Return of the Sword God-Rank Civil Servant-Chapter 434

[ You have defeated the Great Scorpion. ]

[ You have defeated the Great Scorpion. ]

[ You have defeated the Great Scorpion. ]

[ You have defeated the Great Scorpion. ]

[ You have defeated the Great Scorpion. ]

......

Notifications pouring down in droves.

There wasn’t much for Su-ho to do here.

After loosing the hunting dogs across the field, he clasped his hands behind his back like a highborn gentleman and strolled slowly through the vast Great Victoria Desert.

“Nice and warm—perfect weather for a walk.”

His stats were already beyond-human; what threat could a desert climate like this pose?

Everything went smoothly, like an auto-play mobile game that makes “auto-hunt” its content.

[ Your level has increased. ]

[ All stats have increased by 1. ]

[ You have obtained 1 bonus stat. ]

“Oh my, level up.”

Then, whenever a level ticked up, he smiled as if he had picked a dandelion head stuffed with seeds out in the field.

Su-ho allocated the bonus stat to Mana and closed the status window.

‘So I just need to advance this slowly.’

In truth, there was no special strategy.

He would start from the candidate Gates, and everyone else would advance from Sydney Airport.

Naturally, the closer you were to the city, the lower the field monster levels tended to be.

As for field monsters, the longer a Gate was left unattended, the stronger the ones it summoned usually were.

‘Good thing I didn’t bring a broadcast camera.’

He had debated it a lot.

Whether to broadcast himself fighting alone at the very front to give people reassurance and boost morale—those kinds of thoughts.

But he dropped it soon enough.

Because judging from the current pace of advance, he was starting to think he might be able to wipe out Australia’s Gates to the last without even needing the Sabers’ help.

Of course, this too had been anticipated in advance.

Still, even so, the reason Su-ho deliberately spent three whole days to build Save the World was because he viewed Gate strategy from a long-term perspective.

‘The catastrophe-class Gates that appeared in my previous life were not catastrophe-class from the start.’

They were all ordinary Gates that got promoted to big Gates and, after going unraided for a long time, simply leveled up into catastrophe-class.

But this time, Su-ho—with overwhelming stats—would break every big Gate candidate from the outset, and if things went according to the theory he had in mind, all five catastrophe-class Gates would be cleared without much difficulty.

That was why he convened Save the World.

Because he didn’t know what the future would be like after clearing all five catastrophe-class Gates.

‘Of course, there are special events that occur during the Third Great Upheaval.......’

Those were lower in difficulty than the catastrophe-class Gates, so there was no need to worry.

So Su-ho organized Save the World for what comes after the five catastrophe-class Gate strategies.

Of course, beyond that reason, he also wanted to instill a sense of responsibility and pride in people.

‘If the image that I can solve everything alone is too strong, others will never shake the feeling that they’re just extras.’

Whether work or volunteer service, the more you feel a sense of reward and receive people’s recognition, the more fulfilling it is.

In that sense, Su-ho’s thought was that you don’t have to show everything even if you don’t lie.

‘Time to run some Gates.’

While he was walking slowly, turning over these and those thoughts, he found yet another new Gate.

Upon discovering the Gate, Su-ho didn’t hesitate in the least and jumped inside.

[ Entering the Gate. ]

*

A few days passed after that.

“Smooth.”

There were no major anomalies.

When the army clones advanced and the field monsters were cleaned up, Su-ho stepped in and cleared the Gate.

So there was nothing particularly difficult.

The farther he got from the candidate Gates, the lower the monster levels dropped, so the difficulty could only get easier and easier.

Just then.

Chzzzt—

— Section Chief, are you busy?

Radio static.

The voice coming from the magic transceiver was none other than Kim Geon’s.

Amazingly, the Korean government had dispatched the entire Special Unit personnel to Su-ho for his sake.

The reason was that what Su-ho was doing now was for the world, so shouldn’t the Special Unit that handles special missions come to Su-ho’s side and work there as well?

Naturally, that was the surface reason; the real one was seizing a government image boost by leveraging Su-ho in this opportunity. But from Su-ho’s standpoint, it was just “thank you.”

If the people most familiar and trustworthy to him would support him at the front line, why would he refuse?

Su-ho asked,

“No, why?”

— It’s just... this isn’t something I can say well over radio, so I think you should come take a look. I tried not to bother you if I could help it, but we judged this issue is difficult for us to handle at our level, so we had no choice but to contact you.

“Oh dear, if you’re putting it that way, it must be big. I’m coming right now. Wait.”

— Yes, thank you.

Ending the transmission, Su-ho furrowed his brow.

‘If he’s putting it that way, it must be a hell of a mess.......’

Kim Geon was still active as a team leader.

Since he was the most capable among the current members, that fact was unlikely to have changed.

After ending the transmission, Su-ho gave a sidelong glance at the hard-fighting army clones.

‘It’ll be fine for a bit.’

It’s not like the army clones were going to touch the Gate anyway.

Nodding, Su-ho used a skill.

[ Shadow Move is activated. ]

Swoosh!

Mana drained as Shadow Move activated.

At the same time, Su-ho was able to appear in front of Kim Geon.

“Ah, Section Chief, you’re here?”

Kim Geon was in a hastily erected command tent.

