WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Returned as a God ◈
Chapter 89: You Call That an Answer? (2)
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Moving on this myself seemed like it'd clear things up faster.
This is going to drag on.
I'd told Choi Suhyun I'd be back soon, but from how things looked, this conversation wasn't going to be quick.
Honestly, the earlier floors had been way more relaxing.
Erel's test or whatever, all I'd had to do was clear whatever requests happened to be sitting in plain sight.
The Transcendent, Yu Jihan, didn't seem to have any immediate intention of killing Eunyoung noona.
An enemy would've been a headache, but as a temporary ally, there wasn't anyone more reliable than Yu Jihan.
Come to think of it, might've had something to do with that ring Choi Suhyun threw at him too.
The price for sparing Eunyoung noona's life got waved off in exchange for me impersonating Yu Jihan inside the tower.
You never know, right?
Maybe Lee Eunyheui would walk out of the lobby with some goodwill toward me and end up helping Yu Jihan out.
You truly never know how things with people are going to turn out.
I'd told Choi Suhyun I'd be back soon, but that all depended on clearing Layer 11 and actually getting out.
Doing the math, two days inside the tower came out to about half a day in the real world.
Cutting it close before the raid, but not brutally tight.
For now, I decided to focus on what was right in front of me.
"Ugh, I'll figure it out myself."
"You have some kind of plan?"
"As if."
I shook my head at Igerus's words.
If I'd known this would happen, I should've cleared a few noble-related requests myself.
Something like a request from a count who's into men, maybe?
Ah, that's a bit much.
While I kept my mouth shut, Lee Eunyheui and Erel started running their mouths about my infiltration method like it was their call to make.
"Just dress him up as a girl, seriously. I'm good at makeup. Do it right and nobody'll be able to tell if he's a guy or a girl."
"That's insane. Then he'd have to live with the women. Given the Faillia Duke's tastes, going in as a slave would be way faster. With that face, he'd definitely stand out!"
These women.
Erel, fine, whatever, but Lee Eunyheui, isn't this a bit much coming from you?
We hadn't even known each other three hours and she'd been calling herself a stranger to me not long ago, so why was she hammering nails into my coffin like this now?
I planted my hands hard on the table and shot up off the couch.
"I'll!"
"Figure it out myself, seriously!"
My face burned red as I huffed.
Even if nobody was around to see it, that didn't mean it was okay, are you two out of your minds?
The two of them shut their mouths like they'd swallowed something.
"Ugh, my life."
Since staying any longer clearly wasn't going anywhere, I told them to give me two days and walked out of the guild.
Under the afternoon sun, the market street a little ways off from the main road was packed with people.
"Peaceful."
Munch munch.
"So what do we do now..."
Nom nom.
"...hey."
"Gulp, what?"
Lee Eunyheui swallowed down a skewer dripping with sauce.
Before I could even get a word out, she'd already walked over to a nearby stall.
"Give me one of everything, from here to here."
"Ah, and is this a drink?"
"That's fruit juice made from kurukurumango, a specialty of the Arent region. Two people drink it, one of 'em might die and nobody'd notice."
"Then one of those too. Extra large."
Lee Eunyheui pulled a gold coin from her pocket and dropped it in the middle-aged vendor's hand.
The man's eyes shook the moment he saw the gold coin. He quickly stuffed it into his pocket, glancing around to see if anyone nearby had noticed.
"You got a beggar living in your stomach or something? Why are you eating so much?"
"Something wrong with eating a lot?"
"Not exactly, but..."
Lee Eunyheui hugged the skewers piled with meat and the drinks against her chest.
Once we'd walked far enough from the crowd, she slid it all into her item window in a flash.
Lee Eunyheui drank the mango juice.
"You try eating nothing but jerky and stale bread crumbs for a month. Your mouth'll be craving something sweet too."
"What were you doing in the lobby for a month?"
Had I said something wrong?
