WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 43: Raon Guild (3)

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"What? The rep..."

"Why, does that make you look at me differently?"

At my little bit of showing off, noona's mouth just hung open.

"Which rep? Wait, Park Siyu?"

"How'd you know that?"

"You're close with Choi Suhyun, aren't you?"

It was pretty well known that Park Siyu and Choi Suhyun were close.

"I didn't know you'd gotten close with Park Siyu too."

"Close might be a stretch. Still getting to know him."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Eunyoung noona made a face like she didn't quite get it.

I didn't feel like explaining any further, so I kept my mouth shut.

Noona ended up staying for dinner before finally heading home.

A week later.

The dungeon for noona's C-Rank Hunter qualification test got decided.

It was a C+ Rank dungeon located on Keunjjaksan, in Daegok-dong, Seo-gu, Incheon.

"Whoever named that, they sure picked a weird one."

I muttered around a mouthful of convenience store ice cream.

The dungeon Aria Guild had designated sat at the foot of a mountain.

On average, one out of every three dungeons that appeared in Korea formed on a mountain.

Mountains meant hiking was basically mandatory, and if the location was awkward, you sometimes had to go off the usual trails, which was part of why mountain dungeons weren't exactly popular among guilds.

Since guilds didn't love them, but the Association still had to deal with them, mountain dungeons tended to come with slightly better terms than the ones stuck in the middle of the city.

Eunyoung noona walked up after parking the car.

Plain black pants, a cotton shirt built for movement, and sneakers.

The only real difference from her usual look was her hair pulled up high in a ponytail.

"What? Why are you staring like that?"

"You just look so normal, it's kind of boring."

I'd been expecting her to show up loaded down with gear or in some outlandish getup, and this was way off from that.

Talking about outlandish getups made me think of that guy, out of nowhere.

I'd have to ask Park Siyu about him sometime soon.

We grabbed our gear and reached the area near the dungeon.

An Association hunter already waiting there spotted us and waved.

The guy looked, without a doubt, like someone fresh off passing the public hiring exam.

After introducing himself, he asked for our IDs, fairly politely.

"Could I check your IDs?"

At his request, I pulled up the Hunter Network on my phone and showed him my personal barcode.

After scanning it, he ran my fingerprint through a small portable scanner.

I was used to the process by now, but Eunyoung noona looked tense as anything.

I remembered feeling the same way the first time, wondering what the point of all this was.

The man finished checking Eunyoung noona's ID and fingerprint too.

Noona looked at him and asked.

"Isn't the Association usually supposed to work in pairs?"

To prevent accidents and misconduct, Association hunters normally operated in pairs of two, even during routine work.

Being a C+ Rank dungeon didn't exempt them from that.

At noona's question, the man glanced around, looking flustered.

He seemed to be searching for someone in a hurry.

"That person said they'd be right back, they had a call to take."

"That person?"

The honorific he used felt oddly elevated for someone just referring to a senior partner.

While the man was still fumbling for words, Choi Suhyun walked up.

Choi Suhyun didn't exactly seem like someone you'd address as "that person."

"What? Something wrong?"

Choi Suhyun approached with his hands in his pockets, walking with that lazy swagger of his.

At his casual attitude, the man shook his head.

He was clearly tense.

"No, nothing. Are you done with your call?"

"More or less."

He answered flatly, like the call hadn't been anything important.

Something had felt off from the moment the man said "that person," but I hadn't expected it to actually be Choi Suhyun.

There was no way Choi Suhyun showing up as the Gate management staff for the exact dungeon Eunyoung noona and I were entering was a coincidence.

"If you were coming, you could've at least given me a heads up."

"We were gonna see each other anyway. Why bother texting you first."

"That's exactly why you're supposed to text me!"

Think about how noona and I felt, running into Choi Suhyun in a place we never expected, for crying out loud.

He was still doing whatever he wanted, as usual.

"So? What's a busy guy like you doing all the way out here?"

"Yeah, why are you here!"

Eunyoung noona parroted my words like some kind of copycat bird.

Choi Suhyun shot her a glare, and noona scurried behind me for cover.

Ever since the two of them had co-starred in that makjang drama together, Eunyoung noona had been thoroughly wary of Choi Suhyun.

Despite the two of us being on guard, Choi Suhyun didn't so much as blink.

"You should be grateful I bothered coming out here at all, busy as I am."

I said nothing in response to his usual self-absorbed nonsense.

Choi Suhyun rolled up his sleeve and checked the time on his watch.

The dungeon entry was scheduled for 10:30.

It was a little past 10:15 now, so we had about ten minutes to spare.

Choi Suhyun pointed a finger toward one side of the hiking trail.

The man took the hint and stepped away.

Watching him scurry off like that, I felt a little bad for him.

Once the man was gone, Choi Suhyun immediately held out his hand.

"What? You got me holding onto money for you or something?"

"Feels like there's more than one thing you've got of mine. Hand it over while I'm still asking nicely."

His words came off almost like a threat, so I reflexively brought my hand up toward my chest.

I really did want to keep the Ishtar's Ring Choi Suhyun had lent me.

Items these days got split into three categories: Common, Rare, and Legend.

Anything up to Legend, you could get your hands on with enough money.

The problem was the ungraded items, the ones that fell outside all three categories.

Literally items whose grade couldn't even be measured, and most of them weren't the kind of thing you could buy with money no matter how much you had.

Ungraded items varied so wildly that evaluating them at all was practically impossible.

A classic example was a growth-type item, one whose power scaled with the user's own ability, though there were plenty of other varieties too.

