WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 74: The Scramble (3)

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"No way there were two Lintbrums. I really didn't see that coming."

"He killed that thing alone?"

"Is he even human?"

I was holding three tickets.

Han Seongcheol's ticket had gone to Han Jongho.

Han Seongcheol was dead, and I had three tickets in my hand.

If Ju Seohye took one, I didn't care who ended up with the rest.

By the original agreement, the Hunters designated beforehand were supposed to receive the tickets. But those Hunters had died in the dungeon after a convenient "accident" and a "fierce battle with a monster," leaving their tickets to fall to someone else instead. None of them had any room to complain about that.

Sword resting on my shoulder, still sheathed, I looked over the Hunters who'd come to kill me.

"Ju Seohye, sure, I get her. But why are the rest of you getting along so well?"

Some of the Hunters here to kill me belonged to Raon Guild.

Hey, those guys aren't your friends.

"Hmph, don't get the wrong idea. We only came because whoever kills you first gets the prize."

"Bit awkward since we're in the same guild, but the ticket's tempting enough."

Meaning as long as our goals lined up, on me, there was no reason for them to fight each other.

Yeah, that's the Hunter spirit right there.

"Okay. Nobody complain later if everyone here ends up dead."

"Big talk. You look like hell right now, you know that?"

Ju Seohye stepped forward, sword in hand.

She probably figured I'd be worn down right after killing the Lintbrum.

Fair enough, I had pushed myself.

"Doesn't feel like I'm about to die to you lot. I've got a long life ahead of me, apparently. But let me ask you something first. Why'd you sell out Han Seongcheol? Weren't you two set on taking me down together?"

"We were."

"So why?"

"Things changed, that's all. Call it improvising. To be precise, we didn't see eye to eye. Turns out being ex-Black Holdings, he didn't want to team up with Raon."

Ju Seohye had wanted to join hands with Raon Guild to kill me, but Han Seongcheol refused.

For that to even work, it meant Ju Seohye must have already had things mostly settled with Raon's side from the start.

"Does Representative Yu Seyeon know about this? We're not exactly supposed to be enemies here, are we?"

"Oh please, you're the one who assumed Han Seongcheol and I would stab you in the back, and now you're saying we're not enemies? Isn't that a little contradictory?"

Yu Seyeon, who'd recommended Ju Seohye, and Park Siyu, who'd recommended me, were technically allies.

Sure, allies in name, the kind of relationship that could flip on a dime.

"That's a separate issue. So did you actually team up with Raon or not?"

Teaming up with someone inside your own house and teaming up with someone outside it were two very different problems.

"You said you'd ask just one thing. A man shouldn't go back on his word twice."

"Hey, that's a cheap way to twist it."

Ju Seohye gestured, and the Hunters all charged at once.

Magic and skills tore through the air, kicking up dust.

This was getting messy.

Should I just bolt? No...

That woman, Ju Seohye, bothered me too much to just run.

And Raon Guild was still unresolved.

Ju Seohye came charging through the dust cloud.

"Don't regret this. You started it."

"Hmph, you're the one who's going to regret it!"

Ju Seohye's main skill was body enhancement.

Looked like she'd even been saving her mana specifically for a fight against me.

Why was everyone around me freakishly strong?

Ju Seohye's sword met the Sky Sword.

"I don't like that man, Park Siyu."

"Oh right, I heard your friend died on an expedition a while back."

"You bastard!"

Ju Seohye swung her sword without letting up.

Her wild movements made the Hunters lining up ranged attacks hesitate.

Not all of them, though.

I dodged an attack from a Hunter aiming for my back and closed the distance.

I drove a fist into his chest.

When his body dropped, I grabbed his arm and hurled him straight at Ju Seohye.

Startled, Ju Seohye scrambled backward.

Guess she knew his face.

The way she hesitated gave it away.

I ran at her, sword in hand, and kicked toward her hesitating body.

Ju Seohye pulled back, breathing hard.

"That kid...! He truly respected Park Siyu! The only reason he volunteered for Cockatrice Farm was because of Park Siyu! After the expedition failed, Park Siyu never said a single word about the dead Hunter! Damn it! That man has no right to stand above other people!"

"You're just taking it out on me. Park Siyu did that, so what am I supposed to do about it?"

"I know Park Siyu cares about you! If you die, maybe he'll finally realize what he's done!"

I didn't even know where to start picking that apart.

Ju Seohye's mana spiked to its limit.

