The Variable Called Luck
A field overgrown with weeds.
A towering reinforced concrete wall stood on the outskirts of the city. At the entrance, the words Ido Comprehensive Logistics Center were written in massive letters.
This was the workplace where the solidly built young man Chae Dong-ha worked as an intern.
“Dong-ha! Chae Dong-ha!”
“Where are you, Mr. Dong-ha~!”
“Yes, I’m right here, team leader!!”
From across the warehouse, the voices calling his name made Chae Dong-ha quickly stub out his cigarette and start to stand. But the team leader Choi and manager Park grabbed both his shoulders.
“Aigoo, our pretty boy. Why are you standing? Sit. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Exactly. You’re a total treasure, you know.”
Their smiles were sickeningly sweet. Their voices gentle and soft.
One look at their grinning, broken-doll expressions and Chae Dong-ha immediately knew what they wanted to talk about.
“Looks like both of you hit it big. Congratulations.”
The Kirin versus Baek Sword Guild War Korea finals from a few days ago had been an absolute shocker. Everyone had expected an easy sweep for Kirin Guild, but the match went all the way to seven rounds and even reached the final siege—an unprecedented upset.
Chae Dong-ha had predicted every single outcome of that miracle run with eerie accuracy. These two men, who hadn’t brushed off his words, had apparently cleaned up nicely through betting.
“How did you call the entire finals perfectly!”
“I’m genuinely curious, Mr. Dong-ha. How did you know the Baek Sword Guild would even drag it out to seven rounds? I couldn’t even imagine it.”
“Haha… I wouldn’t say I called it. I just picked the highest-probability outcomes.”
“Whoa, probability! Team leader, you hearing this? Is this what humility looks like?”
“It really wasn’t anything special…”
“Not special? You got everything right!”
“Exactly! I was shocked!”
The absence of the Mountain King in a best-of-seven would be bigger than people thought. So it would go the distance.
But if it reached the final battlefield, the Flame Queen would likely finish it rather cleanly with high probability.
Everything had unfolded exactly as Chae Dong-ha predicted, from start to finish.
“And that wasn’t all. You gave commentary on nearly every single hunter and got them all right.”
“Chills! Team leader, look at this. See my goosebumps?”
“Hahaha… Thank you.”
Despite their fussing, Chae Dong-ha simply smiled his usual pure, uncomplicated smile. He didn’t feel particularly moved.
He had simply spoken based on visible probabilities. What was so special about that?
In this era, information overflowed everywhere.
Field data, monster types, raid party compositions. Chae Dong-ha simply calculated probabilities from those and spoke them aloud.
From his perspective, it was far harder to understand why the team leader and manager would throw their hard-earned money at gambling full of uncertainty.
“It’s amazing. You spend every lunch break browsing guild communities, and it turns out you have a real talent for this.”
“You know how some people are just gifted in one area? Their brain just works differently for that one thing.”
“Guess it must be true.”
“I’m seeing you in a new light, Mr. Dong-ha. Instead of this, shouldn’t you really pursue that path? You know, like a power analyst or scouter.”
“……!”
“…….”
The manager’s careless words made the team leader flinch. He carefully checked Chae Dong-ha’s expression.
A flicker of bitterness crossed Chae Dong-ha’s face before he recovered his usual smile.
“No, it’s not like that.”
“It is, though. The rumors are everywhere! I have a good eye for people. Seriously! You have real talent for this, Mr. Dong-ha!”
But the oblivious manager wouldn’t stop. He even persistently asked if Chae Dong-ha wanted to try working at a guild where his cousin was employed.
The team leader finally intervened. “Hey, you’re getting too excited. Knock it off.”
“But team leader, you saw it too. How much do the top analysts and scouters make these days? This is a total waste! Listen to me. Mr. Dong-ha is still young. The second division or first might be tough at first, but if he starts from the lower leagues and builds up step by step…”
“I said stop!”
“What the—why are you getting mad?”
“Just shut up, man.”
“But…”
When the team leader gave him a meaningful look, the manager finally noticed the shadow that had fallen over Chae Dong-ha’s face.
Talent?
Chae Dong-ha knew it himself. He knew he had talent in this area. As a child, he had even dreamed of working for a guild.
But the current Chae Dong-ha could not dream.
His siblings’ tuition, his mother’s hospital bills, the housing loan… As the head of the family responsible for all of them, the weight on his shoulders was already heavy enough.
“I’m sorry. I… wasn’t being considerate.”
“Haha, it’s fine. Really.”
“Enough. Let’s go eat. What’s for lunch today?”
In the world of probabilities that Chae Dong-ha saw, this was already a solved equation.
The probability of achieving his dream was at most ten percent. The probability that his family would collapse if he chased that dream was at least ninety.
On the other hand, if he simply avoided any major mistakes here, he had a one hundred percent chance of becoming a regular production employee at a major corporation.
The answer was too obvious.
Chae Dong-ha stared at the Guild War logo on his phone wallpaper for a moment before turning the screen off.
