The first meeting between Lee Shin and the character Park Su-bin goes back to the time when his older brother first gifted him GM.
Unlike other good characters, Park Su-bin was just sitting crumpled in a corner somewhere, completely lacking presence.
A gloomy illustration, trash-tier stats—there was no other crap character like this one.
But rookie old-hand Lee Shin discovered the something hidden inside this crap character.
Trait
「???」
Many people overlook this, but not all traits are the same.
There’s something called priority.
Especially, the first trait represents the character’s identity—in other words, its essence.
But Park Su-bin’s first trait was filled in with 「???」. It was an unidentified trait he had never seen before, and it ignited the hot-blooded passion of an adolescent boy.
An almost obsessive curiosity.
And so, after three whole years—three years of effort—Lee Shin was finally able to approach the true nature of the character named Park Su-bin.
•••
“You’re a prince under a curse.”
“??!!”
Cu… rse? Pr… ince?
Park Su-bin’s eyes widened.
Yes, a curse.
Park Su-bin was cursed.
Trait
「???」, 「Weak」, 「Timid」, 「Deficient」, 「Obsessive」, 「Beta Male」, 「Self-Doubt」, 「Self-Deprecation」, 「Sweet Potato」
Out of the nine available trait slots, no fewer than eight were taken up by negative traits.
That was the curse placed on Park Su-bin.
“If there’s a starting line for growth, Bokchi, you can only stand on the same starting line as others after you’ve removed all these curses. Understen’ till here?”
A story far too heavy to tell while sitting on a swing and sipping an ice cream. No, in the first place, it was nonsense to be squatting on a neighborhood playground swing in an outfit fit for a film festival red carpet.
Yet, oddly enough, that made it feel even more sincere.
“But Bokchi… what exactly…?”
“Ocean sunfish. A cute fish that looks just like you.”
He swallowed the part about how it also dies at the slightest mishap. This kid needed delicate care.
“...Then, what you’re saying, Representative, is that I…”
“Call me Hyung. After all, Bokchi, you and I are in this for life. Come on, try it—hyung~.”
“...”
“Right, if you’re Bokchi, this is how you should be. Let’s take it slow.”
“Y… yes.”
“Good, Bokchi. Now ask me again, properly. Head up, tighten your core, look me in the eyes. That’s it. Now say it like that.”
“...Th… then…”
In short, he was born cursed, and all the timidity and weakness that Park Su-bin hated so much about himself were all because of this curse.
To him, this was a kind of consolation.
He’d always blamed himself—because I’m incompetent, because I’m weak, because I’m stupid. But Lee Shin was telling him, “It’s not your fault.”
His shattered mentality pieced itself back together, if only by a speck.
And then, he began to wonder—would there be a “next” for someone as lacking as him…?
“Th… that… Is there a way to… break the curse…?”
And this was exactly what Lee Shin wanted.
He grinned broadly, as if he’d been waiting for this.
“Of cour~se!”
Many people had knelt before Park Su-bin’s curse.
Even those who’d bragged about being veteran players had been scared off by that fragile mentality and released him. And those who stubbornly raised him to salvage their pride had only experienced a rag incapable of even half its original performance.
That’s how Park Su-bin became the single most difficult character to raise in the existing GM universe.
But Lee Shin could say this with certainty to Park Su-bin.
No—if not him, no one could say this with certainty.
Because Park Su-bin was Lee Shin’s main character.
Looking at him seriously, Lee Shin spoke.
“From now on, I’ll teach you the spell to break the curse.”
“S… spell?”
“Yep!”
Of course, no such spell exists in the game.
But in real life, shouldn’t there at least be a ritual like this?
Who knows? Maybe a mindset like this will actually make something happen.
Smiling, Lee Shin began the “Park Su-bin Support Project.”
He tapped the shimmering [Gold Card Pack (Trait)] at the corner of his vision. The card pack spun around, then stopped, bursting into a flashy firework animation just like in GM.
【 Acquired A-Rank Trait 「Fear Resistance」 】
An A-rank trait from a gold card pack was a decent pull.
And 「Fear Resistance」 was quite useful for a tanker.
But right now, what the trait actually did didn’t matter—what mattered to Lee Shin was the A-rank grade.
“Alright, now repeat after me.”
