Chapter 70 – Mercenary (1)

Sun-woo, who returned to his studio apartment, sighed at the sand filling the room.

He hadn’t noticed while staying in the sand, but he was carrying a full load of sand on his hair, body, and clothes.

It seemed difficult to stay in this studio apartment anymore. He was already spending more time in the training ground converted from a warehouse, but he still maintained this studio for sleeping and gaming.

But when he returned from missions, he made the entire studio a mess like this, wasting time just cleaning.

Since money had accumulated in his bank account, it seemed he should look for a monthly rental near the training ground.

Sun-woo roughly threw his sand-filled coat to one side and turned on his phone. Because he needed to inform Caroline about this mission.

After a brief signal, an unexpected sound burst from the connected phone.

Tatatatatata! Boom boom boom!

Gunshots and the sound of shells exploding, plus people’s shouts could be heard in between.

Caroline’s voice reached Sun-woo’s ears, who was looking down at his phone with a dumbfounded expression, breaking through the noise.

[Sun-woo, you’ve returned from the mission, right?]

“Yes, I just returned. What on earth is going on?”

[Wow! Perfect timing. Sun-woo, just a moment!]

Caroline seemed to have no mind to answer Sun-woo’s question. Her voice talking to someone else could be heard from a distance.

[The summoned I mentioned before has returned. Should we send a helicopter right away? Huh? Too late? Then. Could it be with points? Yes, understood.]

The conversation heard from beyond the phone began making Sun-woo fearful.

[Sun-woo, please prepare. We’ll summon you right away.]

“No, wait a moment. I just returned…”

[I’m asking you. I’ll explain the situation after you arrive.]

“Hello. Wait…”

But the call had already ended. And the following voice.

[An emergency request has come in. Summoning will begin in 30 seconds.]

“Damn it!”

Sun-woo hurriedly put on the coat he had taken off. Wearing the coat, he looked at the sand-filled room and sighed again, then soon disappeared from the room.

***

Syria.

Near the Anti-Lebanon mountain range.

The summoned Sun-woo couldn’t continue speaking at the situation unfolding before his eyes. Well, even if he spoke, it probably wouldn’t be heard well.

Where Sun-woo was standing was a desolate field where only dry grass was blowing in the wind, and far ahead stood high cliffs made of rock lined up like a folding screen.

Looking at the high rocky mountains behind the cliffs, those cliffs seemed to have been created by parts of the rocky mountains carved by wind.

But right now, some of those cliffs were being cheerfully pounded by modern weapons.

Some of the rock cliffs hundreds of meters high had already collapsed, and rock piles were still pouring from cliffs blown out in various places.

But as if that wasn’t enough, even as Sun-woo watched, missiles and shells flying from somewhere were smashing the cliffs.

That wasn’t the end. Not far from where Sun-woo was standing, several tanks and armored vehicles lined up were firing artillery toward the cliffs, and attack helicopter formations were flying over Sun-woo’s head toward the cliffs.

This place was a battlefield. Though it looked like a quite one-sided attack, for Sun-woo who had never seen this level of firepower, he could only be dumbfounded.

“Welcome, Sun-woo. I’ve been waiting!”

Caroline, who had approached at some point, grabbed Sun-woo’s arm and expressed her joy.

Caroline’s outfit had also changed. She wore a military helmet on her head, and wore a bulletproof vest over her dress clothes. Seeing her outfit, he could really feel he had come to a battlefield.

“What on earth is going on!”

Because the surrounding noise was too loud, Sun-woo had no choice but to scream.

“It’s not easy to talk here. Come this way!”

Caroline guided Sun-woo to a nearby armored vehicle. Unlike other armored vehicles, it was an armored vehicle without weapons attached but with only several antennas, and inside the armored vehicle was full of various electronic equipment.

After Sun-woo and Caroline entered inside and closed the back door of the armored vehicle, the external noise was considerably reduced. It seemed like a situation where conversation was now possible.

“Ah, first let me introduce. You know this person, right?”

“We’re meeting again soon.”

The person Caroline introduced was Douglas, the chairman of the multinational corporation Cleanse and the Summoner Association whom he had seen not long ago.

Sun-woo greeted the chairman with a bewildered face.

Inside the armored vehicle, along with the association chairman, a white general with many stars, and operators struggling in front of electronic equipment were visible.

“Since you seem curious, I’ll explain the situation first.”

Caroline, having received Douglas’s permission, explained the situation to Sun-woo.

“After we went to headquarters, a mission came down to the entire company. A mission to track those contamination spreading agents and find and eliminate all organizations making and distributing them.”

It seemed a mission similar to Sun-woo eliminating Blood Cult branches had come down to the entire association.

“Well, we found and eliminated many subordinate organizations during that time, so they’re mostly empty shells. But we couldn’t find the body until now. But when a mission was dropped on the entire company, all association members got red-eyed and after rummaging around, found the body.”

The organization’s headquarters was an underground base in the Anti-Lebanon mountain range in Syria. Large-scale factories and laboratories, and stockpile warehouses, etc. This was the headquarters in this world of that organization whose name they didn’t even know.

