WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 53: One Misunderstanding Breeds Another (1)
──────
I think I'd finally found the source of Jihan's discomfort.
Jihan had been able to kill people in the tower because, without even realizing it, he'd treated them as outsiders.
The people in the lobby weren't like that. They weren't strangers to him, not in any meaningful way.
For the first time, Jihan felt like he'd committed a real murder.
[Take it easy.]
I thought I understood what dilemma Jihan had gotten himself tangled up in.
Central Guild would use any means necessary to hold onto power.
Threats against new users, kidnapping, confinement, assault, contract killings, and sexual crimes, they did all of it without hesitation.
If this had been reality, every single one of those bastards would've racked up at least ten prior convictions.
This wasn't something I could fix by lecturing him. He had to work it out himself.
[Nobody can be a good person to everyone. That's impossible. Doesn't matter if you killed someone or robbed them. None of that matters. Trust your own sense of justice.]
There was no mechanism here to punish someone for killing.
Nobody was going to step in and tell him it was wrong. So in the end, there was no way around it, he had to judge his own sense of justice for himself.
"I know that already! Ugh, I don't even know how we got on this topic. What I'm saying is, there are some vets in there."
"Vets?"
"Guys who cleared Floor 29 but never went into Floor 30."
The tower was split into a lower section, a middle section, and an upper section, and each section had its own lobby.
Clearing Floor 30 let you move up to the middle lobby.
"No idea why that guy hasn't gone into Floor 30, but he's strong."
I could already guess roughly what Jihan wanted to ask.
Complicated feelings aside, Jihan just plain hated Central Guild.
"I want to get stronger. Strong enough to kill those bastards."
The way Jihan bowed his head, it was clear he meant every word.
And I happened to know a few decent missions on Layer 4.
[Like I told you before, my tuition isn't cheap.]
"You need merit points, don't you?"
This kid could read the room when it counted.
The stronger Jihan got, and the more merit points he brought back, the stronger I got too.
My relationship with Jihan felt a lot like a crocodile and its little bird.
I came to my senses.
Morning sunlight slipped through a gap in the half-open blackout curtains.
A voice came out of a phone set to speaker.
"Hangyeol won't wake up, what do I do?"
"Why the hell are you calling me about that first thing in the morning like it's my problem? Just slap him!"
"Well, slapping seems a little..."
I sat up in bed and Eunyoung noona, who'd been on the phone, jumped in surprise.
Wait, how did she even get into my apartment?
Seeing me awake, noona hung up the call.
I'd worried about how things might go between her and Choi Suhyun when I brought her in, but from the sound of that phone call, that worry had been pointless.
"So how exactly did you get in here?"
This was flat-out trespassing.
"How do you think? I opened the door and walked in."
Noona glanced at the door like it was nothing.
These days even studio apartments came with digital locks as standard.
I gave her a look like are you serious, and she just laughed it off, unbothered.
The last time she'd visited, she must have peeked at the code.
Still, who actually goes and memorizes a code just to let themselves in later?
"I'm reporting you."
"Aw, between us?"
"What exactly do you mean, between us?"
"Your one and only comrade? Look, Choi Suhyun hasn't even officially joined yet, right? So it's just you and me. Times like this, we should be looking out for each other, don't you think?"
Her lecture was so ridiculous it left me speechless.
I'd already noticed it with Yu Jihan back in the tower, but seriously, why was everyone around me this shameless?
"So why did you actually come?"
"You're asking me that? You went dark for three whole days, I thought something might've happened to you."
Noona scolded me like the question itself was absurd.
Wait. Three days?
I scrambled to find my phone.
Watching me dig through the room, noona pulled it out from under the couch and handed it over.
The battery was barely hanging on, but I checked the date anyway.
Just like she said, three days had passed.
Missed calls and messages had piled up on the screen.
"See, I told you. Choi Suhyun just brushed it off, said not to worry about it, treated the whole thing like a hassle. Is he actually joining our side or not? He's not scamming us, is he?"
"Ha, that's just how he is. He'll come around."
"Ugh, I hate that guy."
Noona turned her head away, lips puckered into a pout.
She started rifling through my fridge without asking.
I grabbed her arm fast.
