WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 68: The Boy Dreams (2)

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He was twenty-two, same age as Hangyeol.

Eunyoung shut off her phone screen.

"You could've used the full ten minutes to look."

"There's barely anything here worth ten minutes of staring."

The provided profile was nothing more than the most basic personal information.

Trainee hunters were slowly trickling in one by one.

Suhyun tossed his finished coffee cup in the trash and stood up.

"This guy right here will fill you in on the details."

Suhyun tapped the shoulder of the rookie sitting next to him.

"Where are you off to?"

"Came all the way to an amusement park, might as well ride a thing or two."

"So this is where my hard-earned tax money's been going. Straight into some jerk's wallet."

"Hey! I paid to get in with my own money!"

Suhyun rolled up his shirt sleeve and showed off an unlimited ride wristband.

The fact that he'd genuinely come here to have fun was its own kind of ridiculous.

Eunyoung waved him off.

"Go on, go. What was I even expecting from you?"

Choi Suhyun really didn't seem to have any intention of checking on the other hunters, and he vanished into the crowd pouring in after the park opened.

The dungeon sat near a ride entrance.

Because of the dungeon, the fourth floor housing that particular ride was closed for the day.

Eunyoung headed up to the fourth floor with an Association staffer.

"You and Director Choi seem pretty close, Hunter-nim."

"Calling him Director Choi makes him sound old somehow... eh, whatever."

Eunyoung answered with an awkward laugh, dodging the question.

It was because of a conversation they'd had earlier, while chatting over the trainee profiles before the staffer arrived.

"Right. Song Eunyoung."

"What?"

"Don't go around talking about me for no reason."

"You think I'm crazy? Besides, there's nothing to even talk about."

"I'm kind of a big deal, you know. Plenty of people out there jealous of me."

"Give me a break."

"Anyway, if word gets out that I'm planning to quit or that I'm following a different god now, it gets awkward for both of us, so let's be careful. You get that much without me spelling it out, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, got it."

Once Eunyoung clammed up, the staffer walking with her stopped asking about Choi Suhyun too.

Five hunters had gathered near the dungeon.

The dungeon designated for this trainee run was a D-Rank dungeon called Old Residence.

It took about six hours to clear, and the objective was simple: deal with the kobolds scattered through the mansion.

Among D-Rank dungeons, it ranked on the easier end.

The four hunters eyed Eunyoung and the staffer with open suspicion as they approached.

"Tch. Watched like a hawk over one screwup."

"Isn't it weird an accident even happened in a D-Rank dungeon to begin with?"

"Guy was probably just gonna die anyway."

The group was four men and two women.

Right in front of Eunyoung, they trashed the unaffiliated hunter instead of her.

Guess nothing's changed, still looking down on unaffiliated hunters.

The hunter standing a little apart from the group dropped his head.

Eunyoung herself had once gone through her trainee days as an unaffiliated hunter.

The contempt and disdain aimed at unaffiliated hunters hadn't shifted one bit between then and now.

Once the Association staffer collected everyone's signatures, they got down to business.

"As explained beforehand, Hunter Song Eunyoung of Aria Guild will be serving as supervisor for this dungeon run. She won't intervene except in dangerous situations, so please proceed as usual."

"Nice to meet you, C-Rank Hunter-nim."

"It's B-Rank, actually. Though I've got my assessment scheduled for next week."

"Oh my, is that so?"

The lone woman in the group shot back with a haughty tone.

Eunyoung held her tongue at the sight of someone who looked barely out of her teens.

Amid the awkward tension, the hunters filed into the dungeon one by one.

Eunyoung was set to enter last, after watching everyone else go in.

Just as expected, Jung Hyeonseong went in dead last.

He was carrying luggage so heavy it looked painful just to lift.

"Ugh."

Unable to just watch, Eunyoung reached out and snatched one of Jung Hyeonseong's bags with a single hand.

It weighed over ten kilograms, but for Eunyoung now, that kind of weight barely registered.

"Um..."

"Get in there already."

Eunyoung practically shoved Jung Hyeonseong's back to get him moving.

Eunyoung entered the dungeon last.

[Old Residence]

Rank: D-

Recommended party size: 6 or fewer

Objective: Retrieve the "Crown of the Fallen World" from the mansion's basement.

1) Clear reward, all participants [Merit points 200]

2) All kobolds killed [Merit points 300]

"This much is nothing..."

After running dungeons nonstop for the past month, a D- Rank dungeon felt almost cute to Eunyoung.

