WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 46: A Tale of Strangers (2)

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I slung the fallen man over my shoulder and headed back to noona.

She was still struggling to pull the horn off the Bicorn.

"Hangyeol-ah, help me with this... oh."

I dumped the man on the ground, then cut the Bicorn's horn free.

"You didn't kill this guy, right?"

I tossed the severed horn to noona.

She hugged both horns to her chest, the one she'd already cut plus the new one.

"Didn't kill him. Still got plenty to ask him."

"Not heading straight out of the dungeon?"

"A few more hours should be fine."

The red-horned Bicorn had eaten up some time, but even accounting for that, we'd still cleared it early.

Good thing or bad thing, hard to say.

Noona and I made our way back down to where our gear was.

She stuffed both Bicorn horns into her bag.

We tied the unconscious man's arms and tossed him aside, then sat down and ate lunch.

Lunch was nothing more than a calorie bar and water candy.

Really well made, that stuff.

The water candy, about the size of a piece of hard candy, was basically a miniature water ball.

The difference was that a water ball ran on magic, while water candy was a product of cutting-edge science.

One piece of water candy gave you about a paper cup's worth of water.

"So why's this dungeon called Skyfield?"

Eunyoung noona, having finished eating first, looked around.

There was plenty of grassland and rolling hills, sure, but nothing that looked remotely sky-related.

"This island. It's a sky island."

"There's no such thing as a sky island!"

"Just messing with you."

Noona coughed, looking a little embarrassed.

"Wait, seriously, a sky island?"

I answered her question with a nod instead of words.

If you cleared the dungeon the normal way, there wasn't really any need to go all the way to the edge of the island. But dungeons were unknown territory, and there were always people who insisted on doing something pointless just to see.

"About twenty minutes from here. Want to go check it out?"

"Not particularly..."

"Your face is basically screaming that you want to go. Besides, I was heading there anyway."

I finished eating, stood up, and looked down at the fallen man.

I nudged his body with the tip of my foot.

I'd already noticed he'd come to his senses back when noona and I were talking about the sky island.

The man hadn't been in the dungeon yesterday.

If he'd slipped in with us when we entered, I definitely would have noticed.

Unless it was a special dungeon, guards usually weren't posted at ones a Hunter had already entered.

Regular people couldn't get into a closed dungeon anyway, so stationing a Hunter there would just be a waste of manpower.

The only ones who could get into a closed dungeon were Hunters with the Dungeon Open skill.

Commonly called a Key.

And that wasn't exactly a common skill.

Someone had hired a person with the Key skill just to spy on Eunyoung noona and me inside what was, at most, a C+ Rank dungeon.

There was no way this was some ordinary civilian's doing.

"We've got plenty of time, so let's take it slow, mister."

The man's body twitched the moment I took a step.

I didn't want to drag him along, so I woke him up, more or less by force.

"Tell me who's behind this, and I'll let you keep your life."

"You think I'll fall for that twice? Just kill me!"

"Quit spouting lines straight out of some villain's playbook. Oh, he bolted."

The instant my attention slipped, the man took off running toward the exit gate.

I pointed my finger at him as he ran off.

"Go on, then!"

"Wait, why?"

"What do you take me for?"

Eunyoung noona crossed her arms and turned away.

Looked like she was sulking.

"Fine, I'll split the money we get from selling the Bicorn's red horn. Sixty forty. You get sixty."

"How much is the horn worth?"

"Maybe a billion?"

"Seventy thirty."

The moment the words left her mouth, noona vanished.

I wondered why she'd moved so fast, then realized she'd used her skill.

Blessing of Wings included a movement speed boost too.

Noona cut off the fleeing man's path.

He thrashed, trying to work his bound hands free. Sorry, but I hadn't tied him that loosely.

Changing tactics, the man swung a kick at Eunyoung noona.

The next moment, his body flipped forward and noona had him pinned.

She dragged him back, practically hauling him along the ground.

"Told you running's pointless. You could run for the rest of your life and still never beat our noona here."

I dragged the man toward the edge of the island.

He tried to bolt a few more times along the way, but every attempt died before it went anywhere.

I only gave one free pass.

"Try running again, and I don't care who's behind this, I'm just killing you."

I drew my sword, making a show of it on purpose.

Not a joke. Dead serious.

He must not have wanted to die, because he followed noona and me without any more trouble.

We reached the edge of the island, and a cliff came into view.

Sensing something off, noona ran ahead first and peered over the edge.

Wasn't she scared at all?

Ah, right, she could fly, so it didn't matter to her.

Bicorns and one-horned beasts, both a kind of unicorn, were creatures that lived in the sky rather than on the ground.

The dungeon was named Skyfield because the small island where they lived was itself a floating island.

I grabbed the man by the collar and shoved him toward the cliff.

"Who put you up to this?"

I stepped closer to the man standing at the edge.

Ever since dungeons first appeared, Hunters had run countless studies on what actually went on inside them.

Among the most popular questions was this: what happens if you leave the field created by a dungeon?

Plenty of attempts had been made, and the conclusion reached was that it was impossible to leave the field a dungeon generated.

Anyone who entered a dungeon could never step outside the field zone the dungeon designated.

Step outside the field?

You just got sent right back to where you started.