"Let's just order in."
There wasn't much in the way of side dishes in there anyway, but the bigger issue was that I could not let this woman cook.
I wasn't exaggerating, she might genuinely have no concept of what seasoning was.
It baffled me that a person could be like that.
After enough pleading, bordering on begging, she finally shut the fridge.
While noona ordered delivery on her phone, I ducked into the bathroom.
I splashed some water on my face and looked in the mirror.
Something jingled below my neck.
I could say with total confidence, I did not own a necklace like this.
A single key hung off the end of a leather cord.
Wait a second.
This had to be the Silver Key that Noden gave me.
Which meant.
I threw the bathroom door open and rushed out.
Right then, noona picked a sword up off the floor and leaned it against the wall.
A design I'd never seen before.
Plain on the outside, though it looked a little thinner and narrower than most swords.
I drew it partway and checked the blade.
The blue-tinged edge was stunning.
"Oh wow. Pretty."
Noona, watching beside me, stared at it like it was something fascinating.
The Sword of Sky and Earth.
I knew the name sounded ridiculously arrogant, but this thing clearly had the value to back it up.
It was almost a shame I couldn't try it out right away.
Ding dong, the delivery bell rang.
Noona and I set the food down on the small floor table and had lunch.
Three days out cold.
Thankfully, time in the tower ran a bit slower than in reality.
I'd definitely stayed longer than usual this time, but I never expected the gap to be this big.
Noona never asked where I'd been for those three days.
I felt a little grateful that she'd only worried about me, no questions asked.
After finishing her meal, noona got ready to head out.
Funny, considering how she just barged in earlier.
"Leaving already?"
"I think I've got a dungeon run tonight. Actually, they wanted to meet a bit early for a briefing, but I told them I probably couldn't make it."
Meaning, now that she knew I was fine, she'd go to the briefing after all.
"You gonna be okay?"
Skyfield was a dungeon I'd gone into with her, but this time I wouldn't be there.
I knew I couldn't keep tagging along to help forever, but I still felt a little worried.
Noona answered like it was nothing to fuss over.
"I've gotten plenty of help already. Can't keep leaning on you forever."
She mentioned she'd already cleared a D-rank dungeon on her own while I was in the tower.
Knowing she'd already cleared a dungeon with other hunters, the tension in my chest eased right up.
"Oh, right, Hangyeol. How does the sponsor thing work?"
Noona, halfway into her shoes, asked like she'd just remembered.
"Go into your status window, bottom right corner, should be there."
"Found it. Thanks. I'll call you after the dungeon."
Once she left, I unplugged my phone from the charger and called Park Siyu.
"That was fast."
"Happened to be free. Good timing."
Turned out noona wasn't the only one who'd tried reaching me during my three days off the grid.
Park Siyu had left a message asking me to call whenever I got the chance.
"Yeah? Good to hear."
"That would be nice, except that message went out thirty-seven hours ago."
"Did you really have to say that out loud?"
Going by every call I'd had with Park Siyu so far, this guy was way pettier than he looked.
Weirdly fixated on stuff like this, I guess. He wasn't exactly normal either.
Guess that's why he's friends with someone like Choi Suhyun.
Sounded like he had a lot to get through, because Park Siyu kept talking without a pause.
"There's a dungeon briefing at Aria Guild this evening before the team-up with Raon. Be there."
"What about the joint briefing with Raon Guild?"
"Given how quiet they've been, sounds like it's still happening as planned... though I wouldn't get my hopes up."
Listening to Park Siyu, cracks were already showing before the dungeon run had even started.
"Once you're heading into a dungeon, information sharing needs to be transparent."
"Pretty sure you're not one to talk."
"Be there."
Park Siyu ignored my complaint entirely and kept plowing forward with what he wanted to say.
Being part of the guild meant I did what I was told.
Sure, Park Siyu cut me some slack here and there, but underneath it all, our relationship was still fundamentally employer and employee.
"Heard you asked Choi Suhyun about Seo Jihoon."
Funny enough, I'd been planning to call Choi Suhyun about exactly that once I got off the phone with Park Siyu.
But Park Siyu's tone didn't sit right with me.
