WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 16: I'm Kind of a Big Deal (4)

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The fight wasn't one-sided. Of course it wasn't.

Clearing Floor 1 hadn't magically changed anything about me.

The fact remained that I'd nearly died holding nothing but a dagger.

The one saving grace was that I'd picked up a decent sword to fight with.

'First, I take out one of them.'

I ducked, and a massive axe swept over my head.

The goblin that missed me staggered, still clutching its axe.

I wasn't about to waste that opening. I drove a light thrust into its shoulder.

The blade left a clean mark across the goblin's shoulder.

Another goblin swung at me. I dodged the attack and closed in on the one I'd already marked.

The axe-wielding goblin's body was covered in cuts, big and small.

It seemed to have noticed I was targeting it specifically, and its eyes went wild with something close to madness.

It gripped the axe with both hands and lunged.

The axe came down hard enough to look like it would split me in half. I'd done nothing but block up to this point, but this time I caught the axe with my sword.

Ignoring the goblin's confusion, I let the blade slide smoothly to the side.

The axe slipped from the goblin's grip and hit the ground.

If I lacked the raw power, technique would just have to cover the gap.

I swung my sword at the goblin's green chest.

I didn't expect to kill it in one blow. I drove the blade deep, aiming for the heart.

The moment I pulled the sword free, blood poured out in a torrent.

[The power of the god Soter blesses you.]

[Tier 1 Protection activates.]

[All stats increase dramatically.]

Ignoring the status window that kept firing off without pause, I swung at a goblin trying to smash the mana core with its weapon.

Killing this one felt easier than the first goblin I'd taken down with the axe.

My abilities were built on a foundation of destruction, murder, and rage.

The more lives I took, the more I destroyed, the stronger I became.

What I'd only ever felt in my body before was now just being spelled out through a system.

'Not that this makes me some psychopath who enjoys killing people, mind you.'

It was purely a survival tactic, nothing more.

And in a world where you had no choice but to kill monsters inside dungeons, that kind of ability wasn't half bad.

Goblin corpses piled up one by one around the mana core. The weeds under my feet turned red, and blood pooled in the churned-up dirt.

As their comrades kept dying, the remaining goblins grew wary and pulled back.

They looked like they were regrouping, so I took the brief lull to catch my breath.

[0:51:41]

The time remaining had dropped below an hour.

I'd been told to hold out for three hours, so I'd made it through about two-thirds.

The goblin platoon showed itself again.

This time, shaman goblins carrying staffs appeared behind the ranks.

At the Goblin Lord's signal, the armed goblins charged while the shamans prepared their spells.

'So this is the real push.'

The goblins charging at me now were probably a throwaway hand, bait.

It looked like they meant to take out both me and the mana core in one shot.

Sorry, but I had no intention of just standing there and taking it.

I cut down the throat of the nearest charging goblin.

[Tier 2 Protection activates.]

[Tier 2 Protection activated for the first time.]

[All stats increase permanently.]

[All stats increase.]

After deflecting a goblin's blade, I looked back toward the rear.

A massive magic circle formed by the shaman goblins hovered overhead.

I pulled my sword back slightly and took in the whole picture, the magic circle and the goblins closing in.

Dozens of flame whips poured out of the red magic circle all at once.

I swung my sword in a diagonal arc with everything I had.

A single strike cut down the goblins still standing nearby.

Overhead, the flame whips came crashing down together, clearly meant to take out both me and the mana core.

'Stay calm.'

The instant the flames dropped, I swung again. Black energy poured from the tip of my sword and swallowed the flames whole.

The hand gripping my sword shook. Stacking blessings made me stronger, layer by layer, but the side effects piled up right along with it. There was no getting around that.

Power always came with a price.

That was such an obvious rule it barely needed saying.

In Kang Hangyeol's current body, two stacks were about the limit.

My body ached like it was about to shatter, but that much I could handle.

A pillar of fire shot up over the clearing.

Both the shaman goblin who'd cast the spell and the rear guard tensed up hard.

The smoke cleared, revealing me and the mana core, both still standing.

"Whew, that was close."

I steadied my wobbling legs and rested a hand on the mana core.

Cracks ran across the massive gem-like surface.

[Remaining charge: 55%]

If that attack had landed clean, it wouldn't have been strange for the core to shatter in a single hit.

"Damn, this doesn't feel like something meant to be cleared solo."

Muttering to myself, I swung my sword toward the shaman goblins.

It was a basic skill, channeling mana into a cutting strike.

