Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 542
Chapter 542: Verdurous Giant Spear (4)
No. 7, Milayel’s Verdurous Giant Spear was a graduation weapon for spears, and this single-digit numbered item also had a good balance between attacking and defending. The reason I had started researching the spear barbarian was because of the survivability that this very weapon provided.
But in the end, it just turned into something like a berserker.
Of course, this wasn’t to say the berserker class was bad. If the same team had a similar level tank to them, they could perform quite well, and they could even act as the sub-tank in moments of danger.
“Hmm…” I mused.
However, the build was a little too unfocused.
I gave out my orders. “Clean up around here.”
“Pardon?”
“We’ll be heading out immediately!”
“Ah, oh. Yes!”
Everyone seemed to wonder who would come to own that spear, but I decided to get the boat going and instead think while leaving the island. This wasn’t something I could decide on a whim.
“We’re going!”
After getting everyone on the boat, we began to cut through the silver ocean.
“Mister! Look over there!”
Back over on the island that was getting smaller and smaller in the distance, a huge giant lifted its body before roaring at us.
“Uraaaaaah!”
…Why did it only do that when I was leaving?
***
While we voyaged to our destination of Library Island, I sunk deep into thought.
The question was concerning who should receive this spear.
Ah, we met eyes again.
While looking around and hoping for an answer, I met eyes with a man. He was the spearman of the Hektz Clan. As he was the only one among the many people here to use a spear, he didn’t dare say it out loud, but I could see he held a bit of expectation in his heart.
Fwip.
I quickly turned away.
You should desire what you should desire.
This weapon was the property of the Anabada Clan. That much had already been decided at least, so my contemplation was only on who within my clan was going to get it.
First, I don’t even need to consider Erwen or Versyl.
The same went for Amelia and Missha since Missha was a dual wielder, and Amelia used aura, so a spear wasn’t right for her. Auyen wasn’t a combat class to begin with. So by the process of elimination, only Ainar was left.
“Hmm? You want some?”
As I met eyes with her, Ainar smiled brightly while handing me the jerky she was eating.
I accepted it and continued thinking as I chewed.
…I guess she’s the one most suited to draw the most out of the spear’s capabilities.
[Natural Regeneration increased relative to time in battle.]
[All healing-type effects tripled.]
These two abilities worked great with the Slayer imprint’s Combat Study and Predation. Since she had skills like Wings of Greed and Curl Up to boost her Natural Regeneration by quite a bit, combined with the spear, she would have monstrous regeneration as well.
My spear barbarian also used the Slayer imprint in that way and stocked up on a ton of skills like that.
The moment she holds the spear, though, she needs to abandon a few skills.
First came the rank four skill of Repeated Slash. It wasn’t impossible to cast with a spear, but the piercing damage amplification wouldn’t affect it. Plus, even Wildness Control, which conditionally changed active effects to slashing damage, would become useless.
Without using Repeated Slash, Blast Scars becomes useless, and that means Mandel Oil and Residual Heat also become useless.
Honestly, the moment she started using the spear, it would be the same as us having to change out all the skills she had.
Still… Except for Hipramajent’s, all her essences are below rank 4, right? Since it’s going to be like this anyway, how about we just change everything?
Dungeon and Stone was a game built for builds.
It was important to plan out the ultimate final build, but being able to grow your character to get to that final build was even more important. If you didn’t prepare items and essences to get through each segment of the game, there was no way you could grow into the endgame builds. It was important to keep the core character concept intact while slowly raising the values of their skills.
Chew, chew, chew.
It was also the reason I chose Repeated Slash as Ainar’s core skill. It was a rank 4 skill we had obtained early on, and by letting her use the essence effectively, I was hoping to change it to a different but comparable high-ranking skill later.
…But it’s not like it doesn’t make sense.
I had grown as much as I needed to. Erwen as well, after she ate the floor essence—she had shot forward at an incredible pace. Missha had matured a fair bit while going around with Baekho Lee as well. Amelia was just strong from the start.
To put it coldly, we wouldn’t have any problem hunting even without Ainar around.
It also meant that we could just cut her out here.
Cutting her from the team, in theory. It’s not like she’s going to be useless just because she used the spear.
Single-digit numbered item was a graduation weapon without equal. And with the effects of this particular spear, even if she had to abandon a few skills, she would be strong enough to compensate for them. Even more so when they were from rank four essences and lower.
Piercing damage 1,200 percent amplification.
