WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 4: Kang Hangyeol (3)

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Once you became an Awakened, you registered as both an Awakened and a Hunter with the Hunter Association as a matter of course.

Every Awakened was also required to complete sixty hours of education spread over six weeks, plus two rounds of field experience.

Hunters who skipped registration with the Hunter Association got shut out of a whole range of infrastructure, from the basics to guild membership to dungeon access.

After entering my ID QR code and joining the Korea Hunter Association, I looked over the sheer volume of information available to members and concluded that joining was, without a doubt, better than not.

Most people awakened in their early twenties, though it wasn't unheard of for someone to awaken in their thirties, or even their teens.

In proportional terms, the early twenties simply made up the largest chunk.

"Ten hours of education left, and one round of field experience."

Fortunately, there wasn't much education time left.

* * *

At the front of the room, a man in a suit stood at a lectern giving a lecture with a presentation slide up on the screen.

"Dungeon breaks, or what we call rifts, most commonly occur after a dungeon failure. Generally speaking, for an A rank dungeon, the limit tends to be around four to five failures. Most rifts happen in D rank dungeons. So, realistically, the chance of a rift occurring in an S rank dungeon is close to zero. Meaning there's no need to worry about it much."

The instructor set down the microphone, announced a break, and left the lecture hall.

I propped my arm on the desk and looked down at my notebook, packed edge to edge with notes.

It was a formal, obligatory class, but maybe because it had been a while since I'd sat through one, I found it fairly interesting.

'I think I get why that guy called it a meaningless class.'

Most of it was already laid out neatly on the association's website, and you could look the rest up with a quick internet search anyway.

Someone bumped into me hard as I sipped the last of my coffee.

Luckily there wasn't much coffee left, so nothing spilled, but the force behind it was clearly no accident. I looked up.

"Oops, what's a powerless nobody like you glaring for?"

"Hey, you. Think you can actually handle the upcoming field training? Might be better to just give up on being a Hunter."

"It's been half a year since you awakened and you still haven't landed anywhere. Something's wrong with that, don't you think? Are you even really an Awakened? The Association's out of its mind for letting someone like you register as one."

"Who are you guys?"

I finished off the last of my coffee and crushed the cup in one hand.

Three of them had come over, one a bit worn around the edges, but the rest looked about my age.

"Gonna play dumb?"

"What?"

"Damn powerless bastard. We got a warning for nothing because of you. Never thought I'd see the day some loser from high school turned out to be an Awakened same as us. Did you pull some strings or something? Huh?"

I stood up, cup still in hand.

The fat one's rant had basically filled in the blanks for me.

'So that's why I woke up in a hospital bed.'

Come to think of it, Choi Suhyun had said something about a fight too.

These three didn't like Kang Hangyeol, and they'd taken it out on him under the guise of sparring practice.

The kind of thing you'd expect to see in some novel somewhere.

If I still had those memories, I might've considered revenge. But without them, these guys and I were basically strangers.

I had no reason to hate any of them.

"This guy's lost it."

The fat one reached for my shoulder as I headed toward the trash can to toss my coffee. I knocked his hand away.

"Don't you dare touch me with those pig-trotter hands."

"Wh, what did you say?"

"Did I say anything wrong? Be grateful I don't remember that day."

I brushed past his shoulder, dumped the empty cup in the trash, and went back to my seat.

"You'll see!"

Maybe Choi Suhyun had said something to them, because the three of them, thankfully, left me alone after that.

The break ended, and near the end of class, the topic turned to the upcoming field training.

"You've probably all heard, but next week we'll be doing dungeon field training. Group assignments are as follows, and the scheduled dungeons are listed below."

A giant presentation screen filled up with roughly thirty names split into six groups.

I was in group four.

'D rank dungeon, Goblin Village, huh.'

I'd looked into dungeons enough to have a rough grasp, but without actual experience, I still couldn't quite picture it.

Really, truly lucky for me, the monsters that showed up in these dungeons overlapped somewhat with the ones I'd hunted on the Arbelisia continent.

Goblins and orcs, most notably.

When I was first summoned to the Arbelisia continent, there had been a goblin village nearby, and I couldn't count the trouble it caused me back then.

Thanks to that, I could say without exaggeration that I knew goblins better than anyone.

"That's all the announcements. Please gather at your designated meeting spots."

The instructor gave a small bow and declared the class over. At the same moment, the phone I'd left on the desk buzzed.

「HN (Notification) Kang Hangyeol-nim, you have received an invitation to the "Woojangsan Dungeon Chat Room." Join / Decline」

HN stood for Hunter Network, plain and simple, a system that supported community features, group chat rooms, notification alerts, and the like.

I hit [Join].

「Woojangsan Dungeon (5)」

'Kang Hangyeol' has joined the chat room.

Kang Hangyeol: Hello. Nice to meet you all.

Kim Taewoon (Chat Owner): Hi. Nice to meet you too.

