WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 73: The Scramble (2)

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The Lintbrum only came out once a week to feed.

Normally it stayed in the outer region where the Hopji lived, then went back to its cave. But nothing about the current situation was normal.

"With the Cockatrice and the fire-light rats gone, there's not much point trying to pin down its territory," Ju Seohye said.

She had a point.

We'd been in the dungeon a little over five days now.

If the timing lined up, a hungry Lintbrum might show up soon enough.

I wondered which would happen first: the thing crawling out of its cave, or us finishing off every last Hopji outside it.

Once it came out, it would find its usual meal missing.

All we had to do was round up a decent batch of Hopji and herd them into one spot.

A starving, on-edge Lintbrum would come running.

"That's actually not a bad plan," someone said.

"Use more grenades if you need to," I said.

"There's more?"

"About thirty, give or take. Why, your guild didn't stock you up?"

"You little... You think Raon Guild is like Aria Guild? A B-rank Hunter like you wouldn't even get past the front door of Raon Gui... mmph!"

Jeong Hoil, who'd been about to blow up, clamped his mouth shut fast.

Go on, finish it. I dare you.

Then again, if he'd kept going, he'd only have been spitting in his own face.

If he let me bait him into that, he'd basically be admitting that Han Jongho, the A-rank Hunter leading a whole team, wasn't getting much backing from the guild either.

"Well, that settles that. Let's wrap up the meeting here," Han Jongho said.

Hey. I'm the leader.

What a stingy little weasel.

Trying to slide into running the meeting like that, and it rubbed me the wrong way, low-key.

At Han Jongho's word, the Hunters filed out of the tent.

Han Jongho called out to me as I was heading for the flap.

I turned halfway, giving him a sideways glare.

"Ahem. Just to confirm, our alliance holds until the Lintbrum's dead, right?"

"Were we ever allies to begin with?"

This guy and his leadership complex.

You think I don't notice you eyeballing my spot the whole time?

"I told you, I've got zero interest in being the leader. Once the Lintbrum's dead I'm handing this thing off if I can. My whole body's aching from the stress."

"I'll take that as a yes, until then."

I waved a hand and walked out of the tent.

Dungeon or not, night was night.

The clouds parted and a bright full moon came into view.

Clearing this dungeon wasn't the point anymore.

The moment the Lintbrum dies.

That's when the real fight starts.

Early the next morning.

I splashed my face clean with a jumbo water candy.

Rubbing my eyes, I pulled up my status window without really thinking.

Opening and closing the status window every idle second was basically a universal Hunter habit.

Divine title: *

Ranking: 15,392nd

Accumulated merit points: 703,540P

I'd handed some to Min Seongtaek and Kang Hyeonseung, and dumped everything I'd earned from the Zero-sum Game straight into the pot.

Do I need like a million before this thing levels up again?

Talk about a brutal job.

The Hopji hunt in the dungeon kept going.

After days of relentless culling, their numbers had visibly thinned compared to when we started.

"You really think it'll show up over this?"

"More to the point, this isn't exactly a pretty sight."

Once the Hopji population dropped, a new phase of the plan kicked in.

Operation Feast!

Whoever came up with that name deserves credit, I'll give them that much.

Oh, right. I came up with it.

The Lintbrum, once it crawled out of its cave, was bound to be thrown off by the sudden shortage of its usual prey.

We'd dug a big pit and filled it with Hopji beaten down just short of death.

No point hiding it, this was a trap and anyone could see it coming.

But with the Cockatrice out of the picture, the thing's ego was riding high.

And with food already scarce, there was no way it'd turn down a table set right in front of it.

"It's out of the cave. Word is it's on the move," Jeong Hoil said, openly stationed beside me on watchdog duty.

"They're saying the clear condition for the dungeon just changed."

Someone spotted the Lintbrum, and the dungeon's status window updated.

Objective: The Lintbrum.

