WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 57: One Misunderstanding Breeds Another (5)

──────

I figured the conversation between the two would wrap up fast. Instead, it just kept dragging on.

"No, that data was definitely outside what my B-Rank Hunter clearance could access."

Park Siyu didn't answer right away. He just looked down at the woman below him with a faint air of arrogance.

The Hunters seated in front were the ones eligible to join the raid once the dungeon strategy meeting wrapped. If I had to compare it to a movie, Park Siyu was the screenwriter and director, and the people sitting there were the lead cast.

"Say what you came to say."

"I take it you don't feel any responsibility for the last expedition?"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't be standing here right now, busy as I am. I'd say I'm taking plenty of responsibility. Or should I be holding a memorial service for every Hunter who died, one by one?"

"So you're saying the Hunters who died there died well?"

"I don't know what counts as dying well, but I'd say they died giving it everything they had. I wasn't there myself, so I can't say for certain."

"Hunters aren't chess pieces."

Park Siyu sighed at the woman's words.

The mood felt different from when I'd first walked in.

"Climb up here if it bothers you so much."

"Like I could even get up on the platform you're standing on right now."

The Hunter who'd shot to their feet in a huff sat back down, still fuming.

"Let's continue. Why do you think dungeons fail even after thorough preparation going in?"

"Something unexpected happens, I'd guess. A mutant monster, a fake dungeon, that sort of thing."

Someone in the front row answered Park Siyu's question.

"That's a fair point. But if you actually look at the cases of failed dungeons, more than half start from internal problems. External factors can usually be handled well enough if you throw enough heads at the problem. But the human heart is something you can never fully pin down."

Park Siyu glanced briefly at the woman he'd been arguing with.

"To put it plainly, I consider the failure of the last expedition to have come from internal division. To be precise, not our team, but the vanguard. And for the record, that report is readable by any A-Rank Hunter. It's practically public information as long as you meet the qualification. I just didn't see any reason to write a detailed account of another guild's business into it."

A man sitting in the seat farthest from the woman spoke up.

"What do we do about Raon Guild's people?"

"Cooperate with them inside the dungeon. That's the smart move. As for after..."

Park Siyu scanned the Hunters seated in the meeting room before continuing.

"Handle it yourselves, however works."

Not a single Hunter in that room misunderstood what that meant.

Emboldened by the Hunter in front, someone further back raised their hand.

"So then, what about the raid tickets? Rumor has it, it's not three stars, it's four."

"Sorry, but raid info can't be shared with anyone besides ticket holders."

"Hypothetically, if there are leftover tickets, what happens? Just asking hypothetically."

"When you walk into a full restaurant, do you check with someone first whether a seat's actually open? 'Excuse me, is this seat really free?' Is that what you do?"

"Why would anyone bother with that? You just sit down. Whoever gets there first and sits owns the seat."

"Then get there first."

It really was that simple.

Park Siyu gestured again, and a slide deck appeared.

The meeting ran another two hours. Looking at the sheer volume of material, way too polished to have been thrown together on short notice, one thing became obvious.

This wasn't a team-up or a joint dungeon clear anymore. Not by a long shot.

The long, exhausting meeting finally ended.

Park Siyu left the moment it was over, no chance to even get a word in.

Most of the Hunters filed out of the meeting room right after Park Siyu's exit. Not all of them, though.

"Been a while. First time since the Giant Ant Cavern, right?"

Min Seongtaek walked up and held out his hand.

Out of habit I almost reached out with my right arm before remembering it was injured, and shook with my left instead.

"You look like hell. You okay?"

"Ah, ha ha. Lots been going on."

"Right. I saw that HighTube video of you. That was really you, wasn't it? What the hell happened there?"

Kang Hyeonseung, unable to hold back his curiosity, jumped in first.

Min Seongtaek shot him a look, but Kang Hyeonseung just shrugged like it was no big deal.

"I always figured you were solid, skill-wise. Still, I was pretty surprised when your name showed up on the representative list."

Looked like the list had already been announced before I got here.

The three guild masters had agreed that each of them could recommend exactly one member for the expedition. And whoever they picked, no other representative could veto that pick, no matter what.

Even if the other representatives, or the Hunters under them, weren't happy about it.

This dungeon expedition had become quite the topic inside Aria Guild. Being picked by your guild's representative meant a lot more than a simple recommendation.

Same as me, the other two picks hadn't even been Hunters for five years yet.

Simply put, if this operation went off without a hitch, it was basically a public declaration that the guild master intended to back that person going forward.

The video had been taken down, but everyone who wanted to see it already had.

Min Seongtaek and Kang Hyeonseung seemed to think that incident was exactly what had caught Park Siyu's eye.

And they weren't the only ones who thought so.

Two more Hunters, ones who'd been sitting closest to the platform where Park Siyu stood, walked over.

The woman who'd argued fiercely with Park Siyu and gotten scolded for it spoke up first.

"Ju Seohye. You're Kang Hangyeol, right? Saw the video. Looked like luck to me, if you ask me."

This woman, seriously.

Still had energy left after getting worked over like that by Park Siyu?

If my hand hadn't hurt so much I would've said something back, but right now I didn't even have the energy to argue.

"No matter how good the footage looked, isn't playing both sides a bit much?"

"No need to play dumb. I already know you got items not just from Representative Park, but from Representative Yu too, the one who recommended me."

Ju Seohye seemed to be on Yu Seyeon's side.

Weren't Yu Seyeon and Park Siyu supposed to be allies?

For allies, Ju Seohye sure seemed to loathe Park Siyu quite a bit.

And that's because your side crossed the line first.

Ju Seohye seemed to think Yu Seyeon was interested in me, not her.

A misunderstanding was a misunderstanding, sure, but this was a different flavor of wrong entirely.

