Return of the Sword God-Rank Civil Servant

Tap.

Su-ho immediately canceled Blood Weapon to preserve his blood after landing a clean hit.

He touched down lightly on the ground and caught his breath.

“Haa.”

That bastard.

I never wanted to slice you up. I always wanted to break one of your legs.

You lived by your mouth, so it’s only fitting that you fall by your legs.

He’d struck the weak spot perfectly. The blow had been so precise that the bone had nearly burst out from the creature’s leg.

– Muuuurrrgh!!

[Spin Cow King uses Boss-level Fear.]

[Dragonblood is activated.]

[Due to the Dragon Spirit effect of Dragon Blood, Fear is nullified.]

With one of its legs now beyond recovery, the creature thrashed violently, desperate to get back up.

Seeing it like that—it wasn’t a donkey, sure—but it reminded him of the old saying, “Lazy donkey rolls to the ground.”

But the beast never managed to rise again.

Losing one of its front legs—the ones that bore its weight—was a fatal blow.

Every time it tried to stand, it collapsed. Again and again.

Just like any wounded animal, it swung its tail and its spinning horns in all directions to keep enemies at bay.

Of course, Su-ho had no intention of approaching it.

Why bother crawling into that mess and risk getting kicked by a stray cow hoof?

So he kept a safe distance and summoned the Guiyeong Spear and Blood Spear.

“Let’s see how long you can hold out.”

As he finished speaking, Su-ho began hurling the summoned spears at the beast.

***

– Mrrrrgh... mrrrgh...

The Spin Cow King groaned.

How many spears had he thrown by now?

The creature, once ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) a walking earthquake, had taken so much damage it could barely breathe.

Understandable.

Its entire body was now riddled with holes.

Every wound was a trace left by a spear piercing clean through it.

If the Guiyeong Spear and Blood Spear had remained lodged in its flesh, the creature would’ve looked like a porcupine. But since Su-ho kept retrieving and rethrowing the same spears, the Spin Cow King now resembled a honeycomb instead.

The beast had completely lost the will to fight—both physically and mentally.

No point dragging this out anymore.

“Time to wrap this up.”

Su-ho had no desire to torture or toy with it.

This was just the most efficient method.

That’s why he’d targeted the leg muscles first when he started throwing spears.

Even if it entered its second phase, it wouldn’t be able to do much.

Vrrrmm! Vrrrmm!

The creature’s second phase involved strengthening its horns.

But its mobility had already been wrecked—what good would stronger horns do?

There was nothing the beast could do now.

Su-ho summoned Blood Weapon in sword form instead of a spear.

And he swung it toward the creature’s head.

[Cloud Slice is activated.]

Ssshk!

The slash left a clear mark across the beast’s head.

But it didn’t slice through in one clean blow.

It was still a boss monster, after all.

Maybe if it were Steel Slash. Cloud Slice was excellent for ranged cutting attacks, but it lacked the raw cutting power of Steel Slash.

Not that it mattered.

If the cut isn’t deep enough—just cut more.

Su-ho kept swinging.

[Cloud Slice is activated.]

[Cloud Slice is activated.]

[Cloud Slice is activated.]

[Cloud Slice is activated.]

...

And finally—

[You have defeated the Spin Cow King.]

[The Gate has been conquered.]

[‘An Su-ho’ has been selected as MVP of the Gate Conquest.]

[As MVP, you receive bonus experience.]

[As MVP, you receive 1 bonus stat point.]

[Your level has increased.]

[All stats have increased by 1.]

[You have gained 1 bonus stat point.]

The Spin Cow King collapsed.

As expected, a flurry of system notifications followed, and Su-ho had now successfully conquered the first island of the Eleven Islands.

But Su-ho wasn’t all that interested in the fact that he’d defeated the Spin Cow King.

There were only two reasons he’d looked forward to the Udo Gate raid in the first place.

One of them—

[You have reached Level 150.]

[The system desires for you to become even stronger.]

[The system grants you greater power.]

Was hitting Level 150.

‘So I finally get my second Crusader-class skill.’

Exactly that.

When Su-ho first changed classes to Crusader, he’d only gained one skill: Blessing.

After that, his other skills—Heal, Recovery, Holy Enchant, and Guardian Spirit—had leveled up every ten levels, just like during his Unnamed-rank days.

Breath of Healing hadn’t been upgraded at all.

That was a Cleric-class skill—only upgrading after switching to that class.

And unlike his Unnamed-rank phase, the upgraded skills weren’t all raised to the same grade simultaneously.

Each time a new skill was added, one existing skill would rank up by one tier.

For example:

– Lv.60 Heal F

– Lv.70 Heal E, Recovery F

– Lv.80 Heal D, Recovery E, Holy Enchant F

– Lv.90 Heal C, Recovery D, Holy Enchant E, Guardian Spirit F

– Lv.100 Blessing F

– Lv.110 Heal B, Recovery C, Holy Enchant D, Guardian Spirit E, Blessing F

– Lv.120 Heal B, Recovery B, Holy Enchant C, Guardian Spirit D, Blessing E

– Lv.130 Heal B, Recovery B, Holy Enchant B, Guardian Spirit C, Blessing D

– Lv.140 Heal B, Recovery B, Holy Enchant B, Guardian Spirit B, Blessing C

And now, by reaching Level 150, Blessing had auto-ranked up to its max grade of B, and Su-ho unlocked a new Crusader skill.

Naturally, that second Crusader skill would also begin at rank F.

‘And it'll keep ranking up every ten levels until 200, following the same pattern.’

Su-ho immediately checked the info for his newly acquired Crusader skill.

