I Returned as a God - Chapter 47

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 47: A Tale of Strangers (3)

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After finishing his shower, Park Siyu headed straight for Yu Seyeon's office.

"What's the schedule look like today?"

"What's on it?"

"Raid TF team meeting at 11, Hunter Association meeting at 3, and a preliminary meeting about the teamup with Raon Guild representatives. Want me to cancel the Association meeting and push the TF meeting back?"

"Tell them to start the meeting without me. I'll join in as much as I can."

The elevator doors opened and Park Siyu stepped out first.

He raised a hand toward the secretary following behind, gesturing that there was no need to come along.

Park Siyu opened the door to Yu Seyeon's office.

"You said you'd come right away, and here you actually are, right away."

"Sorry to barge in. I'll keep it short."

Park Siyu sat down on the sofa in the middle of the room.

Bob cut, chiseled features, a refined face on a slender frame, Yu Seyeon was popular among Hunters even setting aside the fact that she was a guild representative.

Before becoming Awakened, Yu Seyeon had been a trainee idol at one of Korea's top entertainment agencies.

She'd had fans even during her trainee days, and she'd awakened right before her debut was finalized.

Sitting across from him, Yu Seyeon poured black tea she'd prepared in advance into a cup.

"Kang Hangyeol, was it? Yeah, that was me. I never meant to cause any real harm. I'll apologize for that much."

Yu Seyeon raised both hands and took a step back, figuratively speaking.

She'd gone as far as using a Key broker, but she'd never intended to hurt Hangyeol or Eunyoung from the start.

If murder had been the goal, she wouldn't have handled it so sloppily.

"Why'd you do it?"

If he was curious about Kang Hangyeol and Song Eunyoung, all he had to do was read the report that had come up later.

As co-representative, Yu Seyeon had every right to that information.

Seyeon picked up a piece of handmade chocolate and popped it in her mouth.

"Giant Ant Cavern dungeon, you got a personal report from Kang Hangyeol on that one, didn't you? And you've been in touch with Choi Suhyun a lot more often lately too."

"Suhyun and I are just personally close, that's all. We keep in touch."

"High school, or was it middle school, classmates? Doesn't that sound like a pretty convenient excuse? If I'd known it'd come in handy like this, I should've made some middle school friends of my own."

That Choi Suhyun and Park Siyu went way back wasn't exactly hard information to dig up if you'd been in this business even a little while.

But Choi Suhyun didn't trust Park Siyu just because they'd been classmates.

By that logic, every Hunter who'd graduated from the same school as Choi Suhyun and later Awakened should've become his best friend too.

Seyeon would've staked her whole career on the bet that Choi Suhyun didn't even know which Hunters had come out of his own school.

The two of them were friends, sure, but the kind who only exchanged the occasional how-are-you.

Both of them knew the other was doing fine without needing to check in, so neither bothered reaching out.

Not unless there was actually something to talk about.

Park Siyu and Choi Suhyun's contact had started picking up right around the time Kang Hangyeol showed up.

The kid who'd walked straight up to the contract manager, announced out of nowhere that he was Park Siyu's best friend, and negotiated terms that made no sense at all.

The first time Seyeon reviewed that contract, she'd doubted her own eyes. What on earth had Park Siyu been thinking when he approved it?

There was no way this kid was actually Park Siyu's best friend.

That had been the trigger for her to start digging into Kang Hangyeol's background, and that was how she'd found out it had taken him less than a year to go from D-Rank to C-Rank Hunter.

Not impossible, sure, but undeniably an abnormal pace.

And then the Gangnam Station footage had been the real breaking point.

"You think it makes any sense at all for a C-Rank Hunter to one-shot a Mosman?"

It hadn't even been a simple one-shot kill.

Factor in that he'd also broken through the barrier a Raon Guild Hunter had used to contain the Mosman, and the actual power on display was even greater than that.

"I was pretty surprised watching it myself too."

"What's with that tone? You mean you didn't know about it?"

Instead of answering, Park Siyu drank the black tea Yu Seyeon had poured for him.

Neither confirming nor denying.

"You know something strange has been happening between our guild and Raon Guild lately, right?"

"It's under investigation."

"I know that too. But you're not actually sharing the information."

That was both Aria Guild's weakness and its strength.

It might feel like an unreasonable structure, but there wasn't much to be done about it once the first button had been fastened crooked.

The moment they started suspecting each other, the trust between them would break.

Seyeon's meaning had come across clearly enough. The problem was.

"You just weren't included in the range of suspects."

"Is that a compliment or an insult?"

"Well, both."

At Park Siyu's flat delivery, completely unfiltered as always, Yu Seyeon snorted.

"The Hunter you brought in this time, Song Eunyoung, was it? Unaffiliated for ages, and then suddenly picked by some god called Soter or whatever."

"Honestly, none of that matters to me. Her parents were Hunters who died during the great disaster. Pretty famous ones, actually. Don't you have any shame at all?"

"Let's cut the pointless talk here. I've got a meeting after this."

