The Sunfish's Breaking Point

― From the broadcast of ‘Charlie Adam,’ 3rd ranked GM streamer

“Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”

Once the dizzying reward window was organized, it looked something like this.

“And if we add the points I’ve saved up…”

“Hold on.”

He had to take care of business first.

At this point, he cracked open a bottle of soju.

“Krrgh~ So damn beautiful.”

The satisfaction rose from his lower abdomen. All the hellish suffering he’d endured washed away in an instant. The liquor tasted incredibly sweet.

“Let’s sort this out.”

At first glance the reward window looked complicated, but it could be neatly divided into two categories: ‘Honor’ that raised the overall capabilities of Lee Shin and the entire guild, and ‘Card Packs’ related to the main content of nurturing.

“We’ll start with the simple stuff.”

Lee Shin’s finger separated the Honor category.

Momentum Is Victory was a reward given for immediate promotion in the first season. It was an S-tier Honor with the effect ‘30% increased point gain during win streaks.’

It was considered an essential Honor for serious players because it was one of the rare duplicate-able traits in GM. When combined with the various ‘point increase’ Honors obtained later, surpassing 10,000 points in a single match was no longer a dream.

“That’s why I suffered so much just to get this one.”

Compared to that, the next one was relatively easy.

Victory Is the Best Medicine was an early-to-mid game hard-carry achievement that granted ‘20% increased growth rate for the strategy team during win streaks.’ It was given for maintaining first place in a season without a single slip-up.

While the somewhat demanding condition of maintaining a win streak and the lack of duplicate effects meant it wasn’t quite as essential as Momentum Is Victory, it was still one of the few growth-type Honors in GM. If you managed to ride a long win streak, its performance wouldn’t lose to any other Honor.

“Early Honor farming was a success.”

Just obtaining these two in the first season was the best possible start.

While he was at it, Lee Shin tapped twice to raise Front Office Fatigue to Level 5. Several thousand hard-earned points vanished in an instant, but right now he was a point tycoon. If not now, then when?

After that, Lee Shin coolly closed the Guild Management Window.

Leaving it open like a trophy to admire was an option, but he still had a long way to go.

“Next.”

His hesitation was brief. He pressed the Manager Status Window.

He hammered the screen in rapid succession.

Dominance: 41 (+700p)… Dominance 45 (+800p)… Dominance 51 (+1000p)… 59 (1300p)……

“Done.”

A flood of message windows beginning with 【 ‘Dominance’ stat of 60 has been reached. 】 scrolled past. They announced that various traits had been created due to stat synergy, but Lee Shin closed them without even checking.

He already knew what they were, and more importantly, that wasn’t what mattered right now.

“Finally. I’ve waited so long for this.”

How much hell had he gone through just to witness this scene today?

He was going all in.

In the traditional Korean folk game known as ‘War of the Stars,’ the term commonly used for the strategy of tightening your core, minimizing early army, and rushing straight into multi-base expansion. In other words, the so-called “all-in” play.

Why do people choose an all-in strategy? To take two steps forward, you sometimes have to take one step back.

Using the folk game as an example, it meant gathering a massive amount of resources early, rushing up the tech tree in one go, and producing high-tier units.

That was exactly why Lee Shin had held back until now.

All for today’s leap forward.

“Today’s main character, the Sunfish, has arrived.”

“Even after deleting them whenever I could, five are still left.”

In truth, deleting three was already an incredible feat.

If any regular GM player saw this interface, they would probably have a seizure. They’d scream that it was impossible.

League 4 did not provide basic rewards per round.

Aside from the special ‘first match’ bonus, there was essentially no normal way to obtain card packs.

The fact that he had still managed to delete three meant he had to set new records every single round to collect ‘Silver Card Packs,’ and maintain that record streak for at least thirty rounds.

Since ten identical card packs could be synthesized into one higher tier, that yielded three Gold Card Packs. Therefore, he could only delete three negative traits.