And smiled in satisfaction.

‘Yup. Definitely a Crusader.’

As expected from a mid-to-late game discovery, its nature was quite different from those of the Cleric or Paladin classes.

After reviewing the new skill, Su-ho glanced at the remaining notifications.

[Your Strength stat has reached 100.]

[Your Strength stat evolves to the next level.]

[Congratulations! Your Strength stat has ranked up to Yellow Grade!]

The final message was about a stat rank-up.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Su-ho immediately opened his status window to check.

[An Su-ho]

– Lv: 150

– Class: Crusader

– Traits: <New Blood> <Candidate for Hercules>

– Strength (Y): 1

– Magic (O): 83

– Perception (O): 83

– Bonus Stat Points: 2

“Hm.”

Su-ho stroked his chin as he looked at his status window.

No surprise—he needed to start preparing for the Unified Trait effect, and it was a tough call.

‘But... will the Unified Trait still apply when there are only three stats?’

Every known case of the Unified Trait applying had at least four stats. There were no examples with just three.

So he hesitated.

Using the Talent of Atonement meant consuming stat points no matter what.

‘Guess I’ll have to test it for myself.’

He had to be careful.

Stat points were more precious than money.

After some thought, Su-ho decided to run an experiment.

If the Unified Trait still triggered with three stats, it’d be a massive gain.

He first allocated his two bonus points into Magic, which had more value.

‘I’ll upgrade Magic to Yellow grade, then push both Strength and Magic as high as I can before leveling up Perception.’

That would yield maximum efficiency.

‘Honestly, I’d considered this kind of stat inflation back in the earlier color tiers too...’

But when he was still in Colorless or Red tiers, it wasn’t feasible.

Distributing stats purely for efficiency would’ve left him too underpowered for actual combat.

That was the reality.

No matter how skilled he was, if his basic stats weren’t there, his blade wouldn’t even scratch a monster.

But now, things had changed.

At this point, he could chew through most gates and monsters in the country.

And he wasn’t even level 200 yet.

‘Now’s the perfect time to test this.’

Even if the Unified Trait didn’t apply anymore, that was fine.

Strength, with its double-effect per investment, was better than the Unified Trait anyway.

After distributing his stats, Su-ho stabbed the Guiyeong Spear into the Spin Cow King’s shadow.

[Guiyeong Spear responds to the Spin Cow King's shadow.]

[Guiyeong Spear absorbs the Spin Cow King's shadow.]

[Guiyeong Spear is enhanced.]

[Guiyeong Spear has completely absorbed the Spin Cow King's shadow.]

The absorption was swift.

It was the most noticeable change since the Third Phase of the spear’s consciousness had awakened.

‘Hmm. Still not enough?’

Since awakening the Third Phase during the battle with the monster lion in the Iron Valley, he had fed the spear an overwhelming number of monster shadows—far more than before.

Even so, the Fourth Phase hadn’t triggered yet.

‘Just how much did that Shadow King feed his weapon?’

No need to get impatient.

Eventually, he’d awaken the Fourth Phase too.

Who else fed their weapon as much as he did?

After finishing the shadow absorption, Su-ho approached the Spin Cow King’s corpse.

He placed his hand on the creature’s massive body and activated a skill.

[True Blood Drain is activated.]

Sssshhh!

The beast had plenty of spoils worth harvesting.

Like its horn, or magic stones.

Those were valuable, sure—but Su-ho had come for something far more specific.

Once all the blood had been drained and the body was desiccated into a mummy-like husk, Su-ho gathered the horn and magic stones.

Then, from the husk of what used to be the creature, he began searching for it.

The second thing he’d hoped to find at the Udo Gate—this was it.

And not long after, he finally found it.

‘Got it.’

He checked the item’s details.

And smiled.

‘If you come all the way to Jeju, you better finish what you started.’

There was a time when the entire Tamra Guild had bent over backward trying to get this.

And they still failed—even after sending in Ki Jun-seo.

In the end, it was left unresolved.

But now things were different.

In his previous life, Su-ho didn’t meet the qualifications to enter the place. But this time, everything was ready.

Having completed the Udo conquest, Su-ho finally headed for the exit portal.

***

“Ugh, I’m wiped out... Hyun-seok, what time’s our flight?”

“Earliest one is at 9 AM.”

“Haah... judging by the size of this thing, we’re not gonna be done by nine...”

At the Jeju Branch of the Grand Hunter Association—

Na Do-won, Lee Hyun-seok, and the rest of the Special Investigation team were chain-smoking with dark circles under their eyes after an all-nighter.

They had hoped to take it slow back in Seoul, but the data Su-ho had provided was so clean and airtight, they decided to just run a quick cross-check.

Big mistake.

Not only Seo Do-il and Moon Hye-hyun, but even Jeju Branch Chief Han Myung-ho had been knee-deep in this.

The scale was massive.

Eventually, Na Do-won stubbed out his cigarette and muttered,

“Ugh. Let’s pack it up and finish this in Seoul. No way this wraps in a day or two.”

“Told you we should’ve waited. You just had to dig into the files last night...”

“What, got a problem with that? Whatever. We came all the way to Jeju—might as well grab some hangover soup before we leave. Yu-jin Hangover Soup and Euni’s place are both great.”

“If you’re in Jeju, Yu-jin Hangover Soup is the gold standard. But do they still have lines?”

“No idea. We’ll find out.”

With that, everyone piled into the car.

And not long after they set off toward Yu-jin Hangover Soup...

“Are they all gone?”

Su-ho, who had been conquering the gate all night, arrived at the Jeju Branch building right on cue.