WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 134: Resolve and Determination (2)
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It hurt like nothing else.
Not even that fall from the third-floor railing back in elementary school, back when she'd been horsing around with a friend, had hurt this much.
Every inch of her body felt like it was on fire.
She couldn't afford to lose consciousness.
Not now.
Her eyes half-rolled back, Eunyoung gripped the chain piercing through her stomach.
Flames crawled up from her hand and wrapped around the chain.
It refused to break.
Choi Jaebyung yanked the pin from a small mana grenade and hurled it at Yu Chaeyoung.
A mana grenade couldn't hope to actually hurt her, but it could buy a few seconds, at least.
The flash from the grenade stopped Yu Chaeyoung's movement cold.
Strictly speaking, something was off about her.
It almost felt like she'd stopped on purpose.
Whether that was true or not didn't matter right now.
Jaebyung ran for Eunyoung as fast as his legs would carry him.
"Stay with me! Eunyoung-ssi! Don't you dare die!"
"Ugh... not dead yet..."
Jaebyung activated Raphael's Hymn in a rush.
Orbs of healing light bloomed around Eunyoung, her wounds glowing faintly, but they did next to nothing.
Jaebyung was scraping together everything he had, down to his own soul, just to keep her alive.
The chains were trying to drag her body away.
Choi Jaebyung drove his sword into the links of chain buried in her flesh.
Anything to buy a few more seconds.
Park Siyu raised his Light Saber.
The instant Eunyoung's consciousness finally gave out, the flames wrapped around the chains vanished.
Park Siyu swung, and the chains skewering her body were sliced clean through.
"Wait... representative, you can't..."
Park Siyu could not fight the god Beritaas.
Choi Jaebyung realized it a beat too late and tried to stop him, but it was already too late.
Park Siyu, Transcendent Mode active, tore apart the avatar that had appeared behind Eunyoung and Jaebyung, shredding it to pieces.
His grip on the sword was tighter than usual.
He knew that better than anyone.
This is my problem to deal with.
Even if it had been his family who'd arranged it, she had still been someone he once loved.
A Hunter whose stats reached SS-Rank earned the qualification to become Transcendent.
But no Hunter alive knew exactly how that transformation happened.
Park Siyu had awakened as a Transcendent after killing Yu Chaeyoung.
The power and the Taboo he'd gained from her death now had their hooks in him.
That fact alone was enough to drive him out of his mind.
Every swing of the Light Saber cut down another wave of avatars without pause.
The unending assault said more about what Park Siyu felt than words ever could.
[Come at me, you. There is no defying it. That is Taboo.]
The god Beritaas whispered in Park Siyu's ear like a taunt.
A massive leg descended toward him.
The healing orbs grew stronger the longer their user stayed close to the target.
With his mana running low, Jaebyung couldn't afford to leave Eunyoung's side.
He shouted at the Hunters nearby, desperate.
"Hey! Why are you all just standing there?! Stop him!!"
"No, I mean... that's..."
"How the hell are we supposed to st-stop that?"
Park Siyu was a Dual-Transcendent Awakened.
A Hunter who had transcended two of his four stats, a fact alone enough to inspire fear and awe in anyone who heard it.
Even Hunters who barely knew Park Siyu knew at least this much: he wasn't the type to lose his temper.
Right now, he wasn't just refusing to be spoken to. Just standing in the same space as him was enough to make it hard to breathe.
Stop him?
How, exactly?
Nobody without a serious death wish could pull that off.
Choi Jaebyung swung his sword wildly, killing off the avatars swarming around Eunyoung, frustration boiling over.
"Ugh, useless, the lot of you! Useless!"
"W-well then why don't you stop him yourself!"
"I can't move, can I?! Damn it..."
Choi Jaebyung bit down hard on his lip.
Blood, sharp and metallic, filled his mouth through the split skin.
Kim Gangwoo's comms room had gone down, so there wasn't even a way to reach the other Hunters.
Somebody, he needed to find somebody who could help...
Are you going to keep fighting only the fights you can win?
Kang Hangyeol's words stabbed into him like a blade, twisting.
Playing it safe was Choi Jaebyung's whole thing.
Just like Hangyeol had said, Jaebyung had spent his whole life only picking fights he was sure to win.
When the odds turned against him, he made excuses. He never once hesitated to run.
Let the whole world point fingers and call him a coward. He didn't care.
He just wanted to live. That badly.
Until I find my brother.
He couldn't die. Not now, not ever.
So where exactly had things started going wrong?
This was all Kang Hangyeol's fault.
Ever since he'd met Hangyeol, nothing had gone right.
Choi Jaebyung didn't know much about Taboo, but he understood enough to know that a Transcendent breaking their own Taboo was basically suicide.
Ask for help?
Had Kang Hangyeol run away when he met Jung Hyeonseong, the demigod?
No. He hadn't.
Right now, in this exact situation, he was the only one who could possibly stop Park Siyu.
"Eunyoung-ssi, just hold on a little longer!"
Sword in hand, Choi Jaebyung grabbed the collar of a Hunter fighting off avatars nearby.
"Wh-what are you..."
Jaebyung hauled him bodily and dumped him in front of Song Eunyoung.
"You've still got mana left?"
"Barely any..."
"If you don't, make some and keep her alive! If Eunyoung-ssi dies, you're next, got it?!"
Sword in hand, Choi Jaebyung charged toward Park Siyu.
