The Proof of Genius
From the moment the words national team left Lee Shin’s mouth, the three kids of his—his trio—felt their hearts begin to race.
“Uwaaah, my heart’s suddenly pounding so hard. It feels like it’s about to jump out of my mouth. Subin, are you okay?”
“……”
“Subin? Subin??”
“……I think something’s stuck in my stomach. I don’t feel good.”
“Looks like it. Your face is completely pale.”
Yu Ri-ra was stomping her feet in agitation while Park Su-bin clutched his stomach. Meanwhile, Baek Yeon-woo maintained his usual poker face the entire time. The other two gave him a thumbs-up.
“Whoa, look at Yeonu staying so calm. Didn’t expect that from you. You’re a real adult, man. A grown-up!”
“Sorry, Yeonu, but can you pat my back for me?”
But as mentioned earlier, the trio was nervous.
Baek Yeon-woo was simply too embarrassed to show it, but his heart was already in overdrive. It pounded like a piston in an engine with the accelerator floored to the floor, pumping blood so violently that his entire body felt hot.
National team? Me, on the national team…!!
In truth, Baek Yeon-woo’s reaction was perfectly normal.
No matter how much people say the league is a global sport, there are always those who don’t watch it. But even they tune in for national team matches. It’s an opportunity to raise the nation’s prestige and capture the eyes of six billion people around the world.
That’s why the national team uniform is every hunter’s dream—the most honorable position a hunter can ever sit in.
So it would be stranger if he wasn’t shocked.
In fact, the moment Baek Yeon-woo’s mother heard the two syllables “national team,” her legs gave out and she collapsed on the spot.
“Is it true? Really? Our son is on the national team…”
“Mom, are you okay?”
“Ughhh… Oh, I’m sorry, honey. This isn’t the time for this. Let’s eat meat. The most expensive beef. Call Bin’s family too. Mom’s treating everyone.”
“What about the store?”
“Who cares about the store?! Our son made the national team!!”
“R-right…”
He had waited so long for this moment…
He had longed for this day more than anything…
So why did the first person he had to meet have to be that guy, Park Gwang-seob?!
“What are you doing standing out there? Get in.”
Baek Yeon-woo entered the room with a sullen expression.
Park Gwang-seob took one look at his crumpled face and let out a small snort. Then he uttered words that Baek Yeon-woo would never forget for the rest of his life.
“If you’re in, take your clothes off first.”
“……The fuck?”
In the world where Lee Shin had lived in his previous life, there was a saying:
When something strange happens in world history, just point at Britain and you’ll usually be right.
It’s a bit of a stretch, but something similar existed here too.
In the Korean hunter world, if there was ever a rule, it was safe to assume the Mountain King had created it.
Whether it was pairing up national team hunters into teams of two, or the absolute rule that they must eat every single meal together no matter what.
Even the regulations on personal life, or how all training was voluntary yet no one was allowed to question the supervisor’s judgment.
All of it had been established back when the Mountain King was writing the legends of the Three Kings. Even now, long after the national team uniform had changed countless times, those traditions still remained.
And that was exactly what Park Gwang-seob wanted to talk about.
“……One of those traditions is that the highest-ranking veteran takes care of the rookie. Your breathing is all wrong.”
“Hoo…”
“Slower. Imagine pulling oxygen from your big toe all the way up through your navel, along your spine, and to the crown of your head. I already taught you this once. Do I have to teach you again?”
Park Gwang-seob lay on a sunbed, phone in hand, scolding him. Inside the bathtub, Baek Yeon-woo frowned deeply.
The man had suddenly told him to strip, then brought out a murky seaweed-colored liquid, and now he was making him practice some breathing technique he’d never even heard of before.
His fantasy of the national team had already shattered into pieces. It was only natural that his irritation was exploding.
But Park Gwang-seob didn’t even bat an eye.
“Fix your face while I’m still being nice, kid. Do you even know how much that medicine you’re soaking in costs? It’s enough to buy a house. Who do you think paid for it? Me. It came out of my pocket, you brat.”
“Who told you to—”
“Shut up. The medicine’s effect is dropping. Just listen. I heard the director was leaving you to me, so I went all the way to the auction house. Shouldn’t you at least feel a little touched? Is your breathing still wrong?”
“Hoo… Hoo…”
“You think I’m doing this because I like it? It’s annoying as hell for me too. But what can I do? It’s tradition. If you’re upset, go complain to your raid leader. Why would I call him for you?”
“……(shakes head).”
“Anyway, to finish what I was saying, veterans have to take care of the rookies. Food, sleep, clothes, training—everything.”
