The Long Haul
— From Lee Shin's GM Strategy Guide (Beginner Edition)
The Mir Guild front-line staff bustled around the barricaded beach.
"Have you checked the oxygen tanks and respirators?"
"Yes!!"
"What about the IV fluids and nutritional supplements?"
"Checked, but… I'll double-check right away!!"
"I'll ask the PD when the clear is expected. Team leader, please personally confirm the medical team. Understood?"
"Got it."
"Alright! Don't wait until the situation hits us—move fast and stay ahead of it. Everyone clear?"
"Yes!!"
"Yes!!"
At Chae Dong-ha's shout, the guild members sprinted across the sand. Their numbers were triple the usual. Normally, raid cleanup fell solely to the support team, but today every department had been tapped to meet the demand.
'This all started because of "that incident" a few days ago.'
A few days earlier—right after the 32nd round clear—Chae Dong-ha had gone to the gate to greet the raid party. Lunch boxes to ease their hunger, coffee to quench their thirst, guild tracksuits to replace sweat- and saliva-stained combat gear. It was the same preparation as always, and Chae Dong-ha had been idly scrolling on his phone until he arrived.
But the moment he reached the gate, he found utter chaos.
The raid members lay sprawled across the winter slope like corpses. Several had already vomited heavily and collapsed. Even the broadcast crew, who had been calmly checking equipment, looked panicked. They had managed to handle it that day, but the memory still made him shudder.
'I never imagined… condition problems could be this bad.'
Thirty-eight rounds. Roughly six months of grueling travel. That was the League 4 schedule Mir Guild had to endure. Fighting monsters in another dimension, drenched in foul blood, wore hunters down both mentally and physically. By the latter half, even those who wielded magic would be exhausted. This decline was collectively called "condition problems."
Chae Dong-ha, a rookie vice-leader, had not grasped their severity—until now, when he was being beaten senseless by them.
He wasn't bitter. It was his own shortcoming. Next time, he would pay closer attention. Still, the mental scratch remained.
His gaze drifted to the far end of the beach, where Lee Shin sat beneath a coffee-cart parasol, leisurely enjoying his drink.
'Why is the other rookie so much better at this?!'
If asked, Lee Shin would have answered simply: Who are you calling a rookie?
"Hmm~ This coffee's pretty good."
Lee Shin set his teacup down with elegant poise and surveyed the commotion.
"I figured it would blow up eventually. And it did—right on schedule."
Condition problems. The GM developers even warned about them in loading screens: "Your league could collapse at any moment. Never let your guard down." Managing them was a massive part of any league run. How well a guild cared for its overworked raid team in the final stretch often determined whether they finished successfully.
For Mir Guild, the issue was especially critical.
Just then, a fanfare sounded in the corner of Lee Shin's vision. A translucent message appeared: ※Raid Performance Measurement, followed by scrolling text.
It was over. Lee Shin set his thoughts aside and stood.
"Boss, one coffee please. Two shots, one pump of syrup. And pull an extra one in advance—we're about to get busy."
"In advance?"
"Yes, yes."
The coffee-cart owner tilted his head at the odd order, but by the time he finished the drink, he understood exactly what Lee Shin had meant.
Figures emerged from the translucent mana barrier, looking utterly spent. The raid party had returned.
The front-line staff, who had been moving frantically, shouted and rushed toward them.
"They're back!!"
"They're here."
"Quick! Quick!"
"This way!"
The exhausted hunters, finally free of the gate, collapsed onto the sand in relief. Completely drained. Staff swarmed each member—two per hunter, three for the heavily armored tanks. They stripped off equipment, checked vitals, and medical teams began administering IVs and supplements.
Meanwhile, Lee Shin crossed the beach, leaving footprints in the sand, and handed Kim Jong-phil a cup of coffee. Kim Jong-phil smirked at the sight of him.
"Here again. You've been showing up a lot lately."
"Don't be like that. I come often enough as it is. Here, take it. Good work, old man."
"All I did was open my mouth. Hardly counts as work."
"I'm the expert on that front, and trust me—running your mouth is surprisingly tiring."
"Hah, that damn tongue of yours. Did you see the results?"
"Just a moment—they should be here soon. Ah, there they come."
Right on cue, the strategy analysis team leader came sprinting toward them.
He had been waiting beside the broadcast crew to get the metrics and time records first, and now he was bringing the post-clear data.
"Huff, huff—Representative, Raid Leader. The records… huff, the records—"
"Just hand them over and sit down. Catch your breath with some coffee."
"Do that."
"Huff, huff~ Thank you… huff…"
Lee Shin snatched the record sheet. The numbers were intact, but there was no room for celebration.
