Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 489
Chapter 489: Pilgrim (7)
The regret washed over me.
I shouldn’t have ever tried…to raid a Lord of the Floor.
If I had just paid them their fair share of the reward we took, then we wouldn’t have even thought about fighting a Lord of the Floor in the first place.
No, rather than that…
I wish I had never played this game.
If I had just stayed away from it, then I would have never been brought here.
And nothing like this would have ever happened.
I clenched my fist so hard that blood began to drip down my knuckles, and forced myself to stand. This wasn’t the time for regret.
No, it wasn’t time to start regretting yet.
When my stats rose, a sudden possibility came to mind.
Thud.
I stared at the countless corpses that littered the cave.
Step, step.
There, beyond them, he slowly revealed himself. “This is great. I was just starting to worry how I would find you.”
The moment he appeared, I roared and ran at him. Since my build focused on muscle strength and various types of resistance, I never imagined I could move so quickly. The moment I kicked off the ground and the moment I reached him was practically instantaneous.
Slam!
I no longer needed a weapon because my body itself had become my weapon. My skin alone was as hard as any iron mace or sword.
Slam!
He met my attack with his sword draped in aura. Yet as I looked at him now, his movement speed seemed entirely too slow.
Step.
I easily avoided his attack and closed the distance once again, delivering another round of punches. It felt as if I had activated a cheat code. Even though I didn’t have any skills activated, my basic stats alone made me feel several times stronger than my normal self in Giantaization mode.
I don’t think I’ll get hurt even if he uses aura against me…
Still, there was no reason to risk getting hurt by a sword that could easily be dodged. I continued to completely decimate him instead, accounting for the distance between us so I wouldn’t get struck.
Slam, slam, slam!
I didn’t even have to punch him all that much. Maybe just about ten times in total?
That was all it took for him to fall to the floor, unable to stand against me.
Slam, slam!
He was in much worse condition now than when we cornered him before, yet he wasn’t recovering. So my hypothesis was correct.
That recovery skill might only be a one-time-use skill…
And he might be a boss monster that could only be killed once only him and a single opponent remained.
Maybe…
Then maybe it wasn’t too late.
Squash!
I landed another punch full of determination, completely crushing his head like a watermelon.
[You have defeated the Lord of Terror, Dreadfear. EXP +100]
[Slaying a Lord of the Floor bonus. EXP +15]
The moment I felt experience points filling my body, his body began to disperse into the air in the form of countless particles of light.
…Is that it? Did I get my hopes up in vain?
As soon as the worry began to fester in my mind, the cave began to cave in.
[You have passed the test more perfectly than anyone else. A nameless pilgrim admits defeat.]
[The fragments of a distorted memory have begun to piece themselves together.]
Although I was taken aback, I decided to watch the spectacle for now. To be honest, there actually wasn’t anything else I could do. It wasn’t like I could run away when the entire cave was crumbling to pieces.
Rumble!
Even outside the cave, I could see the bright sky and green bushes in the distance falling away.
Everything had begun to dissipate into thin air, just like when a monster died.
Shwaaaaaaa.
The world started to collapse as it dispersed into countless colorful particles of light. After everything had disappeared, I was left alone in utter darkness. It wasn’t simply that I couldn’t see ahead of me. It felt as if the space itself didn’t exist.
Fwoosh!
Suddenly, my surroundings were lit up with the crackle of fire. I was in a dark cave.
Dozens of torches hung on the walls that were crumbling to pieces just moments ago. In the center of the cave was a stone altar with a book placed on top of it.
What does it want me to do now?
I didn’t know but walked over to it anyway. As I did, the first chapter of the book opened. It was written in an ancient language, but for some reason, I was able to read the text without any problems.
If I were asked to draw the feeling of terror, I wouldn’t hesitate to sketch his face on that white sheet of paper. The White Captain, Dreadfear. The one who taught me what true terror was…
As I concentrated on reading through it, the letters started blurring together as a bright light flashed before my eyes. I had never experienced anything like it before.
I met him moments before I was about to accomplish a great feat.
The memories of an unknown person began to flood my mind.
***
I’m not afraid to die. In my final moments, I know I will die a greater person than any other.
