WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 88: You Call That an Answer? (1)
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It slipped out.
The name really had come out of my mouth without me even thinking.
Saying "Kang Hangyeol" felt a little off, honestly.
Lee Eunyheui was a human from outside the tower.
Picturing her wandering around out there looking for the real Kang Hangyeol left an uneasy feeling I couldn't quite shake.
If I just said Yu Jihan instead.
There was also a small hope in the back of my mind that it might come in handy for the kid later.
Whatever the situation was outside the tower, the sheer volume of merit points Yu Jihan brought in from inside it was nothing to sneeze at.
As long as I couldn't secure another follower, the kid needed to thrive for me to grow stronger.
Whether I was raising a tiger cub or not wasn't something I could afford to worry about right now.
Lee Eunyheui nodded, unbothered.
"Never heard that name before. Whatever, nice to meet you."
She drained the last of her dark ale and stood up from her seat.
She jerked her chin upward, signaling for me to follow.
Hey, I hadn't even had a single sip of my beer yet.
I hurried through half my glass and followed Lee Eunyheui up to the second floor.
"By the way, what's your affiliation?"
"Affiliation?"
"Never mind. Nothing."
Lee Eunyheui shut her mouth and stopped in front of a door further inside.
A waiting mercenary bowed and opened the door for us.
"The guild representative's name was..."
"Terkaesion Igerus."
"Ah, right, that was it."
The one who'd actually summoned us had kept dodging with one excuse after another, avoiding a face-to-face meeting until now. This was the first time.
Lee Eunyheui and I stepped into the guild master's office.
Compared to Erel's office as vice guild master, this one was far bigger, more spacious, and had a much finer desk.
The man sitting behind the desk stood up.
Long silver hair tied back in a single knot, and a face that looked less like a capital guild representative and more like someone you'd spot at a noble's banquet hall.
Of course, that delicate look didn't match the fact that he was clearly a serious powerhouse underneath it.
Erel, already there ahead of us, waved from the sofa.
"Come on in."
"Let's sit and talk."
At Igerus's words, Lee Eunyheui and I took seats on the sofa.
"I understand you've stayed in the capital quite a while now. Have you settled in?"
"Yes. Though I never intended to stay this long."
Lee Eunyheui set down her cup of black tea with exaggerated care.
I hadn't expected her to actually say something like that straight to his face, no matter how annoyed she was.
Bold.
Igerus gave a light laugh and apologized.
"My apologies. As you can see, I've been swamped. Lately I just haven't been able to find the time no matter how hard I tried."
"Oh, I bet."
"Hey, come on."
"What? It's true, isn't it? You call someone in and then run them ragged for ages, is it not normal to get pissed off about that? And now you're telling me you've been busy? Like you're the only one who's busy? I'm busy too!"
Lee Eunyheui clenched her fist, irritation plain on her face.
One thing was clear now.
This woman's personality wasn't exactly a gentle one either.
Erel rushed to calm her down.
"Calm down. This time it's really true."
"Obviously. You think he's going to say it's not true with the actual person sitting right here?"
Lee Eunyheui uncrossed her legs, drained her hot tea in one go, and set the cup down.
It was a fact that Erel had kept stalling with one excuse after another.
Swamped, huh?
That part I couldn't accept.
Sure, a guild master wasn't exactly free, but that didn't mean meeting someone was impossible.
Park Siyu was proof enough of that.
That guy was insanely busy too. But if he wanted to meet someone, he found a way.
Being busy and being unreachable were two completely different things.
If the person you needed to meet mattered enough, dropping every side task to see them face to face was just common sense.
The reason we hadn't been able to meet Igerus until now was simple: we hadn't been worth the effort.
Might sound arrogant, but it was pretty clear the guy had been vetting our skill through Erel this whole time.
Whatever this was really about.
At the very least, it meant there had to be some reason on their end that made this approach necessary.
Igerus placed a photograph on the table.
At a glance, it was an ordinary family photo, taken in front of an elaborate spread of food in the garden of some massive estate.
More precisely, it was the family photo of a noble house.
"The Faillia Duke's house."
"Faillia Duke, that's the emperor's mother's family, isn't it? One of the empire's three great ducal houses, the only one left that traces back to the founding meritorious families."
Wait, how does she know all this?
I'd heard of the three great ducal houses before, but the whole emperor's-mother's-family, founding-meritorious-clan business was news to me.
"The Faillia Duke's eldest daughter currently holds the position of empress. Do you happen to know how nobility maintains itself in this world?"
"Maintains itself?"
"How a noble house manages to stay noble, generation after generation."
Lee Eunyheui admitted she didn't know that part and went quiet.
If she was anything like Yu Jihan, it made sense that she'd struggle to wrap her head around some of the stranger quirks of this world.
"Adoption, I'd guess."
Nobility referred to the elite among Muel, who came in all kinds of abilities.
A child born to a Muel wasn't necessarily a Muel themself.
As long as someone could carry on the family name, blood ties meant next to nothing.
Looking at the photo, honestly, none of the people in it looked remotely related.
"Blood ties don't mean much to nobles. You've probably heard the rumors going around lately, about nobles breaking their taboos."
Lee Eunyheui's confident tone from earlier, back when the Faillia Duke's house first came up, faded fast.
It was obvious she didn't have much information about taboos or anything in that territory.
For a noble, especially one holding the highest rank among Muel, to break a taboo was the kind of thing that should draw serious, harsh judgment in this world.
I had a rough idea what Igerus's request might be.
If someone from one of the three great ducal houses, a founding meritorious family no less, turned out to have broken a taboo, the fallout wouldn't be small.
Both me thinking that and Igerus making this request off the same assumption felt premature, though.
