WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 38: Trashy Drama (2)

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I paid by card and got out of the taxi.

The lights of the Gangnam buildings were as flashy as ever.

I'd arranged to meet Choi Suhyun at a restaurant.

It was about the shard he'd asked me for last time.

Couldn't he just ask Park Siyu for one?

That guy had a ton of them lying around.

"People forget things sometimes, you know."

I'd just come straight out of a dungeon, so I looked like a mess.

I stepped off the elevator and glanced around.

Right as I was about to walk into the restaurant.

"How could you do this to me?"

"Eunyoung, it's a misunderstanding. There's no way I'd ever leave you... gack!"

"Eu, Eunyoung sunbae, are you crazy? Why would you hit oppa?"

"Ugh, can't breathe... Eunyoung, I'm sorry, I was wrong..."

"You got hit because you deserved it!!"

Song Eunyoung, absolutely furious.

There was a man knocked flat by Song Eunyoung's fist, a woman holding him with her face gone pale, and finally Choi Suhyun, trying to hold Song Eunyoung back.

What in the world was going on here?

Choi Suhyun, gripping Song Eunyoung, tried desperately to explain the situation to me with his eyes and hand gestures.

From what I could piece together, the man and Song Eunyoung had been dating, the woman next to him knew Song Eunyoung too, and the two of them had been caught cheating.

Song Eunyoung thrashed to break free of Choi Suhyun's hold.

"Let go! This is between me and this son of a bitch!"

The woman finally burst into tears, and a staff member, noticing the situation had gone sideways, came running out.

The man was half unconscious from Song Eunyoung's beating.

Song Eunyoung still looked like she hadn't worked off her anger, breathing hard.

"Hey! You hit him one more time here and he's dead! You know how much of a headache killing a civilian would be?"

"Like I care! What do you even know about me! Hgh..."

"Why are you c, crying now. Don't cry. I'm losing it. Kang Hangyeol! Don't just stand there, do something!"

I'd never seen a mess this messy.

It felt like watching a live shoot of a morning soap opera.

The people outside the restaurant couldn't resist their curiosity and came out too.

Should I just go grab a coffee somewhere until this whole thing blew over?

"Eunyoung... it's really a misunderstanding..."

"Oppa, is it me? Or Eunyoung sunbae? Oppa! You said you loved me!"

"Let go!"

"You think I'm letting go?"

Choi Suhyun tried to calm Song Eunyoung down, but it wasn't working.

Peak popcorn material if there ever was one.

Watching this, I felt like I wouldn't need to watch a drama for the next three months.

Choi Suhyun was the only one who could restrain an Awakened like Song Eunyoung.

I signaled him to just handle it quietly.

"I'm killing that bastard even if it sends me to hell! Let go of me!"

Song Eunyoung's fist, still fighting back, caught Choi Suhyun in the face.

"You little, seriously!"

Right when I thought Choi Suhyun was actually going to knock Song Eunyoung out.

The entire building shook with a loud rumble.

The smartwatch on Choi Suhyun's wrist buzzed.

Choi Suhyun, the first to check something, pointed at his phone, gesturing for me to look at mine.

Mosman Cavern (B+) Dungeon Break in progress

Location: Near Galleria Building, Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Checking details

Wait, isn't the Galleria Building this building?

So that's why he wanted to meet somewhere this nice.

I actually thought he was going to treat me to something good.

Of course. It was for work.

Choi Suhyun had more of a workaholic streak than he let on.

I walked over to Choi Suhyun and Song Eunyoung.

Choi Suhyun pointed up at the building.

"Dungeon on the roof. Three days past its scheduled clear date. Not every failed dungeon turns into a rift, but."

Basically, this was pure bad luck.

"When's backup coming?"

"You scared?"

"Hyung, how about one more hit?"

"Shut up. She's the first woman to ever hit me."

I would've bet he was the type who took hits from women all the time. Guess not.

The moment Choi Suhyun finished talking, a status window appeared along with Fielding.

[Mosman Cavern]

Rank: B+

Participants: 14

1) Kill Mosman [Merit points 7000]

2) Mosquito Killer [Merit points 4500]

The notice was way simpler than the one for the Black Orcs.

"How many participated?"

"About 14 people."

The Fielding range wasn't very wide, so the participant count wasn't high either.

"By the way, hyung, you're not showing up on it?"

"We don't count."

"Who's 'we'! Mmph..."

"Quiet."

Choi Suhyun half-forcibly clamped a hand over Song Eunyoung's mouth.

I was a little worried he was being too rough with her, but then again, considering what she'd just done to him, it evened out.

The marks from Song Eunyoung's punches were still visible on Choi Suhyun's face.

"Mosman's pretty annoying. You up for it?"

"I'm pretty strong, you know."

I rested my hand on the sword at my waist.

The moment Choi Suhyun saw the sword, he let out a sigh.

Sure, that one was on me, but did he really need to make that face?

Choi Suhyun glanced at his phone.

Looked like he'd gotten some kind of message.

"Mosman's on the roof. We're heading down."

"You're pretty calm about it, so I guess someone's coming."

"Obviously. You know where we are right now?"

"This isn't going to blow up into something bigger, is it?"

"Something this small isn't even worth worrying about."

The area around Gangnam was basically the mecca of guild headquarters.

Even Aria Guild had its main office nearby.

"While we're at it, why don't you hurry up and find an Affiliation and clean this whole thing up?"

If it was Choi Suhyun, he could probably finish off the Mosman before hunters from other guilds even showed up.

Choi Suhyun scoffed at my pitch.

"How many merit points does that even give you?"

