Let's Devour the Guild Scene
Let's take a moment here.
We need to rewind time for a bit.
It was the day they were filming the contest video. To be exact, a short while after Lee Shin's call with Lee Sang-byuk had ended.
Screeech——
In a quiet Seoul neighborhood without even a proper parking lot, dozens of vehicles were pulling in.
Men in suits stepped out and immediately took control of the surroundings. The interesting part was that although they all wore identical black suits, they clearly belonged to different factions.
Once the men had finished securing their respective zones, more vehicles arrived. Everyone bowed their heads in unison.
Four figures emerged from the new cars.
“As expected of Lee Sang-byuk. How disgusting. You’re still coming to a dump like this?”
The Sun of distribution. Chairman Son Seong-ho of Taeyang Group.
“Hey, you in the back—grab the wine from the trunk. All they have here is soju.”
The Divine of home appliances. Chairman Kang Do-kyung of Shinseong Group.
“……What a hassle. Tsk.”
The Kirin of automobiles. Chairman Kim Jang-chun of Kirin Group.
And finally, today’s host.
“Cheol-ong, get in there and set up. Hey, all of you—get over here! Kim family! Don’t you dare hang back, I said come!”
The supreme Ido. Chairman Lee Sang-byuk of Lee Do Group.
Taeyang, Shinseong, Kirin, and Ido.
The chairmen of Korea’s four largest conglomerates had gathered in one place. As these giants who held the nation’s economy in their grasp began to move, a massive crowd of subordinates moved with them.
“It’s been a while since the Federation of Korean Industries. Has it really been almost ten years since the four of us met like this?”
“I’ve run into that Ido bastard a few times. The guy keeps bragging about his grandson’s guild like some lunatic. But why does the Kim family head look like he swallowed shit?”
“Shut up. I’m in a bad mood.”
“Oh dear.”
“You rotten old……”
“Jang-chun, we’re all getting old, so let’s watch our language. Yeah, you fucker?”
“Pfft. Look who’s talking about language, Lee Sang-byuk.”
“Kkklklk, the Ido guy’s stepping on the gas.”
Even in old age, they were the same.
Snapping at each other, cursing, laughing.
They were rivals and companions who had survived the turbulent era together. That was why they could be enemies and close friends at the same time.
The place they entered was a shabby sashimi restaurant.
It was Lee Sang-byuk’s first choice for company dinners and the place he only visited when something good had happened.
Lee Sang-byuk patted the owner waiting at the door.
“You’ve worked hard, Imja. We’re having an important talk today, so clear out for a bit.”
“I’ll wait outside. Call me if you need anything.”
“Yeah, yeah. Thanks.”
Everyone clear out.
At those words, not only Yu Cheol-ong—known as Lee Do’s Grim Reaper—but all the other subordinates withdrew as well.
Now only the four chairmen remained inside the restaurant.
Lee Sang-byuk personally poured soju for all of them.
It was a signal to drink one glass first before talking. The four chairmen clinked glasses and emptied them.
Then, with the bitter aroma of soju lingering, the conversation began.
“The reason I called you here today is because of the guilds.”
“Guilds? Not group business?”
“Don’t tell me the Ido bastard called us here just to brag about his grandson again?”
“Sit down.”
“Don’t play that local broadcast crap, Kim Jang-chun. Sit. You’ll regret it if you stand up.”
Lee Sang-byuk, who had been chewing on a piece of sashimi, skipped all the formalities in his usual style and went straight for the main point.
“Let’s devour this country’s guild scene. The four of us.”
Let the four of us reshape the entire guild scene with our groups at the center.
The shock was immediate.
“!!”
“!!”
“!!”
This wasn’t purely Lee Sang-byuk’s idea. It had come after thorough discussion with Lee Shin.
— ‘Grandfather, doesn’t this league seem ridiculous to you?’
The league had turned monstrous hunters into crowd favorites and served as a symbol of humanity’s conquest of the gates.
And yet all they did was fight each other.
Surprisingly, it worked.
The league had grown so large it had become a single piece of content that bound the world together.
— ‘Different languages, different units of measurement, even different cultures. But is there anyone who doesn’t know about hunters? Is there anyone who doesn’t know Mir Guild? Is there anyone who doesn’t know the Mountain King? I’d bet a billion on it.’
— ‘How on earth did a game that unites the entire world come to exist? Exactly. I find the league both ridiculous and insanely attractive.’
That day, Lee Shin hadn’t spoken like a businessman at all. He hadn’t calculated anything or weighed the pros and cons.
