Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 532
Chapter 532: Escape Plan (5)
It didn’t take long for our group to gather since I had called for them earlier just in case.
Well, even so, I couldn’t say we were mentally prepared.
“By gear up…you mean our weapons?”
“Yeah.”
“Are we…really going to fight them?”
“What? Do you have a problem with adventurers fighting monsters?” I asked the ones who weren’t ready yet, and that was enough to convince them.
“…Not at all.”
“What are you all doing? Follow the baron’s orders!”
This was reckless. Nothing had been confirmed yet, and she might even return if we stayed here. We should wait just a bit longer for her.
Although most present would be thinking this in their hearts, no one said it out loud.
The most they did was whisper to each other as they grabbed their weapons.
“Should we…really do this?”
“And what will happen if we don’t? You can oppose us if you want.”
“…I won’t do that.”
“And if you did oppose this, will you be able to take responsibility for it?”
“Yeah, I’d rather just fight the monsters.”
I did wonder a little how no one opposed me, oddly enough.
“Bjorn…calm down. Everyone is scared…”
Only when Missha stepped up to me to say that did I realize what expression I had on my face.
I stiffened in surprise, and when I took a moment to look around, I met eyes with Auyen. He was startled and quickly turned his head away.
Ainar was the same. She quickly shook her head when I looked at her, then jumped to making random excuses.
“Maybe something went wrong…?” she mumbled hopefully. “Those guys…the ones who were k-kind even though we couldn’t talk properly…I-I didn’t say anything to them! I swear I didn’t!”
I stomped up to her. “Ainar.”
“Yeah! S-speak!”
“Are you sympathetic toward the monsters now that you all are friends?”
“N-not at all! This is a problem in the head! Th-That essence! Because of that essence—!”
“An ally could be in danger right now,” I said, cutting her off. Honestly, it wasn’t completely unbelievable that it was a problem with her Aggression. But I couldn’t just stand by and listen to her to finish. “Focus up. Before I become disappointed in you.”
“…Got it.”
Alright, then fixing her mindset was done as well.
I looked around and saw that the other adventurers had finished their preparations as well.
There wasn’t much I needed to say. “Let’s go.”
As I stepped out onto the street, dozens of adventurers neatly followed after me.
I walked as if running. Just then, I felt someone’s presence even with my dull senses.
“Mister.”
“Is it that one? The one that always observed our house from afar.”
“Yes. Should I go grab them?”
I thought for a moment before replying, “No, let them go. They’ll lead us themselves to where we need to be going right now.”
“Ah…”
“Increase your pace!”
After that, with the help of Erwen, we followed after the guard who had been spying on us.
“(Adventurers… It’s the adventurers!)”
“(Aktiti…! H-hurry inside! Get inside the house!)”
The monsters who were going about their days noticed us moving in our full gear and quickly hid themselves in shock.
They’re not heading in the direction of the chief’s house… Where’s this guy going?
Soon enough, that question resolved itself.
“I discovered a peculiar place today. It’s about fifteen minutes from where the chief’s house is, but there is a building that looks like an ordinary home. However, there’s lots of security around the place.”
It was that suspicious house that Amelia had reported before.
“Stop.”
After arriving at our destination, I halted the group.
“(Adventurer! Drop your weapon!)”
It hadn’t even been that long, and everyone was here already.
I looked at the monsters swarming about like cockroaches and replied in a low voice, “(I don’t want to.)”
I hadn’t come here to talk.
I am looking for someone.
If you have nothing to hide, get out of the way.
There was no reason to say any of this…
There was a chance something could happen to Amelia while we wasted time talking.
“(Get out of my way. I’ll kill you if you don’t.)”
Thus, this was the most I could do for them in the current situation.
However, the warrior Nuiachichi, Marupichichi’s father and the right-hand man of the chief, ignored my final warning.
“(The chief has ordered us to not let anyone in. Be gone.)”
I didn’t pity him, and I didn’t try to repeat myself to convince him either. I had given him my warning, and he didn’t accept it.
There was only one thing I could do here.
“(Oh, is that so?)”
“(That’s right. So calm down first—)”
“(Then die.)”
