WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 15: I'm Kind of a Big Deal (3)

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"Hey, about that god you serve."

"It's not chuunibyou, so shut up."

Even though I'd come up with the name myself, I couldn't exactly deny the chuunibyou accusation.

Looking back now, it was embarrassing, sure, but once you picked a divine title, there was no changing it.

'Besides, there's no divine title that suits me better than this one anyway.'

Songsong, who'd been sitting on Choi Suhyun's lap, hopped down and trotted naturally into the inner room. Watching it go, I found myself thinking a dog's life beat a person's life.

"I don't really care what the name is, but... Dark Destruction God? What exactly are you planning to destroy?"

Most divine titles reflected the tendencies of the god who bore them. There was no way Choi Suhyun didn't know that.

"Everything."

"What?"

"I mean it literally. I'm going to destroy everything."

"You crazy bastard. Don't say stuff like that so seriously."

Choi Suhyun shook his head, looking thoroughly unnerved.

Even I thought it sounded a bit much, but it was the truth all the same.

"Relax. I'm not planning to destroy the world or anything like that."

"Just from what you're saying, you sound exactly like a villain. Now I get why that thing never told you its disposition till the end. So what are you actually going to do?"

"Honestly, I don't really know what the other gods' goals were for joining this thing. But the god I serve told me its goal is revenge."

"Revenge? On who?"

"On the damn gods, obviously."

I shrugged, like it was so obvious it barely needed saying.

I'd laid out every card I had for Choi Suhyun.

If he decided to join my side, nothing would make me happier, but this wasn't a situation where I could just force it on him.

After a long moment of thought, Choi Suhyun finally opened his mouth.

"How long's the offer good for?"

"Until you decide to serve some other god. Whatever offer I make you, joining now means you're taking a loss up front. But there's one thing I can say for certain."

"What's that?"

"The god I serve isn't the kind of idiot who orders you to kill yourself as proof of faith."

At my answer, Choi Suhyun laughed bitterly and drained the rest of the soju in one go.

* * *

My fingertips were numb. I couldn't feel anything.

The whole world looked blurred. Red splattered across a black-and-white photograph.

My breathing turned ragged. My chest burned like it was on fire, like I was going insane.

My grip on reality slipped, and time seemed to crawl.

'Ha, ha.'

I lowered my head and saw, through a narrow sliver of vision, a man with a familiar face.

The man's state was so bad that "dead with his eyes open" would've described him better than "alive."

The sound of something huge collapsing snapped me awake.

"Again..."

It was a dream similar to the one from last time.

I rubbed my heavy eyelids and opened my eyes. My chest ached like something was crushing it.

Woof, woof.

Songsong, perched on top of me, barked, looking at my face.

When I sat up, Songsong hopped down naturally.

Morning sunlight poured straight in through the floor-to-ceiling window.

I'd been having these dreams a lot lately. My head throbbed.

My stomach felt awful from the hangover. I stumbled off the couch.

After our conversation had wound down last night, I'd finished off the rest of the soju.

My memory cut out after that, apparently, because I couldn't remember a thing.

Songsong, who'd been trotting around the floor, dashed toward the stairs. Footsteps and the sense of someone approaching followed.

Choi Suhyun came down the stairs waving one hand, Songsong scooped up in the other arm, the dog leaping at him to be held.

"You're up?"

"Yeah, more or less. Aren't you going to work today?"

"Took a day off. Gonna get some hangover food, what do you want?"

"Are you making it?"

"Get your girlfriend to do that for you. I'm ordering delivery."

Choi Suhyun sat down in front of the couch and started tapping at his phone.

"Then hangover soup, please."

"Okay. I've got something to take care of upstairs for a bit, so let me know when the delivery gets here."

"Got it."

Choi Suhyun went back up. I dragged myself around cleaning up the soju bottles from the night before.

I went into the bathroom, showered, and came out to find the delivery had arrived with perfect timing.

I set the delivery food down on the wooden table in the living room, and Choi Suhyun came down from the second floor.

While I opened the plastic containers one by one, Choi Suhyun went to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of soju, and set it on the table.

"Whoa, seriously, you're drinking again? Didn't you just say this was for the hangover?"

"Curing a hangover with alcohol is the traditional way."

"If that's the plan, just drink baijiu instead. Why are you knocking back soju like it's water?"

"Koreans drink soju, kid."

"Does it even get you drunk?"

Choi Suhyun didn't answer, just ate his meal alongside the soju. As the meal was wrapping up, his voice came from the kitchen.

"You want coffee?"

"If you're making it."

Not long after I answered, Choi Suhyun brought over the coffee.

"Oh, right. I need to ask you something too."

"Park Siyu of Aria Guild."

Choi Suhyun answered like a mind reader the moment he set down the coffee.

This guy, is he really a hunter and not some psychic?

Thankfully, it didn't seem like he'd actually read my mind. Had it really shown that much on my face?

As I sat there flustered, Choi Suhyun added on.