"If it's guild business, ask me. At the very least."
Park Siyu made no effort to hide how put out he was.
"You guys work together, don't you? Felt weird digging around behind your back."
"You think the three of us are just coworkers?"
"Co-founders? And it's not like I asked anything crazy."
I'd literally just asked what kind of guy Seo Jihoon was, and the fact that he'd already run and tattled to Park Siyu told me exactly how much he hadn't wanted to answer.
"I'd appreciate it if you understood why Choi Suhyun recommended you to me in the first place. That's the last of my nagging."
"Wow, I'm touched. Really."
Ignoring my sarcasm, Park Siyu gave me a brief rundown on Seo Jihoon.
Black Holdings, the guild Seo Jihoon led, had split off from Raon Guild, and even before merging with Aria Guild, Black Holdings and Raon Guild hadn't gotten along.
After the merger into Aria Guild, things had smoothed over, on the surface, at least.
Strictly on the surface.
He drew a line there, saying he'd fill in the rest in person.
Since Park Siyu had already covered it, I could skip calling Choi Suhyun altogether now.
"I keep forgetting to bring this up, do you know a Kim Yuhan?"
"Who?"
"A member from the Giant Ant Cavern team."
I'd heard updates on the other members since then, but weirdly, nothing at all about Kim Yuhan.
Park Siyu told me to hold on, and I heard keyboard clicks over the phone.
"A Giant Ant Cavern member, you said?"
"Yeah, why?"
"No such person exists."
"What? What are you talking about? Did you actually check properly?"
I kept pushing him to double-check, but all I got back was irritation from Park Siyu.
The name Kim Yuhan didn't show up anywhere, not in any guild report, not anywhere at all, he said.
In Kim Yuhan's place sat the name of some hunter I'd never even heard of.
That couldn't be right.
"You guys didn't get your servers hacked or something, did you? Your security holding up okay?"
I said it half-joking, but honestly, I meant it.
I couldn't exactly admit that I hadn't written the report exactly as things happened, but I never expected it to come back and bite me like this.
One lie had bred another.
The one saving grace was that whatever happened in that dungeon seemed to be something both Kim Yuhan and I wanted buried.
After An Juhye's report came in, I knew Min Seongtaek and Kang Hyeonseung had both submitted new reports on the Giant Ant Cavern dungeon.
That was just the guild's directive, though, tell us everything since we already know, not Park Siyu conducting a direct interview with the two of them.
"It's suspicious, sure, but does it need looking into?"
"No, leave it alone."
If anything, this was my problem to deal with.
Thankfully, Park Siyu didn't push back.
Knowing that Kim Yuhan had become a ghost the Aria Guild data servers couldn't track down, that was enough for now.
"See you later, then."
That was the end of the call with Park Siyu.
I cleaned the apartment, ran a few errands, and half the day disappeared before I knew it.
Guess I should head out soon.
A little early was better than showing up late and getting an earful.
Once I was ready to leave, I looked up at the firmly shut steel door.
A stranger, some man, stood right outside my door.
Through the gap of a half-open window, a young man's voice drifted in.
"...that's it, right? Don't feed me bullshit, shut up. Or you're dead."
The man sounded thoroughly pissed off.
Something about the voice nagged at my memory.
Judging by the footsteps and the voice getting closer, it sounded like he was heading straight for my door.
Between noona earlier and now this, I couldn't figure out why my place was suddenly so popular with visitors today.
It wasn't even a nice apartment.
Just in case, I used Mana Detection.
The instant I activated it, the voice on the other side of the door cut off.
What just happened?
I wondered if I'd made a mistake, but that didn't seem to be it.
Come to think of it, I'd never once used Mana Detection during the Giant Ant Cavern run.
No reason to, not when I could already see everything in front of me.
This time was different.
Sword in hand, I focused past the closed door.
This should not have been possible, not in any world.
Yu Jihan?
Why the hell was this kid standing outside my apartment?
Silence stretched out, thick with tension.
Whoever was outside seemed to have noticed I'd used Mana Detection too.
After a long pause, a voice finally came through the door.
"Not here to fight, so open the door while I'm still being nice about it. Unless you want to die."
How was any part of that being nice?
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
