Relationship Restructuring
The GM is a game about managing a guild, not about getting results in the league.
This is a mistake that especially plagues new players. In these cases, if you go all-in on the league and your guild gets torn apart by an information guild…
* * *
Scavenger Guild.
In a room packed with guild members, Jeong Su-mi spoke with a grim expression.
“Open your ears and listen carefully. This is a crisis.”
The relaxed Jeong Su-mi who always stood in front of Lee Myeong-hwan was nowhere to be seen. The woman here now was the cold-blooded female known even among the notoriously vicious information guilds as a true venomous snake.
With nothing but her silver tongue, she had toppled countless guilds. Her bold scheme to turn the entire 3rd Division into one massive gambling den was still praised by the big players in the shadows.
That was why she had earned the right to stand at Lee Myeong-hwan’s side—the so-called treasure of the Ido family. If she couldn’t even control a mere 4th Division guild, what good was she?
If she failed to prove her usefulness to Lee Myeong-hwan?
“—My reputation taking a hit is secondary. What matters is that Scavenger’s credibility is being threatened. Do you understand?”
Of course, everyone knew that 4th Division guild possessed the Mountain King, Kim Jong-pil, and had the Ido Group backing it. But no one dared open their mouths in front of Jeong Su-mi, whose eyes radiated a chilling murderous intent.
“The method is no different from usual. Cut off their suppliers! Isolate the guild! Make their logistics unstable! The front office will be running around like headless chickens trying to plug the holes in their supply chain, while the raid team will be too busy worrying about the next raid to focus. In the end, the guild will shake apart.”
“What’s there to explain? We’ve done this so many times we’re sick of it.”
All the Scavenger guild members nodded in agreement.
It was exactly as she said. These were the dirty tricks they had grown utterly tired of repeating.
Did anyone really believe the guild scene ran purely on skill?
Absolutely not.
Since guilds dealt in mana stones—the energy source that moved the world—they were already an irreplaceable high-value industry. The moment astronomical sums of money began changing hands, the league could no longer pretend to be pure.
The haves and the have-nots.
The strong and the weak.
Scavenger had always stood firmly on the side of the strong, trampling the weak without mercy.
The method Jeong Su-mi described was the most effective way for established guilds to pressure new ones. At the same time, it was precisely why information guilds like hers could continue to exist in this brutal industry.
“As always, the operation begins with the potion contracts. I don’t need to explain how important potions are in raids, do I?”
Starting with potions, they would cut off everything: calorie suppliers and the only comfort during brutal raids—combat rations. Scrolls that could be used for everything from simple magic to various utilities. Weapon maintenance whetstones, throwing weapons essential for close-range dealers, and so on.
They would sever every single supply line they could reach.
It was such a simple tactic that calling it an “operation” felt almost embarrassing. Yet it worked for one simple reason.
Speed.
It moved so fast that the target couldn’t even react.
A lower-league guild’s weak network and infrastructure made it nearly impossible to notice the scheme in time. And even if they did notice, by then the situation would have deteriorated so badly that the season would usually end with a single line in the league summary: “The limits of a lower-league guild.”
Of course, Jeong Su-mi wasn’t unaware.
She knew that Mir Guild had far too many assets to fall into such a worst-case scenario.
Yet she still chose to proceed.
The reason was simple. From the very beginning, the true target of this operation wasn’t Mir Guild—it was Lee Shin.
“If Mir Guild gets swept up in all this noise, the blame will naturally fall on its representative, Lee Shin. I expect the backlash to be quite fierce. After all, we’re going to make sure it is.”
The guild members understood the unspoken words behind her statement.
It had better be fierce. If you can’t make it happen, every last one of you is fired.
Everyone swallowed hard.
“Let me summarize one last time. We will cut off every single supplier to Mir Guild, completely isolate them, and make everyone question that bastard’s competence!”
SLAM!
Jeong Su-mi’s hand struck the whiteboard so hard it nearly broke. Pinned there was a crumpled photo of Lee Shin.
