WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 39: Trashy Drama (3)

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A scream sounded above my head.

I had no idea what was going on, so I looked up.

"Kyaaah!"

Song Eunyoung was there, clutching onto wings that wrapped around a whole body.

Wasn't she supposed to have gone down with Choi Suhyun?

What the hell was she doing up there?

Mosman had legs like chicken feet, and dangling from one of those legs was some unconscious man.

Looking closer, Song Eunyoung wasn't actually hanging off Mosman. She was holding onto the man Mosman had grabbed.

Don't tell me she was still filming her makjang drama up there.

Song Eunyoung looked like she was desperately trying to save him.

Thankfully it wasn't turning into a two-parter.

I fired a flame slash toward Mosman, which was hovering high overhead.

The flame that shot out from the tip of my sword slammed into Mosman's wing.

From the recoil, Song Eunyoung and the man went tumbling down.

The spot they were about to land on looked pretty dangerous, though.

Song Eunyoung managed to get a grip on the unconscious man.

I ran forward and reached my hand out toward Song Eunyoung as she fell toward the edge of the building.

"Noona, grab on!"

Song Eunyoung caught my wrist.

I yanked back with everything I had.

Still holding the man, Song Eunyoung landed lightly on the rooftop.

"Ugh, what is this?"

Hopji blood had gotten on her shoes.

Song Eunyoung frowned at the sight of the white blood pooled on the ground.

I killed the Hopji behind her, then walked over.

"So you weren't filming a makjang drama with your boyfriend?"

"It's not like that."

Song Eunyoung set the unconscious man down on the ground.

I flinched for a second when I saw her raise her foot high.

Thankfully, what I was picturing didn't happen.

She kicked away a Hopji that had been closing in on the man.

Half of that foot-raise looked kind of intentional, honestly, but I figured it was better to pretend I hadn't noticed.

"See, I told you noona really loves her parents."

I'd caught on when she talked about her parents earlier.

It wasn't quite resentment. More like love and hate she couldn't help feeling.

To Song Eunyoung, her parents were people she hated but couldn't bring herself to hate completely.

Song Eunyoung looked down at her fallen boyfriend.

"I just didn't want to watch someone die in front of me. Well, this bastard's a jerk, so part of it was that I'd be pissed if he died to a monster before I even got to hear him explain himself. That's why I saved him too."

Song Eunyoung sighed, her feelings clearly a mess.

"Ugh, seriously! I was about to give up on him too."

Song Eunyoung threw the heels she'd been wearing onto the ground.

Those shoes definitely weren't built for fighting.

I could understand how she felt, at least.

I held out my hand to Song Eunyoung.

"Maybe your whole life was leading up to today, noona."

"A kid your age sure has a mouth on you. So? What do I have to do to serve the same god you do?"

Song Eunyoung had never been chosen by a god before, so of course she had no idea how it worked.

Not that there was some grand method to it.

[The god 'Soter' proposes that Song Eunyoung become your follower.]

A status window like that had to be floating in front of her eyes right about now.

Song Eunyoung glanced back and forth between me and the window.

"Backing out now, are you?"

"N, no way I'd do that!"

Song Eunyoung quickly hit the confirm button.

[Song Eunyoung has become the second follower of the god 'Soter'.]

Someone launched an attack at the Mosman hovering in the sky.

Mosman spread its wings and feathers scattered in every direction.

Each individual feather carried near-steel-level force.

I was just thinking the scattering feathers looked dangerous when light flashed from below the building.

A massive sphere of light surrounded Mosman.

The feathers Mosman fired bounced off the sphere and fell away.

Hunters were climbing up from below, not just from the main road but from inside the building too, coming to help.

I quickly checked Song Eunyoung's status window.

[Song Eunyoung (Soter)]

Rank: Ordinary follower

Strength: A (0%)

Vitality: B (0%)

Mana: C- (0%)

Recovery: C+ (0%)

Merit points: 0 (0%)

"Noona, why are your stats so good?"

Was this some kind of joke?

Do you know how long it took me to climb up to C-rank with this body?

Talk about rigged.

"Did you look at my status window?"

Eunyoung noona tilted her head while dodging incoming feathers.

"Ha, well, um, I'm sort of like a proxy for the god or something."

I made up some excuse about a god's proxy being able to see it.

She looked suspicious for a brief second, but given the circumstances, she let it slide.

I closed the status window and was about to move on to handling Mosman when something flickered on Song Eunyoung's status window.

- Gift-eligible target: Song Eunyoung

- Gift-eligible skill: Blessing of Wings (skill)

It worked the same way as when I'd gifted Mana Detection and Line to Yu Jihan.

Wondering if it was possible without spending merit points, I clicked on the skill.

[You may gift one skill free of merit point cost, limited to one use.]

Oh right, that function existed.

[Gifting 'Blessing of Wings (skill)' to follower 'Song Eunyoung'.]

The instant I gifted the skill, Eunyoung noona reacted right away.

She looked startled, and I played it cool like I had no idea what was going on.

"I've got a skill now."

Eunyoung noona kicked away an approaching Hopji.

That movement looked oddly similar to Choi Suhyun's.

She must have activated the skill right away, because her whole body flickered faintly.

"What is this?"

Small wings had sprouted from Eunyoung noona's heels.

Honestly, calling them wings felt like a stretch.

A baby Mosman lunged at her from behind.

"Noona, behind you!"

