I Returned as a God - Chapter 48

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Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 48: A Tale of Strangers (4)

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After leaving the dungeon, I made sure to let Yu Seyeon's name slip to Choi Suhyun on purpose.

Cornering Choi Suhyun and unloading some nonsense complaint was just a bonus.

I'd figured Choi Suhyun couldn't possibly miss my intent, and that's exactly what made the whole thing work.

My protest about Park Siyu seemed to have landed well enough, but I hadn't expected the other side to respond like this.

While I hesitated over what to say back, another message popped up.

"She says she had no intention of harming you."

Sounded like Park Siyu had given Yu Seyeon a firm talking to.

"The payment for the Bicorn horn has been sent, go check it."

Messages kept piling up without a break, so I pulled up my banking app on my phone.

The payment for the horn I'd handed over was already sitting there the moment I left the dungeon.

I sent back a message saying I'd let them know about the item by tomorrow.

Let's see.

I scrolled through the item list Park Siyu had sent.

I'd figured he'd toss me one decent thing and call it a day, but the lineup was way more substantial than I'd expected.

Picking just one felt like a waste. Someone had clearly put real thought into this.

What did I even do? Why's he going this hard?

Still, he probably had the means to hand over something like this without even blinking, or he wouldn't have put it on the list.

After some deliberation, I picked one item.

Yu Seyeon's list didn't need much thought at all, the answer was obvious.

From Park Siyu, I took Haejoo's Ring. From Yu Seyeon, Angervadir.

Haejoo's Ring, an ungraded item, came with a skill that could negate magic.

I had no real countermeasure against mez-type skills like poison or stun, so having something like this in my back pocket wasn't a bad idea.

And Angervadir, the one from Yu Seyeon, was perfect as an emergency backup dagger.

All things considered, not a bad haul.

A few hours after I sent the list, Park Siyu replied that he'd confirmed it.

What's left, then... a joint dungeon expedition with Raon Guild. And Seo Jihoon?

I remembered him being the third guild representative still standing at Aria Guild.

Something about it kept nagging at me, refusing to go away.

I'll have to ask Choi Suhyun again. But before that.

There was something I needed to do first.

The lobby was still a wreck. Several of the old temporary structures had collapsed.

The problem was that it wasn't just one or two buildings like that.

The scale was way beyond what I could clean up alone, so I didn't even bother trying.

I ignored the piles of debris and walked into the tower.

[??]

Floor: 4

Having safely reached the capital, you go to meet the vice guild master as planned. There, you...

Reward: Merit points [10,000]

There, what?

Even if the tower's gone completely haywire, that doesn't mean you get to go haywire too.

This is driving me insane.

I opened my eyes slowly. The murmur of a crowd filled a large building around me.

The first and second floors doubled as a lobby and dining hall.

People packed the space shoulder to shoulder, eating or chattering away, not an inch of floor to spare.

Looked like I'd somehow made it to the capital.

At first I'd assumed this tower was just about clearing missions.

This feels like...

Like I was following along inside somebody else's old story.

That was just the feeling I got. In front of me sat a rolled omelet, some sausages, and a beer.

Sitting alone at the table, I figured it was fine to eat.

I had the sausages with the beer. Tasted like a dark ale, sweet but with a sharp fizz to it, pretty decent.

What kind of beer was this, anyway? A flavor you'd never find back in Korea.

Calling it a meal was generous. It felt more like just filling the hole in my stomach.

Behind me, some mercenaries were talking loudly.

"Hey, you hear? They never caught the train terrorist."

"I heard it was a half-muel who did it."

"Broke a taboo, apparently. What's weird is there wasn't a single survivor on the train."

"Did the half-blood get away?"

"No, they found the body out on the plains near the capital. Someone killed the half-muel and the infected on the train, but nobody knows who."

"Turned out fine in the end though, didn't it? If all the infected on that train had made it outside, it would've been a disaster."

The mercenaries kept talking about the train terror incident.

The word train grated on my ears for some reason.

But something felt off.

Train terror and infected...

Something felt wrong here.

A neatly dressed man approached my table.

"The vice guild master would like to see you."

I got up from my seat and followed the man upstairs.

He opened the office door for me.

Behind a massive glass wall, a red-haired woman sat at a high-end wooden desk.

She waved her hand and the man bowed and stepped out.

The moment the two of us were alone in the spacious office, she raised her voice.

"Have you lost your mind? What the hell did you do?"

"I know you were behind the train incident."

I'd definitely succeeded at the assassination.

So what was this about a train incident?

Between what the mercenaries downstairs had said and what this woman was saying now, nothing lined up.

"I can't live like this because of you. What in the world were you thinking, pulling something like that?"

"No, wait..."

"Don't bother making excuses. I'm not even going to listen. And here I thought I'd finally get to see your face after so long."

She pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed.

