Return of the Sword God-Rank Civil Servant-Chapter 422

Fwhooo!

Smoke rose.

Inside it, Su-ho had his arms crossed to cover his face.

“Wow.”

Su-ho slowly lowered his arms and let out an exclamation.

A portal explosion, of all things.

So this kind of situation exists.

It was baffling since he’d never experienced it once.

Still, the fortunate part was that even though it was an unexpected explosion, his body endured it.

‘Good thing my stats are high.’

If not, he would’ve been seriously hurt.

‘By the way.......’

Will it explode again if I touch it?

Su-ho narrowed his eyes and cast a few of his own buffs.

[ Blessing is activated. ]

[ Endurance is activated. ]

The explosion wasn’t small damage, but he thought if he raised his stats a bit more to reduce the damage received, he could endure without having to block with his arms.

So he decided to run an experiment.

It was right after Su-ho reached his hand toward the portal again.

Boooom!!

The portal exploded once more.

It hurts.

It seemed the damage had increased.

But with his inflated stats, it was sufficiently bearable.

Su-ho’s hand was still inside the portal.

But that was all.

‘There’s no notification like entering a Gate or anything.’

Could this be the end of it?

This time he stuck in his other hand as well.

Booom!!

A bigger, stronger explosion.

But again, there was no change.

This time he shoved in his whole body.

Boooooom!!

The scale of the explosion grew.

But again, there was no change.

“......”

Su-ho’s body was completely inside the portal.

But all he did was be at the center of the luminous mass; there were no system notifications or environmental changes.

“Hm.”

Su-ho stepped out of the portal.

After that, he tried a few more actions, but each time there was only an explosion and nothing else changed.

‘Then how about this?’

Su-ho summoned and took up his Blood Sword.

Then, after taking an aiming stance, he slashed hard.

[ Origin Severance is activated. ]

Skkk!

Origin Severance, a slash that severs the very origin of the target, including skills.

Would this make some change?

“......”

No change.

Seeing even Origin Severance didn’t work, it seemed this was under the system’s protection.

‘An absolute rule for the sake of progression, is it.’

If he pre-destroyed the portal with something like Origin Severance here, the picture the system wanted would be ruined.

‘It really clings to its self-imposed rules in a creepy way.’

Can’t be helped.

Then in the end there’s only one option.

‘Weaken the candidate Gate according to the plan I originally set.’

If he couldn’t enter the Gate portal or destroy it, then he had no choice but to raid it slowly by the known common sense.

The time it takes for a candidate Gate to become a Big Gate is about a month.

A candidate Gate absorbs the monsters scattered around and other Gates during that time and ultimately becomes a Big Gate, and unfortunately, even if there are no monsters or Gates around to absorb, the sequence of becoming a Big Gate couldn’t be stopped.

‘But I can weaken the Big Gate once it’s finally completed.’

After putting away the Blood Sword, Su-ho began a full-fledged search of the surroundings.

Because he had to know how many monsters and other Gates were around the candidate Gate.

‘Before that, first.......’

Su-ho took a phone out of his inner pocket.

 “What the.......”

Charlie, Director of the U.N. Player Bureau, was in despair. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

He had called most of the hunter associations of countries that still had infrastructure after the Great Upheaval, including permanent and non-permanent members.

But their responses were mostly the same.

— We saw the notification about the Big Gate.

— But we still haven’t even finished recovering from the Second Impact.......

— We’re also working hard on investigating the Big Gate on our side.

— Australia?

— We don’t have the capacity to dispatch personnel.

— We’re short on personnel for strengthening domestic safety and public order, so dispatching high-grade personnel right now is a bit.......

— We’re sorry. More hunters than expected are afraid.

“......”

Charlie sank deep into his chair.

Fucking.

Even if he explained until his mouth wore out, this was the result that came back.

He understood.

A Gate that hadn’t been public until now...... especially with a name like “Big Gate,” what Player would throw their life at it?

Of course, that didn’t mean everyone was blind to reality.

In the long run, everyone recognized that the Big Gate was a problem that had to be solved.

But since a Player’s life could end any time, they were just pretending not to see the danger in front of them out of a desire to live even a little longer.

‘You can tell them to see the forest, not the trees, but in the end it’s the Players who have to enter the Gate.’

Then what should be done?

The Peace Corps had already been dispatched, but the numbers were far too insufficient.

WMD had detected an abnormal condensation of mana in Australia, but the range was too vast to pinpoint the detailed area.

So this was one of the jobs the Peace Corps had to do.

However, outside the three major cities, Gate subjugations had hardly been carried out in Australia, so there were almost as many monsters in the field as during the old Emu War.

Thus, even if they deployed the entire Peace Corps, tracking the Big Gate was practically difficult.

And that wasn’t all.

Not just the staff of the Player Bureau but also the U.S. military and other U.N. personnel were deployed to evacuate Australians and move refugees to neighboring partner countries.

It was, literally, a time when even a cat’s paw was desperately needed.

‘This is why we’d been saying since long ago to create a unified world special agency.......’

After the Great Upheaval, the world changed.

Simply put, aliens had invaded, so what use was it for earthlings to calculate profit and loss among themselves?

If the aliens’ eyes rolled and they killed us all, that would be the end.

