Return of the Sword God-Rank Civil Servant novel Chapter 272

Fwoooosh—

The lids of the virtual reality pods hissed open as the candidates emerged.

“Good work, everyone. The results will be sent via text in the next few days, so feel free to head home.”

The evaluation was over.

Under normal circumstances, an assessment of this scale would’ve taken far longer. But thanks to the virtual reality setup, the process had been drastically shortened.

Once all the candidates had exited, Su-ho called Director Kim Su-ae of the Academy to inform her the test was finished.

He also made sure to thank her once again.

With formalities out of the way, Su-ho called Jeong Cheol-min.

— “Hey, all done?”

“Yes, we just wrapped up the second evaluation.”

— “So just the interviews left, huh?”

“Yes, that’s right. I’ll compile the scores and send over the list.”

— “You’re joining me for interviews, right?”

“I mean, sure, if you want me there... but if it’s just a formality, is there any real need for me to—”

— “Just come. I’m lonely.”

“...Understood.”

— “So, what’s your schedule like now?”

“I’ve got a few things I’ve been preparing. I was going to look into those.”

— “You do remember the North Korea project is coming up, right? We’ve got a pre-briefing with the VIPs.”

“Of course. No need to worry.”

— “Alright. Good job.”

“Yes, sir. Take care.”

With that, Su-ho had officially wrapped up everything.

He was about to head to his car when he instead opened his subspace house.

The moment he stepped in, the sound of heavy machinery filled the air.

Drrrrrrrrrrr—

It sounded like a construction site.

And it was coming from Pi Seong-yeol.

He’d been grinding down cursed items nonstop under Su-ho’s orders for days now.

Well—he had to.

The Mega Crusher’s drive to dismantle items could be resisted with enough willpower to live normally, but only if usage was paced out carefully.

Dumping this much in at once? That desire will explode.

Especially if the host lacked psychological stability—then the barrier would break even faster.

Su-ho looked down at Pi Seong-yeol, whose eyes were hollow as he ground items away.

“Urrgh...”

Dark circles clung under his eyes.

But other than that, he was fine. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

He looked tired, sure—but that was the default state of a Mega Crusher host.

So there was no real cause for concern.

Physically, he was in decent shape.

Su-ho reached out and activated a skill.

[Recovery is activated.]

Whoooosh!

A bright light flared.

And then—

— Drrrrk? Drrrrk?

The Mega Crusher made an ominous rattling noise.

At the same time—

“GUHHH!”

Pi Seong-yeol let out a strangled scream.

But Su-ho paid him no mind and cast Recovery again.

[Recovery is activated.]

— DRRRRRRRRK!!

The Mega Crusher thrashed violently in protest.

Of course it did.

Recovery was the natural enemy of anything causing a “parasitic” status condition.

And having gone through this before, it knew exactly how much it was going to hurt.

So it resisted with everything it had.

It was desperate not to lose its host.

Which meant Pi Seong-yeol was in hell.

But Su-ho didn’t care in the slightest.

With Kang Seul-gi, he had to proceed delicately.

With Pi Seong-yeol?

Not a chance.

This was punishment. Pure and simple.

When Su-ho cast Recovery once more, the Mega Crusher burst out of Pi Seong-yeol’s gut like a squid ejecting ink.

— Drrrrr... drrrrr...

It twitched weakly like a dying fish, clearly badly damaged from the Recovery blasts.

But Su-ho didn’t show an ounce of sympathy.

It was just an item. Pretending to be in pain wouldn’t earn any pity.

Su-ho picked it up and checked its status.

[Mega Crusher]

Grade: B

Advanced technology from another world.

Can grind down any item.

Su-ho frowned.

Then glanced at the cursed items piled nearby.

He’d fed it a fair number of them, and it was still B-grade?

Gonna have to speed this up.

He tossed the Mega Crusher back onto Pi Seong-yeol.

— DRRRK!

“Guhaack!”

Like a mimic springing to life, it latched onto Pi Seong-yeol again and re-established its parasitic connection.

Su-ho watched the process with dispassionate eyes, then dragged the limp man over to the cursed item pile.

“No time to waste. Let’s get moving.”

There were mountains of work ahead.

He couldn’t just sit around waiting.

With time on his hands, Su-ho began feeding cursed items directly into the Mega Crusher himself.

— DRRRRRRRRRRR!!

As the grinding started, the loud construction-like noise returned.

Pi Seong-yeol spasmed in agony at first... but before long, he began giggling.

A weird, euphoric laugh.

The Mega Crusher was secreting pleasure chemicals.

His body slumped.

So this is why it takes so long...

Give a starving man food, and he gets elated. Give a smoker a cigarette after days of withdrawal, and their face melts with relief.

Same logic.

Su-ho started feeding items into the Mega Crusher like logs into a campfire.

Who knows how much time passed?

Around halfway through the cursed item pile, the grinding suddenly stopped.

Hmm?

Did it break?

No way.

This wasn’t an actual machine.

It couldn’t malfunction.

Su-ho narrowed his eyes and asked:

“Senior.”

“......”

And Su-ho knew exactly what that meant.

In my past life, Kang Seul-gi said ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) A-rank Mega Crushers could produce stat fragments.

Stat fragments were just that—fragments.

For example:

<Strength Stat +1>

<Strength Stat +0.5>

That sort of thing.

Which meant there were small ones with decimal values, and large ones with full-point bonuses or more.

Put simply:

If you were lucky, you got a big fragment.

If you weren’t... well, you got crumbs.

Of course, not all results were positive.

The effect was related to stats—but that didn’t guarantee positive stats.

Still, even negative stat fragments can be used in the right way.

That’s what made the Mega Crusher so outrageous.

No other item or skill could generate stats—even incrementally—like this.

But the Mega Crusher can!

This was the kind of high-tech sorcery only another world could produce.

There were downsides, of course.

Huge ones.

It might be an OP item option-wise, but the Mega Crusher required a living host to operate.

And the longer the host carried it, the more they succumbed to madness.

Even the mild-mannered Kang Seul-gi eventually lost it—that’s how he earned the nickname Mad Grinder Scholar.

But now, none of that mattered.

Su-ho had the perfect host.

Even if he went insane a hundred more times, it didn’t matter.

He hurled the Mega Crusher onto the unconscious Pi Seong-yeol again.

— DRRRRRK!

“GUHHHH!”

Screaming and flailing, Pi Seong-yeol regained consciousness from the pain.

As soon as the Mega Crusher latched on, Su-ho shoved another cursed item into it.

— VRRRRRRRRRR!!

The sound changed.

From the coarse drrrrk to a sharp, metallic vrrrrrr—like slicing steel.

Once the cursed item was fully ground down—

Thunk—

Several small fragments popped out from the Mega Crusher’s mouth.

Stat fragments.

Su-ho quickly gathered them and checked their details.

[Stat Fragment – Mega Crusher]

Grade: B

A crystallized remnant extracted by the Mega Crusher.

Contains a stat attribute.

Consuming this increases Strength by 1.

Simple description.

But the effect? Outstanding.

He had four fragments: