I Returned as a God - Chapter 1

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 1: Prologue

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Have you ever heard of the term “isekai” before?

It’s the trope of a high school student from the present day traveling to another universe and running around causing chaos in that world.

I’ve seen a lot of fantasy stories like that around. What? You’re saying that’s old now?

Well, I can’t help it if that’s the only thing I know. So, why am I bringing this up, then?

That’s simple.

It’s because I once took part in an isekai.

What? I’m lying?

You rude bastard, do I look like the type of person to bluff like that?

I do? Really?

Damn it.

Look, just hear me out for a second.

It's not gonna cost you anything.

It was the evening before the college entrance exam, and man, it was pouring rain.

That D-day counter that never seemed like it would actually hit zero finally read 1, and honestly, the feeling that gave me was indescribable.

I went out for some air, over to the convenience store across the alley from my place.

Looking back now, that was an insane decision.

I bought an orange juice, walked out of the store, and got struck by lightning.

You already know what happens next.

Dimensional transfer.

These days apparently people get chucked into another world with zero explanation, or sucked into books or games, but it wasn't like that for me.

I got a face-to-face meeting with something calling itself a god.

Begging me to save its world.

Normally that's supposed to be exciting, right?

Right? No more college entrance exam to worry about.

Yeah.

I get it, one exam decides which university you get into, and your university decides the rest of your life, so there's some truth to that complaint.

I know the absurdity of it too, how a few hours out of a nineteen-year life, and every year that comes after, can get decided in one narrow window.

I get hating the exam. I get hating studying.

But not me!!

I grew up in Gangnam's 8th school district, poured my entire childhood into the Daechi-dong hagwon strip, got into a science academy, and never once missed a question on a mock exam right up to the real thing.

Genius? There's no such thing as a real genius in Daechi-dong.

That place is just a holding pen for ordinary people trying to keep pace with actual geniuses.

I'll say this with total confidence, nobody worked harder than I did.

My parents had already promised me that once I got into college, I could do whatever I wanted with my life.

And then what, save the world?

Shove it.

You have no idea how I felt in that moment.

You don't want to take the exam?

That's you talking about wanting to go play with your friends like everyone else.

You think I studied with a clear head while everyone else was out having fun?

Give me back my guaranteed college life!

* * *

I hate to say it about myself, but I'm pretty stubborn. If I wasn't, I never would've made it through all that studying.

I never touched the games other guys my age grew up on, never read a novel or anything like that, but I gritted my teeth and pushed through anyway.

Survival of the fittest.

Only the strong survive, and the weak become their prey. That was just how things worked there.

It was a different kind of competition, a different kind of survival than studying ever was.

For someone who had only ever studied, it was a genuinely brutal place to have to accept.

I set myself one goal.

Get back to the original world.

College dreams, all that stuff, none of it mattered anymore.

I needed something to live for, something to survive for. Without some kind of purpose, I felt like I'd go insane.

I survived.

I paid a heavy price, saved the world, and ended up standing right here.

* * *

At the center of a massive temple sat a golden table and chair, alone in the empty space.

With every step he took, his armor rattled along with his footsteps.

A young man with golden hair, clad in armor, approached. He looked at me, sitting there with my feet up on the table and my head raised, and frowned.

"Arrogant, aren't you."

"That's the first thing you say to me after all this time? Ten years, no, must be nearly twenty by now. Right?"

I took my legs off the table and looked at him. I knew that face.

Luciel. Failing to save him was one of the greatest regrets of my life.

Put another way, it was Luciel's death that got me this far.

He was the one who believed in me all the way to the end, back when I was just an ordinary high schooler who couldn't do anything except study.

The Luciel in front of me wasn't real.

I knew that. And still, seeing a face that had been growing hazier and hazier in my memory felt strange in a way I couldn't quite describe.

This was that thing's temple. It had thrown me into another dimension under the pretense of salvation.

Gods don't have bodies of their own.

Because of that, they always needed some kind of vessel. The fact that it wore Luciel's face meant that, somewhere in my subconscious, I must have been thinking of him.

Getting to see Luciel's face one more time on what might be my last road felt good, in a way. But it also made me furious that the thing calling me here was wearing his skin like a costume.

The continent of Arbelisia.

There, I was a hero. A chosen warrior. Whatever the process looked like, I'd accomplished what I set out to do.