There was no way to deny it now, not with her like this.

What's going on here?

Was this just how things normally went?

Or had something gone wrong?

Nothing about it made any sense.

An awkward silence settled between us.

I felt like I had to say something.

Going by the setup, this character was a mercenary belonging to a fairly large-scale mercenary band, who'd come up to the capital to take on "a certain job."

The train incident had just been one event that happened along the way to the capital, nothing more.

I read the woman's expression carefully and asked.

"So, um, what do I do now?"

The woman, sitting in her chair, sighed.

She seemed to have realized that saying anything more about the train was pointless.

"Who cares."

"How can you be so indifferent? I came all the way up from the provinces, went through hell, all for one job."

Since I was acting a part anyway, I figured I might as well commit to the role.

Though technically that part was true.

At my attitude, the woman let out a short laugh.

Not mockery, more like she found the whole thing absurd.

Thankfully, her expression softened quickly.

She switched to something closer to a persuading tone.

"Wait a few days. You only just got up to the capital, didn't you?"

"That's true, yeah."

"I called you here today just to see your face. I was worried you might get caught. But from what I hear, sounds like there's no need to worry about that."

Her tone had eased considerably, and I just shrugged quietly in response.

I hadn't actually done it, but explaining that in detail seemed like it'd never end.

She rested her elbow on the desk and propped her chin in her hand.

"I'll call you again. In the meantime, why not just handle some job around here? Money's not tight, is it?"

I kept my mouth shut.

Since clearing the lower floors, poking around at various things had given me a fair amount of information.

This world resembled the continent I'd first been transported to. Maybe that's why adjusting hadn't been too hard.

I opened my status window.

The moment she finished speaking, the status window had already changed.

[Handle it yourself, however works.]

Having safely arrived in the capital, you go to meet the vice guild master as planned. There, you meet the vice guild master, "Erel Von Irfillia." After getting thoroughly scolded by her, you realize you have about a week of leeway before your mission. If that's the case, why the rush to get here in the first place? Well, per Erel's advice, since funds aren't exactly flush, you decide to handle a job from within the guild for now.

Objective: Clear one of the requests posted in the guild lobby.

+) Additional merit points obtainable depending on the request.

What kind of title is "handle it yourself, however works."

Not exactly a title I loved, but the result was satisfying enough.

As I turned to leave, Erel tossed something at me.

A small gold nameplate, a little smaller than a playing card.

She added an explanation for it.

"That's a special plate made for guild masters. You can use up to ten thousand gold personally with it, anything beyond that needs approval."

"If I have this, why would I even need to take a request?"

I didn't know exactly what ten thousand gold was worth, but it clearly wasn't a small amount.

"Ugh, do whatever you want. Not my problem."

She seemed too tired to keep talking, waving a hand at me to get out.

Erel's desk was piled high with documents.

She looked exactly like an overworked, pitiable manager buried in work.

And even buried like that, there wasn't a single opening in her.

Her sword rested at an angle against the wall behind her black chair.

Throughout the conversation, I could tell she was an exceptional swordswoman.

Even her smallest, most unremarkable movements carried discipline, without a single opening.

She had to be seriously skilled as a swordswoman too.

Made sense, really, that's probably how she'd climbed all the way to vice guild master.

No matter how clueless I might've been about the world, even I understood that the vice guild master of a guild powerful enough to build a headquarters right in the heart of the capital couldn't possibly be some middling figure.

"What are you doing? Not leaving?"

Pen in hand, Erel jerked her chin toward the door, telling me to hurry up.

She bowed her head like she'd already forgotten we'd just been talking and went back to reviewing her documents.

Incredible focus.

I had nothing left to say, and figured bothering her further wouldn't help anything, so I left the office.

Downstairs was still just as loud and busy. I came down to the lobby floor by way of the fourth-floor stairs.

Finding a seat again looked impossible.

I turned my attention to the wall instead.

The first-floor lobby, doubling as a dining hall and request office, worked as a kind of meeting square.

One whole wall was covered in request slips.

It was the total opposite of hammering F5 on a guild board over and over to catch a dungeon you liked, then racing everyone else to type up a comment before anyone could beat you to it.

Analog charm, I guess you could call it.

Not that it mattered either way to me.

The wall was divided into six sections total.

Each section held requests of different difficulty.

Everything from the one-star "find the lost cat" to the three-star "escort a merchant caravan," a wide range in both variety and difficulty.

I fiddled with the gold plate Erel had given me in my pocket.

If it was made specifically for a guild master, there was a good chance it wasn't bound by difficulty limits.

If I get bonus merit points depending on the request...

Obviously, the smart move was to grab the best one available.

I walked straight to the far end of the wall without hesitation.

Unlike the sections packed with countless requests, the very corner had only a handful of request slips.

More than half of them were old, faded slips, requests left unclaimed for so long nobody had ever picked them up.