I ran back through the conversation looking for what had thrown her off, but nothing seemed particularly strange.
Lee Eunyheui finished the mango juice and crushed the cup.
Thinking it over, the jerky and bread thing really did sound like an excuse.
"You seriously don't know what happened?"
Her voice had dropped low, and that was when I finally spotted my mistake.
Wait, is this lobby a ticking time bomb or something? Does trouble ever stop happening here?
The problem was I'd never met anyone from the tower besides Yu Jihan.
Lee Eunyheui pulled a big hunk of meat from her item window and muttered to herself.
"Well, guess it's possible you wouldn't know."
I had no idea what she'd been thinking, but she seemed to have convinced herself of something.
Since asking felt awkward, I decided to just let it go.
The smell of well-cooked meat drifting from beside me made my stomach growl.
The only thing I'd eaten since arriving here was that first dark ale I'd ordered, so I'd been getting hungry.
"Give me a piece too."
"What? It's mine! Buy your own! You a beggar?"
Wow, getting called a beggar by someone who just ate like one, that stung.
Told you the bread and jerky thing was totally an excuse.
Lee Eunyheui clutched the meat to her chest and growled like an animal.
In the end, I bought a few decent-looking pieces of fruit from a nearby stall.
"Oh! These are peppe grapes, right? Give me all of them!"
"Quit buying so much! Seriously!"
Why do you know food and fruit names this well anyway?
Lee Eunyheui handed the vendor two gold coins and swept every peppe grape off the stall.
They were golden-hued grapes, five times the size of a Kyoho.[1]
Lee Eunyheui bit into one.
Did this girl come into the tower just to eat, or what?
"You seriously not doing the crossdressing thing?"
"Are you even serious right now?"
"You think you're in a position to be picky about anything?"
"What do you even know about me!"
Something about people from the tower seemed to be missing a screw.
We headed into the middle of the market, and the crowd thickened.
"Ah, sorry."
Behind me, Lee Eunyheui bumped into a grimy little boy.
The boy bowed his head quickly and darted off like he was fleeing.
"What's up with him?"
Lee Eunyheui calmly swallowed another peppe grape.
I pointed at Lee Eunyheui's waist.
The spot where her pouch of gold coins had been was empty.
"You got pickpocketed."
"What are you talking..." She patted her waist. "Wait, huh? Hey!! Are you kidding me!! Do you have any idea how much money was in there?"
Lee Eunyheui shoved the grapes in her hand into her item window and spun around fast.
"And you, just standing there watching, what's wrong with you! You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
I looked away and whistled.
The one who got robbed is the one at fault here, why's she yelling at me.
The crowd was already dense enough, and with the kid being short, finding him was going to be rough.
Find him and then what, he was probably already long gone...
"You're dead once I get my money back!"
Lee Eunyheui bolted into a side alley.
Unlike me, who was using Mana Detection to track the kid who'd stolen the money, Lee Eunyheui had picked him out using nothing but pure eyesight.
Not just eyesight, either.
Good memory too.
Recognizing a face you'd only caught a glimpse of, unconsciously, without meaning to remember it, was rare.
Looks like she got him.
I went into the alley and ran toward where Lee Eunyheui and the boy were.
A few blocks in, I found Lee Eunyheui at the edge of the slums, holding the kid by the collar and giving him an earful.
"H-hic, I'm sorry."
"Hey! Hands up, properly!"
Pinned against the wall, Lee Eunyheui was scolding a kid who looked about ten years old.
Torn clothes, thin limbs, and here and there on his body were small untreated wounds that had festered into scars.
Estimated at ten, but the actual age could've been higher.
Kids who grew up malnourished tended to look younger than they actually were.
"What's going on here?"
The area near the slums fell under the watch patrol's territory.
A man in plain clothes approached, apparently off duty.
"Oh, you're..."
"You know him?"
"Sort of? Something like you."
Coincidence or not, two of the requests I'd cleared while waiting for Erel had belonged to this guy.