"Keep your promise, Lachesis."

I set my arm on the table and held out my hand.

One of the three goddesses of fate. The current god.

I'd only learned Lachesis's true name relatively recently.

Wish I'd found out sooner.

"The old promise, you mean? You shouldn't have any of that old desire left in you by now. Even if you went back, would it mean anything?"

"It matters. It matters a lot. Sure, I don't care about college anymore. But a symbol has its own kind of desire, one that only belongs to the symbol itself."

The deal I'd struck was this: save the summoned world, and in exchange, get sent back to the night before the college entrance exam.

Twenty years was a long stretch of time for me, but for that thing, it was probably nothing more than the blink of an eye.

I couldn't figure out what it was stalling for.

The thought that flickered through my head was almost too awful to finish before Lachesis spoke.

"I'm sorry, but that won't be possible."

I steadied my breathing and clenched the fist I'd set on the table.

Being a god was no guarantee against lying, and there was no rule saying it couldn't.

If I had to make excuses for myself, I'd say I just hadn't let myself think about it.

I'd saved the world with the goal of getting back to my own, and if I let myself entertain the idea that I might never make it back, wouldn't that just be pathetic, on a purely human level?

I crossed my legs, folded my arms, and looked up at Lachesis.

Compared to the wide-eyed kid I'd been right before I got summoned, I'd changed a lot.

My voice dropped low. Frighteningly calm.

"So what's the reason? At least tell me the reason."

"It was my mistake. I never should have summoned you into that world."

"You're the one who picked me. Calling it a mistake now doesn't change a damn thing."

"I didn't expect you to ascend to godhood."

"And so? You just won't send me back?"

Lachesis pressed its lips together and nodded.

"You know what they call a situation like this?"

I kicked the chair aside and stood.

"It's like pulling a drowning man out of the water and having him demand you hand over his lost bundle too."

"I am genuinely grateful that you saved my dimension."

I didn't answer. I just rolled my shoulders.

At the same moment, the space around us cracked like shattering glass.

The floor collapsed, and in an instant everything turned into a black void, empty of anything at all.

"What the hell..."

"Don't move. I don't have great control over my strength."

Dozens of massive spears materialized out of the empty black space, all of them aimed at Lachesis.

"So you really are something that shouldn't be left alone!"

"You people are the ones who made me this way! I told you not to move, you know this attack isn't aimed at flesh. Sorry, but I'll take you hostage if that's what it takes to get back to my original world!"

"Does going back to your senior year of high school really matter that much to you? After decades soaked in blood, you shouldn't have any of that old desire left in you to go home. So why do you still want to?"

"Because that's the only meaning my existence has left."

If I hadn't had that desire to go back, I never would have made it this far.

Lachesis laughed at my answer.

"You've gotten quite a bit better at lying."

Uneasy, I moved fast, reaching a hand toward Lachesis.

Dozens of spears pierced straight through its body.

Even skewered through, Lachesis didn't spill a single drop of blood.

Its body was like a doll's. One eye pierced by a spear, it lifted its head anyway.

[Did you really think we'd come to kill you with no backup plan at all?]

"Now you're finally showing your true colors."

Empty air split open, and hundreds, thousands of massive eyes began to form.

Closed eyelids peeled open one after another, all of them turning toward me.

More eyes kept appearing, too many to count. This was dangerous. I threw my hand out.

Lachesis's body crumbled and vanished. Sensing something was very wrong, I forced my mind to focus.

[How dare you!]

A voice rang out in my head and seized hold of me. Chains poured out of the eyes and wrapped around my arms and legs.

I was being dragged down into the black void, feet first, slowly. The more chains that wrapped around me, the harder it got to even hold myself upright.

Did they really think I'd die like this?

I lived twenty years in that hellish world for one reason alone, to make it back to that rainy night before the exam, back to being a senior in high school.

Even if I never made it back to that exact moment, fine. So be it.

But being used and discarded by a bunch of gods and dying like this, that I refused, absolutely.

I gathered everything I had into one point. I pictured it exploding outward and erased the mindscape around me. The black space shifted into white.

An unidentifiable murmur and reverberation echoed through my head. This time, I saw a black point.

I knew instinctively that it was a path to another dimension.

I used every last bit of strength I had left and threw myself into the black space.

Wait for me. I'm coming back. No matter what.

Footnotes:

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