"All together, a bit over 10,000."

"You're trying to sell me on a measly 10,000?"

"Measly? You think 10,000 just falls out of the ground?"

Unaffiliated Awakened usually couldn't earn merit points.

They existed outside the system, after all.

But Choi Suhyun was clearly different from an ordinary Unaffiliated Awakened.

There was a reason people online liked to compare him to a rich bum.

He really did have a lot of money, though.

Anyway, I'd heard he'd held a considerable amount of merit points before going Unaffiliated.

Nobody knew exactly how much.

Some people even called it one of the three great mysteries of Korean Hunters.

I'd asked him out of curiosity a few times, but he always played dumb.

At this point I wasn't even curious about the number anymore, just the story behind it.

"Did you scam a god or something? How much did you stash away?"

"Wow, you should set up a fortune-telling stand."

I'd just tossed the question out casually.

If he'd been drinking something at that moment, he might have spat it out on the spot.

What kind of lunatic scams a god?

How many lives did this guy even have?

The glass panel decorating one wall of the restaurant shattered, and something crawled in through the gap.

Something white and long slid down the wall and came inside.

"What the hell is that?"

"Hopji. Just so you know, if it evolves, it gets bad."

"Mmph! I said I can't breathe!"

Song Eunyoung swung her fist at Choi Suhyun's body.

It hit with enough force to make a loud thwack.

Choi Suhyun took his hand off her mouth and winced.

"Ugh, stop hitting me! Hey! You just hit me for real, didn't you? A civilian would've had a bone broken!!"

Choi Suhyun brushed off where he'd been hit.

Song Eunyoung turned her head away like she hadn't heard.

More Hopji slid in through the broken glass.

There were still people inside the restaurant who hadn't gotten out.

I drew my sword and ran to cut down the Hopji.

Instead of blood, white liquid dripped from the severed parts.

The liquid that landed on my arm stuck instantly, like melted candle wax.

Not a great feeling.

If it kept building up or I got doused with a lot of it at once, that could be a real problem.

I killed the Hopji trying to get into the restaurant and herded people toward the exit.

Choi Suhyun threw a side kick, then spun into a roundhouse kick at a Hopji.

A massive flame appeared trailing his swinging foot and slammed into the Hopji along with it.

The Hopji shattered the glass and flew off, crashing into the next building and exploding.

Huh?

Wasn't an Unaffiliated Hunter supposed to be unable to use skills?

Choi Suhyun shook out his singed foot.

Where the Hopji had exploded, a mark was left on the wall like someone had thrown paint at it.

He'd dismissed 10,000 as not even worth calling points, so I had no idea why he'd come back into the restaurant.

Said he wasn't interested!

"Why'd you come back?"

As I grumbled, Choi Suhyun threw the ring off his finger at me.

A ring set with a red gem.

"I'm lending it to you."

I caught the ring midair and slipped it on.

Checking my status window after putting it on, I saw all my overall stats had gone up.

It was the kind of change that bumped a minus into a plus, but it felt like a lot more than the numbers suggested.

"You lose it, I'll hunt you down to hell."

"What ring is this?"

"Ishtar's Ring."

"You sure it's okay to lend this out?"

Ishtar's Ring was basically Choi Suhyun's signature ring.

"That's exactly why I said you'll die if you lose it."

"You just hand it over like that and then say... ah, he's gone already."

I called out to him too late. He'd already vanished.

Seriously, does whatever he wants.

I cleared out the Hopji stuck to the window, then headed upstairs.

Something like a giant egg sat on the rooftop.

Something shaped like a massive bundle of thread was coiled around it.

Every single writhing strand of that bundle was a Hopji.

Was this really not a big deal?

The orc thing was one thing, but this was on a whole different level.

There had to be at least a few hundred of them.

If the Hopji made it downstairs, it would be a massive disaster.

Even in a world used to catastrophes, there was a limit to how calm people could stay about it.

Pfft. Pft.

A few of the worms burst apart on their own.

Through the torn flesh, baby Mosmen with wings emerged.

They were about the size of a grown man, their whole bodies covered in white wings.

Between the wings, eyes as big as an owl's peered out.

A few of the baby Mosmen that locked eyes with me lunged at once.

I cut down the wings of a baby Mosman.

For a moment, faint sparks of fire flickered off the tip of my sword.

"Hm."

After killing one baby Mosman, I figured out what was going on.

Fire rippled inside the gem of the ring Choi Suhyun had given me.

Just in case, I pushed mana into the ring.

Flame surged up through my hand and instantly wrapped around the sword.

Controlling it was a little tricky, but not impossible.

The Hopji flinched and backed away at the sight of the flame.

Looking at it, these things, just like before, seemed to be weak to fire.

Choi Suhyun hadn't handed over that ring for nothing.

I swung the flame-wrapped sword without pause at the Hopji charging at me.

The fire did far more damage to them.

The moment fire touched the Hopji's blood, it spread instantly.

The Hopji clinging around the Mosman started peeling off one by one from the heat.

I swung my sword at the Mosman's egg on the rooftop.

At that instant, the egg suddenly leaped high into the air.

An egg isn't supposed to fly like that!

The egg, having leaped high, dropped straight down at me like it meant it.

It only stopped after smashing through several floors of the building.

I looked down through the round hole punched into the building.

Because of the egg, the Hopji and Mosmen nearby had fallen into the building's interior.

"This isn't getting billed to me, right?"

The building getting wrecked wasn't my fault.

While I was debating whether to go down or not, wind kicked up from below and something rose up.

A massive Mosman burst out of the egg and shot up into the sky like a rocket.

Footnotes:

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