WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 12: Master of the Tower (4)

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I put on a show of trembling, and the man spoke firmly.

"That's enough, calm down. And as for your companions, I'm sorry, but forget about them. If you're going to do this line of work, that much is unavoidable."

I lowered both hands beneath my knees and bowed my head like someone who'd lost all their spirit.

The younger man standing behind him whispered to my interrogator.

"Sunbae, I really don't think this kid knows anything. He didn't even know it was a double dungeon."

Where I ended up after leaving the Tower of Trials was, of all places, another dungeon.

A double dungeon. Also called a fake dungeon.

It referred to a rare, special type of dungeon that formed when two dungeons overlapped in the same space.

In a normal dungeon, clearing it should generate an exit gate. But in a double dungeon, instead of an exit gate, you got dropped straight into the next dungeon.

That was where the trouble started.

The reason double dungeons got called fake dungeons was simple.

The second dungeon hidden underneath always outranked the first one visible on the surface.

Because the dungeon lied about its own rank, people called it a fake dungeon.

If the hunters who entered made it through the hidden dungeon safely and came out the other side, no harm done. If not, it ended in an accident. Like this one.

And double dungeons carried one more problem on top of that.

Stragglers.

Since you weren't entering through a normal route, stragglers were bound to happen.

Stragglers meant hunters who went missing or died without ever making it out of the dungeon. And in double dungeons, apparently, the ratio of those cases ran pretty high.

Lucky me.

The first dungeon I'd entered had been D rank. After leaving the Tower of Trials, I came to in the second one.

C+ rank Harpy Canyon, a dungeon treated as effectively B rank thanks to its brutal terrain and flying monsters.

Normally, once a dungeon filled up, or once an hour passed after someone entered, it sealed shut from the outside regardless of how many people were still inside.

But there existed a rare breed of hunters called Keys who held the "Dungeon Open" skill, the ability to unseal a closed dungeon from the outside.

Since this incident involved trainees under the Association, and it happened inside a dungeon the Association itself owned, they needed to wrap things up fast for the sake of appearances afterward.

Setting the double dungeon issue aside, the Association currently suspected that I, the sole survivor, might have killed every last one of my companions inside.

I'd sized up the situation quickly and was riding it out by playing dumb, insisting I knew nothing.

I hadn't forgotten to throw in a bit of exaggerated acting, either.

Watching me, pale-faced and trembling, the other staff member kept trying to talk sunbae down.

The guy in front of me was the senior, the one behind him the junior. For some reason, though, the senior hunter kept glancing at the junior for approval. Something must have gone on between them.

The junior kept defending me.

"How's a powerless kid supposed to kill his whole team?"

"What bugs me is that he suddenly got an affiliation right after entering the dungeon."

"You said it was some no-name god, right? It's rare, but it happens, getting an affiliation after entering a dungeon."

Wow. No-name, unheard-of piece of garbage. That's a bit much.

The man interrogating me crossed his arms and let out a sigh.

"Fine. We'll stop the investigation here."

"Um... I can still work as a hunter normally, right?"

"Ah, don't worry about that. There won't be any problem with your hunter activities, Kang Hangyeol-ssi. It wouldn't make sense to bar you from working just because of an unfortunate accident."

"Thank you."

The staff member in charge of the interrogation left the room first, and I followed him out shortly after. There was no additional questioning.

Once outside the Association building, I sat on a bench near the entrance and turned on my phone.

I'd gone in for questioning that morning, and by the time I came out, it was already the afternoon.

I'd had my phone off for a long stretch, but there wasn't really anyone who'd have tried to reach me. There shouldn't have been, anyway.

"What's this?"

A single text had come in from an unfamiliar number. [call me when ur done]

That tone of voice... no matter how I looked at it, that had to be Choi Suhyun.

Choi Suhyun was the Key hunter with the Dungeon Open skill. It was Choi Suhyun who had opened the door to the second dungeon, Harpy Canyon.

Choi Suhyun was the Key.

Hunters who carried a skill capable of unsealing dungeons were extremely rare.

Youngest Awakened on record, S rank hunter, and a Key on top of that.

At this point, that man's actual government job had to just be a hobby.

Having effectively confirmed the strange number belonged to Choi Suhyun, I called it back.

He picked up before the third ring finished.

"Hello—"

"Haeseong Building, underground parking, B3, spot 21-2."

"Huh?"

"Come."

Choi Suhyun said only what he wanted to say and hung up without waiting for a reply.

I looked up Haeseong Building on my phone.

It was right across the street.

Standing at the crosswalk, I stared at the building and muttered.

"This guy's a real piece of work."

Even outside his Unaffiliated days, he must have gone through life being called an oddball on a regular basis.

The underground parking lot of the building, a mix of guild headquarters and corporate offices, was packed tight with cars.

A McLaren 920S Spider.

The latest supercar model, out for less than a year.

I'd read online once that as the age of hunters dawned, the fields that profited most were supercars and luxury goods.

A kind of compensation instinct, apparently, for surviving a job where you never knew when you might die.

Looking at Choi Suhyun's car, I muttered with total conviction.

"See, I told you his government job was just a hobby."

"You damn brat, I can hear you, you know."

Choi Suhyun rolled down the window and glared at me.

"Get in already."

The moment I clicked my seatbelt shut, Choi Suhyun pulled out.

Once we surfaced above ground, Choi Suhyun rolled a handmade candy from a tin around in his mouth.

"Heard you got an affiliation."

"That's how it turned out."

"Congratulations. Doesn't matter which god, honestly. Having someone to lean on right after you awaken beats having nobody at all."

"So where are we going?"

Choi Suhyun had the navigation switched off and was driving somewhere purely on instinct, it seemed.

"My place."

"I don't have a hobby of dating men, you know."

"You want to die?"

Choi Suhyun's face went dead serious as he crunched down hard on the candy in his mouth.

"Can't a guy make a joke? How do you live life being that serious all the time?"

"Oh, would you look at that. Anyone listening would think you'd lived longer than me."

Ignoring what Choi Suhyun said, I leaned back against the plush seat and popped a candy from the glass jar into my mouth.

Thankfully, Choi Suhyun didn't seem to mind the gesture much.

"So why are we going to your place, exactly?"

I put the grape-flavored candy in my mouth and waited for his answer.

"There's a reason."

Choi Suhyun never did tell me what it was.

I didn't think much of his attitude about it.

He'll tell me eventually.

No need to rush things.

Maybe it was from being questioned all morning, but I felt strangely tired.

The heater blowing from the car vents was warm, and I started nodding off before long.

I woke back up about thirty minutes later.

We'd apparently arrived, since a private garage came into view through the windshield.

Choi Suhyun, who'd gotten out first, knocked on the passenger door as if telling me to get out.

I opened the door, got out, and rubbed my eyes.

"Would've been nicer if you'd opened it for me."

"Open your own door."

Choi Suhyun tilted his head, gesturing for me to follow.

The private garage had the McLaren we'd arrived in, plus a Chevrolet, a Porsche, a Ferrari, a Bugatti, all the latest models from brands you'd have at least heard of once, lined up on display.

"Wow. This is nuts."

The fact that it was enough to snap me fully awake said everything that needed saying. The elevator connected to the garage opened its doors.

"What are you doing? Not getting in?"

I scurried after Choi Suhyun into the elevator.

I regretted having dozed off and missed the view of the house from outside.

"You live disgustingly well, huh."

"If you live well, just say you live well. What's with the 'disgustingly'?"

"Want me to say 'as hell' instead?"

"You want to die?"

The elevator doors opened, and I bolted out like I was fleeing.

Behind me, I caught a glimpse of Choi Suhyun's face, looking utterly exasperated.

I turned my back, and Choi Suhyun clenched his fist tight.

If an S rank hunter landed one hit on this body of mine right now, I might snap a rib or two without even trying.

Choi Suhyun stepped out of the elevator with his hands stuffed in his suit pockets.

I genuinely worried he might actually hit me, but nothing came of it.

Straight ahead, past a wall of sleek floor-to-ceiling glass, was a view of the garden.

For a moment, I thought of my own basement apartment.

The bathroom in this house was probably bigger than my whole place.

Damn it.

"Heard you got questioned all day today. Did you eat?"

"You think I got to eat?"

"What do you want? Pizza? Chicken? Burgers are fine too."

"Living in a place like this, don't say things that break my brain."

"Then what, should I be eating some pesticide-free organic diet instead?"

"Ugh, don't say something that horrifying. Chicken or burger, either's fine."

"Then pizza."

I honestly don't know why he even bothered asking if he was just going to do whatever he wanted anyway.

"I'll order the delivery, so sit tight in the living room."

Choi Suhyun waved a hand and headed up to the second floor.

I flopped down onto the massive U-shaped sofa nearby.

My body sank right in. Might as well have called it a bed instead of a sofa.

Woof.

"Woof?"

Woof, woof.

"Whoa, scared me. It's a dog."

A fluffy little dog sat perched on the sofa.

Bichon, maybe?

The dog seemed to bark at me for a second, then turned its head and coolly hopped down off the sofa.

"Songsong. Eat your food. Food."

I turned around and leaned my face over the back of the sofa.

Choi Suhyun, now changed out of his suit into comfortable sweats, scooped the dog up into his arms.

"What's with that naming sense?"

"What's wrong with it? Bichon, so Songsong. It's cute."

"Don't tell me it's like, Choi Songsong, after your last name?"

Choi Suhyun looked at me like he didn't see what the problem was.

"Wow. Amazing. I'll just keep my mouth shut from here on."

I sighed and shut my mouth.

Well, it wasn't my dog to raise anyway.

Didn't matter to me one way or the other.

"So why'd you invite me to your place?"

"Before that, you know you owe me thanks, right?"

Songsong, having finished its meal in record time, hopped up onto Choi Suhyun's feet.

Choi Suhyun bent down slightly and gathered it into his arms.

No matter how small a dog was, it should've had some weight to it, but the moment Choi Suhyun lifted it, it settled into his arms light as a puff of down.

I got up from the sofa, turning over what Choi Suhyun had just said, and thought back over everything that had happened that day.

Everything that had happened, if you could even call it that, amounted to being hauled into the Association from the morning, questioned all day, and then getting kidnapped to Choi Suhyun's house. That was it.

Barely enough to even count as an event.

Something I should thank him for, huh.

I was the sole survivor of an accident that occurred during a field dungeon exercise run by the Association.

Yesterday hadn't been the first time I'd been called in.

I'd already been to the Association more times than I cared to count before that.

At first, people had suspected I might have killed the teammates I'd entered with. But at some point, their attitude had shifted.

For my part, having it processed as a simple accident was far better than getting a hunter-killer label slapped on me right from the start.

"Was this your doing?"

Footnotes:

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