In other words, if Lee Shin hadn’t desperately maintained the record-chasing race, he wouldn’t have even been able to delete those three.

It was an unimaginably brutal difficulty.

Was this how it was normally done?

He didn’t know what “normal” looked like, but at least when it came to raising the character called Park Su-bin, this was the correct way.

If he didn’t push this hard, the character would end up worse than useless scrap. To reach the final form of the ultimate weapon that Lee Shin remembered, the character itself forced an all-in playstyle.

But the even more horrifying truth was that this was only the beginning.

“I tried covering him in items and using awakening potions or amplification potions to somehow unseal his stats, but that only works up to League 4.”

The biggest difference between League 4 and League 3 was that hunter-versus-hunter competitive matches began.

In that environment, growing Park Su-bin was impossible.

Not “nearly” impossible—flat-out impossible. The penalty removal and stat boosts provided by items and awakening potions lasted at most ten minutes.

That meant he had to finish the fight within ten minutes, but his opponents weren’t brain-dead idiots who would just stand there and let it happen.

In reality, Park Su-bin, who still had undeleted negative traits, became a literal vegetable. It made securing him a roster spot extremely difficult.

And by this point, another fatal flaw of Park Su-bin would reveal itself.

The SS-rank negative trait Fragile.

“That guy is the Wall of Lamentation.”

Not all negative traits were equal.

The ones he had deleted earlier—Sweet Potato, Self-Deprecation, or the Obsession and Deficiency currently listed—could be removed using A-rank traits obtained from Gold Card Packs (Trait). But Fragile was an SS-rank negative trait.

In other words, to remove it, he needed an SS-rank positive trait.

“This is why I went all-in on Park Su-bin no matter what.”

The character already had an extremely short growth window. His stats were sealed by negative traits, and the final boss blocking the removal of those seals was the SS-rank negative trait Fragile.

That meant he couldn’t participate in matches again, his growth window was delayed again, and every time the nurturing window was opened, he would sigh while staring at Fragile again.

A hellish Möbius strip.

As a side note, this was also where the nickname “Sunfish” originated.

From the very beginning, one could just recruit him into a major guild. The rewards would be better, so the negative traits could be deleted faster.

One user had that exact thought and started on Easy Mode by immediately recruiting Park Su-bin into a major guild. The result?

He collapsed under the pressure.

That was why he was a sunfish.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Park Su-bin was a character riddled with limits, contradictions, irrationality, and abnormality.

This was why Lee Shin had been so obsessed with the record-chasing race. He had to reach SSS season rank no matter what.

He needed to obtain an SS-rank trait from the Diamond Card Pack (Trait) and erase that damned negative trait once and for all.

“Then dump all the points I saved while all-inning in one go.”

“Perfect.”

He downed the rest of the soju and immediately reached ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for the card packs.

“Cough, cough! Cough!!”

Park Su-bin woke up coughing and glanced at the clock.

His hair was drenched in sweat and plastered messily to his face. The burst blood vessels turning his eyes red proved he was far from normal.

The moment Park Su-bin had lain down was several days ago—right after the promotion celebration party that had been so joyful it bordered on ecstasy. The moment he got into bed, his body began trembling uncontrollably.

At the time, he thought it was simply the thrill of that emotional moment.

But when his fever shot up to 40 degrees Celsius and soaked the pillow with sweat, he finally realized something was wrong.

Sure enough, starting the next day, Park Su-bin’s entire body began aching while a fever raged through him.

To an outsider it might have looked like a common cold, but it was far worse. The aching felt like every joint in his body was being dismantled. The high fever above 40 degrees continued, leaving him dizzy and delirious.

That had been a week ago.

Ever since, Park Su-bin had been bedridden, unable to leave his mattress.

Then the door opened. His mother entered with a worried expression, carrying a bowl of porridge.

“Su-bin, how do you feel?”

“M… Mom.”

