Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 538
Chapter 538: Rainbow (5)
Garphas’ Necklace.
It was the numbered item I obtained under the name of Knight Crusher in the first noble banquet I attended. However, because I had obtained it so early in the game, I hadn’t been able to think of using it properly even after so many years.
To use that necklace properly, I needed to have proper and solid financial backing.
But seeing how many mana stones we’re getting right now…
I concluded that I would be able to accrue the target amount within a month or two.
And thinking about it now, there wasn’t any other item in Basement Floor 1 that could boost me as much as this item right now. In a sense, the growth it could afford was even more extreme than an essence could.
Then what’s important from here on is the mana stones…
Even now, the mounds of mana stones that would be littered around the chief island sparkled in my mind’s eye. If we could sweep them all up after the rainy season was over, I would be able to shorten my timeline considerably.
Still, that would be too dangerous, right?
…Wait.
A sudden thought struck me. “Wyatt Hektz. Come here for a second.”
“…You called?”
“It’s nothing much, I just want to ask you a few things. You said that you arrived at the giant island during the rainy season, correct?”
“Yes, it was the very first day.”
“I remembered right, then. Anyway, was the giant island riddled with monsters like this island was?”
“…Yes?” Hektz confirmed while still looking at me with eyes that said he didn’t understand where I was taking the line of questioning. Regardless, he continued to tell me the details of how the “monsters who leave behind corpses” and the
“ordinary monsters” fought to their deaths.
I thought it over for a second. “Isn’t it odd?”
“Pardon…?”
“If monsters fought so fiercely like that, shouldn’t the island have been covered with mana stones?” When we arrived on the giant island, we could only see the corpses of the monsters, but we didn’t find any mana stones.
“Now that you mention it, it’s true,” Hektz realized. “I didn’t think of it back then… but just like the island with the village, shouldn’t that island have had mana stones as well?”
“When did you leave that cave after going in for the first time?”
“It was about ten days after the rainy season ended. But back then, we didn’t even know when that ‘end’ truly was.”
“I see.”
I had even more questions now. Where did all those mana stones go? No, in the first place, with an event like that, the ocean floor should be covered in them as well.
Crunch!
Even now, a few of the monsters died as soon as they hit the ocean and disappeared into light. Over a long period of time, the mana stones should have piled up and up into a mountain in the ocean.
But when I was down there, I didn’t see anything special.
Hmm, should I just go into the ocean right now for a second?
The thought flashed through my mind, but I asked the wizards for their advice before committing to it.
“Definitely… That’s also something I was very curious about.”
“Let’s check the bottom of the ocean right now!”
“But the ocean is fil ed with all sorts of monsters right now…”
“Is that important? We could discover a hidden law of this world!”
“Wait!” a voice cried. “There’s a way to check it without going underwater!”
“…Huh?”
At Versyl’s proclamation, the excited wizards who were just about to throw themselves overboard stopped to listen to her.
“Let’s check with the mana stones we have,” she said, then took out one of the mana stones she had and tied it with a string before lowering it below the boat.
After that, she used all sorts of magic to check on any changes to the mana stone.
Thanks to that, we were able to obtain one piece of information. I didn’t know why it took us so long to learn this.
“…It’s gone?”
“Only the string is left.”
But the mana stones that fell into the ocean disappeared.
***
The experiment birthed all sorts of theories and questions.
“Is the silver color of the ocean also because it absorbed the mana stones?”
“Hmm, I think we don’t have enough information to connect the two right now.”
“Agreed, if it’s because the ocean absorbed the mana stone, then we should be able to detect any mana from the ocean as well, but that’s not the case.”
“Hmm… So if the mana stones melt and disappear in the ocean, then what about the ones on land?”
Usually, I was someone who enjoyed intellectual discussions like this. Perhaps I had lost my touch after living as a barbarian for so long.
“Um… Lord Baron, what do you think of all this?”
“Ugh… My head…”
For some reason, I got a headache the longer I listened to this talk so I left the scene with that excuse.
