I Returned as a God - Chapter 42

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 42: Raon Guild (2)

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I didn't have any particular urge to scold Park Siyu for it.

Turf wars over market share existed in every field, so I could let that slide.

"I don't have an issue with clearing dungeons alongside Raon Guild. But there's something we need to sort out first."

"I need to confirm you have nothing to do with what's happening."

Choi Suhyun was the one who'd recommended Aria Guild to me.

From the outside, it looked like Choi Suhyun had introduced me to Aria Guild, but in practice, what he'd really introduced me to wasn't the guild itself. It was Park Siyu.

"Kind of disappointing if you actually thought I was that kind of person."

"Just asking out of courtesy. Personally, I don't think you're involved either."

"So you're taking out insurance."

Even calling it courtesy, words carried weight you couldn't just brush off.

If, hypothetically, I really had been involved in this whole mess, then I would've lied to Park Siyu. And that would give him every justification to deal with me however he wanted.

"Won't deny it."

"Guess I'll just have to look forward to the day we're close enough that you don't need insurance anymore."

Park Siyu quietly ate a piece of handmade chocolate from the glass jar in response to my answer.

"Getting back to it, what's this dungeon run with Raon Guild about?"

"The Chicken Coop."

"The Chicken Coop?"

For a second I wondered if Park Siyu was messing with me.

I almost wished it were a joke. Park Siyu was dead serious.

"A-Rank dungeon."

"That's actually its name? The Chicken Coop?"

"Technically it's Cockatrice Farm. But everyone just calls it the Chicken Coop. The name doesn't really matter."

Fair enough, I guess.

It's just that when someone says something that ridiculous with a completely straight face, it throws you off.

If Choi Suhyun had said the same thing, I would've laughed it off, but coming from Park Siyu, it somehow felt weighty.

Park Siyu kept explaining.

"It's a three-strikes dungeon. Raon Guild failed it twice, and we failed it once."

"Impressive it hasn't turned into a rift yet."

"A-Rank rifts don't happen often, so no need to worry about that. For reference, this dungeon is a 'ticket' dungeon."

"Ticket? What ticket? Is there some event happening?"

Hunters had surprisingly many ways to earn merit points.

Fielding and events triggered by rifts were the most common.

Outside of that, there were illegal routes too, gambling, or killing other Hunters to steal their merit points, that sort of thing.

There were all kinds of methods, honestly, hard to even list them all.

Right after Fielding, events were the next most accessible way.

"It's a boss raid. Not a huge one, three stars or so. Location's still unknown."

Tickets got handed out for clearing a specific dungeon during the raid's preparation period.

Without a ticket, showing up at the raid site was pointless since you couldn't earn merit points, so Hunters went wild trying to grab tickets and clear dungeons during that window.

There was a good chance the dungeon that had failed three times hadn't turned into a rift precisely because it was a ticket dungeon.

Still, this was the first I was hearing about an event happening at all.

"How'd you find out about it this fast?"

"It was going to be announced soon anyway. Anyone in the know already knows. If you're upset about getting the info late, blame your own god."

"Kind of rude, considering you run a shop stocked with nobody gods..."

Park Siyu didn't bother replying, just drank from the beverage sitting on the table.

"Back to the Chicken Coop, though. I didn't expect that dungeon to fail."

The third attempt had been Aria Guild's.

After analyzing the performance of the two prior teams, Park Siyu had put together a team he believed could clear the dungeon cleanly, following a meeting with the other guild masters.

By Park Siyu's own standards, the team had honestly been a bit overkill.

"Something must've gone wrong, then?"

"There's only one variable I can think of."

Everything that had been happening recently.

If that factored in, it wouldn't be strange at all for the dungeon to have failed.

"Not every B-Rank Hunter is satisfied with their life. There's a chance Raon Guild, going in first, caused an incident of their own."

Even if it wasn't a massive event, a raid was still a raid.

Sending an elite team into another dungeon expedition right before a raid was risky.

Even accounting for it being a ticket dungeon, there was real risk involved.

In that situation, Raon Guild had been the one to propose a joint clear.

"We agreed to send six from our side, six from Raon's side. Who comes from Raon's side isn't something you need to worry about right now."

"Shouldn't I know who's showing up?"

"I already have a rough idea who's coming, so don't worry about it. I'll let you know soon. As for our side, I've already promised, using guild master authority, that one Hunter is untouchable, off the table. The other three still need agreement. Honestly, before all this happened, you weren't even on the candidate list. Well, I guess you could say my thinking's changed."

Of course it had.

The dungeon was A-Rank, for one.

And I'd never shown Park Siyu my combat firsthand.

All he knew about me came from dungeon clear records or reports on other Hunters, at best.

There was a clear difference between seeing something with your own eyes and just hearing rumors about it.

Park Siyu pointed at the "Ishtar's Ring" on my finger.

Judging by the comments people had been making about Ishtar's Ring online, it seemed to be a fairly famous item among the ones Choi Suhyun owned.

"First time I've seen Choi Suhyun lend that ring to anyone."

"He tossed it at me like it was some junk item."

"That just means he trusts you that much."

"Feels like you don't trust me much, though?"

"Something you'll learn going forward."

"So you're saying you're putting me on the dungeon team?"

"Could say that, or could say I'm not."