By showing veterans caring for rookies, it brought together people who had once competed against each other in the league.
That was the long-standing tradition passed down from the Mountain King. However, Director Hong Han-hyun had added a new order this time.
— “Gwang-seob, Gang-cheol, Eun-seo, sit down. We’re calling in Mir’s three kids this time. I’m thinking of leaving them to you three. In my opinion, these three should be handled like this…”
After his in-depth discussion with Lee Shin and the ‘manual’ he had received, HHH had opened his eyes to a new world.
Of course, it was very on-brand for HHH to start talking strategy without reading the room while asking for a favor, but the three simply accepted it.
After all, they were the three closest to Hong Han-hyun. His lack of tact wasn’t exactly new.
And so the three were assigned to the three kids as per Hong Han-hyun’s request. That was why Park Gwang-seob was going out of his way to carefully—almost lovingly—supervise Baek Yeon-woo, even dunking him in a tub of medicine.
“The way I see it, you’re treating yourself too roughly. You’re not releasing your pressure properly.”
“……Hoo??”
“That face says ‘what the hell is this nonsense?’ Yeah, I get it. I admit your guild has some serious talent. There’s no way that genius representative of yours, famous for his care, wouldn’t have looked after you properly.”
“……Hoo-hoo!”
“But what I’m talking about isn’t the body. It’s this. Right here.”
Park Gwang-seob’s finger poked firmly against Baek Yeon-woo’s head.
“You keep overworking that brain of yours.”
“Hoo?!”
“How many videos do you watch a day? You watch them all during your breaks, right? Then you digest training like it’s nothing, and even fall asleep while watching more videos.”
“Hoo……”
“Kid, I roughly know how your ability works. You cram information in with those blue eyes and pull it out during battle, don’t you? Right?”
“Hoo.”
“Don’t even try to deny it. You think I’ve only dealt with one or two ‘eye technique’ users like you?”
Eye technique.
A term referring to abilities related to the eyes.
Eye techniques were incredibly unique, and their variety and destructive power were equally bizarre.
However, just as great power comes with great responsibility, eye techniques also had their drawbacks.
“The place where hunters with these kinds of eye techniques break down the most is right here—the mind. The stimulation goes straight into the brain.”
“Hoo.”
“What I’m trying to say is that mindlessly cramming information isn’t always good. Well, your amazing representative will probably take care of that, so let’s move on.”
So what exactly was Park Gwang-seob going to teach Baek Yeon-woo?
“How to organize and refine the sword techniques you’ve been absorbing like an idiot.”
Park Gwang-seob’s Unity of Sword and Body was the exact opposite of Baek Yeon-woo’s Heavenly Eye.
If Unity of Sword and Body was a trait that found the path from ‘within,’ like a person becoming a sword and a sword becoming a person, then Heavenly Eye was a trait that received information from ‘outside’ through vision.
This was also why Lee Shin had never shown Baek Yeon-woo any footage of Park Gwang-seob.
The two traits were simply too far apart. Even if one tried to imitate the other, it would only be superficial. Grasping the true meaning was nearly impossible.
Yet precisely because of that, this pairing was theoretically the most ideal combination to complement each other.
“Hey, don’t you have a girlfriend? Nothing relieves stress like love. Want me to introduce you to someone?”
“……Fuck off.”
“Kk kk kk.”
Theoretically, of course. It was all purely theoretical…
While the trio was sharpening their talents even further alongside their national team seniors, the Mir Guild was boiling with heat.
“Faster! Hey! Move faster!”
“Match the line! You have to stick with them!”
“This isn’t what we talked about! We clearly agreed to cast magic like this, so why is it so slow?!”
The training continued as usual. The time and schedule were no different from normal. And yet…
Why were the voices getting louder? Why was everyone becoming more aggressive?
They slammed their shoulders into each other’s chests as blunt weapons swung through the air.
Blood was a common sight. Faces and skin were covered in bruises. Even though it was only training, they charged at each other as if they truly meant to kill.
Even Lee Hye-jung, who was usually so kind, was spitting out harsh words today.
“Stick to them properly! Is that all you’ve got?! More power! Hey! Where are you looking?! Focus! Is this really all you people can do?!”
“Hye-jung, you’re going to kill them at this rate!”
“Move aside, Malsuk. If they fall from just this much, they’ll never grow! Get up, all of you! Don’t you want to be in the starting lineup?! Didn’t you hear what the representative said?!”
That was right.