Well, the wizards should be fine to do their research on their own.
I escaped from the wizards and just talked with my allies to pass the time.
Crunch!
On the seventh day of the rainy season, the number of monsters falling from the sky decreased even further.
[23:59]
After about 23:50 labyrinth time, not a single monster fell.
Hmm… Is this clock off by ten minutes?
That thought did occur to me, but we decided to drop the barrier at the already agreed-upon time.
If a single monster ended up falling on the boat, it would damage the deck.
Being thorough was always the best.
Tick, tock.
The hand on the clock moved. Everything around me began to quiet as I focused on its ticking path. Slowly, I raised my head to look around and noticed that everyone was also looking at their own clocks.
It was as if we were waiting for the new year.
Tick, tock.
We waited in silence, and just as no one could stop the flow of time, the time we were waiting for finally arrived.
[00:00]
The end to this damned rainy season.
“It’s twelve o’clock!”
“Is it over?”
The adventurers on deck began to murmur amongst themselves, and I quickly gave the order.
“Drop the barrier!”
With that, the wizards undid the umbrella-like barrier above the boat, and I felt everything open up. In a way, it was similar to the feeling of finally being able to see, what with how the barrier had been drenched in blood from the monsters who fell and died on it.
“M-Mister!” While I was walking up to the bow to enjoy the sailing winds, Erwen hurriedly shouted from the crow’s nest. “Look! Look over there!”
What was it?
I looked up to the crow’s nest to see Erwen pointing into the distance. As I turned my head casually to look at where she was pointing, I stiffened.
It wasn’t just me. All the adventurers who had turned to look also froze.
“…A rainbow?”
Over the wide and endless silver ocean, a rainbow had bloomed in apparent celebration of the end of the rainy season.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, purple.
The array of light was pleasant even at a glance. Since we were gazing up at it while standing atop a boat dotted with monster blood, the spectrum looked even more vibrant.
However, we couldn’t just stare at it in a daze.
We were adventurers. Be it a rainbow or a piece of hell that couldn’t exist in real life, if we saw something suspicious, we needed to run over there and see if we could make money off it.
“Auyen! Record the direction of the rainbow!”
“Pardon? Oh… Yes!”
We first checked the direction of the rainbow. The timing of its appearance was just too suspicious.
It’s a special scenario that can only be seen after the rainy season is over and we’re out on the ocean.
Was this just a natural phenomenon?
What’s more, the rainbow we were looking at was different in shape from an ordinary one. If a regular rainbow was to draw a parabola or a curve, this one looked like a pillar of light that was shooting straight into the sky.
Shine!
It was like a special effect in a game that notified everyone that there was something special hidden there.
“Twenty-one degrees from our current position. It’s thirty-four degrees from the direction of the stone island! The distance… I can’t tell yet!”
Auyen said a few pieces of jargon I couldn’t pick up, but there was one thing I understood. He had succeeded in ascertaining its directionality.
But we don’t know how far it goes yet…
That was a bit of a problem. Did we have to turn our boat in the direction of the rainbow right now, or should we keep heading toward our original destination?
“Huh? The rainbow is disappearing!”
Just as I was contemplating our next move, the rainbow in the distance began to fade away before disappearing from our sight. The whole display only lasted about five minutes.
After the rainy season ends, we only get five minutes to see it…
Wasn’t this what we were looking for?
Even then, I didn’t give the order to turn the ship until the end.
“Huh? Bjorn? Aren’t we heading toward the rainbow?”
Ainar seemed confused by my decision, but it was a natural decision to make as a leader.
Giant Island, Tree Island, or even Library Island—we hadn’t cleared any of them yet.
We needed to boost our specs first, and since we knew in general where it led, we could always head there another time.
“Auyen, how long until we reach Giant Island?”
“We’ll arrive in about three hours!”
And so, we maintained our course for three more hours. After finally arriving, the first thing we did was drop our jaws.