Once inside, Eunyoung handed the bag back to Jung Hyeonseong.

He took it without thinking and nearly toppled sideways from the weight.

Eunyoung laughed and told him not to worry about it.

She wanted to carry it for him, sure, but showing favoritism carelessly could easily be misread.

"Don't help him too much."

Choi Suhyun apparently hadn't been thrilled about Eunyoung going in as a supervisor, nagging her right up to the last second.

I get it without you spelling it out, thanks.

Even if she'd only been an active hunter for a few months, she had enough sense to pick up on things like that.

Maybe it was because of the name, Old Residence, but the place really did carry a haunted-house kind of feel.

A woman approached Eunyoung.

The same one who'd gone on about being C-Rank before they entered the dungeon.

"Now that we're inside, I've got something to say."

"If it weren't for this powerless deadweight, you wouldn't even be here right now. So don't butt in. Ajumma."

Chae Seolha, she had once been a follower of Servia, the god Choi Suhyun used to serve.

At Chae Seolha's words, Eunyoung ground her teeth.

"Oh, don't worry, obviously. Why do you think I'm even here? I'm not helping, no matter what! So go ahead and treat this ajumma like she doesn't exist, do whatever you want. Kiddo."

Years in the service industry had toughened Eunyoung enough that Chae Seolha's words didn't even qualify as an insult.

At the word "kiddo," Chae Seolha quickly sized up Eunyoung's height.

Given the setting, she'd stuffed extra insoles into the backs of her sneakers, and even then, anyone could see she stood noticeably shorter than Eunyoung.

"Anyway! If you're going to supervise, then act like it and stay quiet!"

Having decided there was nothing she could win against Eunyoung right now, Chae Seolha turned her back.

"Ugh, maybe I should've just written those ten reports after all."

Now that she was actually inside the dungeon, even though Eunyoung wasn't the one clearing it, the exhaustion was no joke.

Watching the hunters walk further away, Eunyoung clenched her fist.

"I can do this! Song Eunyoung!"

Eunyoung clenched her fist again.

Compared to everything she'd already been through, this was nothing.

Eunyoung didn't want to let Hangyeol down, not after he'd given her another chance.

Maybe...

Eunyoung's gaze landed on Jung Hyeonseong, trailing behind the group.

It was a tricky problem.

The group made its way into the mansion.

Small flames flickered on the candlesticks mounted along the mansion walls.

"Alright. Let's get started."

Chae Seolha set down her personal bag and drew a pistol from her hip.

At a glance, it looked no different from a modern automatic handgun.

To be precise, though, it wasn't a gun. It was a ma-total.

Magitech engineering.

That was the industrial field dedicated to building weapons that channeled mana through modern arms.

Chae Seolha's ma-total was one product of magitech engineering.

Ma-totals guaranteed serious firepower, but the price tag and upkeep costs ran high to match, making them a weapon type that a freshly awakened hunter couldn't easily afford to use.

In cases like this, it usually came down to one of two things.

Either the family had money, or both parents were hunters.

Whatever the reason, it wasn't Eunyoung's business either way.

The kobolds, sensing intruders, emerged.

They moved into position with practiced ease, clearly having drilled the coordination beforehand.

Three of the hunters tanked, one handled melee, and Chae Seolha, standing behind them, played the role of damage dealer.

One of the tanks was basically dead weight in all but name.

Watching Chae Seolha's group fight, Eunyoung frowned.

What are these people even thinking?

Sure, Jung Hyeonseong was unaffiliated, but the way he fought looked nothing like a tank's style, no matter how she looked at it.

Five kobolds surrounded the hunters.

Judging that showing up might needlessly pull aggro, Eunyoung perched herself on the second-floor railing.

Timing it well, Chae Seolha aimed her gun barrel at a kobold's head and fired.

Chae Seolha's mana round punched clean through the kobold's forehead.

After calmly finishing off every kobold, Chae Seolha lowered her gun.

She glanced up at Song Eunyoung sitting on the railing and turned her head away with a sniff.

Hmph. "For safety," my foot.

They were hunters.

Whether it was D-Rank or A-Rank, wasn't it obvious you walked into a dungeon prepared to die?

This wasn't some kiddie playground. Having a hunter tag along into the dungeon "for safety" was borderline absurd.

If it weren't for Suhyun-oppa's request!

Chae Seolha had been a fan of Choi Suhyun's since high school.

She'd known he worked at the Hunter Education Division, but she'd barely gotten the chance to actually see his face throughout the training program.

