Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 543
Chapter 543: Ghost (1)
Maderkin Lilgreams.
I didn’t expect it to be him…
Seeing his face didn’t spark any inclination to greet or question him. The only thing I felt was confusion. “You…didn’t die to the village chief?”
“Sorry.
…?” He seemed to have heard my mumblings as he stared at me with confusion of his own. “Dying to the village chief… What do you—?”
“We discovered a shortsword with your clan’s insignia at the village forge,” I probed, figuring I might as well dig deeper since things had come to this.
“Ah…”
“Why was the shortsword there?”
“Well… I don’t know. However, before we left the island, our members did trade with the villagers. We handed over the majority of our useless items and obtained an excessive amount of magic items in turn.”
His testimony completely aligned with what the chief had said, only causing me even more confusion.
…The chief was innocent? Then what did I escape the village for? Was I just putting on a fool’s show?
Despite the influx of questions, I quickly shook my head to rid myself of doubt. I could decide how to handle the situation again after I heard everything he had to say. “Speak. Tell me what you did after you left the island.”
“Pardon? Oh… Yes! Understood!” It didn’t take long for the “You came here to save me!” reaction to fade from his face. My cold response prompted him to immediately return to his senses and answer my questions. “First, we left two days after you left the island, Your Lordship.”
In truth, this guy didn’t have any spectacular story.
He had left the island with his clan because he felt like he needed to do something, but after experiencing his first rainy season, the fear drove him to this library island, which was relatively safer. Just like how we had come to farm the monsters here, he seemed to have also sensed that he needed to grow the strength of his clan.
However…
“It was an entity we had never seen before. It had horrid-looking wings attached to it, and its body was similar to that of a slime. However, it had all sorts of disgusting and twisted arms and legs attached all over.”
A new monster that wasn’t in even my database.
It had wiped out the Silver Lion Clan, and the boat they had been using was destroyed as well. And so, after falling into the water and thinking he had died, Maderkin said he woke up on Library Island, barely breathing. His gear had latched on the rocks on the shore.
“After that… Well, I was worried that the conditions outside were too dangerous for me so I came down here for now. And then…I waited alone. For someone to find this place again…”
He had rationed out his resources as much as possible just in case and hadn’t fought monsters, instead remaining here in total isolation and loneliness.
That was the summary of his story.
“I see.”
But I didn’t feel that it was a particularly sad story.
From what I heard, as soon as he concluded that his clan would be wiped out, he abandoned the ship and jumped into the ocean to save himself.
That’s what it sounds like, at least.
From what I observed of Maderkin Lilgreams, he was the type of person to make a decision like that.
That’s all for the information-gathering stage.
I had heard his story, and now was the time to check its validity.
“Versyl.”
I ordered our wizard to cast a verification spell. Unfortunately, due to his high Mana Resistance, the verification magic didn’t work well. Still, I didn’t let myself get hung up on the failure and took out an item from my subspace instead.
It’s a bit of a waste to use the last charge here…but no matter how I try to justify it, this is too suspicious.
“Maderkin Lilgreams.”
“Yes?”
“I am now going to check if what you said is the truth.”
I didn’t ask for his consent on the matter. He didn’t even have a choice to begin with.
Clack.
I immediately activated Misplaced Trust. With this, even if he was hiding something, it would all be revealed to me.
“Alright, let’s start with a simple question.”
But what was this?
“Tell me. What is your name?”
Just as I did in the doppelganger forest, I gave a test question to see if it was operating correctly or not.
And the bastard said absolutely nothing…
Why was he not able to answer a simple question like that?
Tick, tock.
From the circular pad in the form of a compass, only the sound of the needle moving from its center echoed out in a repeated rhythm. As time silently passed, it felt like the pressure of the room began to increase.
The body of the warrior I possessed calmly carried out the actions I needed to take in that moment. By the time I realized what I’d done, my hand had reached for the hammer on my back, following some subconscious instinct.
I sighed. Still, grabbing my weapon calmed me down a little.
“Speak, Lilgreams,” I demanded once more. “What is your name?”
He avoided my gaze at the question.
The way his eyes shifted to the right went beyond being merely suspicious. A sense of uneasiness and wrongness crept over me.
“I’ll ask one more time.” I pulled out the weapon and grasped it firmly in my hand.
“What is your name?”
Once again, he didn’t respond.
Alright, so he’s going to stay silent until the end? Just in case, I’ll break his arms and legs and start again.
With my decision made, I tightened my hold on the hammer and readied a swing.
“…Ah.”
Finally, he broke his silence and spoke.
“I. Got. Caught.”
It was one, short phrase, yet I could sense immediately that the tone of his speech had changed.
And that feeling wasn’t wrong.
“Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught.”
Like a radio that was glitching out, he repeated the same word over and over again while his eyes quaked unnaturally. His voice carried an obvious sense of nervousness and fear.
It was as if he was panicked, completely taken over by fear.
“Caught. Caught. Caught. Caught—”
“What are you?”
When I reached out with a hand to grab his neck and held him up, the words he was saying changed. “What do I do?”
I hesitated.
“What do? What do? What do? What do? What do? What do? What do? What do?”
The sensation was one I had never felt before. Why did it feel so disgusting when all I was doing was holding him up by the neck?
“What do? What do? What do—”
And then, he suddenly cut himself off.
“…Ah.”
He slowly raised his chin to look at me. His pupils, which had been twisted to the right in an unnatural way, had bounced back and were now looking at me. Slowly, he began to speak.
