WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Arsène
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ How an A-Rank Hunter Lives ◈
Chapter 106: Returnee - [1]
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Two months later, I stood before the king of Soweol.
Calling him the king of Soweol did not mean he ruled all of Soweol. He ruled only twenty thousand people, but he was known as Soweol's king simply because he was overwhelmingly strong.
Well, a giant standing 120 meters tall deserved that kind of treatment.
That was what I thought as I looked at the naked giant.
Apparently, supplying enough food for a body that enormous was difficult, so he usually lived in the Astral Plane. Korea had promised to send a huge amount of food in exchange for him meeting us like this.
From so high above that I had to strain my neck just to look up at him, even standing straight, the giant king Amaru spoke.
My Soweol interpreter translated Amaru's words for me.
“He says he has an idea where the person you're looking for might be.”
Amaru did not seem to be raising his voice, yet it still boomed like thunder.
Amaru spoke again, and the interpreter translated once more.
“He asks why you're looking for that person. He also commands you to reveal your relationship with him.”
That was how the interpreter put it, but I could understand Soweolese too.
So I knew Amaru's actual tone was very different from the translation.
Put into Incheon dialect, what Amaru had just said was more like, “Why are you looking for that bastard? What's he to you?”
It was the language of a common street thug, with none of the dignity one would expect from a king who had lived for centuries.
Amaru was not even wearing kingly clothes. He was completely naked, with unkempt hair and a beard that made him look filthy.
It was not just this giant king. All the rulers of Soweol were like that.
Using lofty, difficult vocabulary, or even foreign languages, to distinguish themselves from ordinary people was something only Earth's mediocre rulers did.
Soweol's rulers had no need for that. Every one of them was an awakened person, and awakened people were naturally so different from ordinary humans that they did not need fancy clothes or words to dress themselves up.
Amaru's 120-meter height alone made that clear. Even after seeing Behemoth, which was far larger than him, the sheer awe inspired by that size had not faded at all.
Feeling something close to awe, I spoke.
“We're friends. Behemoth invaded our land, and it looks like it might invade again. Tell him we need Kang Jun-chi to stop it. Ah, Behemoth is the name we gave it on Earth. Maybe he won't know what I mean?”
Amaru spoke again in a thunderous voice, though with the same thuggish tone. Once again, my Soweol interpreter translated it grandly.
“He asks what kind of monster Behemoth is, if stopping it requires bringing Kang Jun-chi back.”
So I explained what Behemoth was for a while. When I finished, Amaru asked another question.
“He asks whether such a Monster truly exists on Earth. If that's true, he says Earth must be a very difficult place to live.”
I was so dumbfounded that I said,
“Ask him if that Behemoth bastard isn't a Monster from Soweol.”
“He says that, now that he thinks about it, he may have heard legends of such a Monster. But he never believed it was real. So... if it already invaded your territory once, he asks how you stopped it.”
I explained that my comrades and I had cut off its tail and driven it away. Amaru then shouted in amazement, “Sounds like bullshit, but if it's true, you're tougher than you look!”
“It is truly difficult to believe, but if that is indeed the truth, he praises you as a warrior among warriors.”
The Soweol interpreter translated that with dignity, though they looked like they were about to faint. Amaru's shout had made their eardrums bleed.
Even I found the sound quite painful, so it was only natural.
Still, to cause this much damage with his voice alone? He truly deserved to be called a 120-meter Gigantification user.
And if I were to assess this giant as an awakened Hunter...
He was definitely S-rank. Any country on Earth would judge him to be S-rank.
Yet even someone like him found Kang Jun-chi burdensome?
The Soweol interpreter translated Amaru's next words.
“He commands you to take that person away as soon as possible, if you came to bring him back. The sooner, the better.”
Amaru's voice carried an unmistakable sense of burden. There was also considerable irritation, and a trace of fear, likely the reason he had tolerated Kang Jun-chi's presence despite that irritation.
Even to a 120-meter giant king who had lived for centuries, Kang Jun-chi was apparently something so burdensome that he wanted him removed from his territory as quickly as possible.
Perhaps Amaru had accepted our request for an audience not just because he wanted the food Korea had promised, but because he wanted to drive Kang Jun-chi away from his territory...
After that, Baek Dambi opened a Gate, and Amaru entered it and disappeared.
We then crossed through Amaru's tribe's territory.
As we walked, we stood out greatly among the Soweol people.
The Soweol people were extremely short even by premodern standards, and none of them stood over 140 centimeters tall. Even Baek Dambi was considered remarkably tall here.
Did they see me, at well over two meters, as only slightly smaller than the giant king?
Whenever I took a step, the Soweol people around me stopped what they were doing and lay flat on the ground to show respect.
It had already been two months since we began receiving this treatment, but Baek Dambi still seemed uncomfortable with it. She deliberately turned her attention away from the Soweol people and spoke to me.
“His location has finally been identified?”
“Yeah. I'm glad we weren't heading in some strange direction this whole time.”
“Ah, finally...”
