Return of the Sword God-Rank Civil Servant - Chapter 48

Chapter 48

A look of genuine surprise crossed his face as he asked.

“A computer virus? Are you saying you’re going to level up with a computer virus?”

“Yes.”

Suho responded as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

It was exactly as he said.

Suho planned to level up Seo Giwon using a computer virus he had prepared himself.

Suho continued his explanation.

“I mentioned it before, right? Unlike virtual reality, this place affects the real world. So if you die or get injured here, it impacts you in reality too. You’ve experienced that firsthand, haven’t you?”

At that, Seo Giwon quickly nodded and replied.

“So, a computer virus could actually kill me?”

“That’s right. Viruses are designed to destroy or hack their targets in the first place. So all you have to do is fight for your life and take them down.”

“Me?”

“Who else is going to take them down if not you? Don’t worry, I’ll be fighting alongside you.”

Suho opened his inventory and handed Seo Giwon a spear he had bought some time ago.

“Do you know how to handle a weapon?”

“I can handle a spear a little.”

“Thought so. Spears are easier for beginners than swords. By the way, what’s your class?”

“Mage.”

He already knew, but he asked anyway.

It made the conversation flow more naturally.

Suho nodded and said.

“Then you can just use it as self-defense. I’ll tank up front, so fire your magic from behind and get a feel for it again. It’s been a while since you went hunting, hasn’t it?”

Suho had no intention of pushing Seo Giwon recklessly.

At this point, what he needed was not rapid leveling but rather to regain his sense of combat after being locked up for six months.

Was that why?

Seo Giwon, feigning a bit of emotion, responded.

“Yes, I understand. Thank you, hyungnim.”

“No need to thank me. Alright, I’m opening the door.”

Suho nodded and opened a door labeled “Free File Cleaner.”

The door opened more smoothly than expected, not at all what one might expect from a virus-laden space.

Seo Giwon quietly remarked as he observed the scene.

“Of course, with a virus, the name is suspiciously appropriate.”

“A free cleaner is the perfect disguise for hiding a virus.”

Inside the door was a space that looked like a restaurant counter with a staff member standing behind it.

As the two entered, the counter clerk greeted them.

“Welcome. Are you here to use the free file cleaner?”

The clerk was a woman whose tidy appearance and clean attire gave off an impression of trustworthiness.

But instead of answering, Suho chuckled and said to Seo Giwon.

“Looks convincing, right?”

“Yes, I almost replied without thinking.”

Seo Giwon didn’t respond either.

The reason both stayed silent?

It was simple.

The moment they answered that question, the door they had just entered would automatically open, releasing the viruses hidden in the file into Jo Jin-hwi’s laptop.

In other words, the clerk there was like an automated response set up in a program, prompting the user when they clicked on the file.

– Do you want to run the file cleaner?

It was just like that.

Thus, they absolutely did not respond.

There was no need to worry about upsetting the clerk for not responding.

That clerk wasn’t even a living person in the first place.

Seo Giwon nodded and commented.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a virus-hidden file, so I had no idea it would look like this on the inside.”

“What’s the e-wallet section like? You’ve only ever hacked virtual currency wallets, haven’t you?”

“That area has firewalls and encryption programs, but structurally, it’s similar to this. I normally enter formally, where the program greets me, and I just enter the password… So, instead of the main entrance, I attacked the outer wall to extract virtual currency. The wall was thick, so it was a bit difficult.”

That was why no virtual currency exchange had ever caught Seo Giwon.

The sudden external attack must have triggered the exchange to run antivirus programs and such, but it wasn’t hacking or virus infiltration.

The program encountered something like an irregular, an unpredictable entity that shattered the exchange’s software in an unexpected way.

Suho asked.

“But what did you use to break in there?”

“The magic skills I learned before. At first, I tried a pickaxe or hammer, but breaking through with skills turned out to be the most efficient.”

“That’s fascinating.”

“It was fascinating for me too at first.”

Suho nodded, scanning his surroundings.

Soon enough, he spotted an entrance that looked suspicious no matter how one looked at it.

There was no door.

It was just an opening.

Suho approached it.

The clerk didn’t try to stop him.

After all, she wasn’t a real clerk but a shell of a program.

As soon as Suho peered inside.

“Wow.”

Suho could see it.

Beyond the dark entrance stretched an enormous space.

And within it, beings resembling zombies were staggering slowly with hollow eyes… No, they were computer viruses that took on the form of zombies.

Above their heads, it read as follows:

– Brqtkxhsy Lv.??

Viruses whose names and levels couldn’t be discerned.

Their names appeared as garbled text because, quite simply, they were viruses.

However, their approximate level could be guessed.

According to Seo Giwon’s autobiography, they had a level similar to that of the first person they encountered.

Seo Giwon, who had entered later, was aghast at the seemingly endless viruses and said.

“Isn’t that… a bit too many?”

“That’s how viruses are. They’re created to wreck others’ computers, so there should be tons of them, like pests, don’t you think?”

“Do we have to kill them all?”

“No, this isn’t a dungeon; it’s more like a field. We can exit, but they can’t. Because we didn’t answer the clerk earlier.”

“Oh….”

“So, if you really feel like you’re going to die, just escape through that door. If you fail to escape, you’ll die. So stay sharp.”

With that, Suho activated a skill.

[ Blood Weapon is now active. ]

As the skill activated, a blood-red sword materialized in his hand.

Clutching the blood sword, Suho spoke.

“I’ll draw as much aggro as I can, so just fire your spells near the entrance. If you feel like you’re going to die, just escape.”

“What about you, hyungnim?”

