WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 20: Reason for Living (4)

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Kim Jihoon's mouth worked soundlessly.

"Please wait just a moment!"

Kim Jihoon stepped back outside.

His voice carried clearly through the door as he made a call.

When he finished, he sat back down in his chair.

"We'll take care of that for you."

Kim Jihoon asked for my patience and said he'd bring back a revised contract.

I propped my elbows on the desk and rested my chin on my hands.

This is going way too easy.

Park Siyu. Co-representative of Aria Guild and former head of the Saetbyeol Guild.

Claiming to be Park Siyu's friend was, obviously, a lie.

And there was no way Park Siyu didn't know that.

I signed the newly drafted contract Kim Jihoon had brought back.

He seemed to believe I was actually acquainted with Park Siyu, one of the guild's representatives, because his tone had gotten a lot more formal since the start of the meeting.

"Here's our community address and your ID. Everything about how it works is explained on the board. The signing bonus gets deposited to your account in a week. Anything else you need?"

"You mentioned earlier you could hook me up with a dealer if I needed one."

"Ah, yes. Do you need that?"

"Set it up. Skip the billion won bonus, actually. Just put it straight toward a billion won sword instead."

What I needed wasn't cash. It was a weapon I could use right now.

* * *

Madu Station.

I got off the subway on almost the first train of the morning.

"Ugh, maybe I should've just bought a car with that billion. Ah, right, this kid doesn't have a license."

Once I'd saved up enough, I really needed to get around to getting a license.

After that meeting, Kim Jihoon set up a sit-down with the guild's dedicated dealer right away.

Looking through the catalog the dealer brought, I realized a billion won wouldn't get me a decent weapon.

Considering I'd grumbled about a ten billion won weapon from Choi Suhyun's collection and still called it barely serviceable, there was no way I'd settle for something worth a mere billion.

I wasn't even sure I'd find anything that met my standards.

Maybe it was just the early hour, but fog hung thick over everything.

When I got to the meeting point, there were already a few hunters and some suited Association staff waiting.

I flashed my guild ID and walked casually over to the hunters.

Guild-internal dungeon expeditions were usually handled either by small teams formed among people who got along, or by throwaway teams assembled through the community board.

The guild would post dungeon info it had secured from the Association onto the board matching the rank, and hunters who met the time and skill requirements would leave comments on a first come, first served basis.

Usually, once hunters built up some experience, they'd start working in fixed teams, but starting out on a team from day one wasn't common.

It all felt a little like playing some kind of game, which I found mildly fascinating.

"Hey there."

"Oh, you're the kid from last time."

A man in his thirties recognized me and spoke up first.

Hunters who'd only recently joined tended to operate solo, so their faces kept overlapping at these gatherings.

Apparently that was how hunters who clicked would end up forming teams.

Nothing beats the comfort of people who started around the same time as you. I got that.

He was a hunter who'd joined Aria Guild around the same time I had. His name was Kang Hyeonseung.

The other man standing next to Kang Hyeonseung looked me over and said,

"Looks young."

"Skills are solid, though. Word is he'll make C rank soon."

"Probably next month, I'd guess."

I gave a light shrug at their exchange.

The man held out his hand.

"Min Seongtaek."

"Kang Hangyeol."

I shook Min Seongtaek's hand.

After the quick round of introductions, I checked my status window.

[Kang Hangyeol (Soter)]

- Dimensional master of the 'Tower of Trials.'

Rank: Proxy (5%)

Strength: C+ (71%)

Vitality: C+ (21%)

Mana: C (10%)

Healing: D+ (5%)

Merit points: 13,250

Skills <Line> <Moonlight Slash> <Mana Detection>

Talent <Blessing of Soter>

Thankfully, my overall stats had gone up since last time.

After becoming master of Floor 1 and Layer 2, I'd challenged Layer 2 several more times.

Not casually, either. I'd cranked the difficulty up as far as it would go.

Honestly, it's a little unnerving.

I never imagined I'd black out the moment I cleared Layer 2.

Once I admitted I'd overdone it, it was clearly smarter to accept a delay and try again later rather than push further.

The tower didn't offer merit points the way clearing a regular dungeon did.

I guess I should get around to trying Layer 3 soon.

I was worried about that kid, too.

I'd handed him a ten billion won weapon. It'd feel pretty pointless if he ended up dead anyway.

"Is everyone here?"

The Association staff approached us.

"No, one more hasn't shown up yet."

The scheduled gathering time was 7:00.

The current time was 6:59.

Exactly one minute later, a man came running from the direction of the park entrance in the distance.

"There he is."

"Sorry. I'm late."

The hunters and I stared at him with our mouths hanging open.

"Can I get your name?"

"Kim Yuhan."

Regardless, the Association staff member went on with their business.

Min Seongtaek, who'd taken the tank role, finally couldn't hold it in.

"This guy can actually carry his own gear, right?"

While Min Seongtaek and the rest of the team eyed Kim Yuhan with suspicion, I was thinking something else entirely.

Whoa, isn't he hot?

The weather had gotten a bit chilly lately, sure, but this outfit went way past that.

Thick pants, a padded jacket, a bizarre roasted-chestnut-vendor hat, Kim Gu style glasses, and on top of it all a black mask that hid his face completely.

And where did he even find that hat?