Phew, I knew I had a feeling to just come straight here.
“…Mana stones.”
Thousands of mana stones littered the beach of Giant Island.
The reason I visited this particular island again was simple. Among the islands we had seen, this was the only one with a portal headstone. That really big giant we saw at the end still bothered me a little, but I concluded that there were more secrets to be found on this island.
Ba-dump!
Ignoring whatever secrets this island may have, my heart started to thump hard as I saw the mana stones covering the beach.
Of course, compared to Chief Island, there were far fewer mana stones per square foot on the ground. But Giant Island was multiple times larger than Chief Island.
What if we were able to collect all the mana stones here?
“This is unbelievable…”
There was a chance that I could even fill up the required amount with this island alone.
With that, we all got off the boat and picked up all the mana stones that were just lying there waiting for us. Getting them wasn’t as easy as I initially thought, of course. The rainy season had just ended, so monsters were still roaming around here and there.
Maybe it’s because they’re the ones who survived the rainy season, but each of these monsters is a pain to deal with.
The ones left were at least rank four. On top of that, a few new monsters that were invincible due to a weird combination of essences also appeared, so the overall combat difficulty was increased by quite a bit.
However, we were also slowly starting to get stronger. Myul Armin was the best example of that.
[Myul Armin has cast Supersensitive Skin. The target will take 30% increased damage.]
[Muyl Armin has cast Eternal Frailty. The target’s physical stats will be decreased by 30%, and all curse effects against it will be increased by 1.5X.]
This guy’s class was a curse- and debuff-specialized necromancer. He had active skills in his specialties, and his summons were specialized in that way as well.
[Myul Armin has summoned Spirinsect.]
It was a summon that didn’t do any damage, but every hit drained the target’s MP by a set amount.
[Myul Armin has summoned Corrosive Hound.]
Every time it bit a target, it lowered its resistance by a set amount.
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
A summon that approached its target before exploding itself to apply a curse, and so on.
That was the very reason I fed him the Man-Faced Bird’s essence. Its passive skill Mother Bird was useful for necromancers.
[A summon within your range has been canceled. You were returned 80% of the summon’s soul power. The corresponding skill’s cooldown has been decreased by 80%.]
It was essential to pick up when one wanted to go up the necromancer tree. With just this one essence, Myul Armin was over five times stronger than before.
A rank 2 core essence just had that effect on people.
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit…]
With the refunded MP and the decreased cooldown, he was able to chain as many spirits as he wanted.
Boom!
Since it didn’t deal damage, to begin with, there wasn’t much physical damage we could see, but the curse was stacking as the explosions continued.
It’s so much easier to hunt them when they all have huge debuffs applied to them.
Also, Myul Armin ended up being the perfect person to have in the current situation. He was a class that shined more when we were fighting one strong enemy rather than multiple weak ones…
“You worked hard, Myul.”
“Worked hard… I’m not worthy of those words.”
Hmm, it seemed that he had a harder time talking to me recently.
He also always called me Lord Baron and kept some social distance from me.
Is he drawing the line already since he got everything he needed? Just in case I try to tell him to pay me back?
If that was the case, I would be a little sad, but since that could just be my assumption talking, I decided to just observe him for a bit longer.
One day, two days, three days…
We spent our days swamped with just picking up all the mana stones we could find while fighting off all sorts of monsters.
[00:00]
Soon enough, it was already the third day since the end of the rainy season.
While we were picking up the mana stones with glee, bad news came to us.
“The mana stones… They are disappearing.”
The mana stones that hadn’t been picked up were starting to disappear like food rotting away back into the earth.
“How interesting… The mana is definitely being dispersed…but I can’t find even a trace of where they’ve disappeared to.”
No matter the reason, it was an unfortunate phenomenon for us, but we had good news as well.
“Versyl, how many mana stones have we collected until now?”
“Uh, if I’m to convert it to the standard at the inspection office…I think it’s about a billion stones?”
It was a profit large enough to gamble on the necklace.