Whether she'd raised her enhancement level or not, her movements kept getting faster.

The other Hunters, who'd been sizing things up, started joining in.

Even I couldn't handle a full pile-on that easily.

A fireball dropped toward my head, and Ju Seohye and I both jumped almost at the same instant.

"This ends it!"

Wrapped in mana, Ju Seohye's sword flared red and grew larger.

"You've got something seriously mixed up!"

I barely managed to block the attack with Moonlight Slash.

"Even if I die, Park Siyu won't so much as flinch, you know."

"How can you even say that...!!"

"That's just the kind of guy he is."

I didn't know the details of Park Siyu's story.

But people like that exist everywhere, the type willing to abandon their own humanity in a heartbeat for the sake of their beliefs.

It wasn't that I didn't understand how Ju Seohye felt, losing a friend.

I could probably manage a word or two of comfort if I tried.

Would that change anything, though?

The dead don't come back to life.

If you don't want to die, get strong enough that you won't. And if you die anyway, that's on you for being weak.

Sympathy meant nothing in front of overwhelming strength and violence.

That kind of thing was just sugar-coating for the moment.

"If you'd at least not sold out Han Seongcheol, I might've let this slide."

I had no particular feelings for Han Seongcheol, but there was such a thing as basic decency.

I knocked Ju Seohye's sword away with everything I had.

Her sword flew back and her body lifted off the ground for a moment.

I leveled my blade at her.

Sensing the danger, she twisted her body, but it was already too late.

Ju Seohye could never keep up with my speed.

My sword shot forward and punched clean through her chest.

"You... what even are..."

Those were her last words.

I stood in front of Ju Seohye's fallen body.

The other Hunters backed away, weapons still in hand.

"Wh-what the hell is he! Are you seriously C rank?"

"B rank! You bastards kept screaming C rank, C rank at me so I ranked up not too long ago! God, you rank-obsessed freaks! Who cares if I'm C rank or B rank! Hey, does S rank get you free meals from the government or something?"

Actually, yeah, S rank does get you fed by the government.

Either way, I was sick to death of that rank nonsense.

The Hunter who'd spoken flinched the moment I pointed my sword at him.

"Th-that's impossible, even for a fresh B rank..."

The Hunters' eyes drifted toward the corpses of the Lintbrum and Ju Seohye.

Even for someone who just got bumped up to B rank, there's no way you take down an A-rank boss solo. That's probably what they wanted to say, right?

I know the whole pattern, rookies.

Honestly, they weren't wrong.

But that's just how life goes.

"There's always at least one person out there running a cheat code."

C rank, B rank, all of that was just a label for keeping people organized, easy to sort and manage.

Most people fit inside that framework. But there's always something out there that doesn't.

The Hunters' faces flushed red.

They seemed convinced I'd gotten strong through some shady method.

"Y-you...! That's cheating!"

"The world's full of cheaters."

If everyone were honest, there'd be no need for laws at all.

I leveled my blade near a Hunter's throat.

And there was one rule in this world that never changed.

"Dead men tell no tales."

My sword swept down across his body.

The other Hunters tensed and gripped their weapons tighter.

"Y-you two are in the same guild! Doesn't that mean anything, at least basic mercy!"

"So what?"

Ju Seohye had gone along with killing Han Seongcheol.

Then she'd tried to kill me for real.

I owed a woman like that nothing resembling mercy.

"Honestly, all you people ever talk about is guild this, comrade that, only when it's convenient for you. Next, actually, forget it, too much trouble. Everyone, come at once."

One of the watching Hunters lunged at me.

That seemed to be the signal, because the rest attacked all the more fiercely.

These were people who'd made it this far already.

A soldier is a soldier even in death.

Same went for Hunters.

Every time my sword passed, flesh split open and blood sprayed in every direction.

"So? What exactly do you want done in the dungeon?"

"Nothing much."

I threw Angervadir at a Hunter trying to hide.

Some of them tried to signal surrender, but that meant nothing to me.

This expedition had been set up to go exactly this way from the start.

"S-save me! I surrender! I-I won't do it again!"

A wet slash.

The Sky Sword tore straight through the chest of the man begging for his life.

These were the Hunters who'd come with Ju Seohye to kill me.

If you decide to try killing someone, you'd better keep in mind you might die trying.

Surrender? Mercy?

There was no reason on earth to grant either to someone who'd tried to put a knife in my back.