Ludie Tur, a member of the Royal Guard and commander of the Western Guard Division.
His face coming into view sent a spark through my head.
I could just ask this guy for help!
No idea why that hadn't occurred to me until now.
Unlike me, who already knew Ludie belonged to the watch, Lee Eunyheui was on guard against him.
A crimson bow appeared in her hand.
Ludie unfastened the sword at his hip and showed the sheath to Lee Eunyheui.
The Royal Knight Order's emblem was visible near the sword's grip.
Lee Eunyheui put her bow away.
"I'm Ludie Tur, commander of the Western Guard Division. Is this a pickpocket?"
Arms crossed, Lee Eunyheui looked down at the boy still holding his hands up.
"Nope."
"He's not. Not what you think it is."
"But..."
Ludie looked at me, flustered.
The man had years of watch duty under his belt, he clearly could tell at a glance.
Anyone could see Lee Eunyheui was taking the pickpocket's side.
"Then what exactly are you doing?"
"Can't you tell? I'm scolding him."
"This kid tried to steal my bread."
"Isn't that pickpocketing?"
"Trying to grab bread I was already eating isn't pickpocketing. Besides, he didn't even get it."
Hands behind her back, Lee Eunyheui casually pulled a loaf of bread out of her item window.
"I was just giving him a scolding, that's all. Ease up on the meddling, Royal Knight, and go on about your business."
Lee Eunyheui made a shushing sound and waved her hand around.
That guy's actually pretty high up the food chain, though.
Ludie's gaze landed on me.
"Companion of yours?"
"Something in the neighborhood of companion."
"And the bread story?"
"It's true. Really not a big deal."
"If you say so, then it must be."
Ludie strapped his sword back on and turned to leave.
"Oh, right. Mind if I stop by the watch post later?"
"If it's just you, I can probably spare you a cup of tea."
"Don't worry, I'll leave this one behind."
"Who said anything about that!"
Ludie sighed and walked off.
Lee Eunyheui's gaze settled back on the boy, who still had his hands raised.
Watching Lee Eunyheui shoo off a member of the Royal Guard with a few hand gestures seemed to have thoroughly rattled him.
Suspecting she was nobility or higher wasn't exactly unreasonable.
Honestly, when Ludie showed up, I'd half expected Lee Eunyheui to rat the kid out on the spot.
I had no idea what her actual motive was for covering for a pickpocket.
Once Ludie was gone, Lee Eunyheui turned to face the boy.
"Put your arm down."
"Y-yes, sir!"
"Here."
Lee Eunyheui met the tense boy's eyes and opened her hand.
Inside were the coins left over from the food she'd bought.
No idea how much it came to, but compared to what this kid probably lived on, it clearly wasn't a small sum.
Lee Eunyheui forced the money into the boy's hand.
"Go."
"Don't waste my time talking, just go. I don't care about your sob story."
"Th-thank you."
The boy took the money, bowed his head, and ran off deeper into the slums.
"Just, all of it, for a bunch of reasons."
If Yu Jihan had ever pulled something like that, I'd have smacked the back of his head and told him to stop wasting his time on nonsense.
Unfortunately, I couldn't do that to Lee Eunyheui.
Because we'd known each other less than a day?
No, it was because the way she looked at that kid was unbearably sad.
If she'd told Ludie the truth, the boy wouldn't have walked away from it well.
Ludie was a good person, but that only held true because he was Muel-born and a skilled mercenary.
This world wasn't kind to a kid from the slums.
At least Lee Eunyheui was smart about it.
She hadn't handed over gold, and she hadn't pried into the kid's messy backstory.
"You're Korean... no, wait, that server's got nothing but Koreans in it anyway."
"What are you trying to say?"
"You ever been starving before?"
[1] Kyoho — a large, sweet Japanese-origin grape variety widely grown and sold across East Asia, commonly used as a size reference for oversized fruit.
Footnotes:
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