The Guardian's Return by Old Pumpkin

If the first team had completed the mission smoothly, he could announce the good news at a press conference, and everyone would praise him.

However, the first team was nearly annihilated, and a second team had to clean up the mess. Stephen could not bring himself to announce that. The enemy was just a small foreign faction, but they almost wiped out an elite squad. If Stephen revealed the news, he would only become a laughingstock.

The assistant shook his head. He did not know the reason either.

His best guess was that Arnold's team's actions had been exposed.

Stephen took a deep breath to calm himself down, considering how he was supposed to report this to the public.

"What if we say that both the first and second teams are from the same squad, but they took different routes?" he suggested.

That way, the narrative would shift from 'the first team was ambushed and almost annihilated' to 'the enemy's fierce resistance caused casualties in the squad'. Stephen felt that the second narrative sounded better.

"There's one more thing." The assistant continued, "During the operation, many villagers and a unit from the South Regent also came to assist.”

Why would he help?" Stephen was

it was because of Ethan Rivers," the assistant

single word. The South Regent and many villagers came to help because of Ethan. The narrative that

intervening for

South Regent and many villagers came to help because they still looked up to

operation succeeding, he could tell the world that they were not to be trifled with. It was something that even Ethan could not

was

South Regent sent his men to deal with the criminals, and many villagers joined in

realized the enormous gap between himself and Ethan, His previous thought seemed like a joke. It was a slap in his face that made his cheeks burn. He wished that he could find a

calm down, the assistant

something to

felt exhausted. "Let

entered. He also looked

a significant blow to