Lee Shin jumped to his feet.
He stood firm on both legs, spread his chest wide, lifted his chin arrogantly, and drew a breath from deep in his gut.
“I…”
He pointed at himself.
“…am awesome!”
“…??”
“Awesome!!”
“??!!”
“Awesome!!”
“!!”
Park Su-bin’s jaw dropped.
Awesome? That—that’s the spell? And he’s telling me to say it?
His pupils trembled endlessly.
“See? Easy, right? Try it.”
“R… really? Me? Say that?”
“Look, you’re already talking faster. Good. Keep speaking like that from now on.”
“...Re… Representative.”
“You don’t have to do it—if you want to live like this forever.”
“...”
If you want to live like this forever…
That single offhand line stabbed deep into Park Su-bin’s chest.
It meant, if you can’t even do this much, you don’t deserve to change.
And yes—he wasn’t wrong.
In the end, the agent of change had to be himself. If he didn’t move, nothing would change.
“You can do it, Bokchi. You’re way more awesome than you think. I guarantee it.”
If you can’t trust yourself, trust me, who believes in you.
It was a line Lee Shin had once seen in an anime and had wanted to use—but it was also exactly the kind of thing someone with low self-esteem like Park Su-bin needed to hear.
At last, squeezing out a tiny drop of courage, he sprang to his feet.
“I… I… am…”
He raised his chin. Cold sweat poured down from its sharp edge.
He spread his chest. His narrow chest noticeably rose and fell.
Then, clenching his teeth, he pointed to his chest.
“A… awesome…”
“What was that?”
“Awesome!”
“Again.”
“Awesome!!”
“Nice!”
That’s it!
Lee Shin clapped.
Success. Park Su-bin’s expression brightened visibly with a sense of accomplishment.
A change so stark it chased away the gloom for a moment.
At that moment, Lee Shin brought his finger to Park Su-bin’s [Growth Management Window].
With a flurry of messages and cheerful notification sounds—
【 Granting Trait 「Fear Resistance」 to ‘Park Su-bin.’ 】
【 ‘Park Su-bin’s’ traits are at maximum capacity. Replacing with a trait of the same grade. 】
【 「Sweet Potato」 changes to 「Fear Resistance」. 】
【 Negative Trait 「Sweet Potato」 cannot be changed. Would you like to offset it with 「Fear Resistance」? < Y / N > 】
< Yes >
Trait (9/9)
「???」, 「Weak」, 「Timid」, 「Deficient」, 「Obsessive」, 「Beta Male」, 「Self-Doubt」, 「Self-Deprecation」, 「Sweet Potato」
▶▶
Trait (8/9)
「???」, 「Weak」, 「Timid」, 「Deficient」, 「Obsessive」, 「Beta Male」, 「Self-Doubt」, 「Self-Deprecation」
“Congratulations. You just got rid of one curse.”
“O… one?!”
“See? You didn’t think this was all there was to it, did you?”
Our blowfish isn’t just trash in terms of mentality—turns out their conscience is trash too. Puhahaha.
When Lee Shin sent a signal with his phone, a truck that had been on standby stopped in front of the two of them.
And they stepped into the door of the stage truck where Lee Shin had just put on quite the show.
“!!”
What filled both sides of the truck was none other than items.
Items bought up in a frenzy that burned the black market white.
“How is it, blowfish?”
Lee Shin took out a black mink coat from the side and draped it over Park Su-bin’s shoulders as he spoke.
“Show me the money meta. Isn’t it killer?”
And so time passed.
The day of the Mir Guild’s second-round raid dawned.
________________________________________
Level 4 gate Imp Archer Forward Base.
The Mir raid party, having arrived early at dawn for adaptation training, was gathered around Kim Jong-pil.
“Before we set out, we’ll have a quick briefing—.”
“Pfft.”
“This gate we’ve entered is the ‘Imp Archer Forward Base,’ one of the more difficult among Level 4 gates—.”
“Kikik.”
“The main monsters are imps, with long-range magic attacks—.”
“Ah man, my stomach hurts.”
Kim Jong-pil tries to give the briefing in as serious a tone as possible, but the raid party isn’t paying attention at all.
In truth, Kim Jong-pil is the same. He tries hard to be serious, but really, unless you pluck your eyes out, how can you not look at that?