As I had warned him before, I swung my hammer with killing intent.
[You have cast Giantization.]
Power overflowed as my body became larger. I swung down with all my might.
[You have cast Swing.]
The archer-class Nuiachichi hurriedly stepped back and pulled his bow taut.
Everyone could tell he was an archer with how fast his footwork was.
[You have cast Transcendence.]
[You have cast Eye of the Storm.]
As my hammer was being swung, I cast a grab attack. A storm started to brew and the winds dragged Nuiachichi’s body closer to me.
Crunch!
The hammer struck the top of his head with precise timing.
It wasn’t mere coincidence or luck. When you fought every day, lining up timings like this wasn’t particularly difficult. Even less so for a warrior who had excellent combat sense.
In an instant, his head turned into what looked like a crushed can.
Nuiachichi stared up at me as if he were dreaming, blood gushing out of his head.
However, as expected of the right-hand man of the chief who had earned his trust, he didn’t die in a single blow.
One more.
I raised my hammer high into the air…
Vwoong!
…and struck down with all my might once more.
Well, with that attack, Marupichichi would need to grow up as an orphan, but so what?
That was nothing new.
If we were talking about children, Hans A had one himself.
And with how bright he is, he’ll be fine.
If not, he’d go to the same place as his father soon enough—
…Huh?
By the time I thought through Marupichichi’s familial dynamics, my hammer was only about an inch above Nuiachichi’s head. But then, something flicked in between his head and my hammer.
A sword.
What I could see with my Agility value was a type of weapon. And that weapon was shining brightly.
Boom!
The impact of my hammer on the glowing sword transferred up my hammer into my hands.
Fwish.
The flash of light blinded me for a second, but I forced myself to look away and assess my surroundings.
And then, I smiled coldly.
When was it that he said he was too busy to see me?
So he came out when his subordinate was going to die.
We stood in a long moment of silent standoff.
The monster warriors who we had endured the rainy season with not long ago were raising those weapons while staring at us.
Honestly, we were doing the same against them.
Magic, sacred spells, special abilities, and so on at the ready-the adventurers who had followed after me were also keeping an eye on the situation while ready to fight at any moment.
“Chief.”
I spoke first.
I felt like my patience was going to run dry pretty soon.
“Release my colleague,” I requested, cutting out all the unnecessary pleasantries.
The chief didn’t ask what I was talking about. He didn’t treat me like a deranged man nor did he try to claim that there was a misunderstanding.
I found myself caught in yet another unexpected situation.
“So you’re here because of that woman.”
No, instead, the village chief admitted it all too easily.
Clench.
The burning fury of my mind was cooling, and the energy redirected into steely strength put into my muscles.
If I had to interpret his reaction, he was letting us know that even with our display of aggression, he was ready to stop us.
Sure, but I didn’t plan on backing down either.
I glared at him for a second, staring him down just as he was me, before barely managing to ground out, “…Is she dead?”
The chief bent his thumb and his middle finger twice, a gesture that only worked in this monster village where they called themselves human.
I knew exactly what he meant by that.
“Don’t worry. She’s still alive.”
Yeah, it was the gesture of the negative.
The choking nervousness mellowed out just a little bit, and a sense of relief sprouted in me. Of course, there was a possibility that the chief was lying to me.
But just by hearing those words, I could finally afford to breathe.
“Let her go,” I commanded once more.
The chief eyed me for a moment before replying, “If I cannot, what will you do?”
“I’ll go look for her myself. And destroy everything that gets in my way.”
“Surprisingly…you seem to speak the truth.”
Bluffing with the lives of my allies on the line was against my beliefs…
“I am stronger than you,” he stated plainly.
I nodded. “That could be true.”
“Are you not afraid?”
Who knew? “I’ve never not done something I needed to do because I was afraid.”
“Hmm, I see. You’re quite aggressive. Is she your lover?”
I didn’t answer his nonsense.
“If that’s not the case, it seems you value your allies a lot.”
The chief mumbled something under his breath that I couldn’t understand before talking to his subordinates.
“(Nuiachichi… Ah, you’re not in the condition for it. Anyone is fine, so bring out that adventurer woman from within.)”
