the moment they tried to handle modern raid rules.
“Those kinds of kids are the most ambiguous. Looking at their physical potential alone, they’re clearly not at a level to be playing here. But because their heads keep getting in the way at every turn, they end up going crazy from their own perspective.”
“Hoho, why is that?”
“Because it feels like they’re almost there. Have you ever been to Noryangjin?”
“Noryangjin? Isn’t that the place full of cram schools?”
“You know it. If you go there, you’ll see long-term students who’ve been studying for years, dragging their worn-out slippers around.”
Kids who were just one step short. Students who felt that if they stretched just a little farther they could reach acceptance, so they never left Noryangjin.
“That’s what these kids are like. Intelligence isn’t something that shows on the outside unless the person themselves acknowledges it, right? They tell themselves, ‘If I try harder, I can do it. If I work even harder, I’ll make it.’ Torturing themselves with false hope while staying stuck at the bottom of this guild.”
They didn’t know it yet, but more than half of them would end up bouncing between lower leagues, eventually becoming freelance hunters doing “slapdash raids” just to make ends meet, before retiring without anyone noticing.
───That was the fate awaiting them in a few years.
“In a way, they’re pitiful. They were born in the wrong era. If they’d been born a hundred years earlier, they would’ve been quite something. Back in the days written about in setting books, when humanity’s future was supposedly at stake. If you only look at pure ‘hunting,’ they’re actually pretty decent.”
“Meaning they’re not talents suited for the league.”
“Because it’s a league where scores are given and rankings are decided. Optimized movement routes, increasingly complex strategies and tactics. Coldly speaking, they’re not the kind of hunters the modern league wants.”
“Interesting. So you’re certain they’ll retire within a few years?”
“It’s not certainty. It’s the only truth.”
“Hoho. Remarkable. To be so sure of someone else’s future. As if you already know what lies ahead for them……”
Kim Jong-phil rested his chin on his hand and stared straight at Lee Shin.
What a strange fellow. His eyes were so clear it was almost unsettling. Just how far did those eyes see?
He tried to peer deeper, wondering if he might glimpse something, but once again Kim Jong-phil gave up trying to read his enigmatic young partner.
“So all of this—recruiting those ‘tools’ included—is ultimately to make me the ‘protagonist’?”
“That’s right. The protagonist.”
Crunch.
Lee Shin chewed through an ice cube with gusto and walked over to the bookshelf as he continued.
“I’ve said it before, but you’ve never once been the protagonist, sir. Do you remember why I said you could never become one?”
“Because of Jang-dong and Jeong-do.”
“Correct. The Fighting King and the Ten Thousand King. Whatever the reason, you had the spotlight stolen by those two.”
“Hmm. Saying it was stolen is one way to put it, but at the time, that was the most ideal arrangement. Putting those two friends in front.”
“You don’t need to explain it to me. I understand it completely. One hundred percent.”
The Fighting King Ma Jang-dong was an SSS-rank, a super-ultra-king-god-emperor-level gorilla. Not using him would have made any commander unqualified.
The problem was the Ten Thousand King. Lee Shin disliked the man, but he acknowledged his abilities more than anyone.
Why?
Because he had dealt with him extensively.
“Honestly, there aren’t many ‘perfect’ tools like the Ten Thousand King anywhere in the world.”
“Hoho. Quite a generous assessment, considering you once said he couldn’t even control his own bladder and bowels.”
“When it’s professional, I have to give credit where it’s due. The reason you personally made the Ten Thousand King shine was probably because he was such a perfect tool. When you use him, you get reliable results. What commander would give that up?”
“Hahaha. You’ve got a talent for command yourself.”
Lee Shin’s words had struck the core.
There was a clear difference between the Fighting King shining under Mountain King Kim Jong-phil’s system and the Ten Thousand King shining under it.
The Fighting King drew attention like a black hole with his monstrous physique in any situation, while the Ten Thousand King received attention because he was the most reliable key card Kim Jong-phil could play.
If the Fighting King shone on his own, then the Ten Thousand King shone in the Mountain King’s hands—that was the accurate description.
“Realistically, I can’t provide you with an all-purpose tool like the Ten Thousand King right now.”
“Hoho. The way you emphasized ‘right now’ makes it sound like you’re confident you can later.”
“Of course I am. There are plenty of far more impressive tools that make an old Ten Thousand King look like nothing.”
Anyway, that was why.
Lee Shin returned from the bookshelf with a stack of documents.
“So I prepared the best tools I could realistically use—at least up to the intermediate level.”
He held out the file.
Kim Jong-phil smiled as he took it, asking “What’s this?” The moment he checked the documents, his smile vanished—the same smile that had never left his face since entering the room.
“This is……”
“An instruction manual.”
It went without saying that this world was not a game.
There was no way to check one’s given talents like “stats” or “traits.”
Aside from the “awakening process” that granted awareness the moment one awakened, there was very little information available.
That was why Awakener training always included a process for objectively understanding one’s own talents, and why every guild poured effort into quantifying and databasing that information.
Even so, if someone asked whether all that effort could perfectly reveal a person’s strengths, weaknesses, stats, and traits from one to ten……
No. It was absolutely impossible.
Because people weren’t machines, errors were inevitable.
However.
Even so.
In this world, there was only one person who could answer that question with a “Yes.”
Lee Shin.
This very man.
Current abilities, potential abilities, stats, traits—everything.
Only Lee Shin could see the rules, limits, and abilities this world had set at a single glance.
Through a single “status window.”
The documents Kim Jong-phil held were Lee Shin’s “status windows”—in other words, documents transcribing the status windows of the newly recruited hunters.
“Low intelligence. They can’t even dream of multi-tasking and struggle with active judgment during operations—it’s terrible. But the person who led their recruitment was me.”
“If they were truly beyond saving, would I have gifted them to you, sir?”
No.
The people Lee Shin had gathered definitely had potential.
Potential great enough to overcome their own hopeless brains.
“So? Do you like my gift?”
·
·
Time passed.
Finally, the day of Mir Guild’s first raid arrived.
Minimum member requirement has been met.
‘Manager Status Window’ is currently disabled.
‘Growth Management Window’ is currently disabled.
Complete your first league match.