“After that, summoner teams were airlifted and ambushed a few days ago. But…”

The ambushing summoner team was annihilated.

“It seems surveillance devices and heavy weapons were installed everywhere. Thanks to that, communication was cut off without going far from the entrance.”

After that, another team tried entering again, but their communication also cut off, and the Summoner Association talked with the US government and assembled the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean and the US military near Syria.

Fortunately, since Syria was in civil war, it was easy to create an excuse.

Officially, under the pretext of attacking a headquarters of an extremist terrorist organization inside Syria (not much different from the actual reason), they were pouring 6th Fleet missiles and US military weapons into that underground base. They seemed to plan to bury this base completely.

Sun-woo broke into cold sweat at the Summoner Association’s power to bring in the US military to perform missions. He thought the Korean Summoner Association branch was impressive, but headquarters went one step, no, several steps further.

“But we’ve been pouring it for a day and still haven’t broken through the entrance.”

“The entrance isn’t ordinary solid. But the shock must have certainly destroyed most of the base interior.”

At Caroline’s words, the general standing behind suddenly opened his mouth.

At his story, Caroline shrugged her shoulders.

“That may be, but counterattacks are still coming from inside. Summoner teams can’t even enter.”

Sun-woo now seemed to understand why they called him.

“Are you telling me to check the interior and drill a hole?”

“Yes. That’s exactly it.”

Sun-woo sighed. He knew why they called him and understood what he had to do. But being extremely tired now, he needed some reward.

But before Sun-woo could say something, Caroline made the first move.

“If Sun-woo accepts, the summoners will give you compensation. And also, Sun-woo, don’t you need a new house?”

At Caroline’s appearance with sparkling eyes, Sun-woo couldn’t help but chuckle. Even without him saying, she seemed to plan to get as much as possible.

Shortly after, the bombardment that seemed to smash the cliff stopped.

The cliff was already in a mostly collapsed state. There were almost no intact cliffs, and even the base entrance at the cliff bottom was almost buried by the collapsed cliff.

Sun-woo, who got out of the operation control vehicle, stared blankly at the cliff emitting smoke and dust, then threw a question to Caroline standing beside him.

“By the way, Caroline, why were you called?”

At Sun-woo’s question, Caroline pointed with her finger at the retreating operation vehicles and armored vehicles while whispering softly.

“I and the support team came because of post-processing.”

At Caroline’s words, Sun-woo nodded. Certainly the soldiers and general here were ordinary people. It was necessary to prevent secrets from leaking through them.

“Do you need support?”

After shaking his head at Caroline’s question, Sun-woo alone began walking toward the cliff.

“Is it okay in that outfit without support? There might still be surviving enemies.”

At Sun-woo’s figure walking alone, the chairman asked as if worried, but Caroline’s expression wasn’t that worried.

“He’s different from other summoners. Sun-woo is the world’s only multiple ability user.”

Sun-woo’s steps as he walked slowly gradually got faster. At first it was somewhat fast running, but as time passed it gradually got faster, exceeding the speed humans could run.

The collapsed cliff gradually approaching. Sun-woo, who had been running at tremendous speed, suddenly kicked to the side forcefully.

Thud!

Sun-woo pushed diagonally.

Bang!

At the same time, a gunshot rang out and dirt dust flew up where Sun-woo had been running. It was sniping.

But Sun-woo’s expression didn’t change at all. Though shot from a far distance beyond sorcery’s detection range, there was no way Sun-woo, a peak-level master, wouldn’t notice the sniper’s feeling of emitting full killing intent to kill Sun-woo.

Unless they fired wildly with machine guns or dropped a lot of shells, Sun-woo didn’t worry much about modern weapons either.

‘No, are shells and machine guns modern weapons too…’

Certainly compared to other dimensions, this place had science weapons developed too much.

That this world was blocking well the contamination sources causing great damage in other worlds was likely thanks to modern weapons.

Even while other thoughts passed through his head briefly, Sun-woo’s movement didn’t stop. The sniper’s bullets kept being fired, but Sun-woo avoided all bullets knowing them in advance.

The sniper who had luckily survived hiding in an uncollapsed cliff was fed up with a target that knew and avoided all sniping in advance, and such a sniper was covered by a Hellfire missile fired from an Apache helicopter.

Though he said he didn’t need support, there was no reason to just leave an enemy visible in plain sight.

Eventually, Sun-woo could safely arrive in front of the collapsed cliff.

The entrance that might have been an entrance in the past was completely buried.

“Could it be I can’t enter because the entrance collapsed?”

Sun-woo shook his head at the absurd thought that came to mind, knelt on the ground, and placed his hand on the floor.

Fortunately, unlike the cliff ahead, where Sun-woo was standing was a sandstone area made of soil to deep places.

When Sun-woo drew up internal energy, the soil around Sun-woo rose up to create an earth wall around Sun-woo to protect him, and his sorcery spread around and began finding the base’s weaknesses.

Time passed briefly and Caroline, who was watching from afar the earth wall Sun-woo made, received a phone call. It was Sun-woo’s contact.

“I’ll make a path. Please send the insertion team.”

At the same time, the ground behind Sun-woo’s earth wall collapsed. It was a cave leading to the underground base.