Jeong Hoil could keep up with what was happening this fast because of the community channel.

Unlike Aria Guild, where Hunters serving different gods couldn't communicate with each other, Raon Guild mostly consisted of followers of the god Lux.

Not every single one, but most.

Whenever someone reported in, a Lux follower relayed it to the community.

No comms gear worked inside a dungeon, so for Hunters without a communication skill, the community channel was as good as it got.

Thud. Thud.

The ground shook as the Lintbrum came charging.

Something the size of a dinosaur out of prehistory, green skin, sharp bone spurs running down its spine.

The Hunters scattered to their assigned positions and dropped into cover.

The Lintbrum looked around, then dropped down into the shallow pit where the Hopji were gathered.

It knew we were hiding.

And still, it settled in and ate like it didn't care, like it was daring us to try something.

This was clearly the moment.

We'd buried every remaining mana grenade right under the Lintbrum's feet.

Positioned in the best spot, I pulled the pin on my grenade and threw it toward the thing.

KA-BOOOOM.

A chain of explosions tore through the pit, flipping it over along with the Hopji corpses.

That amount of mana grenades could only leave a scratch on something like this.

But that was the signal.

Han Jongho, leadership complex fully engaged, launched an attack spell at the Lintbrum to mark the start.

Aria Guild and Raon Guild weren't on good terms. But being on bad terms and actual skill were two completely different things.

Nobody was stupid enough to turn on each other in the middle of a boss fight.

That would just be mutual destruction, you die, I die, everybody dies.

Taking down the Lintbrum shouldn't be a problem from here.

A few leftover mana grenades went off a beat late.

Good luck with that.

While everyone's attention locked onto the Lintbrum, I slipped away quietly.

"You know how the raid tickets get split up?"

"Kill the boss, that's it, right?"

"Right. So what happens if there are two bosses?"

"You mean the Cockatrice and the Lintbrum?"

"I mean if there are two Lintbrums left in the dungeon at once."

"Whoa, you're really splitting hairs here. My head hurts. So what are the odds of that, anyway?"

"Low. But it doesn't hurt to know. According to Kim Gangwoo's report, you seem to have some kind of dungeon luck going on."

"Isn't that bad luck, not good luck?"

"I'll let you decide which."

If it turned out to be twins, apparently there was a telltale sign.

Twins were basically mutants, as far as monsters went.

"A normal Lintbrum has gray eyes. But with twins, the color leans more red than gray."

"Hey, how am I supposed to tell from that? Is it gray or is it red? Pick one!"

"You'll know it when you see it."

At the time, I remember thinking, what kind of answer is that.

Turns out, I really did know it the second I saw it.

So? What happens if the ticket dungeon boss turns out to be twins?

What was one becomes two.

The six tickets that dropped from killing the boss had already been split six ways, agreed on before we even entered the dungeon.

But that agreement only covered the scenario where there was one boss.

Before heading into Skyfield with Eunyoung-noona, Choi Suhyun had asked me for a favor.

You're going into the ticket dungeon because Park Siyu picked you, right?

That's how it ended up. Why?

Grab me one ticket while you're at it.

That's one per person, you know.

Like Raon Guild and Aria Guild are ever gonna split a dungeon evenly and play nice. Just steal one on the side, quietly.

Choi Suhyun had known from the start this dungeon was going to turn into a mess.

He knew there were two of them, before anyone even confirmed the eye color.

With the Hopji thinned out, using Mana Detection to track down the second Lintbrum wasn't hard at all.

I confirmed the location, then cut sharply in that direction.

"Where'd he go?"

"Where do you think? Right behind you."

Judging by the getup, this was a Raon Guild Hunter.

With everyone else scrambling in chaos over the Lintbrum, this guy had stuck to me the whole time. He'd clearly been assigned to shadow me specifically, boss fight or no boss fight.

Figured something like this might happen, so I'd already headed off in a different direction from where the Lintbrum actually was.

