WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 120: The Only Hope (5)
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Sure, asking a question is one thing, but did he have to be that prickly about it?
The bullet Choi Suhyun fired shot toward the direction Park Siyu had come flying from.
Yu Seyeon appeared and knocked the bullet aside.
"My, how rude. Two men ganging up on two women."
"Hey, what's she saying?"
The distance was too great for Choi Suhyun to actually hear Yu Seyeon's voice.
"Don't bother. Nothing worth hearing."
Park Siyu and Choi Suhyun traded a few words through the comms room.
"Given up on being human, I see."
I'd already expected as much, ever since Choi Suhyun mentioned she'd swallowed a fragment of Incursion.
Yu Seyeon's appearance was nowhere near human anymore.
Her skin had turned entirely red, and two horns had sprouted from her head.
Both legs had transformed into a monster's legs, and her height and build looked more than twice Park Siyu's size.
Yu Seyeon slammed her staff into the ground, and black thorns rose up from the earth.
"Let me help—"
"You'd just get in the way."
Park Siyu swung his Light Saber and cut through the thorns.
The fallen rose petals turned razor-sharp and scattered in every direction.
"Just do your job."
Some of the thorns he failed to block grazed Park Siyu's cheek and shoulder.
Park Siyu's gaze was fixed on the cliff where Yu Chaeyoung waited.
Seo Jihoon had succeeded in constructing a body for Yu Chaeyoung using the accumulated mana in the Dragon Orb.
But.
'Yu Chaeyoung's soul is currently attached to Eunyoung noona, isn't it?'
Eunyoung noona was different from other unaffiliated awakened ones.
Maybe that was exactly why Yu Chaeyoung had latched onto her in the first place.
I'd find out once I met Seo Jihoon.
I turned my back on Park Siyu.
"You think I'll just let you walk off?"
Yu Seyeon kicked off the ground and appeared right in front of me.
She swung a foot tipped with sharp claws in a wide arc.
I blocked the claws with Angervadir.
"Shameless, waving around an item you stole."
"Stole? I got this as a proper gift, thank you very much."
Angervadir was the dagger Yu Seyeon had given me as an apology, back during the Skyfield incident.
Light flared from the staff in Yu Seyeon's hand.
I cut through the tree roots trying to bind my feet.
Park Siyu charged at Yu Seyeon, who was gunning for me, and Choi Suhyun's bullet rained down from above her head.
Yu Seyeon tore through the black fog and kept up the pursuit.
"You're relentless, you know that?"
"If it weren't for you, none of this would have come to this!"
Yu Seyeon had spent a long time putting together a plan to deal with Park Siyu.
I was one thing, but Choi Suhyun's return to the field had to be their worst-case scenario.
The giant man-eating rose Yu Seyeon summoned closed in.
Flames rained down from above and burned both the rose and Yu Seyeon together.
"Hangyeol-ah, you okay?"
Eunyoung noona landed and ran over.
I pointed toward the cliff.
"Noona, let's go."
At my urging, Eunyoung noona hesitated, glancing back at Yu Seyeon, who looked practically monstrous by now, and at Park Siyu.
The ground rippled, and tangled thorn vines rose up to block the way.
I used Angervadir to clear the rising thorns and cut a path through.
"O-okay, got it."
Eunyoung noona ran toward me, looking like she had no other choice.
Seeing us pulling away, Yu Seyeon reached out a hand, and thousands of petals came flying toward us.
I stopped Eunyoung noona from pulling out her flames.
Park Siyu blocked the space between me and Yu Seyeon and drew a second Light Saber.
Two blades moved in a dazzling blur and cut down every single petal.
Whatever slipped past got blown away by Choi Suhyun's bullets.
Park Siyu hadn't given any kind of signal, and yet the attack landed like it had been anticipated in advance.
I already knew Choi Suhyun's skill was solid, but that kind of coordination was a completely different matter.
Thanks to their consideration, I managed to get clear of Yu Seyeon.
Hresvelgr being dead didn't mean the monsters were gone.
Jin Sangbyeok and Choi Jaebyung had used up big skills back to back and looked worn out.
Right beside us, trees flew through the air as Jeong Choa and An Seojun fought.
Not that I doubted her, but given the circumstances, worrying about her was unavoidable.
'She'll be fine.'
Park Siyu was right.
For now, focusing on what I could actually do was the right call.
There was still a conversation left to have with the god Beritaas, after all.
I pointed at the space above Eunyoung noona's head.
"By the way, noona, what's the deal with that, exactly?"
"Huh? Is there something on my head?"
"Not that... I mean the ghost stuck to you."
"Y-you can see it?"
"Faintly."
I cleared out the monsters getting in the way while running the shortest path there.
Eunyoung noona's skill, compared to when we'd first met, had improved so much I'd have believed she was a different person entirely.
She wove between the trees and killed the corrupted monsters with minimal wasted movement.
Honestly, I could've just talked to Yu Chaeyoung directly, but that felt too much like whispering behind someone's back while they stood right there, so I didn't feel like it.
"I don't really know what happened either."
"Then at least give me a rough idea of what went down back then."
Right before I used Jung Hyeonseong to tear open the space of Beritaas's temple, Yu Chaeyoung's soul had already been at its limit.