The Ishtar's Ring Choi Suhyun had lent me was tied to mythology.

I handed the Ishtar's Ring and the glass fragment back to Choi Suhyun. He slipped the ring on.

"Don't tell me you came all the way out here this early just to collect your ring back."

"Right. I've got a favor to ask. You planning on doing raids?"

Word had already reached Choi Suhyun, it seemed.

"Probably? Why?"

"Let me ask you for one too, then."

Choi Suhyun leaned in and whispered something.

The request was such a blatant case of piggybacking off someone else's work.

It'd be a bit of a hassle, sure, but we were in the same boat now, so I could manage this much.

"Fine, I'll take care of it. But..."

Choi Suhyun's gaze drifted to Eunyoung noona, who was hovering next to me.

"Why doesn't she have a weapon?"

Noona and I exchanged a look.

Noona was the first one to turn red in the face.

Even with all the complaints people had about Aria Guild, it wasn't like the guild couldn't provide something as basic as a weapon.

There was a whole story behind this. When noona and I both stayed quiet, Choi Suhyun kept tilting his head, confused.

"What? What is it?"

"Turns out noona doesn't have any talent for it, despite how she looks."

In the search for a weapon that fit her, we'd tried everything, swords, bows, axes, whips, even specialty weapons.

At that point people usually start considering magic instead, but Eunyoung noona had zero talent for magic either.

Honestly, if it were anyone else, I'd have just told them to keep practicing and eventually they'd get it. But I'd never in my life met someone this hopeless with weapons.

"Ugh, that can happen sometimes!"

"Are you even human?"

"You don't have to go that far! And you, look who's talking. How great are you, exact—"

Eunyoung noona, who'd been pointing a finger at Choi Suhyun, trailed off without finishing.

Noona finally turned her head away from Choi Suhyun, looking somewhere else.

Now that I thought about it, hadn't the two of them said there was some history between them before?

I'd heard afterward, separately, what had happened to each of them.

Choi Suhyun was the one who'd stopped Eunyoung noona back when she'd been fighting with the intent to die.

His way of talking caused the misunderstanding in the first place, but thankfully, things seemed to have sorted themselves out somehow.

"Don't be so hard on her. Do you know how much trouble I went through to bring noona on board? If she gets sulky and quits because of you, hyung, are you gonna take responsibility?"

"Since when can't a person say anything around here?"

"She doesn't have a weapon, but her strength alone is insane, so it'll be fine."

Fighting without weapons actually suited Eunyoung noona's style better anyway.

Choi Suhyun looked her up and down.

"Yeah, brute force, definitely."

"Hey!"

"Hey, what? I still remember getting hit by you, you know."

"That's because you, you had it coming!"

"Stop fighting, you two."

In the end, I had to step in and mediate.

Misunderstanding cleared up or not, and knowing they'd be seeing each other going forward, watching the two of them go at it like this made me think their personalities just didn't mesh, plain and simple.

Choi Suhyun raised his hand.

The Association staffer, who'd been watching from a distance, came running over like a puppy.

From what I knew, Choi Suhyun's department was pretty much a dead-end desk job, but judging by the man's reaction, I guess a title only means so much on paper.

Not that it mattered much to me either way.

"You really planning on quitting with this kind of treatment?"

"Do whatever you want."

Choi Suhyun answered curtly to the man who'd gone and come back.

"Oh, right. You know a guy named Seo Jihoon?"

"Ah, him... I was wondering when you'd bring that up. I'll tell you once you're out of the dungeon."

Since the scheduled time had arrived, Choi Suhyun said he'd explain later.

Eunyoung noona and I got ready to head into the dungeon.

Looking at the Gate, noona gripped the strap of her backpack tight.

"Nervous?"

"A little, I guess."

Eunyoung noona stared at the dungeon Gate with a complicated look on her face.

She'd probably thought about giving up more than a few times.

She probably never imagined she'd make it this far, either.

I understood the weight of what noona was feeling better than anyone.

Noona stepped into the dungeon first, and I followed right behind her.

[Skyfield]

Rank: C+

Terrain: Hills

Recommended party size: 3-5

Objective: Obtain the sealed orb and activate the Altar of Time.

1) Clear reward [Merit points 450]

2) All monsters killed [Merit points 200 for all participants]

3) Whoever kills the Bicorn [Merit points 360]

4) Whoever activates the Altar of Time [Merit points 1000]

Even though it was a mission-type dungeon, it wasn't especially high difficulty for a C+ Rank one.

The monsters in Skyfield were one-horned beasts, the kind people usually called unicorns.

Unlike the Giant Ant Cavern, which was cramped, packed with monsters, and awkward to strategize around, this place had a much smaller monster population and a field that stretched out wide open.

Open grassland and rolling hills filled my view.

"Whoa. This is amazing."

Noona's eyes sparkled the moment we stepped into the dungeon.

I'd felt the exact same way the first time I crossed dimensions and stepped into a dungeon myself.

Like stepping into a whole different world, or something close to that.

It was, technically, a separate space after all.

Still, a dungeon was a dungeon.

Better to keep the awe over the scenery to a minimum.

Sure enough, a black one-horned beast that had been lying in wait came charging at us.

The one-horned beast, true to its name, had a single horn and a body shaped like a cross between a horse and a rhinoceros.

They weren't numerous, but they moved fast and could deal serious damage if they caught you off guard.

Judging by the angle, it was targeting Eunyoung noona rather than me.

Just as I drew my sword to cut it down, Eunyoung noona vanished from where she stood.

Footnotes:

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