“……”
Spurred cowboy boots you’d expect to see in a Western.
Unnecessarily tight black leggings, and equally unnecessarily large champion belt.
On every one of his ten fingers, a colorful gem ring.
One bracelet, one earring, and both a short and a long pearl necklace.
For the finishing touch, a tacky-to-the-max mink coat, the kind a real estate office lady in the ’90s might have worn to show off at a savings club meeting.
And all of these items were on one person.
Dozens of items, each enough to draw the eye on its own, all worn on the body of none other than the sixteen-year-old Park Su-bin.
Park Su-bin already had a petite build, but with tights on the bottom and a mink coat on top, he looked like a black swan standing on spindly legs.
Kim Jong-pil decided any further briefing was pointless.
If even he—just shy of sixty—couldn’t focus because of the shock, then for these rookies? Impossible.
“That concludes the briefing no one listened to. Instead, make sure you don’t make mistakes in the actual battle. Dismissed for personal prep; we depart right after.”
“”Yes!!””
Sure enough, instead of scattering for personal prep as usual, the team members crowded right up to Park Su-bin.
“Pffft, Su-bin, what happened to you in just a few days?”
“Our youngest disappeared to train one-on-one with the boss, and came back a full-blown attention-seeker. Hehehe!”
“How did you even get these items? Never mind performance, the design is—wow… Su-bin, do you even know all the options on this stuff?”
“How many is this… One, two, three… We each got one or two, and adding all this… This is insane…”
Yes.
Lee Shin’s solution to the Mir Guild’s defense problem was extremely simple.
Equipment support—crudely put, gear carry.
He had armed the raid party with items from his blazing black market shopping spree.
That’s why Park Su-bin was drawing so much attention.
The value of the items given to each of them easily exceeded billions of won, but on Park Su-bin alone, there were several times more than that.
Naturally, this invited some murmuring.
“That necklace—that’s the Pearl Eye Ring! The go-to necklace for mages. Lucky…I want one too.”
“Is it just me who’s bothered? We each only got one or two, so what did he do to get so many?”
“Well, I don’t mind, but you must feel a little miffed.”
“You okay, Jung-seok?”
“……”
Other than the Mountain King in Round 1, Park Jung-seok had the highest raid rating, so learning that the lowest-rated member—Park Su-bin, who’d been floundering with shield skills like tissue paper—got the lion’s share of support wasn’t just dissatisfying, it was downright offensive.
Shouldn’t it be me getting them?
I performed better than that brat, and I’m more desperate than that brat.
At that moment, a woman taps the shoulder of the scowling Park Jung-seok.
“Fix your face, will you?”
“Get lost, Lee Hye-jeong.”
“Pathetic. Really pathetic. A grown man is jealous just because the youngest got something.”
“…Honestly though, shouldn’t I be the one getting it?”
The woman named Hye-jeong gave a short, derisive laugh.
“This is why you shouldn’t take in black-haired beasts. You take in some abandoned prodigy, debut him, plan all the strategies to make him shine, and what happens? Just because he did well in Round 1, his shoulders puff up this much, and now he’s wrecking team morale.”
“…You done talking?”
“You’ve got nothing to say, right? Because it’s true.”
He couldn’t badmouth Lee Shin, who had picked them in the first place, so he was picking on the easy target—Park Su-bin, the youngest.
With nothing to say in the face of her fact-bomb, Park Jung-seok flushed and glared at Hye-jeong, and Hye-jeong, as fierce as the twin swords hanging at her waist, glared right back.
Sensing the tension between the two, their teammates began to drift over.
Hye-jeong, seeing the youngest looking flustered among the gathering members, smirked, then tapped Jung-seok on the chest as she passed.
“Keep it moderate. You’re not the only one desperate here.”
“Hey. Get back here.”
“The others are coming. If you’ve got something to say, tell me after the raid.”
Waving her hand dismissively, Hye-jeong reassured the others that it was nothing. Then she hugged Park Su-bin and burst out laughing—puhahahaha!!
Just as Jung-seok, feeling ignored, was about to step forward with a red and blotchy face—
Kim Jong-pil appeared, halting everyone’s movements.
“Park Su-bin. Come with me.”
“Uh… Y-Yes…!”
