WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 112: Alliance, My Foot (1)
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Cold sweat trickled down Eunyoung's back.
If what Chaeyoung had just said was true, then Song Eunyoung should have already vanished from the world.
The answer that came back was ridiculous.
"What are you talking about?"
Yu Chaeyoung was the one who'd brought it up, and now she didn't know what it meant? Eunyoung couldn't make sense of the situation at all.
Her face flushed redder by the second.
Yu Jihan put a hand on her shoulder.
Was he trying to hurt her? She flinched, startled.
Thankfully, that didn't seem to be it.
Reaching over her shoulder, Yu Jihan opened his palm.
A wrapped hard candy sat in his hand.
The sight of it made Eunyoung snort.
Was this his idea of comforting someone?
"You weird bastard."
Not long ago he'd been ready to kill her, and now this, acting all buddy-buddy out of nowhere.
She snatched the candy from his hand and shoved it in her mouth.
Crunch, crunch.
Eunyoung chewed it down, irritated.
Her head was a mess.
She had no idea what the Abyss even was, or why something like Existence Erasure existed as a divine punishment, but none of that mattered right now.
"Why the hell are they so desperate to devour unaffiliated awakened ones?"
Jung Hyeonseong, and herself too. If anything, they'd wanted a god, never done anything that could be called hostile toward one.
Eunyoung was far too weak a being to go up against something calling itself a god.
What were they so afraid of? What were they so scared of?
Yu Chaeyoung pointed a finger at Eunyoung.
"You two are special. And you, even more than the rest."
"Because I didn't vanish into the Abyss?"
Fine for Eunyoung to still be here, but the ones who'd already vanished had no voice left.
Calling the vanished special meant nothing to them now.
That kind of talk was just comfort for the living.
The dead were dead.
Before Eunyoung could ask why she was supposedly special, Yu Jihan looked up at the ceiling.
The space, an ordinary office until then, rippled.
The ceiling Yu Jihan had been staring at bent, warped in a way that shouldn't have been possible.
A crack split through the sagging ceiling, and a single small eye peered down at Eunyoung and Yu Jihan.
That one eyeball split apart like it was dividing cells, becoming dozens of clustered eyeballs.
Yu Jihan clicked his tongue in annoyance and yanked the dagger from his waist, throwing it.
[Fou. Found]
Black fluid dripped from the wound carved into the eye.
Eunyoung gripped Ishtar's Ring tight.
Just then, Yu Chaeyoung rushed to Eunyoung and grabbed her hand.
"I need to tell you something."
"Tell me what?"
Yu Chaeyoung's eyes wavered.
Nearly a month in the same space with her, Yu Jihan included, and still Yu Chaeyoung had too much of the human left in her to pass for a spirit reduced to nothing but a soul.
Bound to the divine temple as she was, there was no way she could have expected Eunyoung to end up inside Beritaas's temple.
Recognizing Eunyoung had been pure luck. Or should she even call it luck?
Fate seemed closer to the truth than luck.
A pretty vicious fate, at that.
A massive hand reached through the widening crack.
Yu Jihan snatched up his fallen dagger and cut the black hand off.
Even in a space this small, holding a rift open for over a month wasn't an easy thing to manage.
Eunyoung might not have noticed, but the god Beritaas had been attacking the rift dimension nonstop for a while now.
There'd been a reason Yu Jihan hadn't pushed Chaeyoung to hurry.
That woman. She'd been waiting for something.
Physical pain and pain of the soul weren't even in the same category.
What Yu Chaeyoung was being put through right now was severe. Anyone normal would have gone mad a hundred times over by now.
There had to be some reason worth enduring all that just to buy time.
Whatever that reason was, Yu Chaeyoung had been pushed to her limit. Yu Jihan had judged there was no reason left for her to keep holding out.
Yu Jihan turned things over in his head as he watched the incursion entities multiply.
In the meantime, Yu Chaeyoung said something to Eunyoung.
Standing right beside her, Eunyoung had heard every word, and now she opened her mouth.
