WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 81: Why Me! Why! (2)
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What was this, a duel now?
This wasn't some martial arts novel.
I had no reason to fight and no interest in it either.
I turned to Choi Suhyun.
"Hyung, who's this?"
"Can't you tell just by looking? Raon Guild."
"You think I didn't already know that?"
The guy who'd walked up out of nowhere and challenged me to a duel had a cape draped over his shoulders, basically the symbol of Raon Guild itself.
Among Raon Guild members, only followers of the god Lux wore capes like that.
I'd seen the same blue cape on the Raon Guild hunters back when I entered the Cockatrice dungeon.
Obviously I knew he was from Raon Guild. Why was I even asking?
Choi Suhyun stuffed his hands in his pockets and grumbled.
"Hey, do I look like an encyclopedia? Like everything just pops up when you ask? I don't know either! Why are you asking me when the guy's standing right here! Hey, this guy's asking whose kid you are! Who are you?"
Why was he getting so worked up over nothing?
It felt less like he genuinely didn't know and more like he was pretending not to know because actually knowing would just be a hassle.
"Ahem. Seems my reputation hasn't reached Hunter Choi Suhyun-nim yet. My apologies for the late introduction. I'm Choi Jaebyung, a hunter with Raon Guild."
At Choi Suhyun's words, Choi Jaebyung bit his lip.
See, that proves he did it on purpose.
Choi Jaebyung, who looked about my age, had a white rose stitched over his chest.
Same rank as Han Jongho?
He looked way too young to share a rank with Han Jongho, who everyone called team leader.
"I've heard everything about the mess you caused at Cockatrice Farm. You don't actually think you can make an enemy of our guild and walk away, do you?"
"So what if I did."
Wasn't it basically an unspoken agreement going in that the dungeon would turn into a disaster?
I couldn't understand why some total stranger was making this much noise about it.
I didn't peg Raon Guild members as the type to have that much camaraderie.
This was obviously him picking a fight out of nothing.
Sure enough, the guy switched gears and latched onto me.
"Let's duel."
"Cut it out! I said no."
"You really don't know who I am?"
"You said Choi Jaebyung."
"Not the name."
"Raon Guild?"
What else was there?
I tilted my head, and Choi Jaebyung's face flushed red.
"You awakened last year."
"We took classes together! Hunter trainee cohort! How can you not remember the guy who graduated top of the class!"
Huh. Guess we were trainee cohort mates.
Sorry to say, but by the time I possessed this body the training program was basically over, so I didn't remember much about that period.
Even if I did remember, I doubted I'd have remembered someone with an impression that faint.
And besides that.
"It's a two month program. Cohort or not, does it even mean anything?"
Ouch.
At my words, the guy coughed repeatedly.
He seemed to know himself that he was reaching.
"You're planning to join the raid too, aren't you?"
"I need to see with my own eyes whether the other hunters' reports are true."
"So why does that have to be you?"
"You and I are around the same age, awakened around the same time. Even became B-rank hunters around the same time. So why the hell are you more famous?"
Famous? What was this guy even talking about?
Choi Jaebyung huffed and puffed, working himself into a rage.
He seemed to have decided I was some kind of rival.
"So, that's why we're dueling!"
"No. Also, I've never once thought of you as a rival, and fighting you doesn't benefit me in any way."
"So you did think of me as a rival too!"
"I said no! It's just a figure of speech!"
The out-of-nowhere sparring match, the duel, all of it aside, this guy wasn't right in the head.
He had a completely different vibe from the arrogant Raon Guild types I'd seen before.
I waved my hand at Choi Jaebyung.
Rival, my foot.
Before Choi Jaebyung showed up in front of me just now, I hadn't even registered his existence.
When I kept refusing, Choi Jaebyung clung on harder.
"If you think of me as a rival, you can at least spar with me! How hard is that!"
"Forget hard, anyone would refuse if some stranger walked up and demanded a fight out of nowhere."
"We're not exactly strangers."
"Sure, not total strangers since we were trainee cohort mates. But being in the same class doesn't mean everyone's friends, you know."
I wasn't going to fall for some shallow trick like that.
"That's not it. This isn't the first time we've sparred. You don't remember?"
I rolled the memory forward, rolled it sideways, thought it over every which way, and still came up with nothing about ever sparring with Choi Jaebyung.
When I stayed quiet, Choi Jaebyung kept going.
"Back during training. We sparred once."
"Sorry about knocking you out that time."
Choi Jaebyung bowed his head and apologized.
My brain started racing.
Hunter trainee. Sparring. Knocked out. No memory of it.
The timeframe Choi Jaebyung was talking about was crystal clear.
It hit me like a hammer to the skull, and everything went white for a second.
It was you!!
Of course I'd assumed it was those chubby punks who'd started that fight!
How was I supposed to know I got knocked out fighting some guy whose face I'd never even seen!
I grabbed Choi Jaebyung by the collar and shook him.
"A person's got to have some conscience! If you knock someone out, you come apologize at least once!"
"S-sorry. Things got pretty busy for me after that, and it just ended up this way."
Choi Jaebyung let go of the hand gripping his collar and brushed off his cape.
"I figured you were just holding a grudge and pretending not to know me, but finding out you actually thought of me as a rival, that's honestly kind of touching."
Don't blush!
Choi Suhyun was standing right here, you almost got me in serious trouble!
And I never thought of you as a rival, so don't go making up your own story!
Thankfully, Choi Suhyun also seemed to think I'd just been holding a grudge and pretending not to know him.
That was close. Way too close.
If the guy who'd knocked out the original Kang Hangyeol wasn't those chubby kids but this guy instead, then if I'd kept dodging any longer, this wouldn't have stayed a joke.
