The Red Shoes
Lee Mo's son, Mr. Shin, had a favorite saying.
The league isn't a sprint—it's a marathon.
It was partly a lesson about building stamina and perfecting your pace in advance if you wanted to run 42.195 kilometers. But more than that, it was a warning: if you bet your entire life on the race from the starting line and ran like a lunatic, you'd crash and burn.
The current state of League 2 was exactly that.
“League 2 is way too overheated right now! At this rate, everyone's going to die!!”
“Haha, calm down, Jen. Let's do the opening first, the opening.”
The MC gently pushed aside the excited panelist and began the intro.
“We dive into the league from the past week. It's amaazing~~”
““The League!!””
Along with Guild Section, it was considered one of the top three analysis channels.
While Guild Section featured former hunters providing professional discussions on strategy, tactics, and the current league meta, this program stripped away the complicated expertise and instead focused on what viewers actually cared about—guild results and hunter gossip.
Even the MC was a national treasure of the entertainment industry with zero connection to hunters. The reaction machines waving boards in the background were idols who hadn't even awakened an Awakening trait.
Thanks to that, the main age demographic was teens to twenties, and the female viewership ratio was overwhelmingly higher than any of the other three major programs.
It was truly a Young and MZ program.
And the one carrying the entire Y.o.u.n.g.M. vibe was none other than the passionate 'Jen' who had just been shouting.
“Hyung, we finished the opening, so can I talk now?!”
“Sure, our Jen can do whatever he wants.”
Jen was a first-generation idol hunter and the living legend of the Korean entertainment industry—the first Korean idol hunter to ever chart on Billboard.
He was hailed as the model example of an idol hunter who succeeded in both the entertainment and guild worlds. In his active days, he had even earned the nickname 'Passion Man.'
And today, true to his name, Jen glared at the camera with fierce eyes as if he wanted to devour it whole.
“The current pace of League 2 is abnormal! If you think about it, it was weird from the start. This might be an uncomfortable truth, but not every guild goes all-in like this every season!”
Every guild fought with all their strength to achieve good results, but the level of sincerity varied wildly.
The sincerity of the 2nd place team that had narrowly missed promotion last season was completely different from the 29th place team that had barely survived the promotion-relegation match.
That was why most teams usually set realistic goals.
The 29th place team that had tasted the bitterness of relegation aimed for 'just avoid the drop zone.'
The 20th place team that wanted to escape the lower ranks aimed for 'mid-tier.'
Once you subtracted all those teams, at most ten guilds would truly go all out.
“But this season in League 2, that’s not the case at all. Every single one of them is going all-in like they’re possessed. They’re raising the pace like crazy!”
As proof, every one of the thirty guilds in League 2 had already completed their 10th round as of yesterday.
Jen heavily emphasized that 1/5. Only one-fifth of the total fifty-round season had passed.
They had barely finished the early stages…
“And already guilds are retiring! Retiring, I said! Not one, not two—three! Three guilds have already retired after just one-fifth of the season!!”
The MC skillfully picked up on Jen’s exaggerated hysteria.
“That raises a fundamental question. Why did they keep running until they had to retire?”
“You’ve hit the core issue! To answer why this mess happened, we need to go back to the beginning.”
This season had seen an unprecedented number of free agent players hit the market, and League 2 guilds had swarmed them like bees.
That was where things went wrong.
Someone must have smeared honey on the contracts, because League 2 guilds were opening their wallets like madmen.
Hunters who clearly weren’t worth that price were being sold for two or three times their value.
A bubble created by excessive competition.
In truth, a bubble created by Lee Shin.
And bubbles were destined to burst.
“The common point among the three retired guilds was that the high-priced hunters they signed underperformed disastrously.”
The amount a representative signed on an acquisition contract was essentially an expectation.
This player will produce results worth this much. That expectation, expressed as a number.
So when a player performed at that level or higher, people called it a successful signing.
On the other hand, a failed signing? It meant they weren’t worth the money.
If they couldn’t produce results matching the amount paid, the number written on that contract became a label of the representative’s incompetence and failure.
Therefore, whether they liked it or not, the moment the guilds stepped into the bubble-filled market that Lee Shin had created, they could no longer stop. They couldn’t afford to stop.
This wasn’t an amount they could simply write off as a failure. The moment they stopped, the full responsibility would fall squarely on the representative’s shoulders.
Everything up to this point had gone exactly according to Lee Shin’s scenario.
“Right now, the guilds are dancing. Just like the protagonist in the grim fairy tale who put on the red shoes—they won’t be able to stop this dance until their feet are cut off.”
In Incheon, under the leadership of the Tarion Guild representative, a power analysis meeting was underway.