The moment the target was confirmed, the eyes of every Scavenger guild member changed. For a brief moment they gleamed with a savage, beast-like hunger—more like hunting dogs than humans.
“Move out.”
The order was given.
The hounds were unleashed. They kicked the door open and charged out.
But they had no idea.
The mad dog on this side was every bit as vicious as the ones they were hunting.
* * *
Inside the car, Lee Shin’s nonsense flowed as smoothly as the quiet hum of the Rolls-Royce gliding down the road.
“Bro, what we’re aiming for is a restructuring of relationships.”
“…Suddenly talking about restructuring?”
“Yep!”
They had just received notice that Daehwa Foods, the guild’s food and beverage supplier, was terminating their contract. Chae Dong-ha was tearing his hair out, frantically calling around to clean up the mess, yet the solution Lee Shin offered from the passenger seat was this.
Chae Dong-ha swallowed his boiling frustration and continued.
“Excuse me, Representative. If it’s not too rude, may I ask just one question?”
“You can ask two.”
“…You do realize we’re the ones being attacked, right?”
“Obviously.”
“And you know this is already the third contract we’ve lost today?”
“I’m the representative. You think I wouldn’t know that?”
“Then why the hell is ‘restructuring of relationships’ suddenly popping out of your mouth?”
“Because it’s an opportunity, obviously.”
What more did he need to say?
Faced with Lee Shin’s bright, cheerful smile, Chae Dong-ha muttered, “Ah, I see. It’s an opportunity,” and quickly began searching through his call history.
Where was that psychiatrist’s number again…?
Whether he knew how Chae Dong-ha felt or not, Lee Shin’s face was filled with a bright, spinning smile.
“Don’t worry too much. Realistically, there’s not much they can do. All they can do is cut off the guild’s supply lines, just like they did with the potion deal.”
“…Calling that ‘not much’ feels pretty fatal, don’t you think?”
It wasn’t without reason that every guild insisted on conservative management.
Once the league season began, each guild’s front office became insanely busy. Tight schedules, gate analysis, raid team condition checks, even preparations for next year’s league—all happening at once.
And that wasn’t all. Business for the fans, community outreach projects, guild management on top of everything else.
It might look easy from the outside, but there were far more things to worry about than one or two.
Now imagine if your main supplies suddenly became unstable in that situation.
The raid team that needed to focus entirely on combat would have to worry about whether their supplies would run out. The front office would be sweating bullets trying to make sure the raid schedule wasn’t affected.
If they ended up signing terrible contracts or panic buying in desperation, the guild’s finances could collapse in an instant.
Wasn’t that a big deal?
Yet even after hearing all that, Lee Shin simply grinned.
“It only becomes fatal if you get hit without knowing it’s coming. Once you’ve taken the first punch, it’s nothing.”
Even Chae Dong-ha—who would one day become an SS-rank genius leader but was currently just a rookie vice-leader—knew and recognized this crisis. Which meant it was no longer a crisis.
In fact, it was closer to an opportunity.
“Bro, let me ask you one thing. What do you think the condition of the supplies we’ve been receiving has been like until now?”
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
“Just answer.”
“…I guess they weren’t that great?”
“Wrong! The correct answer is ‘we had no choice but to use them.’”
The supply value shown in the status window was 34.
Considering that anything in the 20s already inflicted a penalty on actual combat power, 34 was close to the absolute bottom of what could still be considered usable.
“Let’s turn back time. Remember what you said on the day we came down from Seoul? You said this guild wasn’t normal.”
“It was actually much worse. Even thinking about it now makes me dizzy.”
“Right? There are many reasons a guild can collapse. Finances destroyed, raid team skills garbage, internal power struggles, and so on.”
In any case, Mir Guild had been the worst possible case where all those negative factors had gathered.
So then…
“If the guild ended up like that, do you really think the suppliers were clean?”
“…?!”
“Or maybe they even contributed to it. After all, the guild reached that state while they were supplying it.”