"If you're going to tail someone, at least do it properly."

"Getting caught doing this kind of thing just means you die. You know that, right?"

Should've been ready for that, then.

I drew Angervadir and cut the man's throat clean without hesitating.

Ugh, my rotten luck.

When I met Lachesis, I really thought it was all over.

And here I was, doing this all over again. It hit me all at once.

Nothing to be done about what already happened.

Still, maybe...

It was a tiny sliver of a possibility.

I dragged the body into the underbrush to hide it, then ran toward where the Lintbrum was.

Right now, the thing in front of me mattered more.

"Grrrrrr. Grrrr."

"Found you."

The thing had timed it perfectly, standing right outside its cave.

"First strike wins! Here we go!"

I dropped down from the tree and charged straight at the Lintbrum.

"Cough..."

I spat blood into the dirt.

The hand gripping my sword shook.

I thought I was dead for a second there.

I'd been on edge, plus I'd wanted to try out a skill, and testing it out had left my body in rough shape.

The Lintbrum went down, and a notification chimed announcing the dungeon had been cleared.

Rank: Proxy (10%)

Strength: A (6%)

Vitality: B+ (71%)

Mana: A (30%)

Recovery: B- (5%)

Skills <Line> <Wind Fang> <Moonlight Slash> <Mana Detection> <Meteor Strike> <First Rising Sun> <Sun-Felling Sword Technique> <Falling Petal Flower Sword>

Talents <Blessing of Soter> <Executioner's Sword>

Whatever else happens.

There was zero chance I was losing to Transcendent Yu Jihan, not even in death.

But seriously, where did that kid even learn the Sun-Felling Sword Technique?

I had a working theory that maybe I'd taught it to him without realizing, but even that wasn't confirmed.

Watching someone land one or two forms of it wasn't nearly enough to draw a real conclusion.

Then again, I wasn't exactly taught it properly myself either...

Some things you just never figure out.

By now, the other Hunters had probably caught on that there was a second Lintbrum.

They'd taken theirs down, but the dungeon hadn't cleared, so of course something would feel off.

I chugged the elixir Park Siyu had given me.

"Ugh, tastes awful."

I finally understood, just a little, why Yu Jihan used to whine about how bad the healing potions tasted back in the tower.

Not my fault the healing potion tastes bad.

Anything good for you always tastes like garbage.

Although, okay, this one's a bit much even by that standard.

[Ticket settlement will begin.]

[Kang Hangyeol - Holding 3]

[Lee Chaera - Holding 1]

[Jeong Hoil - Holding 1]

[Han Seongcheol - Holding 1]

Tickets got distributed in order, based on contribution to the boss kill.

Once you had one, you could freely transfer it.

And if you could transfer one...

Obviously, you could also take one by force.

Right now, the ones without a ticket were Ju Seohye and the so-called team leader, Han Jongho.

With me holding three and Aria Guild's Han Seongcheol holding one, that put Han Seongcheol in an awkward spot too.

Let's see how this plays out.

Needless to say, I had zero intention of giving anything up.

[Han Jongho - Holding 1]

Han Seongcheol's name vanished, and Han Jongho's name popped up in its place.

No way Han Seongcheol, an ex-Black Holdings member, handed his ticket over to Raon Guild that easily.

I tossed the empty elixir bottle to the ground and looked up.

"I figured you two might be working together, but I didn't think you'd actually pull a full betrayal."

"Look who's talking, greedy bastard. Ever heard the saying, too much of a good thing?"

Ju Seohye stepped out from under the trees, a few other Hunters trailing behind her.

[1] "Dungeon luck" pokes fun at a common LitRPG/web-novel trope where a protagonist's stats include an inexplicable "luck" attribute that skews the plot toward rare events — here used half-seriously to explain why Kang Hangyeol keeps stumbling into freak occurrences like twin bosses.

Footnotes:

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