Amid a sea of avatars stood Park Siyu, gripping a blade of light.
He looked like a single flower blooming on a battlefield.
A flower of hell, grown fat on blood and flesh as its nutrients.
It wasn't just the avatars.
What little was left of the monsters had also been slaughtered without mercy.
All of it had happened in the span of a few minutes since Park Siyu had drawn his sword.
It made you wonder if a human being was even capable of something like this.
With every step, pooled blood and scraps of flesh stuck to the soles of Jaebyung's shoes.
Picking up his pace, Choi Jaebyung reached for Park Siyu's shoulder.
"Don't touch me."
"That's enough, stop this."
Jaebyung's hand froze inches short of Siyu's shoulder.
"I said that's enough. Do you want to die?"
"Even if I break my Taboo, that has nothing to do with you."
"Of course it doesn't. You're the representative of Aria Guild, and I'm just a Hunter from Raon Guild. If you die, my guildmates will be clapping and lighting cake candles right outside your funeral!"
Park Siyu turned and swung his sword at the space behind Choi Jaebyung.
Jaebyung threw himself between Siyu and the avatar.
He blocked the attack, then spun and cut down the avatar behind him.
The blatant interference made Park Siyu's brow furrow.
Choi Jaebyung swung his sword at Park Siyu.
He knew full well he stood no chance.
Jaebyung swung wildly, shouting like he was venting years of pent-up frustration.
"You know what? I don't care about guilds or any of that crap. My personality's so bad I don't even have real friends! If I dropped dead in some dungeon somewhere, not a single bastard would remember my name! But you're different, representative! If you keep fighting like this, what happens to Choi Suhyun? What about the woman who said she'd take responsibility even after exposing your Taboo?!"
Choi Jaebyung brought his sword down on Park Siyu's body with everything he had.
It wasn't so much using a sword as just swinging it like a blunt club.
He had to stop this.
"And Kang Hangyeol?! What about Eunyoung-ssi, who pushed herself into a fight she couldn't handle just so she wouldn't be a burden on you?! Just, please, if I tell you to stay still, then stay the hell still!"
Jaebyung's shout rattled something in Park Siyu's movements, and an opening appeared.
Choi Jaebyung, who'd been throwing every ounce of skill he had into fighting Park Siyu, didn't let the opening slip past.
He pulled his sword back and drove a fist straight at Park Siyu's face.
Wait, huh?
Choi Jaebyung's eyes went wide. He'd been sure Siyu would block it.
This... this isn't supposed to happen.
Park Siyu staggered back a step.
Something felt very, very wrong.
He just had the distinct feeling he was thoroughly, deeply screwed.
"Um, ah... representative? I didn't mean to actually hit you, I swear..."
Light Saber still in hand, Park Siyu walked toward him without a word.
He should've been backing away, but his feet had frozen solid.
In the next second, Siyu's face was practically nose to nose with his.
"That hurt."
"I'm sorry..."
"Tell them I said I'm sorry."
"Huh? What do you mean, that's not... that's not what you were saying a second ago..."
Park Siyu grabbed Jaebyung's collar and hurled him back the way he came.
The force was too much to handle, and Jaebyung's body flew clean off the ground.
There was one thing Jaebyung hadn't known until now.
Park Siyu was a far more stubborn man than he'd ever given him credit for.
Choi Jaebyung's furious scream echoed off into the distance as he sailed through the air.
"AAAAAAH! You didn't listen to a single word I said!! And you call yourself a guild representative?!"
Ignoring Jaebyung as he flew, Park Siyu swung the Light Saber.
Yu Chaeyoung's blade met his in a clash.
He'd known this was coming.
Park Siyu's sword and Yu Chaeyoung's collided again and again, like something possessed.
No words passed between them. No conversation.
None was needed.
That thing wasn't Yu Chaeyoung.
Part of Park Siyu's sword had come from her, after all.
And.
"The noona you are now can't beat me."
The Park Siyu from seven years ago and the Park Siyu standing here now were not the same man.
Everything around me was a wreck.
I had no idea what had happened.
Not far off, a huge magic circle bloomed, and a rain of magic bullets came pouring down.
Choi Suhyun's skill.
Choi Suhyun appeared using Blink, Jeong Choa at his side.
"The hell is going on here?!"
Choa spotted Song Eunyoung collapsed on the ground and sprinted over.
Avatars swarmed around Eunyoung and Choi Jaebyung.
[Hand her over. The woman.]
Choi Suhyun pulled the trigger, and a hail of magic bullets tore into the body of the massive avatar.
"Move! She's badly hurt!"
Choa reached her hands out toward Eunyoung noona, collapsed on the ground.
I grabbed Choa's hand.
"Just do what you can. Don't push it."
Choa's Origin Recovery wasn't a cure-all.
Taking on someone else's wounds meant the burden landed on Choa in equal measure.
Calling it recovery was generous. It was closer to self-sacrifice.
Even the amount of pain she could absorb and return had its limits.
No matter how numb she was to pain, that didn't mean her body could take it forever without breaking down.
I didn't want to save one person at the cost of destroying another.
I let go of her hand, and Choa laid her palm over Eunyoung noona's wound.
I looked around at the wreckage surrounding us.
One person who should have been here was nowhere in sight.
Half-dreading the answer, I called out to Choi Jaebyung.
"I don't know! And he calls himself a guild representative?! I did everything I could!"
Footnotes:
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