Was she…really alive?
“Wait here for a moment. I’ll talk to you later about this.”
I waited, one part nervous and the other part expectant, until the monster warriors took Amelia out of the house. She was unconscious and laid out on a stretcher.
“What happened?” I demanded.
“We only knocked her out temporarily. We didn’t do anything else that could harm her.”
I couldn’t see any external injuries. However, what I could see wasn’t everything.
“Take her for now,” the chief said. “In your current condition, it seems we won’t be able to have a conversation.”
After being handed Amelia, I ordered the priests and wizards to check her condition.
“It’s as the chief said… it looks like she was really just knocked unconscious.”
Once I’d heard the words from not an enemy but my ally, I let out a sigh of relief.
Amelia was fine.
Just that was enough to make me feel I had sidestepped some huge calamity, but there was still a mountain that needed to be climbed. The main problem hadn’t been resolved at all.
“Alright, then are you ready to have a conversation now?”
“Why did you kidnap Emily?”
“Kidnapping isn’t what we did at all. No, rather, we should be the ones to question you. She was the one who snuck into this place in secret.”
So that was how it was.
“You say that, but if something like that happened, calling for me would’ve been the normal procedure,” I rebuked.
“You’re right. However, we wanted to check something before that. Whether or not this woman snuck into this place purely out of her own curiosity…”
The chief looked at me with those fishy eyes that always felt disgusting to peer into.
“Or if she did so under your command.”
Before I said anything, the chief continued.
“Though, it seems this woman did it of her own accord. She didn’t answer anything we asked her. But don’t misunderstand. We only scared her a little, we didn’t torture her or make her feel pain.”
“Be grateful you did that—”
“However, you will need to take responsibility for this.”
I shot him a questioning look.
“That is your duty as the leader. It doesn’t matter if it was by your order or not. Your ally has ignored our generosity and broken the rules of the village. What’s more, you didn’t try to check the truth of the situation and came in charging with the intent to kill the warriors of the village yourself.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that.
Amelia’s life.
And how he willingly transferred her over to us.
Those two things alone proved that my actions were extreme.
“So then, how will you take responsibility?” the chief asked, throwing the final punch against me.
He spoke the same as always, with his expressionless voice, but that only added to the pressure. I genuinely couldn’t tell what he was thinking right now.
What he needs right now…isn’t an apology.
I made my decision as quickly as possible. I wasn’t planning on dodging my responsibility as the leader, so I said this first.
“It was by my order that Emilly Raines entered this place.”
“Hoh, is that so?”
“However, there is a reason for this.”
“I am curious.”
I hadn’t planned on opening the conversation like this, but sometimes, hitting head-on was the answer. “Not long ago, we found a shortsword with the insignia of the Silver Lion Clan here by ‘coincidence.’”
“So?”
“It made me question a little. Why was the weapon of the people who left the village inside the village? That’s why we began investigating.”
“I see, so that happened…”
“Since things have come to this, tell me. What’s with the shortsword, and what are you hiding in this house?”
At my questions, the chief paused to think. Finally, he said, “First, I’ll tell you about that shortsword. I didn’t see it myself, so I can’t be sure…but before they left, they did barter with the residents here. There is a high likelihood that that shortsword was a part of those exchanges.”
Yeah, I suspected he would answer with that since I couldn’t discern if he was telling the truth or not.
I continued to look at him without saying anything, and the village chief continued.
“And about this house…this is a bit tricky for us…but it’ll be better for you to see it yourself.”
“Sure. Show me.”
With that, the chief made a hand gesture and the warriors who were surrounding the place all stepped away and created a path. I followed the chief into the house.
“It’s under here.”
The building disguised as a regular house had stairs that led underground, and after I went down those stairs, I saw with my own two eyes what these monsters had been hiding.
“…Damn it.”
I had a sneaking suspicion when I smelled the stench of decomposing flesh from the top of the stairs.
“Here. This is what you were curious about.”
The basement was filled with rotting corpses.
“This is the secret of our village.”
The corpses were in such terrible condition that it was difficult to even make them out, but I had no trouble imagining their original forms.
“But I guess now you know as well?”
The corpses were human.