“After our investigation, we found that Mir Guild’s raids in the lower leagues were an impregnable fortress.”
League 4. League 3.
The raid records and various indicators of Mir Guild that appeared on the screen were so impressive that anyone watching might think this was Mir Guild’s own meeting. But this was definitely Tarion.
Of course, it wasn’t meaningless.
The Mountain King’s brain and command, which had changed the paradigm of strategy, were still as sharp as ever. Just watching it would provide valuable lessons for the next round and dungeon clears.
However, let’s be clear once again—this was Tarion.
These people had not gathered to praise the Mountain King. This meeting existed to find the Mountain King’s—more precisely, Mir Guild’s—weaknesses.
“Now we’ll look at League 2 raid footage. The interesting part is that the formation itself hasn’t changed much.”
The Mountain King stood with his hands behind his back, commanding from above with only simple buffs. The rest of the raid team adjusted their formation according to his commands and launched their assault.
It was classic Mir Guild raid combat.
“But there is clearly a difference. Watch from here.”
The moment the team leader pressed the button, footage from League 3 and League 2 played simultaneously, then immediately sped up to 3x speed.
Only then did the difference between the two videos become crystal clear.
They had started similarly in the early phase, but as time went on, the League 2 raid team was falling further and further behind.
Even the healers, who normally consumed relatively little stamina, were sweating buckets and struggling…
The team leader placed the blame for this squarely on one person.
The Mountain King.
“The reason Mir Guild’s raids aren’t as overwhelmingly dominant after promoting to League 2? It’s because of the Mountain King. The reason Mir Guild’s pace is precarious? Again, it’s because of the Mountain King.”
Because—
“Essentially, they’re missing one person.”
“……!!”
That was correct.
His brain was excellent and his command was excellent, but when you broke it down, they were ultimately operating with one person short.
“In League 4 and 3, it probably wasn’t noticeable. Those hunters had terrible brain stats but excellent physical stats.”
But could they still crush opponents with pure physicality in League 2? If they could, they wouldn’t have been stuck in League 4 in the first place.
“The Mountain King did nothing wrong. He is still the smartest commander in the world and undeniably a legend. However, it is also undeniable that by taking on the role of the brain, he has removed himself from the combat strength.”
“The pressure that should be handled by fifteen people is now being carried by fourteen. The raid team loses their margin for error. When there’s no margin, their field of vision narrows. When their field of vision narrows, command no longer works.”
“And this is the result.”
The screen changed, displaying the rankings.
It was the 10th Round raid records.
1st — Mir Guild
68h 47m 1s
2nd — Tarion Guild
68h 49m 50s
3rd — Shuffle Card Guild
68h 50m 9s
⋯
⋯
9th — Mir Guild (current)
68h 56m 25s
Ninth place was still upper rank, but it was somewhat lacking to call it promotion territory.
That was under normal circumstances. The current situation was different.
“As you can see here, from 1st to 10th place, the difference in raid records is within ten minutes.”
According to a British research institute, the range in which luck affected raids was eleven minutes.
If the boss had many sudden patterns, it could be delayed by about eleven minutes. Conversely, if they got lucky and landed critical damage, they could finish eleven minutes earlier.
“When you combine the pressure currently on Mir Guild, the overall power increase across League 2 this season, and various other factors…”
“We reach the conclusion that Mir Guild is not as overwhelmingly dominant as we initially thought.”
This was League 2.
No matter how monstrous Park Su-bin and Yu Ri-ra were, the opponents’ weight class was nothing to scoff at.
Moreover, this year, thanks to that man Lee Mo’s schemes, the average weight class of the league had risen against everyone’s will.
Naturally, the gap that originally existed had shrunk even further. It was practically a 1.5 Division league at this point.
The reason the Mountain King had declared he would not use his personal abilities when he first entered the 4th Division was likely because he had been thinking of the normal standards of the 2nd Division. In other words, the current situation was a clear irregularity.
This would be too much even if the Mountain King’s grandfather came instead of him.
Therefore, the power analysis team leader concluded.
“In the near future, Mir Guild’s record will be broken.”
And for the first time, a reaction came from the seat of honor.
“Aish.”
The man who had both legs up on the desk, leaning so far back in his chair that he was practically lying down—Ryu Hyeong-seok.
He was the representative of Mujang Guild, dispatched by the Ido Group, and the son of Lee Se-jeong, the cherished daughter of Chairman Lee Sang-byuk.
And—
“Team leader, do you still not know me? After two years, you still don’t get it?”
Just as the heavens gave birth to Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang, because there existed a being called Lee Shin in the Ido family, Ryu Hyeong-seok’s own talents had been somewhat overshadowed.