Once I finish this internship and become a full-time employee, earning a salary… If I can dress my family in what they want and feed them what they want, that will be my dream.
Comforting himself with those thoughts as always, he headed toward the cafeteria.
But probability was, in the end, only probability.
If it wasn’t one hundred percent, variables always existed.
Intern Chae Dong-ha, please come to the center reception room immediately. I repeat. Intern Chae Dong-ha, please come to the center reception room immediately…
Chae Dong-ha had calculated the probability of his own dream.
But he had overlooked the variable called luck.
* * *
“Hello. I’m Lee Shin.”
From the moment Lee Shin opened his eyes in this world, everything had been pure joy.
Living life as an overwhelmingly handsome man with maxed-out charm—a level of attractiveness he had never experienced in his previous life—was delightful. Enjoying the shallow superiority that came with the word chaebol wasn’t bad either.
But.
Even so.
He could confidently say that all the joy he had felt until now combined couldn’t compare to this very moment.
“Whoa, Chae Dong-ha… He looks exactly like the illustrations…!”
“Pardon?”
“Just a second. Give me a moment to savor this.”
It was completely different from seeing him on TV. Different on an entirely different level from looking him up online.
The real thing! A real, living, breathing character!
And not just any character—one of Lee Shin’s top five favorites from his time as GM was standing right in front of him!
As far as Chae Dong-ha was concerned, he was an SS-class character according to the strict character tier list Lee Shin had created. Considering SSS-class was considered god-tier, this put him on the tier just below.
He had broken through the demonic S-class wall that even formidable awakeners couldn’t pierce and reached the absolute peak possible for a non-awakener.
For reference, the grumpy old man Lee Sang-byuk whom he had met a few days ago was also SS-class, which showed just how valuable Chae Dong-ha was.
The miraculous man who raised a bottom-tier 5th division league guild all the way to major status!
The devil of the agent world who uses influencer-style marketing and hunter fame to generate astronomical profits through trades!
The legendary genius leader who received the highest transfer fee in history to join Kirin Guild and will rewrite the legends that had begun to stagnate!
With his overflowing talent, he could take many different tech trees, but the one Lee Shin loved most was the management cheat key.
The one where he placed him directly under himself.
I’m full just looking at him.
Honey dripped from Lee Shin’s eyes. Meanwhile, the more that happened, the more Chae Dong-ha’s pupils trembled…
“I-is there something on my face?”
He had answered the summons and opened the door to the reception room only to find the chairman’s grandson sitting there. And not just any grandson—the infamous troublemaker Lee Shin who had been all over the news lately.
On top of that, the man was staring at him with an uncomfortably intense gaze, as if looking at something delicious.
At that point, Chae Dong-ha’s mind already froze. His creaking movements were proof of it.
“Hey, no need to be so tense. I just came because I wanted to have a chat.”
“A chat… with me? About what?”
“I heard the rumors about you, Dong-ha. That you’re very interested in the guild scene. I’m also quite interested in that area.”
“Th… that’s it?”
He had come all the way here for that reason? He had called him out during work hours just for that?
Was this the world of chaebols that he had only heard about in stories?
But the real main topic hadn’t even begun.
“Let’s drop the formalities while we’re at it. So we can talk more comfortably.”
“…Yes?”
“Oh, you said ‘yes’! How old are you, Dong-ha? Twenty-five, right? I’m twenty-three. Perfect. We’re exactly two years apart—like brothers who didn’t even need to check compatibility. Wow~! Don’t you think?”
“B-brothers?”
“Then from now on I’ll call you hyung. Dong-ha hyung, feel free to call me whatever you want too.”
“Yes… Yes??”
“First, I should probably explain the current situation, right, Dong-ha hyung?”
“Y-yes?”
The brotherly oath had passed at the speed of lightning.
The unpredictable development that gave no hint of what would come next finally caused Chae Dong-ha’s thought process to completely shut down.
Lee Shin nodded at the sight.
Going well.
He had no intention whatsoever of letting this talented SS-class slave—no, talent—who had rolled into his lap get away.
When you seize the initiative, you push even harder.
The first topic was, of course, this.
“If you were running a guild, hyung, how would you operate it?”
“A guild all of a sudden?”
“Yeah. A guild.”
A topic as impossible to pin down as their first impressions.
Chae Dong-ha tilted his head, staring at him as if trying to figure out what kind of nonsense this was. Lee Shin simply gazed back at him deeply, waiting for an answer.
His eyes were full of determination. The momentum said he would keep asking until he got an answer no matter how much Chae Dong-ha tried to dodge. In the end, Chae Dong-ha let out a small sigh and opened his mouth.
“I’m sorry, but the question is wrong. Asking how I would run a guild shouldn’t be the first question. The first thing to determine is what kind of guild it is.”
“Oh~?”
“Yes. Not all guilds are the same just because they’re called guilds. They each have completely different personalities depending on their purpose.”
Not everyone shouted for promotion and league championships.
