WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 28: Their Own Circumstances (4)

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[Yeah, I figured.]

I hadn't asked because I thought Yu Jihan had actually killed someone before.

Killing a monster and killing a person were clearly different problems.

Yu Jihan turned his eyes toward the window.

I followed his gaze and looked out too.

The weather outside the window was really nice.

Not a single cloud in the sky, the morning sunlight pouring down on the schoolyard looked strangely vivid.

Come to think of it.

I didn't have a single memory of actually looking out a window properly back when I was in school.

All I had was studying with my head down, a wooden desk as the backdrop.

Not that I was some total loner or anything.

I had friends, you know?

Can't remember their names, though.

If I hadn't gotten summoned back then, maybe I'd be off enjoying some fun, happy college life right now.

If I'd known things would turn out like this, who would've bothered studying so hard.

Maybe it was because of Yu Jihan, but I found myself drifting into a brief moment of reminiscing too.

Yu Jihan turned his head from the window back toward me, sitting near the blackboard.

"So how do I do it?"

[Killing a person and killing a monster are completely different things. You need to be prepared for that.]

"Is there any way to move up without killing anyone?"

[Doubt it.]

"Then that's fine. I was already prepared for it."

Yu Jihan clenched his fist tight.

In his wavering eyes, I could read the look of someone who felt like the moment they'd been dreading had finally arrived.

[You sure you're actually okay with this?]

At my voice, Yu Jihan propped his arms on the desk, dropped his head, and ran his hands through his hair with irritation.

"What am I supposed to do if I'm not okay with it?"

[Why are you getting irritated again?]

"I'm not irritated... damn it, I'm not okay. I'm not okay, but just let it slide when I say I am."

His mind seemed so tangled that he didn't even seem sure what he was saying anymore.

Yu Jihan clenched his fist again and set it down on the desk.

"I knew this was something I'd have to do eventually. I just wasn't expecting it this soon, that's all."

Jihan seemed to have already guessed that the people in the lobby hadn't gotten used to killing others for no reason.

[Don't dwell too much on the people who die.]

[Just focus on surviving. You want to live, don't you?]

"I know, all right. Enough with the nagging, just explain already."

Yu Jihan scowled, saying he didn't want to hear any more of it.

I held onto Jihan, now somewhat calmer, and explained Layer 3 to him.

This is the story of me, Yu Jihan.

[Moving to Layer 3.]

[Assassination]

Floor: Layer 3

You were planning to visit the capital when you receive another job request from the mercenary guild. The local master tells you that once you board the train, you should order a "Blue Lagoon" at the bar in the second class car.

Grumbling about not knowing when jobs started getting handed out like this, you boarded the train bound for the capital.

Reward: 5,000 merit points

I read through the entire status window in front of me.

I heard the murmur of people in the darkness.

I came to and opened my eyes.

Sunlight poured down from beneath a tall circular ceiling.

I was standing right in the middle of an open air train station.

The train, a mass of iron, let out a loud whistle.

Nobody told me it'd be a train station like this.

I'd gotten the information about Layer 3 from the god Soter.

Since I had no way of getting information inside the lobby, being able to hear about the situation like this was, if nothing else, a small mercy in the middle of misfortune.

I couldn't say the information he'd given me matched the actual floor perfectly.

Hearing about it and seeing it with your own eyes were different things.

Honestly, even he'd seemed to get tired of explaining partway through, skipping over things here and there with a "you'll figure it out once you get in there."

I had no idea why the god I served turned out like this.

Were the gods other people served all just as abnormal?

Hearing the word train, I'd naturally pictured something like Seoul Station, or a KTX, or a Mugunghwa-ho.

Felt like I'd time slipped or something.

Should I call it feeling like I'd walked into a museum?

Do steam engines like that still even run these days?

Between the train itself and the station design, the whole place gave off a strong nineteenth century vibe.

The clothes I was wearing were also pretty different from modern clothing.

In a world where gods existed and challengers climbing towers were a real thing, there was no reason something like this couldn't happen too.

My clothes had changed. A brown coat, a beret, and a bag in my hand that wasn't mine.

I had no idea if the outfit suited me, but at least it let me blend naturally into the crowded train station.

I didn't have my weapon.

Where'd it go?

I hurriedly opened my item window.

The weapon and belongings I'd been wearing seemed to have gone into the item window on their own.

There was something bundle shaped in the corner of the item window.

[Clothes]

Looked like the clothes I'd originally been wearing.

Honestly, the clothes didn't matter to me. What mattered was the weapon.

[Sword of ????]

Grade: Unknown

The Sword of ???? didn't even have the one line description that every other item was required to have.

Since even the grade was unknown, it was an incredibly unfriendly sword when it came to information.

Luckily the blade itself cut well, so I'd been using it just fine so far.

After confirming the sword was there, I felt relieved.

Just in case, I repositioned it so I could draw it as fast as possible, then closed the item window.

I checked around to see if anyone looked suspicious of my behavior.

Thankfully, nothing like that happened.

I realized there was something in my hand besides the bag.

A piece of paper, folded over several times.

Characters I'd never seen before.

I blinked, and the writing on the paper shifted into familiar Korean.

Bardyr line, K808, 18th, 10 AM, J17.

[Attention passengers on the platform. The train bound for the capital, Bardyr line K808, is about to depart. Passengers who have not yet boarded, please board immediately.]