"You needed a guild, didn't you?"

At his words, I nodded.

Most hunters had their serving god decided not long after they awakened.

Korea, being high in quality relative to its land size and hunter population, meant that most named gods of any real note had at least one guild or branch office in the country.

Hunters who served gods without a flagship guild often had nowhere to go.

In that case, there were two options.

Join another guild and brace for being treated as a second-class citizen there.

Or affiliate with a third-party faction instead.

If being a minority felt unfair, minorities could band together. That's why third-party factions generally didn't discriminate based on which god you served.

Naturally, since I had no intention of joining a guild that served some other god, what I needed was exactly that kind of guild.

I guess experience counts for something, because he read it instantly.

"Park Siyu. That name rings a bell..."

"The guild master. Rigid as hell, lives about the most boring life you've ever seen, but he'll take in one more person like you."

Choi Suhyun set down his empty coffee cup.

Whether that counted as a compliment or not, I couldn't tell, but from where I stood, an introduction couldn't hurt.

He said it'd take about a week to get in touch since Park Siyu was inside a dungeon right now.

Since it wasn't especially urgent, waiting that long didn't bother me much.

"Oh, right. You don't happen to have a spare weapon lying around, do you? Preferably something bladed."

"Well, would you look at that. Milk it for all it's worth, why don't you. When did I ever say I'd be your sponsor?"

"You do remember my role is the god's proxy, and nothing gets approved without my permission, right?"

"Try threatening me, see how that works out."

Choi Suhyun scoffed like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

A man who could go anywhere he wanted if he felt like it had no reason to be scared of some proxy serving a third-rate god.

"I'll make sure you get a good seat."

"Where does a punk get off saying something that obvious like it's a favor?"

At Choi Suhyun's pushback, I shut my mouth.

I was pretty good at reading people.

I wished he'd tone down the self-importance a little, but the annoying part was that it wasn't even arrogance, it was just true, so I had nothing left to say. Choi Suhyun and I locked eyes.

"What else?"

"You caught that?"

"If there's anything else you need, say it now. I don't like doing the same job twice."

"Recommend me someone. A hunter with time on their hands."

"The only hunter with time on their hands is a nobody like you. You unranked scrub."

I didn't bother arguing with that.

Choi Suhyun might get offended hearing this, but I think the two of us actually get along pretty well.

He might talk like that, but there was no way he didn't know exactly what I wanted.

Choi Suhyun held a managerial position at the Association overseeing trainees.

Even if he didn't personally do the training, he had access to the Association's database.

"Unaffiliated. Someone who hasn't given up on being a hunter despite bouncing from place to place, someone underrated compared to their actual skill but stuck putting up with it anyway. Oh, and if they've got some pent-up resentment toward society too, that'd be even better."

At my answer, Choi Suhyun's face twisted with disgust.

* * *

[Entering the Tower of Trials lobby.]

The lobby was still nothing but a garbage heap.

The wooden buildings looked like they'd been abandoned for decades, at the very least.

I'd once visited a village where everyone had died from a plague.

A village where time had stopped.

The lobby I stood in now felt exactly the same.

I gave up on cleaning and climbed onto the portal.

[Would you like to challenge Layer 2? You cannot return to the lobby until you clear it.]

[Challenging Layer 2.]

[Protect]

Floor: Layer 2

Objective: Protect the mana core for 3 hours.

Reward: Layer 2 administrator authority

This time, too, I came to in a forest.

In the middle of an empty clearing, a blue gemstone the size of an adult man floated, glowing with light.

Golden bands wrapped around the gem.

Anyone could tell at a glance that it was something worth protecting.

I placed my hand on the massive mana core.

[Mana Core]

A massive mana stone formed from condensed magical energy.

I've never seen an object this size before.

A core with this much mana could probably power large-scale area magic.

Something anyone, not just monsters, would covet.

Remaining charge: 100%

The moment my hand touched the mana core, a stopwatch appeared in front of my eyes.

[Time remaining: 2:59:30]

Leaves rustled in the wind, and crows rose into the sky.

The ground shook like an earthquake had hit.

A massive tree toppled forward, and goblin platoons armed with axes appeared.

The goblins that showed up to claim the mana core weren't just one or two.

Unlike the goblins I'd seen on Layer 1, these were fairly well-trained.

If anything, they resembled the goblin platoon I'd seen right after first falling into the Tower of Trials.

After taking over the Tower of Trials, I'd tried summoning the goblins I'd seen at the tower's entrance, but unfortunately, summoning monsters wasn't possible at the entrance.

And even if the summon succeeded, there was no guarantee the summoned monster would be the same one I'd seen at the entrance.

"If it's disappointing, then I'll just have to deal with disappointing."

I drew the sword I'd taken from Choi Suhyun under the pretext of support.

The goblins pushed through the forest and revealed themselves one by one.

At a glance, there looked to be more than ten of them.

A goblin wearing a necklace made of bone gave a signal, and they all charged at once.

Footnotes:

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