"What did you just say? No, wait... that thing you just said..."
"It's true."
Eunyoung stumbled backward and dropped to the ground.
Song Eunyoung's parents had died in the great disaster that struck Seoul, not long after she'd become an adult.
Eunyoung had always understood that her parents died fighting monsters. And Yu Chaeyoung was the hunter who'd died in the very dungeon that caused that great disaster.
"You're saying you're the one who killed my parents?"
"It was an accident, but... I won't make excuses."
Back then, Chaeyoung hadn't been in her right mind, warped by the incursion.
Her nails dug into her own flesh.
A black spike dropped from the ceiling, aimed at Eunyoung's neck.
"Song..."
Fwoosh.
Eunyoung spun and swung her leg.
Flames rose in the wake of her footwork.
She slammed her foot down hard.
Her voice dropped low, heavy.
"You."
"Why the hell did you even tell me?"
If Chaeyoung had never said anything, Eunyoung would never have known she'd killed her parents.
Looking at Eunyoung, Chaeyoung bowed her head in guilt.
There were still too many things Eunyoung couldn't understand.
And along with that, a betrayal she couldn't put into words.
Chess.
She should have won by cheating if she had to, rather than settle for a draw.
Monsters kept appearing between the trees.
Not just the boss monster, plenty of ordinary ones too.
A soldier ant that had been hiding in the brush lunged out.
I leaned back just in time, its scalding leg grazing past my face.
"Argh!"
I straightened, swinging my sword in irritation.
Even with one arm severed, the thing didn't care and swung another leg at me.
I spun to dodge the leg, then drove my foot up into its broad face.
Its vision blocked, the thing panicked, and I buried my sword into its head.
Pulling my foot back and yanking the blade free, the soldier ant's body toppled sideways.
Against overwhelming strength, tactics didn't matter much at all.
After clearing a few soldier ants, monkey-like monsters with black fur and red eyes stared down at me from the trees.
What now?
"Mayday, mayday!"
The moment I spoke into the private chat, Choi Suhyun's answer came back sharp enough to cut.
"Get real."
The monkeys all charged at me at once.
I jumped high at Choi Suhyun's warning, putting distance between us.
Something came flying toward the cluster of monkeys.
A magic circle bloomed overhead, pouring down blue light that wiped out every black-furred monkey in an instant.
Once the light faded, a perfect circle of bare ground appeared in the middle of the mountainside.
Like some kind of bald spot...
Ahem. Ahem.
Honestly, there were already way more than one or two spots like that around.
Fed up, I finally said something.
"Could you dial it back a little?"
"Ungrateful little punk."
Can't even say anything without getting bit back at.
I looked down at the dead black-furred monkeys.
"Why are you destroying everything like this?"
"What?"
"You could've easily sniped them one by one."
With Choi Suhyun's skill, he could've killed every monkey without leveling the whole area around it.
He even had skills built for picking off multiple targets, so why go with something this excessive?
"Hey, you have any idea how much focus sniping takes? At times like this, just blowing everything up is way more efficient."
"You're not just enjoying yourself? If a forestry official saw this, they'd probably grab you by the collar foaming at the mouth."
Another explosion went off on the other side.
Guess he didn't want to hear it.
Then again, forestry officials, big deal.
Choi Suhyun was the type who wouldn't blink even if the Minister of Environment showed up in person.
Coldly assessed, Choi Suhyun's method was rough, but efficient.
Looked like he was enjoying himself too, but let's not dwell on that.
He'd just gotten back into hunting after a long break, so of course that temperament of his had been itching for a release.
Lucky for us, the odds of any monster leaking out past Beritaas's personal barrier looked slim.
Gangwoo hyung messaged me.
"Hangyeol, the boss wants you to come over."
Things like this, tell me directly, would you? But no, it always came through Gangwoo hyung.
Not like the comms room wasn't connected or anything.
If I complained, I'd probably just get some irritated response like the boss is busy!
If they say jump, I jump. What else can someone in my position do?
A short distance away, a burst of wind ripped through and sliced down a row of trees all at once.
