Our Mid Laner Is Su-bin
A few days earlier, the conversation had taken place while they were deciding the entry list for the confrontation matches.
“Then we’ll move the bruiser Hunter Park Jeong-seok to top and place the poison specialist Hunter Lee Hye-jung in the jungle.”
“Yes.”
“Sounds good.”
At Lee Shin’s words from the head of the table, both Director Jeong Sun-dong and Raid Leader Kim Jong-pil nodded in agreement.
With that, two of the upper-body positions—out of top, jungle, mid, and the two bottom slots—were filled.
What remained were mid and bottom.
“Isn’t it a little awkward for Sir Mountain King to take mid?”
“Especially after the promise he made…”
“I have no intention of going back on my word. I made it clear I wouldn’t step onto the front lines until we reach League 1, so I’ll keep that promise. Until we climb to League 1, I’ll support the team from the back as a supporter.”
“Then, unfortunately, we’re left without any proper dealers in the most important dealer lines.”
“That’s how it turned out.”
Dealers were normally placed in mid and bottom lanes.
An AP dealer in mid, an AD dealer in bottom.
“The carry who finishes the game and the mid who serves as the team’s core.”
“W-well, if the carry is the final fortress that wins teamfights, then m-mid is what leads the team to greater heights, as they say.”
Greater heights. In other words, promotion.
The dealers responsible for both victory and promotion—by some cruel twist, the most critical core positions in the confrontation matches—had been left empty.
And if one had to choose which was more urgent, it was clearly ‘mid.’
“We have two people for bottom, after all. With Sir Mountain King there as well, the early laning phase shouldn’t collapse.”
“True. I can somehow cover the carry role. The most important quality for a carry is physical ability, and our kids have solid physicals. If I stick to them as support and control the lane, bottom shouldn’t be an issue. At least not at League 3 level.”
“The real question is who we put in mid.”
Mid.
The center of the battlefield. The flower of the confrontation match—the very term “lane” itself became its synonym—and the position that carried the grand strategy.
Wide vision, perfect roaming timing, the ability to initiate fights.
It demanded versatility. It required commanding the entire field. And above all, it needed to be the strongest.
Experts didn’t call it the chosen position for nothing. This was the domain of geniuses, the realm where only the chosen talents could thrive. That was precisely why mid laners were the most valuable hunters of all.
“What do you plan to do?”
“What are you planning?”
The questions were laced with worry.
Yet from the moment the conversation began, Lee Shin had not wavered once.
“It’s fine.”
What was there to worry about? They had their ultimate weapon.
“Our mid laner is Su-bin.”
“So this is what you were so confident about, Park Su-bin…”
It was a pure, unfiltered impression that finally slipped past the Mountain King’s tightly sealed lips.
Thirty-nine orbs of physical force, glowing a milky white, whipped through the air at insane speeds in a raging storm. Extreme multitasking.
“…He really does take after me.”
Beyond simply crushing opponents with raw numbers, he made the entire battlefield explode. It was the exact image of Sanwang, legion commander of the spirit army.
Coincidence? Or fate?
Same style. Same position. It was almost as if…
‘It feels like he’s telling me to teach the kid.’
It might have been a stretch.
For the idea to hold water, it would mean Lee Shin had predicted this exact sight from the very first moment he saw Park Su-bin using that pathetic excuse for a shield.
But was something like that even possible? For a single person?
It was an ability no one had ever heard of or seen.
Yet… yet here they were.
Once might be coincidence, but twice was skill.
Lee Shin had already shown him—how thoroughly he could dissect a person’s potential.
Recalling the manual tucked in his arms and Lee Shin’s brazen face, Sanwang let out a hearty chuckle. One thing was certain. Life was never boring next to that guy.
Unfortunately, the rest of the team was taking it far more seriously.
“……”
Not a single member of the raid team standing behind Sanwang could open their mouths.
Having experienced the battle through video magic as if they had been standing right in front of it, they still couldn’t fully process what they had just witnessed.
What the hell was that?
What did I just see?
I can’t wrap my head around it. How does that even work?
Their thoughts differed, but their feelings were identical.
Had the youngest always been that strong?
No one present had ever doubted Park Su-bin’s talent. Even during their first meeting when he had been utterly pathetic, they had still acknowledged his raw potential.
The reason was rather interesting. It was because Park Su-bin was the youngest awakener in history at sixteen years old.
There was an old unwritten rule in the guild world: awakening age and talent were inversely proportional.
As proof, only four people in all of Korea had awakened at age sixteen or younger. Every single one of them was now dominating the celestial realm of League 1.
When you added Park Su-bin’s extraordinary performances to that fact, it was easy to predict a brilliant future for him.
Yet the Park Su-bin they had seen until now clearly had limits.
The ridiculous equipment was proof enough—the mink coat even their own mothers wouldn’t wear, the gaudy king rings, the necklaces, and the amplification potions and awakening agents he drank like water.
His dazzling high-ceiling performances had still relied on external crutches.
That was why they had predicted he would only truly bloom once he no longer depended on those items and potions.
And they had all believed that moment of full bloom was still far away.
They had been spectacularly wrong.
The 5-versus-1 battle they had just witnessed mocked their expectations with its brutal brevity and overwhelming dominance. It was almost embarrassing to even call it a fight. Park Su-bin had simply snapped his fingers. The milky-white orbs had painted the sky, and then—
Papapapapak.
That was it. Truly.
So of course the sight of Park Su-bin standing on the field right now with that dumb, stuttering expression felt downright monstrous.