Kim Yuhan's outfit was so strange it wouldn't have looked out of place at a ski resort.

If I had to put a label on it, Kim Yuhan was a fashion terrorist.

If he'd ridden public transit dressed like that, the guy was a genuine weirdo, no question.

Between the sliver of neck visible through his hair and how pale his whole face looked, I couldn't help but wonder if this guy could actually fight.

I got why Min Seongtaek said what he said.

At Min Seongtaek's grilling, Kim Yuhan glanced around.

Kim Yuhan hoisted the huge backpack sitting by the dungeon entrance onto one shoulder with a single hand.

Strong, huh. Guess you really can't judge people by looks alone.

Watching Kim Yuhan sling two backpacks over his shoulders in an instant, the rest of the group stopped doubting him.

We each introduced ourselves.

Me, in the frontline hunter role, and Min Seongtaek, the tank and team leader for this expedition.

Kang Hyeonseung as scout.

An Juhye as support.

And Kim Yuhan as porter and possible rear guard, just in case, making five of us total.

"We leave in ten minutes. I'm going to go talk to the Association rep, so relax until then."

Min Seongtaek walked over to the Association official waiting with a smartphone.

While he was gone, my eyes met Kim Yuhan's.

"If you've got something to say, say it instead of staring."

I saw every one of those sneaky glances while you pretended to look at the ground, you know.

Kim Yuhan was surprisingly skilled at looking somewhere else while sizing someone up on the sly.

An Juhye and Kang Hyeonseung were each busy with their own things.

At my prodding, Kim Yuhan raised his head.

"You just remind me of someone I know."

Not the answer I expected.

"A celebrity, maybe? Never heard that one before. For the record, I don't know who this person is, but I doubt I look like him. He probably looks like me."

At the sheer nerve of that comeback, Kim Yuhan's face twisted into a scowl.

Truth was, the moment I'd heard Kim Yuhan's voice, I'd felt a flicker of something off too.

"Forget it."

Kim Yuhan gave up on the conversation and turned his back.

A moment later, Min Seongtaek finished talking with the Association staffer and waved us toward the gate.

"Looks like we're good to go."

We headed into the dungeon.

[Entering Dungeon.]

[Giant Ant Cavern]

Rank: C-

Geoform: Cave

Recommended party size: 5-6

Objective: Kill the queen ant and retrieve the queen ant's egg.

Rewards

1) Clear reward: [Merit points 400] for all

2) All ants eliminated: [Merit points 100] for all

3) Killer of the queen ant: [Merit points 600]

4) Possessor of the queen ant's egg: [Merit points 300]

5) Queen ant's egg destroyed: [Merit points -1,000] for all

Being C rank, the reward list even included negative penalty conditions.

I'd heard that for S rank dungeons, the reward list could run three or four pages long.

The inside of the cave was unremarkable.

If there was one downside, it was that the space felt a bit cramped.

The five of us formed a single line and made our way into the cave.

Not long after we entered, Min Seongtaek, who was walking ahead, stopped in his tracks.

The sound of something crawling echoed from deeper inside the cave.

"Here they come."

Min Seongtaek raised his shield and sword.

An Juhye pulled something out of their pocket.

A disposable glow stick.

The way to use it was simple.

Bend it slightly and toss it on the ground.

In cave dungeons or other dark places, glow sticks thrown down like that served as markers to light the way.

They could also temporarily blind monsters.

It didn't work on boss-tier enemies, but it was plenty effective against the soldier fire ants in front of us.

The area around the fallen glow stick lit up.

The sudden light made the ants, each over a meter long, flinch for a moment before they charged.

The legs of a soldier fire ant were hot enough to cause second-degree burns on contact with bare skin in an instant.

"Battle stations!"

At Min Seongtaek's command as team leader, everyone drew their weapons and started fighting the soldier ants.

I drew my sword too and sliced off the legs of a soldier fire ant closing in on me.

Soldier fire ants split cleanly between their scorching legs and their bodies, the body wrapped in hard shell plating.

The shell looked tougher than it appeared. That was why the usual approach was to stab the unarmored chest area instead.

That was the soldier fire ant's weak point.

The standard method was to cut off all the legs first, then finish with a stab to the chest.

The problem was that this took forever and was a pain to execute, and the ants crawling in weren't just one or two.

And it's cramped in here too.

A soldier fire ant dropped down from the ceiling.

Its leg swept past my cheek, missing by a hair.

Heat like a branding iron passing by my skin rose up.

I spun and drove my sword down into the fire ant's body.

A clear, ringing note like metal striking metal sounded, and a gash appeared in the ant's shell.

"Hey! What are you doing!"

Min Seongtaek, who'd already jammed his blade into the chest of a leg-severed soldier ant, snapped at me, apparently thinking I was wasting my time.

But I didn't stop.

I dodged the next attack and this time poured mana into my sword.

The blade darkened to black.

Still in that stance, I spun my whole body around and swung.

The approaching soldier fire ant's legs and body were sheared clean off together.

The body split in two, dark red blood spraying out in every direction.

Thud, the dead ant's severed leg brushed lightly against my shoe.

"Ow, hot!"

Startled, I kicked the leg off and stepped back.

At the same moment, the hunters behind me all turned to look at me.

I straightened back up and smiled.

"I really can't stand doing things the tedious way."

Footnotes:

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