It was simply attractive.
That was all.
That was why Lee Sang-byuk felt even more sincerity in his grandson’s words. The boy simply loved the league to death.
— ‘I’m proud to say I’ve done a lot for this league. I’ve led change, injected vitality, brought fierce competition, planted creativity, and hammered into everyone’s heads the fact that if you get complacent, you’re fucked. In our Ido style, of course.’
Violently so.
But if you flipped that thought around…….
— ‘It means the league would have kept running the same way without me. Whenever I realize that, it pisses me off. You know it too, Grandfather. The league is fun, isn’t it? Yet they’re neglecting something this fun.’
Therefore.
— ‘I have to do it. I, the one who understands the league’s fun and sparkle better than anyone, have to cultivate it.’
He didn’t care if people called it greed.
So, can you do it better than me? No, right? Then I’ll make it way more fun.
This was also why Lee Shin constantly emphasized competition.
— ‘It all starts with competition. We need to raise the level of competition. Raising the average level? You know how much of an illusion the average is, Grandfather.’
— ‘We raise three or four specific guilds to the absolute top. Once the level of competition hits the ceiling, the rest will naturally follow.’
If the league’s standard rose, the quality of matches would rise. Flashy games that made viewers’ eyes pop would attract capital.
The market would expand naturally. Interest and money would flow, increasing value. And once the entire pie grew larger…….
— ‘The Korean league will become the stage the whole world dreams of.’
African kids would come to Korea to make money.
European hunters would come to Korea to prove themselves.
American hunters would play even harder to impress Korean scouts.
Lee Shin wanted to turn Korea into the hottest league in the world, just like the English Premier League in his previous life.
— ‘Grandfather, I want Korea to become the center of the guild world. The reason? Simple. It’s the country I’m in. No one understands this league better than me. No one loves it more. So of course I should be the one to devour it, right?’
It wasn’t because it was Korea.
It was because Lee Shin was in Korea.
That was the only reason Korea should be the center.
Lee Sang-byuk felt a chill run down his spine at that arrogant declaration.
That madness, that spirit—it reminded him of his own youth, when he had started with a single excavator, built bridges, and single-handedly pioneered the European market.
Recalling those days, Lee Sang-byuk emptied his glass and continued.
“……So I thought it would be nice to share a drink while watching the league created by a kid who takes after me. At the same time, I reflected on myself.”
The smile suddenly vanished from Lee Sang-byuk’s face. His eyes flashed.
The other three, who had been laughing, flinched at the beast-like gleam in his eyes.
“That kid came up with an idea like this. So why didn’t I think of it?”
“……?!”
“……?!”
“……?!”
The league was difficult. The Bureau was sacred, the law itself.
But what Lee Sang-byuk had mentioned was the ‘guild scene.’
“I’ve been enjoying the league like crazy for a year now, but these guilds are too soft. I still don’t understand why we need twenty guilds, and I have no idea what the bottom-feeders are thinking when they run their operations.”
Everyone had their reasons.
Selling guilds had their own objectives, and the lower-ranked guilds had their own circumstances.
But Lee Sang-byuk’s thought was simple: Why the hell should I care about that?
“Son Seong-ho, remember? Forty years ago, when you and I fought over distribution. You brought in gangsters and I brought in hired muscle. We had a full-on brawl. Remember?”
“……We were young and stupid.”
“Kang Do-kyung, when you were acquiring other appliance companies, how did you fight? You cut off all their funding, didn’t you? How many companies went bankrupt and disappeared back then?”
“That’s right. We fought like dogs. No blood, no tears.”
“Hey, Kim Jang-chun. When we were competing over the automobile market, we pulled every dirty trick imaginable over a single screw or a tiny engine part. Don’t tell me you forgot?”
“How could I forget? You launched your new car a day earlier and screwed us over hard.”
The four chairmen who had built their empires in the turbulent era.
“We used to fight like this. We stole what our competitors had, tore it apart, and used it to grow our own. Yet you’ve all been endlessly merciful toward this league? I genuinely don’t understand it.”
When did we become so soft?
When did we become so peaceful?
“The league I see is the world market. It’s a channel that can export to the entire globe without needing airplanes or ships. A market of this scale is rare.”
“Why aren’t you drooling over it? My blood is already boiling and my whole body is itching. Don’t tell me……”
Lee Sang-byuk smirked.
“Have your teeth already fallen out?”
The provocation made the other three smirk as well.
“The world market, huh. You’re not wrong.”