And yet Choi Suhyun himself had shown up in person to ask for their understanding about a supervisor joining this particular dungeon run.

Even though they were trainees who couldn't have refused an Association order anyway, Seolha had been moved seeing Suhyun come personally to ask for their understanding regardless.

A true model Association hunter!

But then.

That woman!

Seolha had arrived at Lotte World a little earlier than the other hunters.

Watching Choi Suhyun show up on-site in person, just in case, had moved Chae Seolha all over again.

And what Chae Seolha ended up witnessing was none other than Song Eunyoung, chatting cozily away with Choi Suhyun.

Finding out Song Eunyoung was the supervisor for this very dungeon run made it impossible not to seethe.

Eunyoung looked down at the murderous glare on Chae Seolha's face.

Wow, she really hates me. Really hates me.

Eunyoung herself, meanwhile, had no particular thoughts about Chae Seolha at all.

That was the composure of an adult.

After clearing out every kobold on the first floor, they needed to search the mansion for the basement key.

Contrary to Eunyoung's expectation that the whole group would naturally split up to search the mansion, only Jung Hyeonseong seemed to be gearing up to move.

Sensing something off, Eunyoung came down from the railing.

"What exactly are you all doing right now?"

"Oh my, weren't you supposed to stay out of our business?"

"I asked what you're doing."

"To get down to the basement, we need the basement key, right? Which means searching the mansion, and the mansion's crawling with kobolds everywhere. Walking around clearing kobolds one room at a time, don't you think that's just wildly inefficient?"

The biggest headache in the Old Residence dungeon was the kobolds popping out from every corner of the mansion.

Unlike the relatively spacious first floor, the upper floors were tighter, full of cramped, out-of-the-way spaces that made repeating the same strategy from before difficult.

As always, ambushes ranked among the biggest dangers hunters faced.

"We're doing a drive hunt. What's the problem, it's a pretty common clearing strategy."

Faced with Chae Seolha's shameless attitude, Eunyoung couldn't even figure out where to start pushing back.

"I'm fine with it. It was my call to take this on."

Jung Hyeonseong lifted his weapon like it was nothing worth worrying about.

Eunyoung raised both hands and stepped back.

Ugh, I should never have signed up for some half-baked project like this.

Supervisor slash manager, what a joke, the role was so vague she was second-guessing herself just for opening her mouth.

Eunyoung backed off, and the dungeon run continued.

Jung Hyeonseong made several runs, driving the kobolds scattered through the mansion toward the central hall on the first floor.

Each time he repeated the drive, his wounds piled up a little more.

Once the kobolds were cleared out, they searched the mansion and found the basement key.

Chae Seolha and the others took a break to eat and regroup before heading down to the basement.

The further the dungeon run went, the more Eunyoung became something close to a ghost.

"Annoying."

Leaning against a wall, Eunyoung gnawed at a calorie bar like she meant to punish it.

What bothered Eunyoung wasn't Chae Seolha's group treating her like she didn't exist.

They're treating him like a consumable.

Whatever they'd say about him having no god and no abilities, Chae Seolha and the hunters' behavior had gone way past any acceptable line.

What actually made Eunyoung angry was her own position, forced to notice all of this and pretend she didn't.

Jung Hyeonseong walked over and sat beside Eunyoung.

"Um, would it be alright if I ate lunch next to you?"

"Uh, sure. I don't mind. But are you gonna be okay?"

Eunyoung glanced over at Chae Seolha and the other hunters.

Jung Hyeonseong sat down next to the wall Eunyoung was leaning against without much concern.

"Eating lunch should be fine. Haha, I do feel a little self-conscious about it, but... I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh, well, I don't mind at all. But..."

Eunyoung looked down, and her gaze landed on the bowl Jung Hyeonseong was holding.

Eunyoung usually brought calorie bars or water candy, emergency rations, for dungeon trips.

Sure, it was only a single day in a D-Rank dungeon, but unless someone thought this was a picnic, no hunter in their right mind packed instant ramyeon for a dungeon run.

Even after filling up on a calorie bar, Eunyoung's mouth had started watering.

"I've got an extra cup ramyeon if you want it."

"Not really? It's not like I was staring because I wanted ramyeon or anything. I was just wondering what kind of lunatic brings ramyeon into a dungeon. But, well, I won't say no if you're offering. Not, not that I even like it that much!"

Her face made it painfully obvious to anyone watching just how badly she wanted it.

Footnotes:

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