That was obviously Park Siyu's handiwork.
"Dial it back. Dial it back! People just don't know when to stop!"
Anyone could tell that was aimed at Park Siyu, and it was almost too absurd to process.
You're one to talk! You!
Whether it was the guy carving a bald spot into Yukbaeksan or the one paving an actual highway through it, they looked exactly the same to me.
Seeing this made it a lot clearer why the two of them were such close friends.
Hit by Park Siyu's attack, the golden yeti's body split in half and collapsed.
While running toward Park Siyu, a greatsword came flying in a straight line from somewhat off to the side.
Seriously, a greatsword now?
I struck down the blade flying at full speed toward my throat.
I dug my foot into the ground and barely avoided taking a fall.
"That sword..."
Once I'd knocked it away, I recognized it as Jin Sangbyeok's bastard sword.
I turned toward the sound of footsteps.
Jin Sangbyeok approached with two or three Raon Guild hunters.
The greatsword, still hovering in midair, spun in a wide arc and flew back into Jin Sangbyeok's hand.
He never pulled off tricks like that fighting Yeongno.
"You a hidden-strength type?"
"Park Siyu's lapdog. Where's Park Siyu?"
"Who's a lapdog!"
I raised the Sky Sword high and swung it around. A magic bullet came flying at Jin Sangbyeok.
Whoosh.
Jin Sangbyeok swung his bastard sword and knocked the incoming bullet aside.
"What was that?"
The other hunters standing next to him hadn't even noticed a bullet had come flying at Jin Sangbyeok at all.
This guy's reflexes were something else.
Meant that comment earlier about dialing it back while using Transcendent Mode wasn't just talk.
Jin Sangbyeok radiated killing intent, and I waved both hands frantically.
"N, not me!"
Unfair! This is so unfair!
Jin Sangbyeok sighed, looking toward the direction the bullet had come from.
Some Raon Guild hunters used magic bullets too, but nobody besides Choi Suhyun could pull off long-range sniping at that level.
Anyway, that's beside the point.
"What are you doing!"
"Wasn't that you asking for help?"
"It wasn't."
Waving the Sky Sword around out of habit must have looked like a distress signal to Choi Suhyun.
First he tells me to handle things myself, now he's pulling pointless stunts like this.
Guess he felt awkward about it too, since no reply came back.
I looked toward where the golden yeti had fallen and spoke.
"Park Siyu should be over there... oh, he's gone."
Using Mana Detection just in case, I found he'd already moved to the far side.
I cleared my throat and changed the subject.
"Why are you even looking for Siyu?"
"To get an explanation for this situation. Honestly, I haven't felt good about any of this since the moment I saw Seo Jihoon was a follower of the god Beritaas."
Jin Sangbyeok's brow furrowed.
The moment someone joins a raid or an event, the god they serve gets revealed automatically.
With Yu Chaeyoung, their only rallying point, dead, Beritaas's followers had effectively fallen apart.
That Seo Jihoon of all people had abandoned Elsion and thrown in with Beritaas wasn't exactly a pleasant situation from Jin Sangbyeok's side.
"Why's there a follower of Akhtaion here, and is Yu Chaeyoung really dead? What are they planning?"
"One thing I know for sure."
I pointed at Jin Sangbyeok and the Raon Guild hunters with him.
"Those things hate you guys more than they hate us."
Their goal was to wipe out every hunter on Yukbaeksan.
I didn't know Beritaas's endgame, but if every hunter here ended up dead, the next target of their rage would be Raon Guild itself.
Jin Sangbyeok seemed to understand that better than anyone.
"What are you trying to say?"
"You know the saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?"
"The prince who said that got killed by his own vassal."[1]
"And the enemy of my enemy isn't my friend. It's just some other son of a bitch, separate from both of us."
[1] A reference to an old East Asian saying about "the enemy of my enemy," often cited as wisdom in stories of shifting alliances that later ended in betrayal by the very allies formed under it, the joke being that such alliances have a poor track record.
Footnotes:
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