I preferred calling it a Line rather than a slash.

Swinging the sword in whatever direction I wanted and watching it cut clean through felt exactly like drawing a line, so the name stuck for me.

[Skill 'Line' acquired.]

[Skill 'Moonlight Slash' acquired.]

"So that's how you pick these up."

I'd wondered how skills were supposed to appear, and apparently this was the answer.

As long as my body could keep up, there was no shortage of skills I could pick up with the knowledge I already had.

The remaining goblins poured into the clearing.

There had to be more than a hundred of them, and it was obvious at a glance that this was the final wave.

"A melee brawl is right up my alley."

At the Goblin Lord's roar, the remaining goblins charged all at once.

They screamed and lunged, and I cut through arms, heads, whatever was in reach.

"What the?"

A goblin corpse came flying at me from the side. Literally.

The Goblin Lord, easily twice the size of the other goblins, had grabbed a nearby corpse and hurled it at me like a fastball.

Whatever strength it took, the dead goblin's arm had snapped at a grotesque angle in the Goblin Lord's grip.

I twisted my body just enough to avoid getting hit, turning to face the Goblin Lord.

Holding my sword in one hand, I curled a finger toward it, beckoning.

A blatant taunt.

Even a monster could clearly recognize a provocation like that.

The Goblin Lord, gripping a massive greatsword, charged straight at me.

For all its bulk, it closed the distance in under three seconds.

My sword met the Goblin Lord's greatsword.

Where the Goblin Lord had spent the fight directing from the rear, I'd burned through a serious chunk of stamina.

And I couldn't say I was uninjured, either.

Right now, just blocking the greatsword was pushing me close to my limit.

I spat blood onto the ground and put some distance between us.

'No matter how I look at it, this isn't a solo dungeon.'

Something to check on once I cleared it.

Around me, the corpses of countless goblins lay piled up.

At a glance, well over a hundred. Pools of blood soaked the ground, and lifeless hunks of meat lay scattered across a battlefield that had thrashed through its final moments.

This, right here, was the world I'd lived through. This was where I belonged.

[Tier 3 Protection activates.]

[Tier 3 Protection activated for the first time.]

[Tier 1 Protection can now be maintained permanently.]

[All stats increase permanently.]

[All stats increase.]

'Thirty seconds.'

That was how long this body could hold Tier 3 right now.

I'd settle this within that window.

The Goblin Lord's eyes, taking in the corpses scattered around it, sank deeper into madness.

Black veins bulged through the muscle beneath its iron armor.

I didn't dodge the Goblin Lord's charge.

I blocked the attack, then poured every last drop of remaining mana into my blade. Black mana rippled visibly through the air.

'Now!'

The instant I judged I'd hit my mana's absolute limit, I swung with everything I had.

A black slash grazed across its throat. The Goblin Lord's body crashed to the ground.

With their boss dead, the remaining goblins fell back.

I didn't chase them down.

'I only need to hold out three hours anyway.'

I wasn't foolish enough to push my luck and ruin things now.

Less than five minutes remained.

"Haah, haah..."

[The Blessing of Soter fades.]

The moment the blessing faded, an overwhelming wave of pain crashed over me.

A buzzer sounded in my head, marking the end of the three hours.

[Layer 2 of the Tower of Trials cleared.]

[Reward acquired: Layer 2 administrator authority.]

I checked the status window in front of me, and lost consciousness at the exact same moment.

* * *

I didn't open my eyes again until a good while later.

Covered head to toe in blood and mud, slumped on the ground where I'd blacked out, I looked like an absolute wreck.

I staggered upright, picked up the sword lying on the ground, and slid it back into its sheath.

"Lucky."

There was no other way to put it. I'd gotten lucky.

If the goblins hadn't fled and had kept coming instead, it would have been genuinely dangerous.

I opened the shop and pulled out a small healing potion to drink. It tasted like strawberry milk.

Why strawberry milk, of all things? Because it's red, obviously.

I'd set that up myself, though there wasn't really a reason behind it.

"Ugh, could've let me grab a potion or two on the way in, at least."

I grumbled while drinking the potion.

Unfortunately, I couldn't use anything from the shop while inside the tower's trials.

Being able to pull a potion out of the shop right now was only possible because I'd cleared Layer 2.

Once I confirmed every wound on my body had healed, I manipulated the status window to exit Layer 2.

[Exiting Layer 2.]

[Moving to the space between 2 and 3.]

"Wait, where am I going?"

That's not where I meant to go.

Footnotes:

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