Still, he had been the number two troublemaker who had chased right behind that Lee Shin.
“I told you I’m a dumbass, didn’t I? I don’t understand when you talk like that. Stop spinning around and making my head hurt. Just give me the point. The point only.”
Ryu Hyeong-seok stretched, then pointed at the screen with his foot that was still resting on the desk.
“So, will the record be broken? Or not?”
“It will be broken.”
“By when?”
“Soon…”
“Don’t be vague. If it’s one day, say one day. If it’s one week, say one week. If it’s a round, attach the number. Answer as if I’m pointing a gun at your head.”
The power analysis team leader, who knew very well that this threat was not just a threat, felt a cold sweat run down his spine and answered carefully.
“By the 14th round—within four rounds—Mir Guild’s raid record will drop to 2nd place, or they will suffer a set loss in a matchup.”
“Okay. You promised, right? If you’re wrong, we’ll see each other then.”
Get out. Bang!
When he fired a finger gun, everyone in the conference room quickly left. Soon after, a secretary in a suit entered from outside.
Ryu Hyeong-seok’s gaze toward the man was uncomfortable. The man was both a helper and a watchdog that his mother, Lee Se-jeong, had assigned him.
“You come in without even being called. What is it? What did Mother say this time?”
“She had no particular message. Except for the part about not speaking about Mir Guild and Young Master Lee Shin.”
“Do my ears look like an asshole to you? ‘No particular message,’ my ass. She basically said everything. She wants me to somehow cut off their record before I face that amazing older brother of mine, right?”
“……”
“Anyway, if you have nothing to say, shut up. Don’t worry, I’ll do well even without you nagging. I hate Lee Shin too, you know.”
Well, honestly, was there anyone in this family who actually liked that guy?
There were many reasons, but he was certain that very few people liked him.
Because he was loved by their grandfather, because he stole his ex-girlfriend, because he completely humiliated him… Even if he had been his older brother, there might have been some grand complex regarding the ‘Ryu’ surname, but at least for him, that wasn’t the reason.
It was really nothing complicated.
Fuck, he just pisses me off.
He simply hated him.
He hated looking at that smug face.
It was an instinctive aversion.
Ryu Hyeong-seok didn’t realize it himself, but people called that ‘kinship hatred.’
He leaned back in his chair and put a cigarette in his mouth. The secretary immediately lit it for him.
After taking a deep drag, Ryu Hyeong-seok wiggled his toes and looked at the screen that was still on in the corner.
“Did you hear that? What do you think? Is that 14th round thing possible?”
Even though he had been outside, the wall was no obstacle for the secretary who possessed the Psychometry trait.
Based on what he had heard, he quietly gave his opinion.
“It is true that the record has entered visible range. It is also true that the remaining fourteen members of the raid team excluding the Mountain King are under heavy overload. Therefore, I judge the team leader’s statement to be sufficiently reasonable.”
“When do I fight him?”
“It is the 15th round.”
“So you’re saying the record will be broken before I fight him?”
“The probability is high.”
“Good. Good. I was so sick of watching that pathetic bastard do well. Let’s see that handsome face of his get all twisted up.”
And so the 11th Round arrived.
Mir Guild (3) : Tarion Guild (0)
* Mir Guild Victory (+3 points)
“That Park Su-bin guy is pretty useful. Is there any way to scout him?”
Then the 12th Round.
LV6. Chimera Ogre’s Great Escape
64h 5m 14s (Gap: 7m 11s)
“It went down. Seven minutes. Did they push themselves this time? Tsk tsk, you shouldn’t rush your records like that. Alright, let’s see what happens next.”
Then the 13th Round.
Mir Guild (3) : Card Shuffle Guild (0)
“Hmm……”
Finally, the 14th Round.
LV6. The Counterattack of the Civilized Goblins
59h 51m 14s
“……Hey, didn’t you say it would stop?”
The gap with 1st place. Total: 27m 7s.
“Fuck, the gap got even bigger?!”
Mir Guild.
Exclamations poured out from the hunters lying on the stone beds.
“Ughhh, this is amazing.”
“So warm~”
“All the fatigue is melting away.”
“Five stars……”
Two hours later, the hunters emerged with glowing complexions.
Lee Shin, wearing a hot towel on his head that no one knew where he had gotten, came out and high-fived everyone.
“Wow… Representative, you’re incredible.”
“Feels good, right?”
“It’s no joke.”
“Isn’t it killer?”
“This is sex. This is real sex.”
“Kk kk kk.”
Soon after, someone knocked on the waiting room door.
“Next group, please come in.”
““Ooh!””
Today as well, Mir Guild was operating without any issues.