Although I lived with such determination, my delusions and my reality were completely and utterly different.
“I swear on my name, Dreadfear, that whichever of you kills the filthy pilgrims will have proven their innocence and shall thus be free of all sins.”
After we had failed our mission, he was the one who offered us a sneaky proposition. No one believed him at first, of course. All five of us closed our eyes in unison, rejecting his offer. The cave was utterly silent as we waited for our demise, remaining honorable until the very end.
Ba-dump, ba-dump!
Yet in that silence, our hearts beat wildly with the desperate longing to live. Were we really going to die like this? No matter what I said, I didn’t want to die. Still, betraying my own colleagues was…
“Believe me.”
How strange. Why did that short answer of his not sound like a lie?
I gently opened my closed eyes. Next to me was a woman who had been assigned the same mission as me. Her eyes were frantically looking around, frightened just like me.
The moment I met her eyes, I felt it in my gut.
Ba-dump!
She was on the verge of succumbing to temptation. I didn’t have any proof, but I knew it to be true. After all, how long had we actually known each other?
Ba-dump, ba-dump.
Blood rushed to my head. My breath caught in my throat as my vision blurred.
Heh.
The woman looked at me with an awkward smile on her face. For some reason, it sent an ominous pang through me. As those budding doubts grew bigger and bigger, the fear began to gnaw away at me.
“Yeah… If I have to kill someone, I should kill him…”
All of a sudden, I heard that woman’s inner thoughts. It was too vivid to dismiss as a mere auditory hallucination. Come to think of it, we never got along well. We’d even argued during the last drinking party, and look where we were now, in the place where the Mother Goddess’s spirit dwelled.
A divine revelation… It must have been a revelation from Mother Goddess herself.
She must have exposed that woman’s malicious intentions toward me to save her young child.
Before I knew it, I was completely convinced that she was planning to betray and kill me to survive. Was that why?
Huff, huff, huff…
When I came to my senses, I quickly picked up the dagger and exhaled heavily. I looked straight at the woman whose were eyes wide open, staring at me.
“Y-you… You thought about it, didn’t you…? You planned to kill me…”
“N-no, I didn’t. I didn’t!”
“D-don’t lie! I-I already know the truth…! I definitely heard it…!”
I thrust the dagger into her. My colleagues swore and screamed at me, but I ignored them. It couldn’t be helped. If I didn’t do it now, she would have done it first.
“Pfft, hahahahaha!”
The White Captain, Dreadfear, laughed in genuine joy at the sight. He spoke playfully to me. “Well done. Now, who are you going to stab next?”
Filled with adrenaline, my body trembled as I stammered, “B-but I thought… You just said I had to stab one… And you would let me live…”
“Of course I won’t kill you now. But…are you sure you’re going to be okay? If you put down the dagger, then I plan on freeing all of your friends here as well?”
My vision was tunneling. I knew that I was being deceived, but I was past the point of no return.
Ba-dump, ba-dump.
My heart drummed a vicious beat in my chest, more violent than ever before. My colleagues continued to shout at me, telling me to not fall for his tricks. I needed to come back to my senses and die with honor. Of course, I didn’t listen to any of it.
At first, he tricked me with his words. Now, he didn’t even need to trick me into believing it.
Thud.
In the end, I couldn’t let go of the dagger.
Stab!
When I came to my senses, all of my colleagues were dead except for me. Still in a daze, I asked him if he was going to let me live now, and he told me to go in response. He told me that he would let me live.
I ran without ever looking back. I could feel him watching me from behind as if he were ogling at a toy. When I arrived at the entrance of the cave after running for a few hours nonstop, I finally realized what I had just done. “N-no… I-I… No…”
A new fear began to sprout within me. There was only one way to escape it.
Stab!
I stabbed myself with the same dagger I used to kill my colleagues.
As I started to lose consciousness, I saw the White Captain’s face in the distance.
“I knew it the moment I saw him. He’s going to be a good ingredient.” He looked at me with a serious expression as he called over a wizard, who walked over to my dying body and scattered a mysterious drug over the length of me.
Sizzle!