Beritaas attacked through the collapsing gap, and right before it vanished completely, Yu Chaeyoung had connected the coordinates to the space I'd torn open.
"Wait, then what about Yu Jihan?"
"Oh, him?"
Eunyoung noona thought about it for a moment, then answered brightly.
"Don't know."
"He'll figure it out himself, whether he lives or dies, right? Better if he dies, honestly."
In other words, she'd left him behind in Beritaas's temple.
Well, Transcendent Yu Jihan had tried to kill Eunyoung noona and gotten dragged into this whole mess because of it.
In a way, that was karma catching up with him.
'What is even wrong with that guy!'
The mortal Yu Jihan seemed fine enough, but the other one couldn't wait to sink his teeth into Soter.
Was there some chance future me screwed something up?
That thought alone was terrifying in its own right.
Even having been abandoned in Beritaas's temple, I couldn't quite picture Yu Jihan actually dying.
[Hey.]
Just in case, I used divine word to speak to Yu Chaeyoung, still attached to Eunyoung noona.
Yu Chaeyoung looked at me with a startled expression.
She'd apparently known I could see her, but hadn't expected me to actually talk to her.
Yu Chaeyoung studied me carefully, then her face shifted like she'd just realized something.
[You're this child's master?]
[Something like that.]
[Interesting. A half-baked god.]
[Jung Hyeonseong was Beritaas's demigod too. More importantly, why are you attached to noona? What are you planning?]
Former fiancée of Park Siyu or not, the fact remained that she was clinging to Eunyoung noona.
[You really don't know anything about this girl, do you?]
[Get off Eunyoung noona.]
"Hangyeol-ah? What's wrong?"
Startled by my cold glare, Eunyoung noona asked, flustered.
I pulled back the killing intent and smiled, saying it was nothing.
I turned my sword and split a monster in half that had been gunning for Eunyoung noona.
The swing came out a bit too hard and split the ground open too.
"It's nothing. Don't worry about it."
[My, how scary.]
I calmed Eunyoung noona down, then headed back toward the cliff.
Yu Chaeyoung protested, sounding a little wronged.
[It's not like I attached myself here because I wanted to.]
[What do you mean?]
[Unaffiliated awakened ones are vessels of possibility.]
Unlike other Hunters who simply served a god, they carried the potential to accept part of a god into themselves and become demigods, or even become gods themselves.
Beritaas had used Jung Hyeonseong as a vessel to project a small fraction of its own power.
Eunyoung noona wasn't a demigod like Jung Hyeonseong, but part of my own power had been flowing into her all this time.
Which meant Eunyoung noona's vessel was far bigger than I'd ever imagined.
[My power was weak enough for you to latch on?]
[Quick on the uptake. But if you want, I'll step aside.]
[Do you actually mean that?]
At my question, Yu Chaeyoung, hanging off Eunyoung noona's shoulder, smiled.
I'd heard she used to be Park Siyu's fiancée and all that, but if her personality really was the same as when she was alive, this woman had to be a seriously sharp operator.
'I did throw her the sword, after all.'
Eunyoung noona couldn't use a sword.
Not just a sword, she had no talent for any weapon at all.
Back then, it was Yu Chaeyoung who'd actually moved her body.
The only reason I threw the sword was because I knew Yu Chaeyoung, attached to Eunyoung noona, was a swordswoman.
Yu Chaeyoung's swordwork looked remarkably similar to Park Siyu's.
She'd already been active as an S-Rank Hunter and a Transcendent not long after Park Siyu first awakened, so her skill went without saying.
[I'll let it slide for now.]
From what I could tell, she didn't seem to intend any harm toward Eunyoung noona.
She was the soul of Park Siyu's former fiancée, after all, and picking a fight for no good reason didn't seem like it would end well for anyone.
[Thanks.]
[But are you going to be okay?]
Facing Jung Hyeonseong as Beritaas's demigod and facing the actual god Beritaas were two completely different problems.
Yu Chaeyoung had been Beritaas's first follower, hadn't she?
The god she'd once served had turned into an evil god. There was no way her heart could stay steady about that.
Yu Chaeyoung changed the subject.
[Do you know anything about Beritaas's divine epithet?]
Obviously a dodge to avoid answering, but I had no intention of pushing her on it either.
[Just a guess.]
The thing kept insisting its own actions were justified.
Probably some kind of deity from the inquiry, research line.
[The god I served, Beritaas, is the god of truth.]
At Yu Chaeyoung's answer, I nodded, figuring as much.
The god of truth endlessly sought genuine principles, a deity devoted to finding the right answer.
[Beritaas broke its taboo.]
[What's its taboo?]
[Doubt toward the oldest thing. I don't know the details well, but that's Beritaas's taboo. I don't really know what the old thing it doubted actually was.]
Even someone as sharp as Yu Chaeyoung couldn't know everything.
I'd figured either the divine epithet or the taboo would land somewhere close to the truth.
[One more thing I'm curious about. Then what's your taboo?]
[I think I have the right to hear something in return first.]
Yu Chaeyoung was a Transcendent.
As a Transcendent, she carried a taboo.
Park Siyu had told me Yu Chaeyoung never broke her taboo. But I never heard what it actually was.
Yu Chaeyoung's soul drifted slightly away from Eunyoung noona's body and looked at me as she spoke.
[Never take your own life.]
Footnotes:
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