Nam Unik: Welcome.

Choi Minhyeok: Ah shit, stepped on a landmine.

Kim Taewoon (Chat Owner): ??

Choi Minhyeok: That bastard's unaffiliated.

Nam Unik: Wasn't there supposed to be one unaffiliated Awakened in this batch? Is that him?

Choi Minhyeok: Total troll, no cap.

Lee Yeeun: Excuse me. Can you drop that attitude?

Kim Taewoon (Chat Owner): Everyone calm down first.

I packed my bag, stepped out into the hallway, and silently lurked the chat as messages kept rolling in.

Seems like this Choi Minhyeok guy was one of the three who'd come up to me during the break.

Kim Taewoon cleaned up the incoming messages neatly.

Most of it didn't mean much anyway.

「Woojangsan Dungeon (5)」

Kim Taewoon (Chat Owner): Alright, let's say we meet this Friday at 2 PM. Everyone good with that?

Nam Unik: Yes

Choi Minhyeok: ok

Lee Yeeun: Got it.

Kang Hangyeol: Sounds good.

Once I saw everyone else reply, I sent my own reply last.

No sooner had I sent it than another message came in.

「Choi Suhyun: Kim's Place Seolleongtang. By 1.」

I looked up the location. It was a shop in the building right across from the Association.

Being lunch hour, the place was pretty packed.

Choi Suhyun raised a hand slightly.

"What do you want to eat?"

"Seolleongtang."

"Two seolleongtangs here."

Choi Suhyun ordered faster than anyone else could've, took a sip of water from the cup on the table, and leaned back in the chair.

"You've got more nerve than I expected."

"It's been a week since that day and this is how you greet me? That stings a little."

"Not a week since, more like a week free of you. Why would I want to look at a trainee's face after a week if I could help it?"

I laughed awkwardly at Choi Suhyun's jab.

After getting the business card, I'd spent several days agonizing over how to get in touch.

When I actually reached out, Choi Suhyun reacted like the last thing expected was for me to actually call.

"You said you'd explain in person if we met, so here I am. What is it you wanted to say?"

Choi Suhyun asked while eating the noodles in the seolleongtang.

"I'll cut to the chase. I want you to be my sponsor."

"Pfft, cough."

The words apparently landed hard enough to make Choi Suhyun choke.

Having no affiliation in the Hunter world wasn't some minor issue like lacking a job class in a game.

For most Awakened, once they settled on the god they served, their guild was practically decided too.

It wasn't much different from people who worshipped the same god forming their own religious organization.

Hunters usually joined whichever guild had a heavy concentration of people serving their god.

The Hunter Association offered some support, but being a public institution that had to spread benefits across every Hunter, it wasn't exactly generous.

Being unaffiliated, chosen by no god, meant, in other words, having nowhere to draw support from.

Choi Suhyun wiped his mouth with a wet wipe and went back to eating. I stayed quiet until the meal was finished.

"Shameless guy."

"Wasn't that why you gave me your card in the first place?"

"As if. You're a trainee, and I'm technically staff here. Not that I trained you personally, but let's pretend I didn't hear that last part."

"If I weren't a trainee, that sounds like there'd actually be a chance."

I set down my spoon and looked straight at Choi Suhyun.

Even going only by what was floating around online, the more I looked into Choi Suhyun, the more I became convinced that landing this person was worth the effort.

Choi Suhyun hadn't simply left a faction.

Even after going unaffiliated, offers had come pouring in from big-name guilds both at home and abroad, not counting the original Cheongwol Guild.

Choi Suhyun had turned down every single offer and kept right on working as a civil servant.

Being a civil servant Hunter wasn't a bad thing, but it wasn't remotely comparable to the money and prestige frontline Hunters earned.

'High chance this person's got a story.'

Something must have happened, some realization reached among the unknowable gods.

I was certain whatever secret Choi Suhyun was holding onto had something to do with why the card had been handed over in the first place.

An S rank Hunter, and on top of that, the Cheongwol Guild that Choi Suhyun used to belong to ranked among the top three conglomerate guilds in Korea.

This world worked the same way as the one I'd lived in before. Strength was a symbol of wealth and honor, plain and simple.

Anyone who'd climbed to an executive position at Cheongwol Guild had almost certainly made a fortune doing it.

From Choi Suhyun's position, sponsoring someone just starting out, someone like me, was probably well within reach financially.

Fine if that made me selfish.

Nothing was more foolish than turning away from something worth using when it was sitting right in front of you.

Choi Suhyun stood up first.

"Prove your worth. Then I might think about it."

Choi Suhyun waved the paid receipt and left the shop, citing something to take care of.

Once Choi Suhyun was out of sight, I stood up too.

"Excuse me, sir. You still haven't paid."

"Ah."

Since you're paying anyway, might as well cover the whole thing.

Stingy, aren't you.

Footnotes:

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