Yu Seyeon's interest in me had nothing to do with pulling me onto her side. It was about sniffing out and keeping tabs on whatever was going on between me and Park Siyu.

If Park Siyu hadn't been in the picture, maybe things would've gone differently.

But that was purely hypothetical. Not even worth thinking through further.

"I only took the share that was owed to me."

"The share that was owed to you?"

"Guess you don't know much, considering you got in on Representative Yu's recommendation."

I poked at her a little, and Ju Seohye's face flushed red.

"Hmph, big talk for a C-Rank. You have any idea what kind of position this is?"

"So what, want to throw down right now?"

"Before we go into the dungeon, someone ought to sort out who's above who around here."

I already knew all about the misunderstandings and wrong ideas floating around about me.

No need to explain myself or argue every single one away.

Right as the mood turned ugly, someone completely unexpected cut in.

"Excuse me, sorry to interrupt."

A neatly dressed woman in a white dress. She hadn't been in the meeting.

The woman approached shyly, glanced around, then grabbed my hand out of nowhere.

Not out of any particular intention, I realized, just to check the wound.

"Representative Park mentioned there was a patient who needed treatment, so I came over. Are you two done talking?"

Her question was aimed not at me, but at Ju Seohye.

Flustered, Ju Seohye opened her mouth.

"We're not quite done yet..."

"Fighting in that condition would only make the injury worse. Are you really trying to win against someone who's already hurt?"

"That's not what I..."

"So, are you done talking?"

The woman smiled sweetly and repeated the same question in a soft voice, over and over like a broken record.

Excessive kindness, maybe that's the word for it. She kept smiling the whole time, but it sent a chill down my spine all the same.

Worn down by the woman's persistence, Ju Seohye snapped.

"Damn it! Yes, we're done!"

She gave a polite bow and turned on her heel.

The woman's eyes met mine.

"Not coming?"

"Coming where?"

"The treatment room. Your arm's going to hurt if you leave it untreated. Well, if suffering happens to be your thing, I won't stop you."

That's not it at all.

Judging by how she talked, she had to be a Hunter with a healing skill.

It was already getting late, and I'd been worrying about how to patch myself up. Thanks to Park Siyu, that worry seemed to be solving itself.

I left the main conference room and headed down one floor to the treatment room.

"I run the treatment department here, Jeong Choa. Oh, go ahead and sit on that bed, make yourself comfortable."

Jeong Choa walked into the treatment room and threw on a white coat.

Considering she'd be healing with a skill anyway, the coat felt kind of pointless, but it seemed like her personal taste, so I let it go.

"I really am a doctor. Passed the medical exam through the Hunter special provisions, but I sat the real exam, got the real license, and I've got general surgery experience too."

She'd clearly gotten that same look from people so many times it came out almost on reflex.

"Sorry for the assumption."

"No, it's fine, some Hunters really do just wear it because they like the look. Wearing it doesn't make the skill work any better though."

Jeong Choa pulled a chair over and sat down in front of me.

"Still, for someone running the whole treatment department, you seem pretty unknown, don't you think?"

Not one of the Hunters nearby, Ju Seohye included, had recognized Jeong Choa. What had put them on edge wasn't Jeong Choa herself. It was Park Siyu's order coming out of her mouth.

Request, to be precise, was the word she'd used.

Made me curious what kind of person she was, if Park Siyu was the type to make a request of her.

Jeong Choa took hold of my arm.

Back in the conference room, the moment she'd grabbed my arm, the wound had healed instantly.

Just a little, though.

More precisely, it wasn't so much healing as the wound simply vanishing. Different from ordinary recovery somehow. Same feeling this time too.

Bad thing to say about someone helping me out, but it wasn't exactly a pleasant sensation.

"See, I'm kind of a night owl. Can't really get up during the day, or maybe I should say I'm just tired all the time. So I only work the night shift."

Guilds weren't exactly staffed around the clock.

There were people around at night too, but no Hunter injured enough to need treatment ever walked into the treatment room on their own two feet.

More importantly.

"The treatment room's operating hours end at 10 PM."

"Oh, is that so? No wonder there weren't any patients. I kept wondering what was going on. What should we do about that?"

Why ask me that?

This woman had a serious airhead vibe to match the way she looked.

"I don't know, ask Representative Park to switch it to 24 hours or something?"

"That sounds like a great idea. I'll suggest it."

Wherever Jeong Choa's hand touched, the wounds vanished like magic.

Not every healing skill worked the same way. Some forced recovery speed higher, some substituted mana for natural healing, some rewound the body's clock, all kinds of methods existed.

A touch of the hand and the wound just heals.

Must look pretty convenient from the outside.

Handled right, you could probably dress this skill up as a literal miracle worked by a goddess.

"There, all done."

Finished with the treatment, Choa clapped her hands and stood up.

Grateful, sure, but I didn't want to go through that twice.

Just as I was about to get up off the bed, she suddenly rested a hand on my cheek.

"Oh, hold on a second."

"Huh? Mmf..."

Jeong Choa's thumb slipped straight into my mouth out of nowhere.

What are you doing, lady!

"Looks like the inside of your mouth's hurt too."

Her finger pressed against the torn roof of my mouth where Yu Jihan had hit me.

That part's fine, I swear!

Just heal the arm and leave the rest, why are you so fixated on every last wound? And also, too close!

Jeong Choa, meanwhile, didn't seem to notice or care at all.

Of course someone had to walk in on exactly this kind of misunderstandable moment.

Ah, and there he was.

"If I'm interrupting, I'll head out."

Park Siyu.

The instant Jeong Choa's finger slipped free, I shouted without missing a beat.

"Hey! That makes it look even worse!"

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried