WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 77: If You're Sorry, Then Die (2)
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Bang.
Not long after I'd punched in the code and let myself in, the door burst open, hard.
Calling it "opened" wasn't quite right. Broken would've been the better word.
"Hyung, you've lost it. Seriously? What if this isn't even his place?"
"You snuck in too, didn't you? You're an accomplice, dumbass. And what, he bolted? That's how you deliver news over the phone?"
"How else am I supposed to say it, then?"
Choi Suhyun stepped inside without even taking off his shoes and pressed a hand to his forehead.
The inside of the villa looked ordinary enough.
Ordinary, if you didn't count the scattered signs of someone who'd packed up and fled in a hurry.
"Search everywhere."
"Search for what? It's obviously empty."
"Search anyway! There could be something in the wallpaper, or, I don't know, a secret passage."
Watched a few too many movies, has he?
There's no way a plain place like this has anything like that.
Grumbling, I opened the door to the inner room.
A single teddy bear sat on a bare bed.
A teddy bear?
Not thinking much of it, I picked it up and carried it out to the living room.
Through the doorway I could see Choi Suhyun and a police officer.
Called it.
You break down a door that loudly and expect the cops not to show?
"Ha ha, no. This is an investigation. Top secret."
"Well, even so..."
Top secret my ass.
Might as well sell drugs while you're at it, this guy.
"You know how it is. Hunter-related investigations don't need a warrant, it's nothing serious, no need to worry about it. Hm? My department? Does that even matter? We're both serving the country here. Ah, I left my ID at the office. Used to be with the Management Bureau. Management Bureau."
Of course it matters, an Association employee breaking down someone's door to catch an online stalker!
And how the hell is this "serving the country"!
Management Bureau, my foot, the nerve to just make stuff up like that. Are you even human?
"Sigh, please be more careful next time."
"Yes, yes. We'll take a quick look and be out. Thanks for your patience."
Once the officer left, Choi Suhyun scratched his head and came back into the room.
"Ugh, damn it. Never shows up when you actually call, but the second it's inconvenient, they're here like magic. Find anything?"
"I told you, nothing."
"Nothing my ass, what's that in your hand?"
"A teddy bear."
"Why is there a teddy bear here?"
Now that he mentioned it, good question.
Before I could even tilt my head to think about it, Choi Suhyun grabbed the bear out of my hands.
But that's just a normal teddy...
Why's he raising his fist at it?
"It's a perfectly innocent doll, what are you, what are you doing!!"
"Aaaaugh! No! The camera's gonna break!!"
That wasn't me talking.
Definitely wasn't Choi Suhyun either.
Choi Suhyun grabbed one of the bear's arms and shook it.
A mechanical-sounding voice kept spilling out of the bear.
The voice was oddly neutral, impossible to tell gender from it.
"C-could you please just pretend you didn't hear that? Ahahahaha. Why's the mic even on?"
You think you can just pretend you didn't hear that?
"Teddy bears talk these days?"
"As if."
Choi Suhyun poked at the bear's black eyes with a finger.
That set off another burst. "Ah, the camera. The camera!"
It looked exactly like an ordinary stuffed bear's eyes on the outside, but a camera in there, technology really had come a long way.
Silence settled over the villa.
The one who broke it, of all things, was the voice coming out of the teddy bear.
"Um, so... you're Hunter Choi Suhyun, right?"
"You can't tell just by looking? Get out here right now. You want to die?"
Choi Suhyun brought his face close to the camera, snapping with irritation.
"S-sorry!!!"
Choi Suhyun happened to drop the bear on the floor right then, and it landed in this bizarre bowing pose, like it was groveling.
"Sorry doesn't cut it, you die for that. Ran out of people to stalk, so you decided to stalk me? Who are you? Huh?"
"Hnnngh, sorry. I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
"I asked who you are!"
"I really didn't want to do it, I mean, that... I'm sorry! Please, please don't arrest me! I'll tell you everything I know!"
Maybe it was just me, but the voice coming from the other side of the bear sounded like it was on the verge of tears.
I sighed and put a hand on Choi Suhyun's shoulder.
"What? Why..."
Choi Suhyun turned around at my gesture and chucked the bear straight at me.
The police had come and gone, but the neighbors in the villa were already peeking curiously through the doorway.
Choi Suhyun, half out the door already, jabbed a finger at the bear now cradled in my arms.
"Bring that thing."
"Yes, sir."
Of course you'd say that.
I carried the bear to the car parked a little way from the villa.
The second I sat in the passenger seat, Choi Suhyun snatched the bear right back from me.
He gripped the bear's head and locked eyes with it.
Before I could even open my mouth, a miserable-sounding voice came out from inside.
"Ugh, I... I really didn't mean for it to go this way..."
"Someone watching would think I hit you. Be grateful I'm even talking to you without seeing your face. Explain."
"So, um... I don't even know where to start with this. I-I mean, about a year ago I had some business at a guild, and..."
The bear started talking.
More precisely, the voice came from a mic built into the bear.
The important part.
I have no idea what they're even saying!
This guy had zero talent for talking. None whatsoever.
Bullied at the guild, robbed of every coin they had, on the verge of starving to death, when some strange man showed up and beat down every hunter who'd been tormenting them. That was Yu Jihan. And that's how their cursed, doomed connection with Yu Jihan began...
I gave up listening around there.
Either way, this guy was clearly the accomplice helping Yu Jihan.
"Which guild was it?"
"Can't say."
"What's your name?"
"I, uh, don't really have a name I'm allowed to give. Just call me Gomdolus the Third, please. Ehehe."[1]
"Ehehe my ass, you messing with me?"
"Aaugh! I-I can't say! You'd track it down if I told you! I'll never do it again, I swear! Like I said, Yu Jihan threatened me into it! He's obsessed with the god Soter!"
