WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 51: The Eerie Tall House in the Fog (3)

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My body felt light. Felt like I could fly, even.

The ghoul that spotted me flinched and went on guard.

An attack came flying in from the side. I twisted my body slightly and swung my sword to cut it down.

"Fool me once, huh? You're not fooling me twice."

I'd gotten a solid read on the fact that ghouls could pull off spatial displacement.

A tentacle shot straight at me head on.

Didn't look like it was even trying to hide anymore.

I swung my leg instead of my sword.

Felt something crunch against the tip of my foot.

I readjusted my grip on the sword, watching the tentacles pull back to put distance between us.

The fog didn't come near the ghoul's surroundings.

Looked like getting up top would have to wait a bit longer.

"Alright. Judgment time."

Now I could finally cut these ghouls apart without holding back.

I drove my sword into the ground.

I pulled the sword back out, and some strange fluid sprayed up through the gash.

Looked like blood, but it had almost no color to it, more like water.

The tentacles and clumped masses shriveled up like dried-out squid.

The crumbling corpse seeped into the ground and vanished without a trace.

Fled would be a better word than died.

These ghouls weren't things you could just kill and be done with.

As the ghouls started disappearing, the fog thickened bit by bit.

One ghoul, having watched me slice its buddies to ribbons, tensed up and started backing away slowly.

I closed the distance fast and raised my sword.

The instant the tip was about to touch its body, my movement stopped dead.

It felt like something was forcibly dragging my body back.

The more I pushed toward attacking the shriveled-up ghoul, the stronger that force got.

Whoever you are, you want to try me?

[That's enough, nameless visitor.]

An unexpected voice rang through my head.

The ghoul in front of me vanished the instant my attention slipped.

Once I let go of the killing intent, my movement returned to normal on its own.

Fog crept back in, slow and thick, over the spot where the ghoul had disappeared.

I turned toward where the ladder had been, a beat too late, only to find nothing but white fog filling the space.

Just heading back the way I came offered no guarantee I'd find that same ladder again.

I looked up.

[Who are you?]

[Come up.]

After a long pause, the voice answered.

Come up where, exactly?

The fog pushed back, centered on the spot where I stood.

The ladder that had vanished into the fog reappeared in front of me.

A wooden house floated above the ladder.

"No matter how I look at it, that's not the size of a small house."

Looking up at it from below, a size like that had to belong to a pretty big house.

That house was clearly the "small house" Randolph Carter had told me about.

I stepped onto the ladder and climbed.

It really was a strange house wrapped entirely in fog.

Sure enough, once I got up the ladder, the house turned out to be exactly as huge as I'd expected.

The outside looked like an ordinary log cabin, but the sheer size made me feel like I'd shrunk down to nothing.

There was a small door next to the big wooden one.

I'd been wondering how I was even supposed to open a door that massive, so that saved me the trouble.

I opened the normal-sized door and stepped inside.

The moment I opened it, bright light greeted me.

The instant I realized it wasn't ordinary light, I scrunched up my face and shut my eyes.

The ocean?

Sounds tied to the sea rang out around me, crashing waves, gulls, dolphins.

I slowly opened my eyes as the light settled.

Something wrapped in light revealed itself.

It was riding a shell pulled by some kind of sea creature.

An oppressive weight I couldn't put into words hit me, and my breath caught, cold sweat running down my back.

Fear, awe, unease, restlessness, all of it flashed through me at once.

It looked like an old man, maybe a hundred years old, its skin covered in moss and coral-like sea plants.

A fish that had slipped off the shell flopped around at my feet.

A droplet from the shell fell onto the fish. The fish disappeared into the droplet.

It felt like something out of a fairy tale. Not much fazes me these days, but even I was a little thrown this time.

But that was as far as it went.

Whoever this thing was, that didn't matter.

I just needed to do what I came here to do.

"You know a Randolph Carter?"

I called out, looking up. It moved slowly and looked down at me.

My neck's about to snap here.

No answer came back.

Showing him directly seemed faster than trying to explain in words.

I pulled the letter Carter had given me out from inside my coat.

One of the dolphins perched on the shell darted over, took the letter from my hand, and carried it back up.

Can that thing even read?

Either way, I'd delivered it like I was told, whether it could read the thing or not wasn't my problem.

The letter landed in its enormous hand.

After a long pause, it finally spoke.

[Seems he still hasn't given up.]

Sounded like it was talking about Carter, but I had no way to know right then what exactly he hadn't given up on.

[The key to the basement.]

"What do you mean?"

[He'll find what he wants in the basement. Tell him that.]

I nodded at its words.

[Now it's your turn, nameless visitor. Who are you, and how did you come to be here?]

"Do I have to explain?"

I crossed my arms and looked up at it with a crooked, skeptical look.

My goal was to find the small house and deliver the letter to this thing.

Goal accomplished, so there wasn't any real need for us to keep talking.

[Distrust?]

It hit the nail on the head, and since it wasn't wrong, I didn't bother denying it.

An unidentified deity-tier being. Being on guard was only natural.

[I mean you no harm.]

"How am I supposed to believe that?"