All damage using the spear tripled.
The highest-rank piercer trait.
Just these three things alone, and one could argue that her damage would be stronger than when she was using her sword. With all those regeneration buffs stacked on her, she would have even more survivability.
The problem then becomes, is she going to take it…? Let’s talk to her first and see.
I wasn’t going to lose anything by talking first.
“Ainar.” In true barbarian fashion, I approached her and just spoke to her like it was nothing. “Have you thought about using the spear instead of the sword?”
“…The spear?” Ainar stopped chewing on her jerky and lifted her head to look at me.
I sighed.
I guess it was impossible.
Ignoring if she personally wanted to or not, barbarians hated weapons like this in general, saying it was for cowards—
“Oh! If you’re talking about that spear, then yes! Give it to me!”
…Huh? What was this reaction?
“I’ll say this again just in case,” I began slowly, “but I’m saying you’ll need to use the spear for the rest of your life. Also, we’ll have to change out all your essences.”
“Changing them out… You mean the Semura essence too?”
By Semura essence, she was talking about Repeated Slash. It had come from the essence that she received from her elder master through Soul Succession before he died.
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Including that essence.”
“I see…” The light in Ainar’s eyes lost its shine for a second.
But it didn’t long for me to receive her answer.
“You can take as much time as you—”
“Alright. I’ll switch to the spear.”
“…Huh?”
I was telling her she would need to change everything about her body, but it didn’t even take her a minute to decide.
Is this what a true barbarian is…?
This was a level I couldn’t even imagine reaching.
However, it didn’t seem Ainar made this decision on a whim either.
“Why are you so surprised? From the start, aren’t all the essences I have ones you recommended to me?”
“Uh…I guess?”
“Thanks to that, I’m well-known and respected in a way that I couldn’t even dream of before. I can fight powerful enemies I couldn’t even imagine fighting and can defend my allies with that strength.”
Then, Ainar spoke while looking directly into my eyes.
“So I will trust you.”
I was speechless.
“You’ve never done anything that would bring harm to me,” she concluded.
I see. She didn’t make this decision on a whim but was able to proceed with it because she trusted in me.
Would I be able to do the same?
I wasn’t sure I could manage that level of trust.
“And more than anything…” Ainar looked away from me. To be precise, she moved her gaze from me to something else with eyes filled with greed. “…th-that spear is cool! It’s huge!”
“Ah…”
“It’s nearly double the size of my great sword!”
I was speechless once again.
Just as how a crow would instinctively reach for a shiny object, barbarians tended to like big things.
“It’s also cool how it sparkles!”
Even more so if those things shined brightly.
“And it looks like everyone who has wings uses spears!”
Yeah… So you have your many reasons as well.
***
After changing class to a spearman, Ainar began to train to get her body used to using a spear. She spun it in the air, thrust it forward, maintained her distance, and more. At first, she was awkward with it and didn’t even know how to hold it properly, but she stabilized at an incredible speed.
“Eh heh, now I’m finally returning to my previous form!”
“Previous form?”
“Don’t you remember? When we were young, we learned how to use all the weapons!”
“Ah, that… Yeah…”
Ouch, don’t talk about the past so suddenly.
As always, I quickly cut off the topic of the past, but Ainar unfortunately wanted to keep reminiscing.
“Now that I think about it, it’s pretty interesting. I heard that my mother and my sister also used spears.”
Thankfully, that was something I could naturally respond to. It was my first time hearing about the spear, but I had talked about Ainar’s sister with her before.
Fenelin’s second daughter, Ainar.
She’d had an older sister.
“Huh? You have a sister?” Erwen, who also had an older sister, asked Ainar about it, but the latter just shrugged.
“Ah, have I never told you? She was four years older than me. She became an adventurer earlier than me and told me all sorts of stories while torturing me by using her skills on me, haha…”
“…What?” Erwen tilted her head in confusion as Ainar spoke about her memory as if it were a happy one. This was just another example of cultural difference. “So how is your older sister? Is she famous?”
“She died. Two years before I had my coming-of-age ceremony.”
“Oh… I-I’m sorry…” Erwen paled and apologized, worried that she had touched on something she shouldn’t have.
However, Ainar didn’t seem to mind at all. “Huh? Why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault that she died.”
“Still… It’s a sad memory.”
“Sad memory? What do you mean? I only have good memories of her. Of course, it’s a shame I can’t see her anymore, but I always feel good whenever I remember the times I had with my sister.”