The reason the training ground had turned into a battlefield, why the tanks were throwing their bodies forward while panting, why the dealers were swinging their weapons like mad and firing spells, why the supporters were tangled up and rolling on the ground, and why even “Mommy” Lee Hye-jung was forcing herself to say harsh things with pained eyes.
It was all because of what Lee Shin had said.
— “As you all know, Park Su-bin, Baek Yeon-woo, and Yu Ri-ra—the three of them have left for the national team. Yes, it’s shocking. National team members at nineteen and twenty-one years old? It’s insane.”
— “So, are you jealous?”
Lee Shin stood before them in his usual look—shirt with a suit draped over his shoulders. But his expression was unusually serious, without a trace of his favorite concept.
Is this really the time to be jealous of them?
— “Are those three talented? Of course they are. They’re geniuses. I’ll be honest. I picked them myself, but those crazy babies are monsters beyond the standard. You all who live with them probably know that better than anyone.”
He was right.
Learn one thing and they understood ten. Learn ten and they understood a hundred.
Today was different from yesterday, and in the blink of an eye while you looked away, they had already surged far ahead.
There was a limit to how much competition one could handle. If the gap grew too large, even the will to fight would disappear.
To them, Lee Shin’s children were exactly that kind of existence.
But—
— “However. Did you know? You are also people I personally selected.”
Lee Shin encouraged them in the way only he could.
— “Just because they’re geniuses, does that mean you aren’t? No. You are all geniuses too. Ms. Malsuk here is a tank tougher than most rankers. She may not be flashy, but she’s an absolutely essential part of the guild. Mr. Yong-jae here is a versatile dealer who can fight both close and long range while also dealing attribute damage. And what about Mr. Young-ho over there?”
Empty praise? Meaningless encouragement?
That wasn’t Lee Shin’s style. He gave them concrete, objective facts about their talent.
In doing so, Lee Shin awakened the genius that had been sleeping inside them.
— “Do you understand? Just as they are geniuses, so are you. Now, you stand on the same starting line. If you’re all geniuses, then what should you do? Hye-jung?”
— “That’s right. Competition! Struggle!!”
Competition within a team was inevitable. Between Team 2 and Team 1, starting lineup spots, positions—we must always compete to become a stronger team.
That competition would help them grow into better players, raise the team higher, and ultimately…
— “Lead us there.”
Lee Shin pointed toward the blue sky.
It would lead them to the freest and most glorious position.
— “Alright, let’s look at the situation again. Our proud crazy babies have left for the national team. That leaves three spots open, doesn’t it?”
— “Let’s see… We have one raid match and three league matches coming up. Oh my, aren’t you already getting excited?”
I picked you. The people I pick are geniuses.
I know your talent better than anyone.
I am never wrong about how much you will grow, or who is stronger.
Therefore, you will be judged purely by skill.
— “What are you waiting for? Go seize the opportunity.”
It was time for the starting lineup competition.
And.
“Come at me! Shoot!”
“Get up. We’re going again.”
“Uwaaaaah!!”
It was time to prove themselves.
“Hello everyone. This is Baek Seong-je, bringing you the broadcast for Round 63 of the VS League. I’ll be joined once again by commentator Choi Moon-seong.”
“Hello, I’m Choi Moon-seong. Wow, we’re already at Round 63. There really isn’t much left now.”
“We’ve entered the latter half of the league. And Mir Guild is still holding onto first place.”
“Undefeated in league matches! Highest points!! If this continues, another great legend will be written.”
“That’s true, however…”
“Ohhh, is this the topic we’re finally touching on? The departure of the three starting members.”
“It feels wrong to call wearing the national team uniform a ‘departure,’ but it is true that their fighting power has been weakened.”
“To make matters worse, their opponent at this critical time is the guild founded by Seon Guild. They’re a mid-tier guild with quite a bit of bite.”
“The main point of this match will be how Mir Guild responds to this situation.”
The commentators and fans alike were all curious.
Since Lee Shin had made such a bold claim, he wouldn’t just coolly give up on the match. He would twist and turn somehow. How would Mir Guild—and Lee Shin and the Mountain King—overcome this crisis?
And the first answer was finally revealed.
“Oh…!”
“Amazing. So they’re really going with this?”
“I’ll explain right away. Jungle: Mountain King Kim Jong-pil. Support: Kim Yu-shin. Top: Kang Mal-suk, who was Team 1’s starting tanker. AD Carry: Shin Yong-jae. And…”
“This one is a surprise.”
“Mid lane is…”
Mid: Lee Hye-jung.
“Lee Hye-jung, the leader of Team 2, will be making her debut in a major league match. And in the mid lane, a position she has never played before!!”