I didn't know a single thing about this being.

My distrust toward gods was already at its peak, and here I was meeting something on the god tier.

Even if it wasn't hostile, staying wary was the only option.

[What is it you fear so much? There's nothing to be afraid of.]

It spoke to me like it was soothing a spooked animal.

There was no way it just guessed its way to that answer, so odds were high it was reading my mind.

Without denying what I was thinking, it kept talking.

[I am not your enemy, nameless visitor.]

This thing seemed desperate to get chummy with me.

I didn't sense any hostility, and it was going this far to reassure me, so listening for a bit probably wouldn't hurt.

After my own questions got answered, though.

"Who are you?"

[Noden.]

A name I'd never heard before.

The moment Noden said its name, light flashed all around it.

Proof that Noden wasn't a fake name, but the real thing.

Since it had introduced itself first, I couldn't very well stay silent either.

For a moment, I found myself wondering how I should introduce myself to Noden.

"I'm..."

I quietly spoke my divine title.

I'd only whispered it low, but Noden nodded like it had heard every word clearly.

Then Noden made an unusual offer.

[Would you allow me to look at you a little?]

Nothing in its tone felt forceful or pushy, but the meaning behind Noden's offer was clear enough.

It wanted to look through my memories.

Given that it was already reading my mind without permission, there wasn't much it couldn't do if it wanted to.

Can't win against this.

Overwhelming power. Even calling us both gods, Noden and I were still on completely different levels.

Been a while since I'd felt something like this.

Even though it could've just forced its way in, Noden used a tone that seemed almost considerate toward me.

Noticing my hesitation, Noden added something.

[If you let me look, I'll give you a small gift in return.]

Cheeky thing, figuring out I liked gifts.

"Fine."

Worst case, I lose nothing.

Besides, I tended to trust my gut on these things.

Something about this thing felt different from every other god I'd met so far.

More precisely, my gut told me it was a being operating on a whole different dimension.

At my permission, Noden moved its hand.

Ghouls that had been hiding among the shell-carriage crowd showed themselves.

Their tentacles crept slowly toward me.

[No need to tense up.]

Noden's voice came warm and soothing, but it didn't do much to help.

These were the same things that had cost me a leg from just a graze.

Even maintaining a body in soul form, I doubted there'd be zero damage involved.

The tentacles near Noden wrapped around my body.

The tentacles, black at first, gradually started glowing.

The slick, slippery feel of them sliding over me wasn't exactly pleasant.

Memories flashed past in a rapid panorama.

By the time I came back to my senses, the tentacles running over my body had all pulled away.

[How is it you came to be here?]

"What are you on about?"

It had already seen every one of my memories, so I didn't get why it was asking something so vague.

The ghouls' tentacles touched Noden's body.

Having read the rest of my memories, Noden spoke.

[I see. You are a traveler of twisted time, then?]

I didn't bother denying it.

This tower, this whole dimension, was a world that made no sense to begin with, so it made sense the being would react that way.

[Perhaps it is fate that brought you here.]

"Explain in words I can actually understand."

[Follow the path. Then you will come to know the truth.]

Before I could even ask my question, the whole house filled with blinding light.

The light was too strong to even think about looking at Noden directly.

[As promised, a gift. And take this as a small kindness of mine, traveler.]

['Sword of Sky and Earth' obtained.]

['Silver Key' obtained.]

The moment those words ended, I opened my eyes I'd shut tight, and found myself back in front of Randolph Carter's house.

[Layer 4 cleared.]

[Moving to the space between 4 and 5.]

"Ugh, damn it."

Another school classroom, same as before.

At this point the location barely registered.

After Noden kicked me out, I met Randolph Carter again.

I handed Carter the letter, then relayed the answer I'd gotten.

He heard the answer I brought back and tilted his head.

Whatever it meant wasn't any of my business.

Request completed, payment received, and Layer 4 got cleared.

Still, I couldn't quite shake an uneasy feeling nagging at me.

Noden had given me two items as gifts.

The Sword of Sky and Earth. (Too long a name, so I decided to just call it the Sky Sword.)

And the Silver Key. No idea what the first one really was, but the second one looked like nothing more than an ordinary key, no matter how I looked at it.

Yu Jihan still hadn't shown up.

Guessed the timelines didn't line up this time.

In the meantime, I opened my status window.

[(Notification) There is an unviewed video.]

Video? What video? I never recorded anything like that.

Honestly, I couldn't keep track of how many useless features this thing kept piling on.

[Yu Jihan (Guardian)]

Viewable list: Layer 1, Layer 2, Layer 3

Was this "video" thing really what I thought it was?

Without thinking much, I tapped the Layer 3 video.

Yu Jihan's Layer 3 playthrough started playing in front of my eyes.

Only then did I finally understand why my own Layer 4 had ended up looking the way it did.

The classroom's front door slid open, and Yu Jihan's face poked through.

"Ugh, seriously, why are there so many classrooms? Where the hell is that bastard even at?"

I watched Yu Jihan walk in through the door, and my jaw dropped.

Wait, is this little punk serious?

What the hell did you even do on that train!

Footnotes:

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