That's it!

I hurried up onto the train.

A conductor spoke to me.

"Sir, could I see some identification, please?"

"That's... just a moment."

The word identification threw me off for a second, but I calmly rummaged through the bag I was carrying.

The bag held clothes and other belongings.

A black notebook fell out of the front pocket.

The conductor picked up the notebook from the floor.

"Here it is."

"Ah, ha. Right."

I clutched the bag to my chest and laughed awkwardly.

The conductor signed one side of the notebook and handed it back.

"You know where your seat is, right?"

He gestured for me to head inside.

The moment I stepped into the seating car, the train shook.

I turned my head and saw the station receding through the window.

So many people.

Since I'd only seen monsters inside the tower until now, the people on the train felt unfamiliar.

They looked like completely ordinary travelers.

There was a lot I wanted to know, but I decided to focus on what I had to do.

Don't get distracted. Don't even try to figure things out.

The words of the god Soter suddenly came to mind.

I didn't know how other gods acted, but that guy was strange.

How should I put it?

Talking to him felt less like talking to a god and more like talking to some regular person.

Like being on a phone call?

Weird comparison, maybe, but that was roughly the feeling.

Either way, I was grateful to him.

If it hadn't been for the god Soter, I really would've ended up a corpse back on Floor 1.

Car J was third class.

I passed down a long stretch of corridor before finally reaching Car J.

Third class was packed so tight there was barely room to stand.

I managed to find seat J17 and sat down.

The train picked up speed little by little.

A vast grassland stretched out ahead.

I'd been too preoccupied to catch the train leaving the city, which was a little disappointing.

Two men sat beside me.

Something felt off.

Clothes that hadn't seemed strange passing through second class stood out sharply once I got to third class.

That's how shabby the clothes of the people in third class were, by comparison.

Focus.

That wasn't what mattered right now.

As time passed, the mood inside the train settled into something calmer.

I got up quietly from my seat, bag in hand.

I stepped out of the compartment and looked around.

It took a while, but I finally found the dining car.

At the entrance to the dining car stood a man giving off a slightly different air than the conductors.

At his waist hung a gun along with a riot baton.

He looked like a cop or a guard to anyone's eyes.

Given how he stood, he actually looked closer to a soldier than a police officer.

I glanced briefly at the gun at his waist.

If there were trains here, there was no reason there couldn't be guns too.

Just in case, I headed for the dining car with my item window kept open.

The man didn't pay me much attention.

That was when I heard a voice from behind.

"You can't go in there."

I turned my head, wondering if he meant me.

"What? Why not? That guy just went in."

"Third class rations are two hours from now. Head back to your seat."

"Damn it."

The man reluctantly turned around.

"Tch, this is why savages are savages."

He clicked his tongue, watching the man retreat toward third class.

My eyes met his.

He gestured for me to head inside, telling me not to worry about it.

What was that about?

I'd figured it was about clothing, but oddly enough, there wasn't much difference between my outfit and the man who'd just gotten turned away.

If anything, the guy who got kicked out had been wearing noticeably nicer clothes.

I couldn't figure out what the standard even was.

And what was that savages comment supposed to mean, anyway?

I couldn't wrap my head around how this world worked.

There were quite a few people in the dining car.

Not crowded or uncomfortable the way third class had been.

I took a seat at the bar in the center. The bartender spoke to me.

"Would you like to order?"

"Blue Lagoon."

I answered briefly, and the bartender nodded and started mixing the cocktail.

"Here's your Blue Lagoon."

The cocktail he set in front of me was, true to its name, genuinely blue.

It reminded me of the color of some soda I'd had a long time ago.

At the rim of the champagne glass, an orange slice, a lemon slice, and a cherry were skewered in order on something like a toothpick.

Calling it a toothpick feels a little off.

There's probably a proper name for it.

I held the cocktail and glanced around.

The dining car was in the middle of the lunch rush.

I figured constantly looking around would draw suspicion.

I carefully took a sip of the cocktail.

It definitely tasted like alcohol.

"Not bad, is it? Drinking it always makes me feel like I've come to the sea somehow. Believe it or not, it's my favorite cocktail. Ah, get me one of the same, would you."

I set my glass down and turned toward the voice.

It was the man who'd been sitting in the corner across from me.

I'd assumed he was just another customer.

A neatly dressed middle aged man walked over and sat down next to me, casual as anything.

"Major Dechant. You can just call me Dead here, for simplicity's sake."

Dead.

The name sounded like bad luck in more ways than one.

Maybe it meant something different from what I was thinking, because Dead laughed heartily and drank his Blue Lagoon.

"Heard you griped to the master about this. Sorry about that. Couldn't say anything until I saw your face in person."

He glanced at me and lowered his voice to a whisper.

I hadn't actually griped about anything, but hearing him say it, I figured maybe I had.

"So what's the job, then?"

I had no intention of sitting here having a friendly drink with a man whose name practically screamed he was about to die.

At my words, he slid a piece of paper toward me.

I flipped over the paper, a little smaller than my palm.

On the thick paper was a drawing of a young girl.

Dead snapped his fingers under the table.

The sound of the train, along with every voice around us, vanished.

Skill?

I tried to keep a poker face and not look too rattled as Dead spoke.

"Lia Angelina. The person in that picture is the one you need to kill."

No matter how I looked at it, the person in the picture was just a young girl.

Footnotes:

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