"I'll be blunt. You won't have any allies in that dungeon."

I killed the Hunters who kept coming and went looking for the exit gate.

The Raon Guild Hunters, startled to see me suddenly blocking their path, went on guard and backed away.

"You're..."

"Ju Seohye and the others should've already gone through."

Han Jongho, relatively composed, gripped his staff and readied a skill.

Seeing me covered in blood, he probably had a decent guess at what happened.

But he probably didn't want to think about it too hard.

"Get all six tickets back."

"And anyone who gets in the way?"

"Kill them all."

Ju Seohye had a serious misunderstanding about Park Siyu.

That man would drop any grand cause the moment it stopped serving his purpose.

Beams of light poured down toward me.

The area around the exit gate turned into a wreck.

Park Siyu and I had that much in common, in a way.

All I'd ever known how to do was study, and once that stopped mattering, all I could do was survive.

I wanted to live a little longer in that hellish world, even by a single day.

I'd have done anything to stay alive.

I didn't resent Ju Seohye, and I didn't pity her either.

She wanted me dead right up to the end, and I didn't want to die, so I killed her.

In the end, the slightly stronger one survived, and Ju Seohye died.

That was all there was to it.

I blocked the incoming beams of light and leaped high into the air.

"Doesn't seem like you'll just hand over the tickets and walk off if I ask nicely."

"Hmph, obviously not!"

I swung my sword in a wide arc, drawing a line across the ground.

A clean cut opened in the earth, leaving a long scar behind.

Han Jongho ground his teeth.

He clearly hadn't expected me to kill everyone back there and come chasing after him too.

"Thing I'm good at, number one, killing people. Number two, hunting monsters."

And on top of that, I'd already killed a good number of Raon Guild Hunters.

Executioner's Sword grew stronger against a specific group the more members of that group I killed.

This was never a skill born from good intentions.

To begin with, I'd never once been on the side of good.

If I really were good, a divine title like mine wouldn't exist.

I hadn't wanted to use this twice.

Han Jongho had been firing off spell after spell without a break, and it was starting to grate on me.

Definitely a different breed from the ones who'd come at me alongside Aria Guild.

Disciplined, I guess you'd call it.

"Damn it! It's just one man! Why, why can't we kill him!"

My blade flashed blue and left afterimages trailing behind it.

The basics of the Sun-Felling Sword Technique weren't just about striking fast and pulling back.

"What's fast supposed to mean, anyway?"

"Fast is fast! Ow! Quit hitting me!"

"You said you were good at studying. How'd you manage that with a brain like this?"

I couldn't even count how many times I got smacked around learning this from him. Luciel.

Looking back now, that guy wasn't exactly normal either.

Blond hair, red eyes, and somehow a master of martial arts on top of it.

At the time I'd been too busy learning to question any of it, no room to stop and doubt.

"So what does fast even mean, then!"

"Fast means precise."

Precision comes from a calm mind.

If you trust yourself to land a clean cut and you've got the skill to back it up, that's the fastest path there is, the right path too.

I moved my sword calmly through the storm of skills and Hunters closing in from every direction.

Every time my blade passed, magic sheared apart and armed Hunters dropped like fallen leaves.

Falling Petal Flower Sword.

"I'll take the tickets."

I closed the distance to Han Jongho and raised my blood-slick sword high.

[Kang Hangyeol - Holding 6]

Game over.

It was dawn by the time I stepped out of the dungeon.

The nearly seventy participants had been cut down to less than half.

Most of the dead were Aria Guild Hunters.

Fewer than ten Raon Guild Hunters were left.

They were the ones who'd stayed hidden and surrendered after Han Jongho and Jeong Hoil died.

I could've killed them too, if I'd wanted to.

But I didn't see the need, so I left them alone.

Witnesses were useful to have around, too.

Having seen what I could do, none of them seemed interested in fighting me for the tickets anymore.

The Raon Guild Hunters who'd made it out of the dungeon kept glancing at me nervously.

"Get lost."

"I said, get lost."

The moment my hand touched my sword hilt, their faces went white.

"J-just you wait!"

"You'll r-regret ever messing with Raon Guild!"

"Save the third-rate villain lines and get out of here! I swear I'll just..."

I couldn't kill anyone out here, not with the dungeon behind us, so I was debating whether to just knock a few of them out and send them packing when someone approached me.

Huh, this one's...

Hm, no idea who this is.

Something about him screamed Park Siyu sent him.

Footnotes:

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