Choi Jaebyung didn't seem to have anything more to say about that incident.
Darkness pressed in past the lobby windows.
"I apologized, so let's spar."
"Get lost."
"I already told you, didn't I? Why are you more famous than me?"
"What does that even have to do with sparring?"
"Among my cohort, I'm supposed to be the most famous one."
"I'm not famous, though?"
"Hmph. Everyone who matters already knows that you're the one in the video who stole our guild's monster kill, and that Park Siyu is your sponsor."
That part, I couldn't exactly deny.
Not like it was something worth hiding anyway.
Choi Jaebyung's obsession with fame was definitely a special kind of strange.
Wait, could this guy be...
"You an attention seeker?"
"T-that's not it."
Choi Jaebyung turned his head away, the corner of his mouth twitching.
That was an insult.
Watching someone look pleased after being insulted made my blood boil.
A stranger approached Choi Jaebyung, who was still clinging on, begging for just one match.
"What's going on here?"
"Ah, Representative."
"Representative?"
A hulking man in a suit walked over.
No weapon on him, but he radiated an unmistakable I'm-a-hunter presence.
There was only one person Choi Jaebyung of Raon Guild would call Representative.
Raon Guild's representative.
Kang Moonkook, wasn't it?
I'd known he was tall and built like a tank, but seeing him in person, the aura around him was seriously something.
Beside me, Choi Suhyun pulled his hands out of his pockets and sighed quietly.
"Going on about duels and sparring for no reason again, I bet. This isn't the guild. Don't cause trouble."
"It's not like that this time."
"Not like what?"
"He's genuinely worth fighting."
Something about the image I'd built of Raon Guild suddenly crumbled all at once.
Weren't they supposed to be villains? Bad guys? Something like that?
At least Han Jongho and his friends definitely had that classic villain vibe going for them.
Compared to them, Choi Jaebyung and Kang Moonkook didn't give off that feeling at all.
At Choi Jaebyung's words, Kang Moonkook clicked his tongue.
"You pathetic kid, there are proper opponents to pick fights with. There's no way in hell you'd beat Choi Suhyun, no matter how you slice it."
While I'd been going back and forth with Choi Jaebyung, Kang Moonkook had been standing a little ways off.
Looked like he'd been handling some business, though that wasn't important.
Even with some distance between us, it wasn't far enough that he couldn't have heard my conversation with Choi Jaebyung.
Seemed like he was trying to smooth things over somehow.
Something about this rubbed me the wrong way.
Kang Moonkook, sure, but I didn't think I'd lose to the Choi Jaebyung standing in front of me.
Besides, wasn't this the same guy who'd knocked me out during that sparring match?
Saying "me" felt a little strange, admittedly.
No wait, that guy knocked out Kang Hangyeol, which is why I ended up possessing him in the first place.
So should I be thanking him?
The Kang Hangyeol from before he got knocked out wasn't me, so I couldn't call it my grudge, but since I was Kang Hangyeol now, that still made this guy the one who knocked me out, in the end.
"It's not Choi Suhyun, sir. Even I know my place no matter how great I am. There's no way I could beat a senior of his caliber."
"Ha, senior my ass. They say three years changes even mountains and rivers, but a mountain that's stayed exactly where it is for three years can't exactly call itself a healthy mountain."
"What'd you say? This old geezer?"
"A snot-nosed brat who used to run around in a school uniform, all grown up in a suit now."
Choi Suhyun and Kang Moonkook glared at each other like they meant business.
The air felt like a fight could break out any second.
Hmm. Should I make a break for it?
Knowing Choi Suhyun's personality, it wouldn't be at all strange if he actually got into it with Kang Moonkook.
I turned to size up an escape route, and Choi Suhyun caught me by the collar like a ghost sensing prey.
"Wh-what?"
"What? When you think about it, this is your fault for getting tangled up with this punk in the first place."
"How is that my fault?"
"Right, it's not this young man's fault at all. Choi Jaebyung here is the master candidate Raon Guild's been grooming. Getting to fight someone like Jaebyung is an honor for your friend here, how could that possibly be a fault?"
Wow. This guy.
No, this old man.
Built like a tank but clearly rotten to the core, definitely keeping a snake coiled up in his gut somewhere.
"There you have it, apparently."
"You call yourself a man and you've got no pride!"
"What does pride have to do with any of this! If we fight, all it does is make those guys happy! I'd rather just eat the insult than pull some pointless stunt that gets me nothing! I'd rather spend that time running one more dungeon."
"Sounds to me like you're saying you'd be willing to fight if there's something in it for you. Did I hear that wrong?"
This old man!
Why did he keep butting into a conversation between adults, well, young people?
I brushed off Choi Suhyun's hand and glanced over at Kang Moonkook.
"A hundred thousand. Of course, you'd have to put up the same amount on your end. What do you say?"
"Nothing under five hundred thousand points."
Kang Moonkook's eyes narrowed.
"Heh heh heh, greedy one, aren't you."
"Chicken out and drop dead, then. We'll just be on our way."
"If you're thinking Jaebyung's on the same level as the hunters you killed off in that dungeon, you're sorely mistaken."
I smiled quietly at Kang Moonkook, who kept trying to intimidate me.
The hunters and staff in the lobby were sneaking glances over at us.
Some of them were reporters who'd come for other business and stuck around out of curiosity.
"Deal."
"W-wait a second! I said I wanted to spar with him, but I don't have that many merit points..."
"I'll cover it for you."
"Representative!"
Choi Jaebyung's eyes welled up with tears of gratitude, shining bright.
"There you go, hyung."
"Just lend me five hundred thousand points."
"Nine tenths if you win."
Footnotes:
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