WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ I Returned as a God ◈

Chapter 99: And Yet, Onward (4)

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Rizu's eyes wavered.

The black mana slowly bled into blue.

It felt like the sky itself had come down.

Anyone, anyone at all who'd been standing in that exact spot, would have done what she did.

"You're not the one who did wrong."

"That doesn't mean I'm saying you did right, either. You just wanted to live, that's all."

Facing parents who couldn't handle her as she grew and tried to kill her instead, a child that young hadn't had many choices left.

I brought the sword down, and the spirits shielding Rizu were cut clean away.

A small, cute puppy appeared in front of Rizu.

It barked at me like it was warning me off.

Rizu reached a hand toward the puppy.

She gathered the trembling dog into her arms.

"What are you even angry about?"

"You know."

"Something like that... it's impossible."

"Did you even try?"

The Sky Sword came down across Rizu's chest.

Blood poured from where the blade had passed.

Red. Redder than anything else in the world.

Rizu's body pitched forward.

The puppy rubbed its cheek against the back of her hand, like it was worried about her wound.

"Hey, listen, if..."

"There's no if. But I'll still hear you out, one last time."

"Never mind."

"I said I'd listen."

"That won't... ugh... that won't change anything."

That much was true.

I sheathed my sword and looked down at her, fallen.

As her mana drained away, the puppy at her side grew steadily more transparent.

If she wasn't going to say her last words, then I could say them for her.

"You did well."

"Did well. Not sure I've earned the right to hear that."

The puppy vanished completely, and Rizu closed her eyes.

I looked down at her, dead with her eyes shut.

Her limbs had rotted and crumbled, her face twisted into something grotesque, but it was a death that looked strangely peaceful.

Rizu had probably known too.

That what started as a means of survival had, at some point, spiraled out of control like a train with no brakes.

Someone had needed to hit the brakes for her.

"That's all it was."

So there was no need to understand her, and no reason to pity her either.

"Hah, I wonder how much time's passed outside."

Something about it felt like we were cutting it close.

I hoped I hadn't missed the raid.

Wanting to wrap this up and get moving, I turned to look at Lee Eunyheui.

"Guhk...!"

An inverted-triangle horn came flying at my back.

I barely got my sword up in time to block it, but I couldn't avoid the impact. I slammed into a collapsed wall and came up covered in dust.

Lee Eunyheui ran over, and both of us looked toward where Rizu's body lay.

"What? What is it? Hey, what the hell is that?"

Rizu's corpse floated up like someone had yanked an invisible thread. The last of her blood drained out and hit the ground, and her body turned black while every bone in it twisted out of shape.

Not a pretty sight, to put it mildly.

Black thread spilled out of her body and wound around her.

The trees and ground nearby had started withering.

Mana's running low.

I'd already helped Lee Eunyheui and fought Rizu on top of that. My mana had bottomed out.

"You got a decent amount of mana stocked up, right? You've been sneaking bites of something this whole time."

While I fought Rizu, Lee Eunyheui had been chugging mana potions like her life depended on it.

Judging by how frantically she drank them, they didn't seem to be doing much.

"What do you mean, sneaking bites."

"Let's fire off the meteor shower again."

"The what?"

"That thing from before."

I glared at Lee Eunyheui's bow.

"Don't just name my skills whatever you want!"

Lee Eunyheui grumbled like this was ridiculous.

With my mana bottomed out, the strongest attack left was Lee Eunyheui's Meteor Shower.

She must have realized how dangerous the thing in front of us was, because she drew her bowstring without another word of complaint.

I grabbed her arm from behind.

"I only just refilled my mana."

She griped, but black and blue arrows appeared threading through her fingers anyway.

I let go, and the arrows shot out in a straight line, pouring down onto Rizu and detonating in a burst.

"Your face is white. You okay?"

Standing upright was about all I could manage.

Lee Eunyheui pulled two mana potions from her item window and tossed them at me.

I popped the cap open with my teeth and downed the mana potion.

It tasted exactly like mint.

Disgusting.

I finally got why Yu Jihan whined so much about these things.

Barely a drop of mana refilled, and if it doesn't even work well, the least it could do is taste good.

I drained both potions and only then managed to catch my breath.

"Unbelievable."

The dust had cleared halfway.

The cocoon, half destroyed by the last attack, was barely holding its shape.

"Just one more..."

"Whatever, forget me, what about you?! Do you have any idea what you look like right now? I'd hand you a mirror if I had one!"

Lee Eunyheui snapped back at me instead.

Rizu had definitely died before turning into an incursion entity.

That should be the case. So what's going on here?

Rizu and I both turned toward the sound of footsteps.

A dry laugh slipped out of me at the sight of the man walking toward us, the ruined mansion at his back.

Rizu had the ability to bind the souls of the dead.

For Muel who carried mana, like Kale, that meant she could control their bodies.

But if you asked whether the Kale from before he died at Rizu's hands and the Kale after were the same person, the answer was no.

There was exactly one person here who didn't fit that pattern at all.

"Cinderella."

"You blind? How does that look anything like Cinderella? He's just some old man."

"It's a figure of speech."

At first I'd figured Faillia Duke, being an exceptional Muel, had turned into a puppet without even realizing he'd died at Rizu's hands.