Basic knowledge everyone already knew.

Which brought it back to the field itself.

Right now, the field of Skyfield was confined to this one small island.

Below the cliff where the man stood was territory outside the field.

Luckily, the man didn't seem to have a flight skill like noona's.

Falling off the island just meant he'd respawn somewhere nearby anyway.

"A few rounds of skydiving ought to loosen your tongue."

The man's face went pale, like he already knew that too.

"W, wait! I have a fear of heights!!"

"So what."

"I'll talk... aaaaaargh!"

I gave the man a light shove, and he dropped over the cliff.

His voice faded further and further away.

"Hangyeol-ah, that's kind of cruel."

"He'll just respawn anyway. More importantly, you're not surprised at all?"

"Is there something I'm supposed to be surprised about?"

Her counter left me blank for a moment.

There really wasn't a specific point to be surprised at.

Sure, I had no plans to kill the guy right now, but there was no guarantee something like this wouldn't happen again down the road.

Before I could say anything, noona beat me to it.

"Don't worry about it. I signed up for stuff like this. Besides, working in society is way more messed up than you'd think. Sometimes it feels easier to just kill someone and get it over with."

Hearing noona say that actually put me at ease.

"Argh!"

The man dropped back down from a reasonable height.

I walked over, and he dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground.

"I, I'll talk! I'll tell you everything..."

He glanced toward the cliff and shook his head hard.

Judging by how dropping scared him more than dying did, he really did have a fear of heights.

Kind of anticlimactic, honestly.

I figured he'd hold out for at least three or four more rounds.

I crouched down to meet his eyes.

Now the real story started.

Park Siyu's mornings started with a light workout at the gym inside the guild building.

Stepping off the machine, Park Siyu was on the phone with someone. The person on the other end was none other than Choi Suhyun.

Wondering what could be so urgent this early in the morning, Park Siyu took the call, glanced around, then stepped into the wet sauna.

As Park Siyu entered, his secretary standing nearby blocked the entrance.

The secretary gestured an apology toward a Hunter who'd been stopped from entering.

Fortunately, the Hunter recognized Park Siyu's face and turned away without protest.

"Who did you say?"

"Yu Seyeon."

Park Siyu wiped the sweat off with his towel and let out a hot exhale.

Aria Guild presented itself as an alliance of three guilds, but there was a small wrinkle in that story.

Park Siyu, former master of Saetbyeol Guild. Yu Seyeon of Onnuri Guild. And Seo Jihoon of Black Holdings.

The problem was that Black Holdings had split off from Raon Guild.

That was exactly why relations between Aria Guild and Raon Guild had never been smooth.

Even if Black Holdings had fully settled its grudge with Raon Guild, that was only how things looked on the surface.

Yu Seyeon, though?

Not a name he'd expected at all.

"You sure it was actually Yu Seyeon?"

"That's what Kang Hangyeol said. He was going off on me about how the hell I managed my job. Dungeon management isn't even my department, you know? Ugh, sounds like she used a Key broker too."

"I never got a report on that."

A few days ago, Hangyeol and Eunyoung had cleared a C+ Rank dungeon without incident and come back out.

Park Siyu had received Hangyeol's dungeon report the evening before.

The only thing worth noting in it was that he'd killed a red-horned Bicorn, which only appeared with a certain probability, and that he wanted to sell the horn. Nothing else special.

Nowhere in the report was there any mention of spying.

No wonder the report had come in so fast.

He'd deliberately left it out.

Kang Hangyeol and Yu Seyeon had no connection to each other.

But there was no way Hangyeol didn't recognize the name Yu Seyeon.

Hangyeol was staging a quiet protest by venting his complaints to Choi Suhyun instead.

"Whether he wrote that in the report or not isn't my problem."

"What about the Key broker?"

"I can share the information if you want. That person's not really under investigation or anything."

Barging into a dungeon mid-expedition without permission was definitely a gray area. But that only mattered if actual harm had occurred.

This case landed in a pretty ambiguous spot.

No real harm done, and all the intruder had actually done was spy.

"Making that many enemies isn't gonna do you any favors, though."

"If it's for the sake of peace, gotta do it."

Park Siyu answered with a tone that made it clear he thought Suhyun was worrying over the strangest things.

"Guess that tracks, your god's that kind of guy. I'll send over the file. Got a meeting to get to, hanging up."

Choi Suhyun ended the call first.

Steam from inside the sauna had fogged up the phone screen white.

Park Siyu wiped the sweat off his shoulder with the towel and stepped out of the sauna.

"Get in touch with Representative Yu, tell her I want to see her."

"What time should I set?"

"Within thirty minutes."

The secretary gave a small bow and made a call somewhere.

Park Siyu stepped into the shower inside. Hot water ran down his shoulders.

Right. She sounded pretty upset, apparently.

That had been the offhand comment Choi Suhyun dropped just before hanging up.

Yu Seyeon hadn't shown any particular interest in the joint expedition with Raon Guild. Given her usual disposition, Park Siyu hadn't given her much thought either.

Interest and disposition aside, Yu Seyeon was more than qualified to get involved in this matter.

Taking his eyes off a real possibility had clearly been Park Siyu's mistake.

Guess the collection list needs an update.

That was really all he could do about it for now.

Footnotes:

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