Park Siyu used the time excuse to cut Yu Seyeon off.

Seyeon drained the rest of her tea and set the cup down hard.

"Fine, I suspected you."

She'd known Kang Hangyeol had reported some of this directly to Park Siyu.

Take this current incident, for instance. There wasn't a single mention of the intruding Hunter anywhere in Hangyeol's report.

On top of that, Kang Hangyeol also had ties to Choi Suhyun. She had no idea which of the two he was closer to, but one thing was certain.

Inside Aria Guild, Kang Hangyeol was unmistakably Park Siyu's person.

"Wasn't me."

"You said you weren't even included in the range of suspects, right? What's your basis for that?"

"The two guilds taking the biggest hit from this whole thing are ours and Raon Guild. If the culprit's someone on the inside, then setting Aria Guild aside, the only one with a grudge against Raon Guild is that one guy. Which leaves exactly one candidate, doesn't it?"

"So you'd already suspected that bastard from the start, which means I'm the one who's cleared."

"I was going to bring it up when the time was right. Getting sucker punched first is a little annoying, but if you show enough sincerity, I'll let it slide."

At the word sincerity, Yu Seyeon's eyebrow twitched.

Park Siyu wasn't petty enough to sulk over something like this.

Seyeon's expression made it clear she couldn't wrap her head around it.

"Why are you even holding onto a card you can't control?"

"I promised to back him up with an item during this joint expedition."

"Ah, so that's why I'm supposed to raid my own collection as an apology too?"

"Got a problem with that?"

Park Siyu said it without a shred of hesitation.

They were the injured party here, so a request like this was well within reason.

Song Eunyoung, the one Kang Hangyeol had brought in, wasn't ordinary either.

Lack of real combat experience was a flaw, sure, but that was the kind of thing time would take care of on its own.

Talent couldn't be made up for with time. Kang Hangyeol's report had gone into extensive detail about Song Eunyoung.

And if Hangyeol actually managed to bring Choi Suhyun in on top of that, the ripple effect alone would be worth plenty.

Even for a hidden boss, that couldn't have been easy to deal with.

The red-horned Bicorn was fairly nasty. Whenever that particular monster showed up, a team usually ended up with one or two seriously injured members.

Since there was already a favor owed, Park Siyu was planning to sink his claws into Kang Hangyeol while he had the chance.

Yu Seyeon pressed her lips shut.

It wasn't just about Kang Hangyeol. Strange rumors had been circulating about Choi Suhyun lately too.

Talk that Choi Suhyun was about to quit the Hunter Association, that he'd signed a contract with a new god.

Rumors like that had always followed Choi Suhyun around ever since he became Unaffiliated, but this time the shape and mood of it felt subtly different.

Whatever god was in contact with Choi Suhyun mattered, sure, but if that god wasn't a named one, there was only one place he could end up going.

If Choi Suhyun ever joined Aria Guild, exactly what kind of treatment he'd need to be given was already obvious.

"Damn it. Fine."

Since the fault lay on her side, there was nothing to gain by holding out any longer.

"I'll share the information."

Park Siyu glanced at his watch and gave the shortest summary he could manage.

The targeted Hunters were, for the most part, people who'd fallen into a rut.

Yu Seyeon crossed her legs and leaned back into the sofa, listening to the whole thing.

"I never even considered that angle."

"What'd you find?"

"Four years ago."

"Four years ago?"

While Park Siyu had focused on investigating the people who'd been present in failed dungeons, Seyeon's angle had centered on database-based failure rates and baseless rumors surrounding dungeons.

Four years ago was right around when the three guilds had merged.

"You know about bossless dungeons, right?"

A phenomenon that had become fairly common in recent times, where the boss simply failed to appear inside a failed dungeon.

Since it got reported several times a year, she knew it well enough.

Even Seyeon connecting bossless dungeons to this current matter had been pure coincidence.

Bossless dungeons were a phenomenon unique to Korea. That alone made no sense to begin with.

"If this were happening completely at random, it wouldn't make sense for reports to only come out of Korea."

Yu Seyeon added that she'd send over the detailed data.

"So where does the boss go?"

"No idea. Anyway, it's all just gut feeling, no real physical evidence. Which brings up a question. Do you know anything about the god Seo Jihoon follows?"

Seo Jihoon had once served the god Lux.

All she knew was that things had gone sour with Raon Guild for some reason, and he'd split off to found Black Holdings.

"Not really."

Aria Guild had Hunters serving all kinds of gods within its ranks. Seo Jihoon was no exception.

"I think this whole thing is connected to whatever god Seo Jihoon follows now."

"Could be Raon Guild's people behind it."

"You were flat out suspecting them earlier, and now you're changing your story?"

"Just talking possibilities. Anyway, stop digging around behind my back after this. Push me one more time and I'll take it as a declaration of war."

"Sounds like you're planning to start some internal strife in the guild."

"If it's necessary, I will."

"I've got no interest in fighting you."

"I'll get going first."