There were hunting guilds that focused on raids to make a living rather than the league, selling guilds that carefully raised promising talents and sold them to higher league guilds, and so on.
“…When you think about it, it’s obvious. Generally speaking, professional hunters start from league division three. That’s when the competitive matches begin, so the level of exposure is completely different. And that number makes up less than twenty percent of all awakeners. In division two it’s five percent. Division one is one percent.”
“So the ones not in that twenty percent have to make a choice?”
“Realistically, not everyone can aim for the top. Hunters are human too. They have to live in reality. Therefore, there cannot be identical guilds in this world.”
It sounded as if he were talking about someone’s reality. Chae Dong-ha’s face darkened for a moment before returning to normal.
“Good. Excellent. Then let’s add some conditions. A once-prestigious local guild that enjoyed its golden age but has now fallen. Heavy debt, a completely ruined talent pool. They’re desperately hoping for an acquirer to appear.”
“That’s very specific.”
“I took a guess based on my grandfather’s tastes. What do you think? How would you look at it, hyung?”
“If it were me…”
“Oh, and there’s plenty of money. Enough to rot.”
“In that case, I would start with recruitment.”
The face of a guild was its raid team, and hunters made up that raid team.
“First, shock the market by recruiting major figures. Then make a cold decision. Whether to go all-in with a win-now strategy using every resource available, or to build foundations gradually even if it takes time.”
“Interesting. What would you do, hyung?”
“The normal probability of promotion is two percent. Rather than gambling on a two percent chance, I would choose to build a foundation and climb step by step. That’s also better for gathering a fanbase. Also…”
Ideas poured out like water from a broken dam.
“Ooh~! Wow~!” At Lee Shin’s enthusiastic interjections, Chae Dong-ha grew excited too and began pulling out ideas he had kept tightly locked in his mind. He was just beginning to paint the plan with his own colors when—
He suddenly stopped.
“Ah…”
He had gotten caught up in the mood and spoken without realizing it, but this was all meaningless fantasy.
Chae Dong-ha’s face turned bright red.
An intern whose contract could vanish like a fly’s life with a single puff of breath was sitting here talking about guild management. How ridiculous it must look. He wanted to die of embarrassment.
But Lee Shin was grinning so widely he looked like he might burst with joy.
I was worried, but that was unnecessary.
In the original story, Chae Dong-ha would take his first step into the guild world in his mid-thirties—a rather late start—then rocket to success at incredible speed.
So Lee Shin had wondered if maybe he was completely untapped when younger.
But this conversation had confirmed it.
This guy was exactly the born genius he remembered.
“Excellent. Hyung, what do you say? Let’s do that plan you just described. Together with me.”
“…Pardon?”
“You don’t understand? I’m scouting you. For my guild.”
“……!!”
At the word guild that he had dreamed of for so long, Chae Dong-ha’s heart swelled for a moment—only for a heavy stone to drop into it with a thud.
It was the stone called responsibility that he carried, that he had to carry.
“…I’m sorry. It’s truly a grateful offer, but my circumstances don’t allow me to accept right now.”
“Why not?”
“…….”
After the tsunami-like rush, he had grown coldly rational instead.
Could such a conveniently perfect reality truly exist?
The probability that a guild master would recognize his talent and seriously scout him versus the probability that a troublemaking third-generation chaebol would coincidentally hear a rumor about an employee who liked guilds and come to tease him.
Both situations were equally implausible, but as always in such cases, he chose the stable option.
“I’m sorry, but… I cannot play along with this kind of joke.”
“So why not?”
“…….”
Faced with Lee Shin’s unchanging bright smile, Chae Dong-ha found himself at a loss for words.
With his conversion to full-time employment right around the corner, he couldn’t exactly speak rudely to the chairman’s grandson.
He took a deep breath inwardly.
Thinking of the stable job at Ido that would support his younger siblings in place of their late father. Thinking of the solid welfare benefits that would cover his sick mother’s hospital bills.
He forced the corners of his mouth upward. As always, he prepared to speak with a good-natured smile.
“Ha, what should I do?”
However, there was one thing he didn’t know.
Lee Shin knew more about him than he expected—more than Chae Dong-ha himself.
That he was the kind of common character who gave up on his dreams when blocked by the wall of reality.
“Hmm, how can I make you believe me?”
“…Yes?”
“It’s probably because of money, since it’s you. Your siblings. Your mother. Your family… Right?”
“……!!”
“Right. Then this should do it.”
And the current Lee Shin possessed the power called wealth—the power to shatter the wall blocking Chae Dong-ha and make his dream come true.
Lee Shin took a document from his coat.
“Write it however much you want to receive.”
Position: To be determined (Analysis/Scouting/Management track)
Salary: ____________________________ (Please fill in desired amount)
Benefits: Full coverage of family medical expenses, tuition support, housing loan repayment, and all other family needs as requested.
Remarks: Immediate deposit upon signing. No upper limit.
The document placed before Chae Dong-ha was an employment contract. A blank contract with the salary field left empty.
“I’ll deposit it right away.”