“??!!”
Lee Shin didn’t know whether the suppliers had always been this terrible, whether quality had dropped sharply this year due to tough economic conditions, or whether the guild’s plummeting performance had created a “who cares if they’re last anyway” attitude.
He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. He wasn’t interested.
He only believed what he could see and what he had experienced.
The number 34 displayed in the Guild Management Window was visible. And in his twenty years of experience, the status windows in GM never lied. They might hide information, but they were never wrong.
“Alright. Back to the main topic. What did I say our goal was?”
“A restructuring of relationships… Ah!”
“Getting the picture now? That’s right. We’re going to use the people attacking us to completely clean out all our existing contracts.”
“And then fill those emptied contracts…”
“With skilled partners like the Choi Family Pharmacy we visited before.”
For example, a place like this.
Screeech—!
The car came to an abrupt stop.
The savory smell of rice cooking tickled their noses. The sign read:
Hyo-ju’s Special Food
When they opened the factory door, they saw rows of finished boxed combat rations on display.
◈ Body Balance Maintenance (6 hours)
◈ Made with love by a couple for their sick child — a magical food product.
This was the perfect way to clean up all those malicious contracts without dirtying his own hands. As a bonus, they could even collect generous penalty fees.
“Isn’t this the perfect example of restructuring relationships?”
Wow… It really is perfect…!!
Chae Dong-ha could only sigh in genuine admiration.
While everyone else had been coldly analyzing the current situation and scrambling to fix it, Lee Shin had instead used the situation itself to create the best possible outcome.
Just how many moves ahead is he looking?
“I think I’ve been misunderstanding you all this time, Representative.”
“Hm? What misunderstanding?”
“I thought you’d be raging and screaming. Something like, ‘We need to cut that bastard’s head off right now.’”
“That’s not a misunderstanding.”
“Right? It’s not a misunder… Huh??”
Their eyes met.
“Did you really think I’d just laugh it off because it turned out to be beneficial?”
If so, he would be disappointed. That meant Chae Dong-ha still didn’t understand what kind of person Lee Shin was.
A profit was a profit, and getting hit was getting hit.
If someone hit you for no reason, it was only natural to hit them back!
“Just wait. Things are about to get fun.”
The dignified look that had filled his eyes moments ago was gone. Now Lee Shin’s eyes were growling with pure malice and madness, like a rabid dog.
* * *
There was a reason Jeong Su-mi had been so confident.
Once unleashed, Scavenger proved exactly why they were called professionals in this industry. They pressured Mir Guild with unstoppable momentum.
“Boss, ‘SS Scroll’ just said they’ll accept our proposal.”
“We received word from the forge. If we arrange other contracts for them, they’ll cut all dealings with Mir Guild.”
“All transportation companies delivering to Mir Guild have agreed to boycott. In exchange, they want this amount…”
Jeong Su-mi didn’t get excited even though things were progressing far more smoothly than expected.
This was only natural.
Her Scavenger was a veteran among information guilds—what people called a “seasoned veteran.” On the other hand, the opponent was just a rookie front office run by a pretty-faced representative who only had the Ido Group’s halo and nothing else.
Was there even any need to compare them?
“As expected. They’re rushing to sign new contracts, but almost all of them are new companies. Hmm, but Choi Family Pharmacy? Where is that? Gwangyang? They went all the way there? Tsk tsk, how cute. They’re really trying. It’s so predictable it’s boring.”
“Good. Everyone’s doing well. At this rate, not even the Mountain King or the Ido Group can stop us. We’ll clean them out in two days and take a nice refreshing week off. Got it?”
A battle whose outcome was already decided.
Jeong Su-mi had already prepared her victory toast in advance and was simply waiting for the win to arrive.
At least until a guild member burst through the door in a panic.
“B-Boss! B-Big trouble! Turn on the TV! Turn on the TV right now!”
The news coming from the television screen.
At that moment, a gate of unprecedented scale opened.
The Busan Guild Distribution Gate.