Su-ho had given him an emergency shadow shard, so whenever Su-ho said he’d come straight over, Kim always made sure to be sitting alone, mindful of prying eyes around him.

Su-ho asked,

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“It’s an issue that arose after a few days of monitoring, and there’s something a bit strange about it.”

“What is it?”

“Among the state-mixed teams limited to high-level Gates, only Team 1 keeps having Players die.”

“Mm?”

Since Kim Geon had been dispatched, Su-ho had been receiving steady reports.

It wasn’t like he was busy, and no matter how detailed the operations Ion handled, he still needed to know at least how the very front line was moving.

Not in detail, of course—at a rough level.

But even at that level, he knew what the state-mixed teams for high-level Gates were.

A “state-mixed team” meant grouping Players from several countries into a single team and dispatching them to a target according to the strategy; normally, teams would party up by country, but in the case of high-level Gates, the personnel who could raid them were limited in each nation, so they had no choice but to gather high-level Players from other countries and form a joint strategy team.

‘In other words, a task force created for efficiency.’

But among those, it was the very top Team 1—the best-performing one—where Players kept dying.

Su-ho furrowed his brow.

“Since they’re high-level Gates, the mortality rate will be higher than in lower-level Gates. Even if you hang the rule that survival is the first priority. You’re not ignorant of that, and yet you’re bringing up that they keep dying—so there’s something that sticks out to you?”

“Yes, could you take a look at these two first?”

Kim pulled up files on two people on his tablet.

But when Su-ho saw the two profiles split across the screen, his eyelids twitched before he knew it.

‘These bastards.......’

The reason Su-ho twitched.

Because the two people on the tablet were none other than his comrades from his previous life—America’s Alex Morgan and Britain’s Hex Hood.

Kim said,

“As you know, several state-mixed teams are being operated right now, and for convenience we number them by fighting power. Naturally, we also swap personnel whenever necessary. Among them, there are people who always occupy Team 1—that’s these two.”

“They’re always in it because they’re capable.”

“Yes, they are capable in practice. But they’ve attempted around eight Gate raids so far, and except for the first three, starting from the fourth there have always been casualties.”

“If one died steadily from the fourth out of eight, that’s at least five dead, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Five people... What’s their Gate clear rate?”

“Not even 30%.”

“Hmm.”

Su-ho stroked his chin.

Right.

Aside from the region Su-ho took on in Australia, those two were picking the hardest Gates and taking them on.

So party member deaths could be something that, in a sense, naturally accompanied it.

In fact, when a ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) Gate looked too hard to clear, they would immediately cut and run.

‘Which is why their Gate clear rate is under 30%.’

After a moment’s thought, Su-ho asked,

“This... anyone else say anything besides you?”

“I’m the only one who finds it suspicious.”

“Your grounds?”

“At first, I thought it was coincidence. But if you look at team composition from the moment casualties began, there were always at least one more American and one more Briton in the mix—same-nationality members with them—and yet every dead Player was from countries other than the U.S. and U.K.”

“It could be coincidence, couldn’t it?”

“Yes, which is why it’s at the suspicion stage. I originally considered going undercover disguised as another nationality, but as you know, there are too many practical problems, so I had to give up.”

“So after mulling it over, you asked me for help?”

“That’s right. I’m sorry.”

“No, if you hadn’t told me and went to confirm it alone and then you died, I would’ve been truly sad.”

“......Thank you for saying that.”

“I’m just stating the facts. Anyway, hearing you out, it is suspicious. I’ll need to check separately. Personally.”

“Thank you.”

“No need for thanks—if anything, I’m the one who’s grateful.”

“Why you, Section Chief?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

He fudged it, but he really was grateful.

He was wondering how to deal with those two bastards legally, and of course a dog can’t quit eating crap—turns out they were already fragging their own.

‘You punks, I’ll make you beg me to just kill you instead.’

A gentleman’s revenge, it seems, does not take ten years after all.

Of course, even if he weren’t a regressor and didn’t know much about Alex Morgan and Hex Hood, he wouldn’t have just let Kim’s words slide.

As the leader of the Sabers, if casualties kept occurring, then no matter how plausible the deaths looked, he had a duty to investigate the cause and cut the chain of deaths.

After a brief consideration, Su-ho said to Kim,

“Where’s the next Gate Team 1 is supposed to raid?”

“There’s a 2-star Gate scheduled, its surroundings are about to be cleared. Maximum participants is four.”

“Yeah? Then let’s do this.”

The timing was perfect.

A 2-star Gate with a maximum entry of four.

An operation popped into Su-ho’s head at once, and he gave Kim an order.

“Understood. I’ll organize the new Team 1 that way, and I’ll also go bring the colleague who will be joining you.”

“Then I’ll leave it to you.”

Kim worked his phone and called somewhere.

And that evening.

A preliminary meeting was held to organize a new Team 1 to raid the newly secured 2-star Gate.

Four Hunters attended.

The tank position: America’s Alex Morgan.

The ranged dealer: Britain’s Hex Hood.

The melee dealer: Japan’s Yasuda Hiro.

And the healer position: Vietnam’s Nguyen Quang Hai.

“Nice to meet you.”

Nguyen, speaking with practiced English pronunciation, was the first to extend a hand for a handshake.

A young man with teeth as white as rice noodles—charming.

His true identity was none other than Su-ho, disguised as a Vietnamese.