So the U.N., gathering the world’s presidents, proposed that even if whole countries couldn’t be marshaled like an empire, they should create an agency that would forcibly pool strength together in special situations to respond to aliens.

But it fell through.

Because of the selfishness of each country.

Of course, you couldn’t exactly call it evil selfishness.

At the time, more than half the countries couldn’t even save their own nations.

Since other countries wouldn’t participate either, the U.S. didn’t step up.

Before the Great Upheaval, the U.S. had played world police, but it said there was no reason to provide that service even in the face of the special situation called the system.

In particular, the opinion of the person who was president at the time carried weight, so it didn’t come to pass.

So the U.N. had no choice but to shoulder everything with tears in its eyes.

That was when the Peace Corps was created—by reorganizing the existing peacekeepers.

Once at least the U.N. stepped up and a roughly plausible agency was created, other countries finally chipped in a little material support as if to wash away their /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ guilt.

That was all.

And after this second Great Upheaval, the festering boil that everyone was pretending not to see burst properly with the Big Gate notification.

It was when Charlie closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

Bzzz!

A call came in.

An unknown number.

Who could it be?

Charlie answered in a powerless voice.

“Yes, you’ve reached me.”

— Is this Charlie, Director of the U.N. Player Bureau?

“That’s right, but who are you?”

— I’m a person named An Su-ho from Korea.

“......Who?”

— An Su-ho. You were going to contact my superior to request a personnel dispatch.

An Su-ho!

At those three syllables, Charlie sprang up from his seat like a spring.

“A, An Su-ho? The An Su-ho I know?”

— Yes. I got the news from my superior, and I got your number and have been trying to call you.

“B—but I was told you were missing in North Korea.......”

— I was missing. Because of the second Great Upheaval. But I made it out somehow. Anyway, enough about me—regarding the current Australia matter, I understand you need to gather Players.

“Ah, yes! That’s right! Could you possibly help?”

— Let’s talk details in person. Should I come to the Player Bureau?

“I’d appreciate that, but will that be all right? Right now, because of the Second Impact, the environment isn’t conducive to flying.......”

— There’s a way. Then I’ll see you at the Player Bureau. I’ll be there soon.

Click.

The call ended.

Charlie stared dazedly at his phone.

“What is this......?”

It felt like he’d been possessed by a ghost.

A person who was said to be missing suddenly appeared like a superhero.

Could it be that the Korean government deceived me?

But if they deceived me, shouldn’t they keep deceiving me to prevent the outflow of high-grade personnel like An Su-ho?

Yet An Su-ho even said he would visit in person. Soon, at that.

After some time had passed like that.

“Director, Player An Su-ho has arrived.”

“What?”

An Su-ho really appeared.

And soon.

 With the appearance of Player An Su-ho, the key executives of the Player Bureau, including the Director, were all assembled in one place.

“I’m An Su-ho.”

“I’m Charlie, Director of the U.N. Player Bureau.”

After identification and formal greetings were done, and the handshake ended, Su-ho spoke.

“We’re short on time, so I’ll skip the preface and get straight to the point. In the past, the U.N. sought to promote a special organization for human peace—I intend to establish it. The name is Save the World. It will be organized as a nonprofit, and as I just said, its purpose will be to become a group that secures complete safety and peace for humanity from the threat of the system.”

“A special organization...... all of a sudden?”

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. An individual can win battles, but leading even a war to victory is extraordinarily difficult.”

“It’s a good idea. That’s why our U.N. also tried to establish such an organization. Even I, until just a moment ago, thought we should have forced such an organization into existence even by using pressure. The current Big Gate matter as well—we don’t know when the system will create a disaster like this again. But.......”

Charlie, who’d been speaking, hesitated.

Su-ho answered in his stead.

“Ideal and reality are different. Especially at the time, because of the selfishness of nations, even the U.S. took its hands off it, so as I understand it the U.N. established the Peace Corps. But the Peace Corps is weaker than expected, and since the U.N. can’t force other countries to reinforce its manpower, isn’t that why we have today’s mess?”

“Yes. To be honest, we contacted every country including permanent and non-permanent members, but only answers saying personnel dispatch was difficult came back.”

“That’s why I’m going to build it.”

“......Will it be any different if Mr. Su-ho builds it?”

At Su-ho’s answer, expectation flickered in the eyes of all the executives including Charlie.

How could he break through today’s reality that they themselves couldn’t handle?

“Yes, it will be different.”

“How will it be different? Do you have some groundbreaking method?”

“There is no groundbreaking method. The Save the World I’ll create won’t have salaries, nor fixed equipment issuance or training. One must serve with a heart of service, and therefore I will operate it by accepting only volunteers.”

“What is.......”

At Su-ho’s explanation, disappointment colored everyone’s faces.

They’d heard he was a highly skilled Player, but was he in the end just an idealist intoxicated with his own ability?

Just then.

“D—Director! The TV! I think you should turn on the TV right now.”

“TV?”

“Ah, looks like it just went on the air.”

As Su-ho smiled like he knew what it was, one of the executives in the meeting room turned on the provided TV and found a news channel.

Then the screen was broadcasting archival footage of Su-ho experimenting with explosions at the candidate Gate portal.