Eunyoung noona, who'd been fiddling with the wings on her heels, did a back handspring.

She used the baby Mosman's head as a springboard and launched herself upward.

In an instant she was so high up I had to crane my neck to see her.

I killed the startled baby Mosman and looked up.

She should've been coming back down by now, but for some reason she showed no sign of it.

- Proficiency 0%

- Increased movement speed, increased attack speed, increased jump power, flight enabled while skill is maintained

I'd rushed through gifting it and hadn't read the details properly. Turns out flight was included in the skill.

Other Hunters climbed up through the hole in the building.

Sensing the danger, Mosman flew back up into the sky.

The sky didn't look particularly safe either.

Participants: 57

Since the location was limited, the number of Hunters who'd joined wasn't especially large.

Hunters capable of ranged attacks were positioned below the building.

They attacked the ascending Mosman with their own skills, each in turn.

Even attacks aimed at Mosman ended up affecting Eunyoung noona, hovering nearby in the sky.

Judging it dangerous, Eunyoung noona, who'd been hovering in midair, came back down.

"I think I'm gonna get motion sick. I had no idea this skill did that."

"Hey, a good thing's a good thing."

I picked up a stone lying on the ground and threw it up toward Mosman in the sky.

The stone flew fast and hit the sphere surrounding Mosman before bouncing off.

So that's how it is.

That sphere could block both the movement and attacks of whatever was inside.

But it had a downside. Once the sphere formed, it blocked outside attacks too, not just what was happening inside.

The skill wasn't meant to take Mosman down. It was meant to buy time until someone arrived.

Obviously, I had no intention of waiting around for someone else to deal with Mosman.

"Noona. Throw me."

Eunyoung noona's strength stat was A. I knew she was strong, but I hadn't expected A-rank.

My own strength stat was somewhere between C+ and B.

Suddenly Choi Suhyun surviving one of noona's punches felt genuinely impressive.

"Hurry!"

I didn't have time to explain everything, so I just pushed her.

"Throw you where?"

"Mosman, obviously."

I didn't have a flight skill like Eunyoung noona did.

"Don't you dare regret this."

Eunyoung noona strode over and grabbed my hand.

By the time I came to my senses, Mosman was right in front of me.

The woman holding Mosman's movement in place with her skill panicked at my sudden appearance out of nowhere.

"Wait, what are you doing...!"

The tip of my sword touched the sphere surrounding Mosman.

The ring flashed, and flame wrapped around both the sword and my arm.

The base was still my own mana, but the ring itself was so good that the firepower was ridiculous.

I could even feel that it still wasn't at full damage.

Unfortunately, my mana wasn't enough to push the ring's power to its max.

Seriously, what kind of insane item did he just hand me?

The Hunter who'd used the skill looked stunned by the sudden bombardment.

Strictly speaking, the sphere hadn't been made by Mosman. A Hunter had made it.

[The power of the god Soter dwells within you.]

[Tier 3 Protection dwells within you.]

I'd been killing Hopji nonstop, so apparently I'd climbed all the way up to Tier 3.

Flame wrapped around the entire sphere.

Starting from where the sword touched, the sphere cracked like breaking glass.

The sight looked almost like the sun itself.

The sphere shattered, flame scattering in every direction.

Amid the massive explosion, I locked eyes with Mosman inside.

Man, those eyes were huge.

Mosman wrapped its own body with its wings.

I dispelled the flame on Ishtar's Ring and set my stance to use the next skill right away.

With Choi Suhyun's Ishtar's Ring and the permanently active Blessing of Soter backing me up now, this felt like something I could actually pull off.

Through the bursting flame, a line of light cut diagonally across Mosman's body.

Whew, out of breath.

Mosman's body split cleanly in two, and my own body dropped along with it.

['Mosman Cavern' field has been cleared.]

[Participation +100]

[Mosman kill +7,000]

[Mosquito killer (1st place) +4,500]

[Final +11,600]

Song Eunyoung reached out her hand toward me as I fell.

I barely managed to grab it and made it down safely.

"You're not bad, huh? I thought you were all talk."

"Don't pinch my cheek. And..."

Given the location, and given my instincts screaming that staying here meant getting dragged into something troublesome, I was pretty sure leaving fast was the right call.

"W, wait a second! What about Choi Suhyun?"

"He'll figure it out. Guy's supposedly a Hunter with an Association background, remember?"

Even without an Association affiliation, that guy would survive fine if you dropped him in the middle of a desert. No need to worry about him.

"You're being weirdly casual with the informal speech now, huh?"

"We serve the same god now."

I was still calling her noona, so this counted as decent treatment on my part.

Eunyoung noona didn't seem to have a comeback, so she just shut her mouth.

"Do whatever you want."

I left the building quickly with Eunyoung noona.

The next day.

The moment I opened my eyes in the morning, a call came in from an unknown number.

Still half asleep, I picked up.

"Who is this?"

"It's me."

"Me who?"

New kind of phishing scam? Who says "it's me" and expects me to just know?

"Park Si..."

I hung up on him without another word.

Why's a guild representative got this much free time on his hands?

The out-of-nowhere call had my heart pounding.

A text came in on my phone. This time it wasn't from an unknown number, it was saved under [Park Siyu].

"12."

"Can I not come?"

"Guess I'm easy to push around? Want to get kicked out?"

"I'll be there by 1."

"k"

Real cool about the pointless stuff, this guy.

Footnotes:

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