Baek Dambi sighed, and I said,
“It's too soon to relax. The most important part is still left, isn't it?”
“Right. Now we have to persuade Kang Jun-chi.”
Baek Dambi nodded.
In the most serious voice I could manage, I said,
“That will probably be the hardest and most terrible part of this journey.”
“Do you think so?”
“Definitely.”
There was no doubt about it.
A prophet's intuition told me of the trial waiting in my future.
Kang Jun-chi... Persuading that bastard to return would be terribly, horribly difficult.
If he truly wanted to return, he would have done so long ago. Instead, he had not only failed to return but had shut himself away somewhere this far off.
When we headed to the place the giant king had told us about, my prophet's intuition became reality.
“Kang Jun-chi is in there?”
The Soweol interpreter nodded at my question.
“According to what was observed in the Elemental Realm, which is what the Soweol people call the space inside a Gate, the Astral Plane...”
I looked at the fortress that filled my vision.
It looked like an entire enormous mountain range had been carved into a fortress. It was literally the size of a mountain range, and it looked terrifyingly solid.
Amaru was regarded as Soweol's king, yet he ruled only twenty thousand people. The other tribes had far smaller populations. It was obvious that this was a structure the people of Soweol could never have built.
Honestly, even people from Earth would have struggled to build a fortress like that. Especially with the moat around it, large enough to hold Behemoth whole.
It was a fortress that seemed built not by humans, but by a god.
According to the Soweol people here, one man had built the entire fortress alone. They said they heard a loud noise one night, looked over in terror, and found that the fortress had appeared overnight. It continued to be reinforced until it reached this scale.
He had built this with the strength of one person? Kang Jun-chi had done it alone? Even in a building game, it would take a long time to make a structure this large...
It seemed to show how powerful he was, how high the walls around his heart were, and how wary he had become.
Before meeting Kang Jun-chi, I took a deep breath. I went over all the lines I had prepared to persuade him.
If I wanted, I could use Spatial Teleportation right away, bypass the fortress's defenses, and appear in front of Kang Jun-chi. But that would only make him angry.
To lower his guard and show my respect, I stood before the fortress and shouted.
“Kang Jun-chi!”
Despite my warning that it could be dangerous, Baek Dambi had insisted on following me. She covered both ears and frowned.
I kept shouting.
“It's Kim Geuk! Long time no see!”
After I shouted a few more times, I got a response.
It seemed Kang Jun-chi had been using an entire rocky peak as a door.
A huge mass of rock rose into the air, and something emerged from beneath it.
The next moment, a cargo lift with railings appeared, along with a man standing on it.
My eyes widened when I saw him. His expression and the state of his clothing were quite different from what I remembered, but he was definitely...
Kang Jun-chi. He really was here!
Soon, Kang Jun-chi, standing on the cargo lift, arrived in front of me.
The moment I met his eyes, I knew my prophet's intuition had been completely right.
Kang Jun-chi's bloodshot eyes. They were not merely red. There was madness in them, and they sent a chill down my spine.
What had he gone through here? How much hostility was he feeling to end up with eyes like that?
After a long silence, Kang Jun-chi finally opened his mouth.
“Why did you come here?”
I forced myself to sound calm.
“To bring you back.”
Then I tensed up.
I expected him to say something like, “Get the hell out of here. If you aren't gone in one minute, I'll kill you.” I was about to recite the lines I had prepared for that possibility.
“Really?”
“Of course...”
Then Kang Jun-chi shouted in a voice filled with grievance.
“Then why did you take so long to come?”
It was difficult to describe how stunned I felt in that moment. All I could say was that I nearly fainted.
As I stood there feeling dizzy, Kang Jun-chi continued.
“What the hell took you so long? Do you know how much I've suffered here? This shitty place doesn't even have toilet paper! There isn't even anything to use instead! When I take a dump by a stream and wash with the water, there are hardly any big fish, but minnows and some kind of parasite are everywhere...!”
The moment I heard that pathetic complaint, all kinds of emotions washed over me.
Relief and emptiness because things had gone more easily than expected, and... anger.
I had to suppress that anger. I also had to lock the faces of Kim Hyeongman and Park Juheon, which flashed through my mind, into a corner of my brain.
I only asked in the tone one would use with a hopeless friend.
“If you wanted to go back, why didn't you return on your own? Why were you still here until someone came looking for you?”
“Because I didn't know the way back! When I came to my senses, I'd gone way too far. I couldn't ask anyone for directions because we couldn't understand each other, and there are blade wielders everywhere who draw their blades whenever they see a stranger! Do you know how many times I ran into those crazy blade wielders? Do you know how many times I've been attacked in my sleep?”
After hearing about his hardships, it did not seem like we needed to persuade him to return. It looked like he would pretend he could not resist and follow along even if we simply took his hand and led him away.
Hmm, now that I thought about it, I might have foreseen even this. My prophet's intuition truly never missed.
“See? I was right.”
When I casually said that, Baek Dambi glared at me, but I ignored her.
That brought our two-month journey to an end. Now, all that remained was to return.
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Footnotes:
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