Choi Suhyun popped a few candies from the car's stash into his mouth and sighed.
"What the hell is that guy? Where did he even come from?"
"I don't know either."
"Don't look at me like that, I really don't know! You think I didn't d-do research too? If he didn't literally fall out of the sky, it's just not possible!"
"Why does he hate the god Soter that much?"
"Don't know that either. Hehe. Aaah! Gomdolus the Third! The camera!"
Wait, that's not your name, that's the bear's name?
I wasn't sure of the details, but Choi Suhyun clearly knew his way around programs and hacking.
No, wait.
"Knew his way around" wasn't the right phrase.
Self-obsessed, insufferably vain, I could pile on the insults all I wanted, but Choi Suhyun really was a monster at this.
If this Gomdolus the Third character had actually gotten the better of him, that meant they weren't ordinary either.
Choi Suhyun hadn't managed to pull out gender, name, or a single scrap of personal information from them.
Meanwhile, this guy had known we were coming and left the bear behind as a decoy before running.
That was a clean loss.
Choi Suhyun grabbed the bear's head and shook it.
"Anyway. Huh? You so much as peek at my computer one more time, I'll chase you straight to hell. You get that it's not that I can't find you, right?"
"Are you sure it's not that you can't find them?"
"Kang Hangyeol, whose side are you even on?"
"Hnngh, hngg. Sorry. I won't do it again."
Honestly, I didn't really get it.
Choi Suhyun couldn't track this guy down right now regardless.
Maybe he could with enough time invested, but it didn't seem worth the effort.
Why's he so terrified?
Gomdolus was cowering like every word out of Choi Suhyun's mouth was gospel truth.
It didn't look like fear that Choi Suhyun wouldn't find them. It looked like fear of Choi Suhyun himself.
"By the way... did Yu Jihan end up kicking the bucket... I mean, ahem, did he die?"
You wanted him dead too, huh?
Guess an accomplice's personality doesn't necessarily line up with the person they're helping.
He hadn't seemed like that kind of personality when we first met, either. Lately, every time I heard someone badmouth Yu Jihan, I felt like a parent whose kid had turned out wrong.
No, wait, the one I'm actually raising is the Yu Jihan in the tower. The Transcendent one out here is more like the kid I disowned.
Calling him my kid in the first place is a little ridiculous anyway.
If I'd known this was coming, I would've beat him a little harder back then. Regret, plain and simple.
"Doubt he's dead."
Choi Suhyun sounded certain Yu Jihan hadn't died.
"Why?"
"You little shit! Why are you asking me that! Are you or aren't you in league with Yu Jihan?"
"I-I am! I mean, I am, but... not, not exactly the same league. Please don't lump me in at his level? Do you have any idea how talented I am?"
"Aaaugh! Gomdolus the Third!"
Choi Suhyun flung the bear straight at the windshield.
It bounced off the glass and landed in my lap.
Choi Suhyun's voice went cold and flat inside the car.
"Let's make a deal. You were with Yu Jihan that day too, weren't you? Well, 'with him' might not be quite the right word for it."
"W-would someone as lowly as me really be able to help?"
Choi Suhyun bounced his leg while chewing on a candy.
"You already know the whole situation anyway, so let's keep this short. Who is that god? The one that took Song Eunyoung and me. Any guesses?"
"Huh? Why're you asking me that?"
"No, wait, I mean... weren't you already aware of that? I thought you knew. I figured you'd come after me over some personal grudge!!"
What was that supposed to mean?
Gomdolus's words made no sense, and I found myself just staring blankly back at Choi Suhyun, who was staring blankly at me.
Choi Suhyun, having finished off his stash of candy, shook Gomdolus in my lap.
"Aaaugh! The camera's shaking! Stop! Sto-o-op!"
"Explain."
"The god Beritaas! The one from seven years ago, the... the great disaster! Oh, but wait, was that actually a dungeon break?"
Choi Suhyun set Gomdolus down, and his eyes changed.
"This little..."
"Beritaas, huh..."
That was the god Park Siyu had named as the one behind noona's kidnapping.
Come to think of it, Park Siyu had never explained why he'd pointed to the god Beritaas in the first place.
"What the hell is this Beritaas guy even about?"
"Ah, that's..."
Choi Suhyun glanced at Gomdolus for a second, then kept going.
"There was an S-Rank hunter named Yu Chaeyoung. She served the god Beritaas."
"Yu Chaeyoung?"
I'd never heard the name before, but somehow it felt strangely familiar.
"You know, there's that one, one of Aria Guild's representatives, Yu Seyeon. Yu Chaeyoung's her younger sister. Yu Chaeyoung was Park Siyu's former fiancée."
"Wait, fiancée?"
"Yeah, the whole arranged-by-the-family, pointless tradition thing. Why are you so shocked?"
Choi Suhyun muttered it like it was nothing.
Normal families don't just arrange pointless things like engagements.
"What kind of person was this Yu Chaeyoung, this S-Rank hunter?"
"What kind of person, nothing. There's no her left."
It took me a second to catch the meaning of "no her left."
"Officially, she was recorded as having died in a dungeon."
"She's alive?"
"You think that's possible? Read one too many novels, haven't you? I told you to cut it out!"
This guy, seriously!
I don't even have time to read stuff like that even if I wanted to!
And it's you who's reading novels on the clock, not me!
"So is she actually dead or not?"
"She's dead, she is dead, but..."
Choi Suhyun sighed and scratched his head.
"Park Siyu killed her."
[1] "Gomdolus" plays on "gomdori," a common cutesy nickname for teddy bears in Korean, dressed up with a pseudo-Latin "-us" suffix.
Footnotes:
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