“Look at your face. You’ve lost so much weight. Is the fever still the same as yesterday? How do you feel? Any better than yesterday?”

“…Yeah.”

“Did you sleep at all? You haven’t been sleeping properly for days.”

“…A little.”

“Sigh, at least you slept a bit. That’s something. Here, Mom made pumpkin porridge that you like. It’s really good. I had a bowl myself. Just try one spoonful… Su-bin!!”

“…Huh?”

A nosebleed began flowing from the blankly staring Park Su-bin’s face. His mother, who had been about to feed him, dropped the spoon in shock and frantically grabbed tissues.

“This won’t do. We’re going to the hospital. You’re going to die at this rate.”

“It’s fine. Even if we go… they won’t know what’s wrong.”

“Still! Mom is worried sick. Just come with me.”

“I said I’m fine… I can endure it by drinking potions.”

Of course he had already been to the hospital in this condition. The diagnosis he received after being rushed to the ER was ‘fever of unknown origin.’

Even the doctor holding the test results looked puzzled.

There was no clear treatment, and the hospital wasn’t a comfortable enough place to stay just to be monitored. In that case, it was better to endure at home while drinking potions.

His mother, father, older sister, and younger sister each took turns worrying over him before leaving. Once he was alone in the house, Park Su-bin sprawled out and stared at the spinning ceiling, suffering from a headache.

“…Nothing goes right. Why did I have to get sick now of all times?”

It was exactly as he said. League championship, promotion, and an insane performance record.

This was the time when he should be enjoying himself like the main character of the world.

In fact, the older brothers and sisters of the strategy team had gone crazy, using the fat bonuses given by the representative to travel abroad and everywhere else.

However, Park Su-bin’s current regret had nothing to do with that kind of fun.

“I was going to train…”

The way he had been completely overshadowed by Lee Hye-jung and Park Jeong-seok in the latter half of the league had bothered him endlessly. He had planned to spend this off-season at the training center.

As expected of Lee Shin’s disciple, Park Su-bin had a brutally objective view of himself.

He had to wear layers of items and drink amplification potions like water to perform, but without them, the current him couldn’t even do the work of one person. He was a half-baked hunter.

It had somehow worked until now, but in the upcoming hunter-versus-hunter matches in League 3, this approach would never fly. That was why he had resolved to overcome this weakness during this off-season no matter what.

But now…

“So annoying…”

Park Su-bin’s vision blurred, and he collapsed without realizing it.

When he opened his eyes again, drenched in sweat as always, a familiar figure stood in his sight.

“Whoa, this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is delicious. Nom nom.”

The person cleanly scraping the bottom of the pumpkin porridge his mother had left behind was none other than Lee Shin.

Park Su-bin’s older brother, teacher, and representative.

“…Representative… Hyung…?”

“Hm? You’re awake?”

Seeing Lee Shin answer so casually with pumpkin porridge still smeared around his mouth, Park Su-bin was certain. It wasn’t an auditory hallucination.

Having thoroughly cleaned out even the bowl, Lee Shin grinned at him.

“I got worried and came to check. Who would’ve thought raising all those stats at once would cause a problem like this? Sorry.”

“Hyung… my head hurts… please speak a little slower.”

“Ah, it’s nothing important, so don’t worry about it. How’s your body?”

“A little dizzy.”

“Need anything?”

“…I’m fine.”

“Then that’s good. I’ll be going now.”

“Already…?”

“Yep.”

Park Su-bin’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly.

He was really leaving just like that? All he had done was steal and eat the pumpkin porridge?

But Lee Shin was serious.

“I only came to confirm something.”

He really had come to check.

The stats that had been raised.

And the traits that had been deleted.

“Get plenty of rest. If you need anything, just say the word.”

Lee Shin, who had been about to open the door and leave, suddenly turned back.

“By the way, Bokchi.”

He spoke to Park Su-bin.

“You’ve gotten taller.”

The boy was growing.

It was spring.