“I’ll take care of myself. By the way, these viruses don’t respawn once killed, so think of it as a game where it ends if we kill them all. Oh, and since they’re viruses, there’s nothing you can collect from them; just kill them.”

“Oh….”

“Let’s start. Focus.”

“Yes, sir!”

Thus, the hunt began.

Slash!

Suho’s sword sliced toward the virus-zombies.

***

How much time had passed?

“Hah… hah….”

Seo Giwon lay on the ground, panting as if he might pass out at any moment.

He had no idea how much time had gone by.

But one thing was certain: it had taken quite a while, and they had wiped out all those zombies.

Gasping on the ground, Seo Giwon spoke.

“hyungnim… I feel like I’m dying….”

“You did well. But people don’t die that easily.”

“Ha… Haha… I suppose that’s true.”

“How many levels did you gain?”

“One… moment… five levels.”

“Hm, not bad.”

This brought Seo Giwon’s level to 55.

Of course, Suho had also leveled up just as much.

Unlike Seo Giwon, who relied primarily on magic with minimal physical combat, Suho had fought tirelessly.

Suho checked his own status window.

[ Ahn Suho ]

– Lv : 59

– Class : Healer

– Trait : New Blood

– Strength (R) : 21

– Stamina (R) : 21

– Mana (R) : 21

– Senses (R) : 21

– Bonus Stats : 13

It was a shame he was only one level away from 60.

Suho allocated all the bonus stats from his recent and previous levels into Strength.

‘I’ll balance it out later, so there’s no point in splitting them up now.’

So he decided to raise Strength first, then Mana later.

As for Stamina and Senses, they were already at Red rank, so it wouldn’t make much difference if he leveled them later.

After distributing his stats, Suho looked over at Seo Giwon, who was still catching his breath.

‘He has a lot more potential than I expected.’

Seo Giwon’s main class was Mage.

Moreover, having leveled up to 50 to acquire his trait, he had a basic sense of combat.

It seemed that training him as a solid damage dealer, rather than just a Digitization Ability User, wasn’t a bad idea.

‘If I train him as a nuke mage, he’d pair well with the Banshees.’

Suho pulled Seo Giwon up and said.

“Let’s go. You can rest comfortably back at home.”

“Yes, I understand.”

The two left the virus file with light steps.

***

It was night when they stepped outside.

Seo Giwon, exhausted, stumbled to bed as soon as he left, while Suho grabbed a can of beer and drank it down in large gulps.

‘Refreshing.’

After finishing off his beer, Suho sat down on the living room sofa and turned on his laptop.

When he scanned the “Free File Cleaner” with a prepared file scanner, surprisingly, no viruses were detected inside the file.

‘I figured as much, but seeing it with my own eyes is still amusing.’

Who would have thought that instead of an antivirus program, he’d end up physically destroying computer viruses?

Although Suho didn’t know much about computers, he was aware that the method he and Seo Giwon had used was unprecedented… a tactic so outlandish that no programmer could ever have imagined it.

‘Thanks to Seo Giwon, I now have a way to level up without entering a gate.’

In the virtual reality program, he could hone his skill proficiency, while in the computer virus dungeon, he could gain pure experience and combat skills.

It was an idea only Suho could have thought of and executed.

As he thought about grinding the Banshees next, Suho turned on the internet.

And the internet… no, the whole world was in an uproar once again.

News had just been released about Suho clearing the Swamp of Despair.

– Is Ahn Suho for real? Did he actually clear the Swamp of Despair?

– Wow, this is insane…

– Doesn’t he deserve a government award for this?

– There’s no official statement yet, but according to rumors, he cleared it insanely fast?

└ How fast?

└ They say less than an hour.

└ Are you nuts? Do you think a Sealed Gate is child’s play?

└ Why are you freaking out at me? That’s just what I heard.

– Rumors or not, Ahn Suho is a god. He’s just incredible. King God Emperor.

– The light.

– In the beginning, there was Ahn Suho, and there was light.

└ Amen.

└ Swordmen.

– Nexus must be thrilled, lol. They finally got a rising star from their ranks.

└ But if he dies, it’s all for nothing.

└ True enough.

└ The Sword God won’t die. Don’t jinx it with that kind of talk ㅡㅡ

A flood of enthusiastic comments.

Seeing this, Suho couldn’t help but smile.

‘Yeah, Hunters don’t need anything else as long as they can conquer gates to be recognized.’

With that, Suho decided it was time to put his next plan into action.

After checking the internet buzz, Suho picked up his phone.

“Hello, Hunter Suho. How can I help you?”

The person on the other end was Bae Dong-hyuk, the Nexus Guild Master.

Suho spoke.

“I’m calling because I have something to discuss with you.”

“What would that be?”

“I believe my entrance to the Korean Hunter Association will need to be expedited.”

“…Pardon?”

Upon hearing this, Bae Dong-hyuk could only swallow hard.

It was as expected.

To him, Suho was a rare catch who had just joined Nexus.

And with the contract duration being just a few months, even that short time frame was now being cut in half.

Hence, he was understandably flustered.

Suho had called ahead to give him a heads-up.

It was always better to get things out of the way early and clear up any hard feelings immediately.

Suho continued.

“In return, I’d like to make a proposal.”

“…What kind of proposal?”

“There’s an S-class gate under Nexus’s jurisdiction, correct?”

“Yes, there is… but why do you ask?”

“I’d like to take on that gate for you. Under the condition, of course, that all loot inside goes to you.”

At Suho’s words, Bae Dong-hyuk’s eyes grew as wide as the full moon.