"There's been a string of disappearances among the household staff at the Faillia Duke's estate recently."
"Disappearances?"
"According to them, the staff were sent off to work at other territories. But when we checked, not a single one of those territories they claimed to have sent staff to could account for the missing servants."
"That's suspicious, sure, but isn't that enough evidence to push on them directly?"
"Are you an idiot? The Faillia Duke's household has over a thousand employed staff."
"What? Who's calling who an idiot? You hothead!"
"Wh, what head? And who cares if I'm an idiot, that's beside the point! Anyway. This is the Faillia Duke's house we're talking about. Dozens of new staff join and leave every single month. You know what that means?"
"No idea."
Erel sighed at Lee Eunyheui's shameless attitude.
It didn't seem like she genuinely didn't understand, more like plain sarcasm.
Guess there's a lot of pent-up frustration here.
Fair enough, honestly, between caravan escort duty and being handed one task after another under the guise of a "test," there was no denying she'd been worked hard.
Ignoring Lee Eunyheui, Erel pressed on regardless.
"It means one or two staff vanishing without a trace isn't the kind of thing that raises any eyebrows there."
They could say the staff ran off, or throw out excuse after excuse about how tracking every single employee just isn't feasible.
None of that proved someone inside the Faillia Duke's household was actually behind it.
"The problem is, every single one of the missing staff turns out to share one thing in common: they're all Muel."
Igerus crossed his arms and lightly tapped his fingers.
Being Muel didn't guarantee equal treatment by any means.
Treatment varied wildly depending on what abilities someone had and which house happened to adopt them.
Muel who never became nobility mostly ended up as special assets to the nobles.
Positions like bodyguard knights, personal handmaidens, butlers, that kind of managerial role.
Higher standing than an ordinary servant, and with a bit of luck, a decent shot at catching another noble's eye and getting adopted.
"Okay, that part is genuinely suspicious."
"As you've probably guessed, the request is simple. Infiltrate the Faillia Duke's household, investigate the disappearances, and confirm whether the Duke has actually broken a taboo. As you know, this matter..."
"I won't talk. Not that I have anyone to talk to about it anyway."
Lee Eunyheui drew a line, telling him not to worry.
Even a rumor that the Faillia Duke's house was under suspicion of breaking a taboo could stir up serious chaos on its own.
"I'll arrange a separate method for reporting back. Now, as for the infiltration method, do you have anything in mind already?"
Hold on.
Did I just mishear something.
Something about that question felt off, didn't it?
You're the one asking us to infiltrate, and you're asking the infiltrators if they've got a plan for infiltrating?
"Are you kidding me right now?"
"Why would I be?"
"The infiltration method is your job to provide."
"Then should I go to the Duke's household and ask, 'I'd like to plant a spy from the guild, would you care to hire one?'"
"You're not seriously calling that a joke, are you?"
With this much intel already gathered, there was no way they didn't have a connection inside the Faillia Duke's household.
Erel shook her head.
"This job is being handled as strictly confidential, even within the guild."
"To deceive the enemy, you have to deceive your own side first, no? My apologies, but we can't use any of the guild's informants for this."
"So basically, you're handing us the job and then washing your hands of it completely?"
Igerus and Erel both coughed and looked away.
Are these two for real?
Lee Eunyheui went quiet, apparently actually thinking it over.
Is this really something worth thinking over seriously?
"So regardless of the guild, all I need to do is somehow get myself hired as household staff at the Faillia Duke's estate?"
"If that's all it takes, shouldn't be too hard."
Wait, what? This feels like a betrayal.
If she just goes along with it, what does that make me for getting worked up over this?
Lee Eunyheui poured out the last of the black tea into her cup and sipped it.
"The request I cleared last time happened to be from Count Rirent. He said he'd help me out if I ever needed a favor, so this should be doable."
"Um, actually, I..."
"We're comrades, aren't we, after everything?"
I poked her in the side, trying to reason with her, but Lee Eunyheui completely ignored me.
"Comrades, my foot, we've known each other less than three hours. And I'm not joking, I genuinely can't help you with this."
"Count Rirent has this intense dislike of men. His request form even specified that he absolutely needed a female mercenary."
Having finished off her tea, Lee Eunyheui looked me up and down.
Something in that look told me there was a bad idea brewing.
"You're kind of pretty, you know."
"...What?"
"Wanna try crossdressing?"
I was half expecting her to say something ridiculous, but this took it to a whole new level.
What?
Cross what now?
Don't even joke about that!
"Just kill me instead."
"Suit yourself, then."
Lee Eunyheui turned her head away, prim and unbothered.
I scratched my head and let out a sigh.
I turned to the two of them, who were watching this whole thing like it had nothing to do with them.
"I get that this has nothing to do with the guild, but you must have some kind of backup plan lined up regardless."
"There's something. Not something I'd recommend, though."
"What is it?"
Whatever it was, it had to beat crossdressing.
Erel glanced at Igerus, then carefully opened her mouth.
"The Faillia Duke has a hobby of buying male slaves and pitting them against each other in fights."
"So that's why he's been buying up so many Fourth-class citizens."
The noble caravan I'd escorted on Floor 5, that had belonged to the Faillia house.
I hadn't known they were one of the empire's three great ducal houses at the time, but I still remembered that part.
"He sometimes shares meals with whichever Fourth-class citizen from the fights happens to catch his eye."
I narrowed my eyes, and Erel broke into a cold sweat.
"There's, there is actually a way to mask your mana and get a slave brand stamped on you..."
"Might as well tell me to chew on a sword!"
That'd genuinely be easier!
Crossdressing or slavery, take your pick!
These people, I swear!
Is there not one normal option on the table?
Footnotes:
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