With the dungeon already failed once and a raid in preparation, they couldn't just casually offer dungeon spots to experienced Hunters. In that situation, I was exactly the card Park Siyu needed.

On top of that, I'd come in through Choi Suhyun, so there wasn't much risk of me stabbing him in the back.

Not that I had any intention of doing that anyway.

There was nothing to gain from it either. Honestly, that second reason mattered more than the first.

"Say I go into the dungeon. What do I get out of it?"

"I believe I said it was an order."

Park Siyu muttered like he genuinely couldn't understand my question.

"There's no guarantee I'd gain anything from stabbing you in the back, sure, but there's nothing in it for me from following your orders either. If you're thinking you can order me around just because you're a guild representative, you've got the wrong guy."

"No need to dance around it."

"You've got a collection too, right? Not the guild's."

There was no way Park Siyu, being a guild representative, didn't have a personal collection like the one Choi Suhyun had.

"Why? You told me to just say it."

"I just wasn't expecting you to ask that bluntly."

"Nothing more, nothing less. Just give me one."

"Fine. I'll put together the list myself and send it over."

Which meant he'd give me something at an appropriate level.

Even so, this wasn't a bad outcome.

I'd figured we'd at least go back and forth once or twice over it.

Park Siyu accepting it more easily than expected made me suspect he had something else in mind.

"What do you want?"

"Let's grab dinner sometime before the dungeon."

"I think I need to hear the actual condition first."

"Ever killed a person?"

"That's all I need."

With the conversation wrapped up, we walked out of the office together, naturally.

While I waited for the elevator scrolling through my phone, Park Siyu spoke to me.

"Song Eunyoung, was it? You brought in an interesting Hunter."

Eunyoung noona, who served the god Soter, had joined Aria Guild a few days back.

"Right? She's the one who slapped Choi Suhyun, too."

Park Siyu turned his head, eyes going wide.

I'd said it casually, without thinking much of it, but he looked so shocked that it threw me off more than I expected.

"That guy doesn't seem like the type to get smacked around by a woman."

"What are you talking about? He looks exactly like the type who gets smacked around."

Park Siyu clearly wasn't on the same page at all.

I hadn't expected our opinions to split over something like this.

The elevator doors opened, heading up.

Park Siyu got on and rode up to a higher floor.

I met Eunyoung noona in the guild lobby.

The plan had been to grab lunch, run our errands, and go our separate ways, but noona followed me all the way to my place.

"So I told you, you can go home now."

"You said you live alone. I'm just curious."

"There's nothing here."

"You don't have anything weird at your place, do you?"

"Obviously not."

She lived alone too, so I didn't get why she was being so persistent about this.

Pushed along by noona nagging me to hurry up and go in, I opened the door to my studio.

Before I could even invite her in, Eunyoung noona had already walked inside.

"Pretty ordinary."

I'd told her like a dozen times it was ordinary.

My room really didn't have much to it.

Just the clothes and daily necessities I needed, plus a laptop. That was about it.

Eunyoung noona plopped herself down on my bed without asking.

"Alright, now go home."

There was nothing to even look at, so I didn't get why she'd followed me all the way here for this.

I waved my hand at her, shooing her off, and she pouted, lips sticking out.

"No coffee?"

"Then at least bring me some water."

Her attitude was so shameless and confident that I ended up quietly pouring her a glass of cold water from the fridge.

Earbuds in, noona took a call.

Judging by her reactions, it seemed to be coming from the guild.

"Yeah, sure. No issues on my end. What? Who? Hold on a sec."

Just as the conversation seemed to be flowing smoothly, noona pulled out an earbud and waved me over.

Wondering what was going on, I stepped closer.

"They want to talk to you."

"Who is it?"

"A friend?"

Not recognizing Park Siyu's voice, noona tilted her head in confusion.

I took the phone from noona.

More accurately, it was the secretary who'd called noona, then handed the phone back to Park Siyu.

There was exactly one person within Aria Guild I could call a friend.

Just as I expected, it was Park Siyu.

"Figured it'd take at least a day."

"It's not exactly a common case, but nothing complicated either. Anyway, Song Eunyoung's overall stats came back as B. That's accurate, right?"

"Probably."

Her mana and recovery were a bit low, but factoring in her strength and vitality, it roughly evened out to a B.

Park Siyu's reason for calling was Eunyoung noona's stats.

Her stats were a little too high for someone labeled D-Rank, so his proposal was to have her try clearing a single dungeon as a test. If she cleared it, she'd get to start as a C-Rank Hunter instead.

Up to C-Rank could be handled with just a guild recommendation letter.

"It's a C+ Rank dungeon."

"Feels like a slightly high grade for a qualification test. Isn't noona going in alone?"

"I think so too, but there's one stubborn guy insisting on C+ Rank, so that's how it ended up. In exchange, we're assigning a helper on our end."

"A helper? Who?"

"You."

The only person who'd argue against Park Siyu's decision would be a guild master of equal standing.

"I don't mind, but I feel like I should at least know who's the one insisting on C+ Rank."

"Seo Jihoon. Former executive at Raon Guild."

I didn't know his face, but I'd remember the name.

"I'll reach out through Song Eunyoung once the dungeon's ready."

"Yeah, sure. Good luck."