At that, Erwen became speechless for a moment. “How… How can you think that way? Even now…whenever I think about my older sister, I feel my heart clench inside me.”
Due to a crack in her voice, she sounded a little accusatory, but Ainar thankfully didn’t seem to care about it. She just nodded nonchalantly. “Even if you ask how I can…there’s not much I can tell you. It’s just that being happy is better than being sad! My sister would say that too!”
It was a truly barbarian-like answer.
Erwen wasn’t able to say anything in response, however. She just looked at Ainar for a long moment before quietly leaving to go back up to the crow’s nest.
Hah… Now I can finally breathe.
As I let out a long-held breath, Ainar looked at me with a confused expression. “…Did I do something wrong?”
“You did nothing. Just keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll have to get straight into real combat as soon as we land on the island.”
“Oh! Alright!”
After leaving Ainar to auto-train by herself, I turned to go to the helm of the boat.
There, after checking with Auyen about how long it would take for us to reach our destination, I leaned on a pillar and closed my eyes.
They should be able to take care of the random mobs with no problem, so they should only wake me up if something strong comes out.
After waking up sometime later, I took out my water bottle and went looking for Ainar. I was curious how much progress she made.
Huh?
But for some reason, Ainar had stopped training and was resting on the deck.
With Erwen.
What is this?
As soon as the question formed in my mind, Amelia approached me. “Leave them alone for a bit. Don’t try to butt in.”
“…I wasn’t planning to.” I was only a little curious about what they were saying.
And so, as I perked my ears and focused on their conversation, I could hear what they were talking about. I was a little worried since the two of them were alone together, but their conversation ended up being quite an ordinary exchange.
“Haha, so you said you had a younger sibling as well? How is she? Is she an adventurer as well?”
“No, not yet. She’ll have her coming-of-age ceremony next year, but I’m a bit worried.”
“If you’re worried, you can teach her from her side.”
“It’s…not that simple.”
“Hmm? Oh, because you’re stuck in here?”
“No, not that… Honestly…after my sister died…and after Mister suddenly disappeared, our relationship hasn’t been that great.”
“Oh yeah, I guess you would’ve gone out to the battlefield every day to take revenge. So everything is your fault!”
I was horrified at Ainar’s accusation, but surprisingly enough, Erwen accepted it.
“My fault… Yes, you’re right. It’s my fault.”
“Haha, it’s fine as long as you know. Then can’t you just go back and treat her better?”
“But I think it’s too late. I think she resents and hates me.”
“Did she say that herself?”
“No, but—”
“If she didn’t, stop wasting time thinking about it. Hate you? How could she when you’re her family? She’s probably hoping to return to the same relationship you had in the past.”
“…Really?”
A strange scene where not just any race, but an elf who was like the enemies to the barbarians was being lectured by one.
However, I could immediately accept this happening.
“Yes, that is right! You can trust me!”
I also felt like I could understand how Ainar could become so friendly with so many people.
***
On the seventy-sixth day since we entered the labyrinth and after leaving the giant island, we finally arrived on Library Island.
What we had to do here was to farm as much as possible.
Bellarios is still Bellarios, but I hope we can get an essence we can feed to Ainar.
While holding those hopes, we entered the building entrance and went down the long trek of stairs until we reached a checkpoint.
“Yandel, there’s someone down there.”
“Only one person. No one else.”
“They’re curled up and sleeping…”
“What will you do?”
I heard a piece of unexpected news from Amelia and Erwen.
Someone had gotten here before us.
Who is it?
I had a few candidates who could be down there, namely that clan that came down to Basement Floor 1 with the Armin Adventurer Group back then. Their name was…
“…I have a feeling they’re a part of the Ainpelial Clan.”
Ah, right. That one.
“But the number is off. Only one person? Where are the other people of that massive clan…” Myul furrowed his brow as he fell into thought, but I wasn’t as curious as him.
Rather, I didn’t want to spend time on it.
“Asking them directly will be the fastest way.”
Just asking them would give us a much clearer answer than speculating about it here.
And so, we quickly went down the stairs.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Since we were so noisy when we arrived at the bottom, the figure who seemed to have been sleeping jolted upward at an awkward angle.
“Uh…! Y-Your Lordship?”
And when the person saw us, they were startled.
It was the same for me.
“…Maderkin Lilgreams.”
It was the Silver Lion Clan’s leader who we last saw on Chief Island.