“Hahahaha… You impudent little thing. You’re making your noona embarrassed.”
Lee Hye-jung, who had told the nervous Park Su-bin to simply do an average job, scratched her head awkwardly.
“……”
Park Jeong-seok’s lips pressed into a thin line at the appearance of a rival who had grown far beyond anything he had imagined.
Jealousy. Competition. Crisis. Anxiety…
Kim Jong-pil nodded as he felt the tension rippling through the raid team.
This. A raid team should feel like this. The pro world was merciless. Fall behind in the competition and you were weeded out. You had to be ready to prove yourself at any moment.
But just look at them.
Luxury brands draped all over their bodies, dizzying amounts of perfume, women wearing full makeup, men so tanned they looked like they’d spent all their time at the beach.
The current Mir raid team was nowhere near professional.
As a side note, if this had been during his “Mad Tiger” days back at Kirin Guild, they would already be crumpled in the corner somewhere.
Daring to set foot in the sacred training ground with that pathetic mentality? You call yourselves pros? He would have chased them out like vermin.
Compared to those days, even Kim Jong-pil had mellowed considerably after everything that had happened.
Rather than hounding the rookies who couldn’t adjust to their first season and promotion like catching mice, he was using this more elegant approach.
Of course, rolling around on the floor without being able to touch their much younger teammate might sting their pride, but that wasn’t his problem.
“Su-bin.”
— “Y-yes!”
“You did well. Very well. But it seems you forgot to check the shield output. We didn’t have enough time to collect proper data. Even if it’s difficult, refrain from attacking and focus on maintaining the battle state.”
— “Ah! Yes!”
“Let’s change the field and run it again. I’ll say it once more—you were excellent. Just do it like that again.”
— “Understood!!”
Kim Jong-pil watched with satisfaction as Park Su-bin nodded vigorously inside the shimmering video feed, then pulled the lever.
The field manipulator creaked as it descended, and the grassland on the screen transformed into a lakeside.
Immediately afterward, Kim Jong-pil pressed a button to open the movement gate leading to the field and delivered the final blow.
“What are you waiting for, you six? Get in.”
The raid members’ faces turned deathly pale.
On the bus ride back from the stadium.
It was the same road they had taken earlier, yet the raid team had undergone a complete 180-degree transformation. They had changed from their fancy clothes into combat uniforms. The carefully styled hair was now covered in dust from rolling around on the ground. The ill-fitting perfume had been replaced by the sharp smell of honest sweat.
Now they finally look decent.
Kim Jong-pil nodded in satisfaction and continued his lecture about the league.
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The higher the league level, the more it demands from guilds.”
“Simply put, the number of matches increases. Raids must clear higher-level gates. Entirely new forms of combat like confrontation matches appear, and the entry list expands to handle the brutal schedule.”
The number of rounds had increased from 38 to 44.
Gates that used to be level 3–4 had risen to level 4–5.
Half of the added rounds—21 rounds—had been converted from monster raids into 5v5 human hunter battles known as confrontation matches.
The entry limit, which had only allowed exactly 15 people perfectly suited for raids, had expanded to 20 in League 3.
“Tight schedules, heavier consumables, equipment with higher requirements. To handle all these burdens, guilds naturally have no choice but to grow larger.”
They had to recruit more people to match the schedule, make more deals to secure consumables, and run around constantly to provide the raid team with better equipment.
Just like how Mir Guild had conducted business during this off-season.
“When the guild is this busy, isn’t it shameless for you alone to be comfortable?”
At the sudden rebuke, the raid team lowered their heads.
“The league’s demands on hunters are clear. Upgraded energy levels, improvement in hunter quality and performance, and the higher level of competition that results from it.”
“That’s why the Bureau tacitly begins treating guilds as proper organizations starting from League 3.”
Even the stadium they had used today was proof of the massive changes they called the Great Upheaval.
Kim Jong-pil made it crystal clear right then and there.
You are professionals now. If you don’t strive to survive, you can be discarded at any moment.
“The soft League 4 days where you could simply enter gates as ordered and only worry about clearing them are over. You are now playing in League 3. From this point forward, you must prove your own value every single moment.”
“Starting with me.”
Kim Jong-pil’s gaze swept across the three new recruits one by one.
A slim man holding a wand, a sturdy-built man, and a woman holding a staff.
“……”
At that simple gesture, the entire raid team tensed up.
Even though he hadn’t spoken the words aloud—precisely because he hadn’t—the warning was felt even more sharply.
You are no longer guaranteed starters.
If you fail to catch my eye, your position can be emptied at any time.
The starting lineup competition had officially begun.
“We set records every single round in League 4 and rewrote the league’s history. Doesn’t that excite you? The fact that every step we take is being recorded as a footprint in history?”
It was an uncharted realm that even the man called legend, Mountain King, had never stepped into.
Perhaps they really were becoming the protagonists of history—Mir Guild and Kim Jong-pil.
Suddenly remembering Lee Shin’s promise to make them exactly that, he let out a small chuckle.
Protagonists of history… He liked the sound of that.
Therefore, from now on, even Sanwang would truly begin to covet that title with all his heart.
“We will achieve this great feat in League 3 as well.”
It wasn’t a wish. It was a declaration.
Not a result that came after the process, but a result decided first, with the process shaped to fit it.
And if they disappointed him during that process like they had today?
He would replace them all.
Exactly as he had viewed them when recruiting them in the first place—like tools.
“Make every day fierce.”
The Mir raid team had taken their first step into League 3.
And so time flowed quickly, and the day of Mir Guild’s first-round confrontation match finally dawned.