An unbearable pain consumed me, as if my fallen soul were being torn apart. Then in that endless agony, a sudden, warm energy touched me. However, the energy was merely smoothing the pain, incapable of piecing back together my now shattered soul.
“Phew… It’s all over.”
I had now abandoned my pathetic human body and was transformed into a new being, an empty shell that was filled with infinite power and authority that transcended humankind yet that could feel only desire and animosity.
“…What a peculiar case. It seems he still has some sense of reasoning left?”
“You’re right.”
Hearing the wizard’s response, he walked over toward me, trying to hide his fear as he asked, “Tell me. What is your name?”
I answered.
“Dreadfear.”
“…What? But that’s my—”
Gulp.
Now, I was no longer afraid.
***
[You have taken the memory fragments of a nameless pilgrim. You can now freely read and write in the ancient language.]
***
Fragmented memories filled my head like a fleeting dream. However, the emotions and senses I felt lingered, and they were all too clear.
Fwoosh!
As the book reached the last page, it was engulfed in flames. Soon, it was nothing but ashes.
Step.
I stepped back only to sense a presence behind me. I whipped around to see a man staring at me from about ten steps away.
“Dreadfear.”
I guess now I should call him a nameless pilgrim.
As soon as he gained that power, he swallowed Dreadfear and took his name away.
…What the hell is going on?
I was a little… No, I was extremely confused. The raid was already over. I had definitely felt the experience points filling my body. So why the hell was this guy standing in front of me now?
“I want to ask you something.” As I watched him cautiously, he spoke to me.
“You… How come you weren’t afraid?”
I sort of had a feeling he was going to ask me that. Now that I knew how he was born, I also knew what curiosities would drive him. We had experienced the very same feelings of terror, doubt, and hallucinations, after all. The Prophet of Misfortune allowed us to see the ominous future, along with another ability that read other people’s emotions. It was the perfect environment to encourage betrayal. Even so, that wasn’t all. The White Captain also used a skill to make us believe his words unconditionally. Lastly, just when we thought we could take him in a fight, he suddenly became equipped with countless ridiculously overpowered abilities.
“Because none of us were as weak as you.”
Yet in the end, none of us betrayed each other.
He nodded quietly at my rude response. “I see…”
Since I never had a conversation with a boss monster in a game or in real life, this was a strange situation for me. However, now wasn’t the time for me to be concerned about that. There was something more important at hand.
“Enough of that. Tell me.” The lone possibility had perfused through my mind after everyone died. “Everyone is alive, right?”
“Before I answer you, I will ask you something first. Why do you think that?”
“Because the goal of this test was to be left alone in the end, and it was impossible to change that.”
The test on the whole felt strange to me. I’d played Dungeon and Stone for nearly a decade, but I’d never encountered a boss fight where survival was theoretically impossible. Not only that, this guy’s entire concept was a major clue. Terror and hatred. Ultimately, it was clear that this was all set up to test our faith.
“…How surprising,” he said, letting out a strange exclamation at my response. “To think that someone like you understands the laws of this world.”
What laws? This was just raw data I gathered through experience.
“Then what’s your answer?”
When I asked again, he finally answered, “It’s up to you to choose.”
The moment I heard that unexpected reply, my body shivered. At least I was right in assuming that everyone had not been unfairly killed off. “…What do you mean by that?”
“It’s as it sounds.” He extended his bare hand. Suddenly, two stone gates appeared in front of us.
[The nameless pilgrim has made you an offer.]
He presented me with two options. “Go through that door and you’ll get back everything that you’ve lost here. It will be as if you’ve woken up from a long nightmare.”
“What about the other door?”
“Everything you experienced will become a reality. But in return, you will gain something far greater than what you have lost.”
Man, doesn’t he get tired of playing this game? I get that it’s his whole shtick, but why is he keeping it up ‘til the very end?
I stared back at him as I asked, “Then what happens if I crack open your skull here?” A gamer with a wealth of hidden-piece experiences couldn’t help but grow curious in a situation such as this.
He looked at me for a moment before replying, “You will receive even more because that is another rule of this world.”
Yeah, that’s right.
It didn’t take long for me to make a decision.