"Whoa… If they'd cleared just three minutes later, the record would have stopped."
"I knew it was close, but not this close."
"I told you—condition problems always hit. The fact that we've lasted this long is only because you're here, old man."
"Hmph. I don't like it."
Kim Jong-phil frowned at the sheet, pride stung that his team had been caught by condition issues. The analysis team leader, having caught his breath, nodded in agreement with Lee Shin.
"The Representative is right. This squad is filled almost entirely with rookies. It's only because Mountain King is leading them that we've held on this long."
"Haha, and yet I stressed rest and stamina management so much."
"Rookies are still rookies. If they listened, they wouldn't be rookies."
"Exactly. Early twenties. Freshly debuted. Putting up ridiculous numbers, hogging all the spotlight. What does that lead to? The start of a total disaster party~!"
"Well, it's the age when blood runs hot."
"I was chewing steel at that age too."
"Kids these days, honestly."
"You're one of those kids, you know."
"The Representative is young too."
This was exactly why Mir Guild's condition problems were so critical.
Rookies. Condition management required personal discipline, and expecting that from rookies was unrealistic. Rest was an extension of work, after all. And the match didn't end when the match ended—management as a hunter continued. Checking one's own condition coldly and pushing the body back to 100% performance for the next game was the bare minimum a pro needed. Given how much it determined a hunter's career, this period was arguably more important than the matches themselves. Famous American hunters reportedly spent over ten billion won a year on body maintenance alone.
Yet could anyone expect that level of professionalism from rookies? No alcohol, no smoking, early nights instead of clubs, clean meals over tasty ones. Could anyone realistically demand that monk-like lifestyle from twenty-something rookies who had just come into sudden wealth and attention after never even completing a full league season?
You might as well ask a dog to meow.
"Let's hear the solution, analysis team leader."
"Well… the difficult part is that condition problems don't really have a solution at this stage. And I'm not flattering you—the Representative has already done everything possible."
"Wow, that came out of nowhere. Our team leader actually knows how to move people."
Lee Shin had done everything he could. Even knowing condition problems would hit, he had spared no support: a medical team renowned throughout the guild world, an all-veteran outsourced training company, popular masseuses who were normally impossible to book, even Pilates instructors. He had covered food, sleep, clothing—everything humanly possible. Care on par with League 1. He was confident no other League 4 guild in the world could match it. Anything more would require twenty-four-hour surveillance.
"It's a bit late, but we need to make a decision. Are we continuing this record chase?"
"……"
"……"
At the analysis team leader's question, Lee Shin and Kim Jong-phil looked at each other. Even if they threw the remaining matches, Mir Guild would still finish first. Their lead was insurmountable, and thanks to Lee Shin's various schemes, their rivals were in worse shape than they were.
In other words, promotion had been secured long ago. For an ordinary League 4 guild, this would be a wildly successful season. Yet Mir Guild was still racing as if being chased—even after success. Not for promotion, but for records.
"If we abandon the record chase, everything becomes much easier—financially, in terms of manpower, everything. The raid party wouldn't be collapsing on the beach the moment they return."
But Lee Shin's stance was firm.
"The records must continue."
Giving up the records was difficult for many reasons. It wasn't about honor or pride—Lee Shin despised such intangible things. No, it was about something far more concrete.
'How could I give up this golden opportunity?'
The record chase was a decision made for systemic gains. GM's world was famous for its balanced reward system. Small achievements brought small rewards; great achievements brought great ones. If they completed the unprecedented feat of breaking the record in all thirty-eight rounds, just how massive would the reward be? Lee Shin already knew—he had received it before. That was why he couldn't stop. Those rewards would change Mir Guild's future.
"So the Representative is saying we must maintain the records no matter what."
"That's right."
"Even after seeing those kids half-dead?"
"If they're pros, they should handle it."
"Even if the front-line staff suffers?"
"How much do you want? I'll give generous performance bonuses."
"…You really intend to keep it going by any means necessary."
At that moment, Kim Jong-phil, who had been quietly listening, finally spoke.
"So that's how it is."
He looked at the strategy analysis team leader.
"You're saying it's realistically difficult."
Then he turned to Lee Shin.
"And you can't give up the records."
In that case—
"You step in."
The manual Lee Shin had given him still rested in Kim Jong-phil's arms. If someone who produced such meticulous analysis could offer this level of detail, he almost certainly already had the answer.
"You know the solution, don't you? Show me."
* * *
The next day, at the Mir Guild training grounds.
Lee Shin stood there—not in his usual suit, but wearing a green tracksuit.
"Good to see you all. Starting today, I'll be helping with your condition management and training."