That wasn't it.

Rizu never had that kind of power to begin with, not from the start.

Someone had made everyone believe he stopped moving at midnight.

I met that person.

I'd thought that was just an offhand line at the time.

That thing in front of us wasn't Faillia Duke.

The presence bleeding out of his body could never have belonged to Faillia Duke.

"Hm. This is all you've got? Fine. What exactly are you?"

"Hey, I asked first. Answer my question before you..."

Faillia Duke's shape vanished.

By the time I caught his afterimage, it was already too late.

Not me?

I swung my sword hard toward Lee Eunyheui on instinct, praying I was wrong.

"Lee Eunyheui! Are you okay..."

"Guhk... wh, what..."

Faillia Duke had her by the throat, lifting her off the ground.

I tried a few counterattacks with my feet, but every single one came to nothing.

"Damn it! Hey! Lee Eunyheui!!"

Black hands burst out of the ground beneath me.

I cut them down, again and again, but more just kept coming, and I couldn't push forward an inch.

If he wanted a target, it should be me. Why go after Lee Eunyheui at all?

"I see. You have no intention of talking, is that it."

"You... ugh... say something I can actually understand!"

Lee Eunyheui swung her leg at his throat.

He blocked it without effort and tightened his grip.

"Aaugh, aaahh!!"

Her bones twisted, and Lee Eunyheui screamed.

"If I split your body open and pull the soul out along with the heart, maybe I'd learn something."

I pulled up every last drop of mana I had left and unleashed Hundred Beasts Sword.

A rough blade shaped like a beast tore through everything in front of me.

Move!

Move already!

That woman is rude, selfish, obsessed with food, and somehow shoots bombs instead of arrows despite calling herself an archer, with not one drop of charm in her whole body.

Even so.

Even if all of that were true.

She's not someone who dies here!!

The light faded, and the sword went back to being an ordinary blade.

Don't stop, if there's no mana left, push through on raw strength alone!

"Lee Eunyheuiiiiiii!!"

The Sky Sword grazed his shoulder.

His legs seemed to give out, and his body pitched forward.

I should have cut off the arm.

His hand reached for Lee Eunyheui's heart.

Squish.

Something popped out of Lee Eunyheui's pocket.

Like reaching into jelly, his hand stopped precisely, right in front of her body.

It was just a sliver of a gap.

I used Hundred Beasts Sword to sever his arm and tore him away from Lee Eunyheui.

I'd only swung it once, and the skill was already gone.

I spat out all the blood pooled in my mouth.

Between me and Faillia Duke sat a blob roughly the size of a person, tinted blue.

Something translucent like that, no matter how I looked at it...

"Slime?"

"Kkukkakka?"

"Ugh, why's it here?"

Lee Eunyheui pulled a vitality potion from her item window and poured it over her leg.

At a glance, the potion looked like it had about the same effect as the healing potions I gave Yu Jihan.

Figuring she'd be fine now that she'd used the potion, Lee Eunyheui tried to stand, but she pitched forward without managing a single step.

The wound on her leg looked pretty severe.

I caught her as she sank back down.

Part of me wanted to tell her to stay down, but from the way her face was scrunched up, she wasn't about to listen.

I pointed at the slime bouncing in front of us.

"That's a slime, right?"

"You've been keeping one of those in your pocket this whole time?"

"I never kept it!"

"You even gave it a name. Kkukkakka."

"Th, that part, pretend you didn't hear that."

Lee Eunyheui pulled out three more potions and poured them over her leg.

The pain must have been bad, since standing seemed to be all she could manage.

"It's true. Not long after I got into the tower, I found it caught in a tree and saved it. It's the one that brought me this bow, too. It was smaller back then."

"Why would a slime get caught in a tree! It's a slime!"

Lee Eunyheui didn't seem to have a comeback for that either, and clamped her mouth shut.

But it brought you the bow? That bow?

"Is it some kind of gratitude slime?"

"I don't... ugh... know either!"

When I kept giving her the suspicious look, Lee Eunyheui sighed and grabbed her leg.

"It's not a lie."

"Never said it was."

She wasn't the type to joke around in a situation like this.

Not a lie, more like... this was just absurd. Genuinely absurd.

Though it did save us.

What even is this slime?

Black wood grew out from the cross-section of the severed arm.

That looked like it had originally been one of Faillia Duke's abilities.

"So you've shown yourself."

Bounce bounce.

"I figured you'd get in the way."

Bounce, bounce, bounce.

"You want me to back off? Ha. You think that's happening? You can't use your power either, same as me."

The slime shook side to side.

"Ridiculous."

You two are way more ridiculous, if you ask me.

Wait, can they actually talk to each other?

At Faillia Duke's words, the slime's insides started boiling, bubbles rising through it.

Seems pretty pissed off.

The slime, a little smaller now, turned to face me and Lee Eunyheui.

Boing boing.

I nudged Lee Eunyheui, who was standing there blank-faced.

"Hey, what's it saying?"

"How would I know?"

"You're its owner!"

"You ever raise a dog?"

"When I was a kid."

"Did you understand a single word that dog said back then?"

Ah.

One problem solved, another right behind it.

So what's it actually saying?

Footnotes:

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