“I know.”
He sounded like he finally realized something. A fresh wave of uneasiness washed over me as I raised my hammer.
“What I need to do.”
Boom!
His body exploded in my very hand.
The explosive power itself wasn’t anything special. The hand that had been clutching his neck may have stung a bit, but even that didn’t seem to be a wound so much as something closer to an allergic reaction.
However, that explosion had ripped the unknown’s flesh and blood right out of him, causing shards of bones to scatter around the room.
“A priest…won’t do much good here.”
The shock of being covered in human debris lasted only a moment before I let out a long sigh.
Damn it, I screwed up.
Although my mind rushed to make a few excuses, in the end, the reason for this defeat was that I lacked imagination. I had always thought of myself as someone who made his moves while taking the worst-case scenario into account, but I hadn’t expected anything like this.
No, even then, how could I have expected that?
Of course, while practicing self-reflection, that thought also snuck in. I would’ve been hard-pressed to predict that outcome, and it wasn’t something I could respond to effectively even if I had known it was coming.
After all, how was I supposed to stop Emergency Escape?
It was a skill that defied proper response. Unless you were a god, you couldn’t hold onto and bring back someone who was dead. It was the best escape skill, in theory, but relative to how strong it was, the cost of the skill was the caster’s own life-Let’s stop the useless train of thought there and clear this up first.
“Yandel…!”
“I’m fine, so don’t blow things out of proportion. Oh, and I have something to think about right now, so leave me alone for a second.”
I reassured my allies who ran up to me in worry, and I repeated the situation again in my mind’s eye as I took some time by myself to think.
The results could be summarized in a oneline conclusion.
An unknown something acted like it was Maderkin Lilgreams.
Then who was the culprit?
There was only one entity I could think of.
The village chief. No, to be precise, I guess this was someone that the chief sent.
I didn’t think the chief would fall into a panic the moment he got caught like that.
In any case, with a potential culprit identified, the next step was to outline the simple factors that were key to crafting any hypothesis.
Why? And how?
For what reason, and with what method was he able to do this? Many possibilities crossed my mind, but the mystery was one I truly couldn’t solve here by myself.
Was it to trick me into thinking that he was innocent? No, maybe he simply just wanted to observe me from the sidelines…
His goal wasn’t clear to me yet.
And what needs to be done to make this possible?
I couldn’t think of any essence that could be of help.
There were a few skills that could steal the body of another, but they were pretty different from something like this. They mostly required the caster to be near, and when the body was taken over, there was a string-like byproduct that was visible to the naked eye.
Right. So it’s not an essence. Which means…
It was probably something closer in form to an evil spirit.
The thought caused a cold sweat to gather in my palms.
Even so, I thought it over for a bit longer and took a few moments to discuss the situation with my allies, but I wasn’t able to learn anything more. It was still only a theory without enough supportive evidence.
The chief has a way of stealing the body of someone else like an evil spirit.
Nevertheless, it didn’t hurt to be cautious.
***
As soon as the emergency escape by Lilgreams was dealt with, even though it felt unsatisfactory, I led the group through the library.
There were two things we immediately found that were different from how we’d left the place.
The books… They’re back.
The summoning books that we had used before we left were now refilled. By the time we departed the island, most of the books on the lower bookshelves were emptied, and even the books that had been tossed randomly onto the ground had been cleaned up.
The stairs are back to how they were as well.
The stairs leading to the upper bookshelves with summoning books that could summon rank three monsters had disappeared as well, returning to their original state.
Hmm, then what are the criteria needed for the reset? Is it time?
If that was the case, the rainy season probably had something to do with it, but nothing was confirmed yet.
“Yandel, it’s a good thing, so think of it this way. With this, we’ll be able to get essences much more freely.”
“Ah…that’s true.”
As Amelia said, the situation was beneficial for us for now. Although the stairs being reset was a little annoying, that meant it was practically confirmed we could farm indefinitely here.
Well, not to say there weren’t any downsides.
If everything resets while we’re inside, then it’ll be difficult for us to reach the top of the bookshelf with brute force.
Library Island, which already had a pretty high difficulty, now had a time limit set on it as well. However, it was never too late to complain. We could reassess later if our goal changed from farming on the island to clearing it.
Since we know that it resets, let’s stop wasting time here.
I threw away all the worries and frustration and focused on the reason we came here in the first place.
Honestly, games that required grinding were something that suited my tastes really well.
As soon as I spaced out, I could progress while not being distracted by all manner of thoughts.
[You have defeated a Frost Wolf.]
[You have defeated a Stone Golem.]
[You have defeated a Hobgoblin.]
[You have defeated an Ice Orc Warrior.]
[You have defeated a Yeti.]
[You have defeated a Luture Talismancer…]
After that, we split our group into a team dedicated to finding books with good hunting prey and a combat team.
Rank nine, rank eight, rank seven…
As the shelves we could climb increased, so too did the difficulty, and as rank 4 monsters began to appear, we focused more on finding specific monsters.
Mana stones were dropped.
Experience was gained.
And…
“An essence!”
Although essences that could be fed to members of Anabada didn’t come out yet, as we accrued multiple essences per day, the power of our group steadily began to increase.
“That should be all! We can stop now for today, so everyone go and rest!”
On the eighty-fifth day of entering the labyrinth, the day finally came.
[Your soul has resonated and is drawn to a specific world.]