“I suppose we’ve been treating it too much like a toy.”
“……Even I can see that much.”
Not a single word was wrong.
It was undeniably a unique market.
The potential for utilization was endless. It was almost infuriating that they hadn’t created a seat like this sooner.
The flow had changed. Sensing it, Lee Sang-byuk immediately drove the point home.
He handed each of them two document envelopes he had prepared.
“One contains the personal information and stats of the rankers who went on the Brazil expedition. For reference, they’re the ones that bastard Shin personally mentored. You understand what that means, right?”
“……High potential for growth.”
“The other one is the important part.”
Lee Sang-byuk pointed at the second envelope.
“The number of seed rights will increase next year.”
“!!”
“!!”
“!!”
Expansion of seed rights.
This was the information Bureau Director Kim Mi-young had passed to Lee Shin.
She planned to propose it to headquarters as soon as she became director, and headquarters would accept it.
The three men urgently tore open the envelopes, scanned the documents, and fired off questions.
“Is this confirmed?”
“That bastard Shin says it is. He thought it would happen in about three years, so he was surprised it was moved up to next year.”
“Ido, what the hell is this? Why is there stuff about South America in here?”
“You know about the incident that happened in South America this time, right? I had Cheol-ong look into it. Apparently the South American guilds really screwed up. The Bureau was fed up with them.”
Lee Shin and the Korean expedition team had performed at such a high level, yet only one guild advanced to the upper league.
On the other hand, Brazil had put on that pathetic display and still sent one guild up.
This fact had given the Bureau a serious wake-up call.
“They can’t just leave low-level leagues alone anymore.”
“So how many seed rights?”
“I don’t know the exact number. But at least one.”
In truth, this possibility had been raised consistently. Even last year they had talked about increasing seed rights and expanding the relegation matches.
“Whether it’s a Dream Team or a Super Team, putting one together this year would be the smart move.”
“I don’t know what format it will take, but if seed rights increase, the value of skilled players will skyrocket.”
“The market will grow too.”
“The four guilds created by Korea’s four major groups clashing fiercely every time. Doesn’t that sound meaningful?”
“Who knows? We might even see a Korea versus Korea final in the Asia League.”
“They’ll fight. They’ll fight like rabid dogs.”
“Someone change the Ido bastard’s diaper. He’s already shitting himself.”
Kkklklklk…….
Not one, not two, but four.
If there were four super teams, the competition would be worth it, wouldn’t it? Just imagining it made their blood boil.
It was going to be fun. Let’s do it right now.
From Son Seong-ho to Kang Do-kyung and Kim Jang-chun, the soju glasses emptied one by one. When Lee Sang-byuk finally drained his own, the atmosphere had completely transformed. They all had the same eyes they’d had in their younger days.
“Yeah, that’s it. Now you all look familiar. Much better.”
The moment these giants of the industry opened their eyes.
That was when it exploded.
They were prey.
* * *
Guardian Yeo Eun-seo and Black Star Gong Ju-in.
The two rankers who had declared their positions early in the Stove League.
The sudden appearance of these massive commodities sent every fan’s heart racing.
They had finished the previous season ranked 7th and 19th respectively. Impressive, but not quite enough to be called ‘great.’
Even so, the market’s evaluation of the pair had skyrocketed to an all-time high. Analyst Im Cho-rong had this to say:
“A ranker’s ranking doesn’t necessarily reflect pure strength. Mir Guild’s Lee Shin already proved that with Hwarang. The same applies to these two. A world-class commander and a top-tier necromancer. I guarantee their value cannot be measured by combat power alone.”
With the situation like this, every existing guild inquired about signing them.
‘Every’ here included guilds from Asia, America, and Europe, not just Korea.
The Bureau’s workload was completely paralyzed.
But the explosive interest in the pair, which seemed like it would never cool down, suddenly lost momentum at one point.
Other rankers began announcing their positions.
What began as rankers from the expedition team declaring their positions turned into a full-blown challenge as more rankers joined in, whether voluntarily or not.
Of course, none of them openly mentioned transferring like Guardian or Black Star had.
Even so, the sheer weight of their titles was shaking the entire league.
The fuse had already been lit on the bomb!
A seismic shift was all but guaranteed!
People waited with bated breath.
Who would make the first move? And if they moved, where would they go?
While everyone held their breath, it finally exploded.
The man who had been called the league’s biggest attention-seeker before Lee Shin.
“I will take my talent to Taeyang.”
The Sword Master drew his blade first.
* * *