Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 612
Chapter 612: Mystical (5)
Beyond the river that flowed east of the temple, a group of humans had been discovered. Everyone suspected it was most likely a humanoid monster, but that aside…
“We tried to make contact with them, but they quickly hid themselves and we failed.”
“I see…” Although I didn’t have much information, it was a good thing that we at least found something. We hadn’t been able to make any progress in the last week.
“Commander, could I perhaps ask you to share one of your great ideas on how to proceed?”
“What great ideas?” I smirked at the deputy commander. “I was about to start exploring beyond the river soon, so this is good timing. Prepare an expedition force.”
“By an expedition force…”
“We’ll leave the main group behind here. It’ll just be clunky if we bring too many people with us.”
Now that we had confirmed what was across the river, I concluded that it wouldn’t be too late to move everybody over to the other side.
“Ah,” I realized belatedly, “and I’ll be going this time as well, so don’t try to stop me.”
“Alright… Then I will prepare a suitable group as you ordered, commander.”
Naturally, all the members of the search team who were quick on their feet and sensitive to their environments were selected. With our group of wizards, priests, and additional combat personnel, we formed a thirty-six-person special operations troop.
Also, Ainar filled in a spot as a combat personnel.
“I think it might be best…if you left Fenelin here.”
Search captain Amelia didn’t seem to want Ainar coming along, but I didn’t change my mind.
She would help just by being next to me. I didn’t know what new monster could appear, so having Beginner’s Luck to increase the essence drop rate was important.
“Deputy commander.”
“Understood. I will manage the main force here, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“Then I’ll put my trust in you.” They weren’t empty words either. I truly believed in him. The deputy commander would be able to maintain everything here without a problem while I was out.
“Search captain,” I called, “increase our speed.”
After we set off, we increased our pace as if we were speedrunning. We were already able to confirm there was nothing dangerous nearby, and if we moved too slowly, we would be here forever until we got to the estuary.
“Stop! We will set up camp for the night and set off again tomorrow morning!”
And so, after moving for the whole day, we made camp when night fell, and everyone rested.
“Good work today as well, Lord Baron!”
“Hoh! Didn’t I tell you to call me commander? And don’t you know that you’re always smiling so brightly whenever you call me baron!”
“Ah, right. Commander! Then since I’m sleepy, I’ll go and rest first!”
With how long our journey had been at this point, everyone was familiar with each other, but we all still felt a little distant.
The members of the Anabada Clan who had joined in on this little quest were only Missha, Amelia, and Ainar.
“Bjorn. I want to ask you something… Can I?”
As I walked around on my night patrol, my chief secretary brought me a midnight snack and carefully spoke to me.
“Sure.”
“That child… Why didn’t you bring her with us?”
“You mean Erwen?”
“Yeah.” Chief Secretary Missha nodded as she continued with a quiet voice, “Considering her abilities, I didn’t see a reason to leave her behind. So I thought it was a bit odd.”
She wasn’t wrong. Erwen had instincts ripe for exploration, and her combat capabilities were also among the highest in the group, so she would have been an asset for this mission.
“She said she wouldn’t come.”
However, she herself said she would rest at the main camp, so it couldn’t be helped. I did think it was unlike Erwen to say that, but I took it as her having experienced quite a lot of hardships recently and her needing a rest.
“Ah… D-did she?” Missha sounded surprised as if she didn’t expect that answer. However, she didn’t ask more questions and just left. “I see… Then, goodnight.”
“Yeah, goodnight.”
After sending Missha off, I ate the snack and collected my thoughts. Then I heard a sound approaching. When I looked over, I saw Amelia talking to her search members about something.
“Yes, captain. We’ll keep it in mind!”
I couldn’t hear what she was saying properly, but the last words said by the search team members were loud and clear.
How did she get them so disciplined?
She was quite a skilled woman. Although it felt like she would be unfamiliar with a lot of things, she did well in everything she tried.
“Are you done? It sounded like you were scolding them.”
“Scolding? I just gave them a warning about how their formation loosened a bit during our trip today.”
“Uh, did you?” I thought that was what scolding meant, but since I didn’t need to argue with her on that, I just ended it there.
“By the way, did you decide to keep wearing that eye patch from now on?”
Amelia was taking off her eye patch with one hand when I asked, and she flinched a little as she answered, “…Only while we’re exploring.”
“Really? But isn’t it better to always keep it on if you want to get used to it?”
One-Eyed increased kinetic vision and didn’t use up any resources, so there was not really a reason to not keep it on at all times. In fact, it was better to keep it on if she wanted to decrease any errors in her senses.
Still, Amelia didn’t answer.
“From what I can see, you only have it on during combat and take it off during everyday life. Is there a reason for that?”
This was purely a question of curiosity.
Amelia let out a deep sigh and mumbled in a bitter tone, “It’s still weird. A woman like me, wearing an eye patch…”
What a completely unexpected response.
Yet somehow, it also did feel like an Amelia-like response. After observing her for a while now, I got the sense that she actually had quite the shy side to her. Even when she acted stoic, she seemed to be wary of what others thought about her as well.
Amelia quickly changed the subject.
“But why didn’t you bring the child with us?”
“Huh, you mean Erwen?”
She tilted her head. “No, the other child. That…cute…”
Ah, she was talking about Hamsick.
***
After traveling for about three days, we finally arrived at the estuary. However, when I got there, I began to wonder if it was right to even call this a river.
“It’s as black as I heard…”
It looked like an oil spill. Forget drinking it, just touching it was probably harmful for us.
It’s about as wide as the Han River…
Honestly, it had been a while since we discovered the river. However, the reason we hadn’t crossed it yet to do a deep exploration of the other side was simple. We wanted to assess the river itself before expanding our search area.
But the depth of this thing is wild.
Compared to its width, it was absurdly deep, so it took a while for our search team to confirm that there was nothing below the river.
They seemed to have investigated the black river water as well.
“They said the water wasn’t dangerous to touch, but try not to let it touch you, just in case.”
We put the small boat we prepared carefully onto the river.
Someone reported that the boat would usually not float on this water and instead sink, but thanks to something done by the wizards, it was floating normally on the water.
Thankfully, nothing happened.
We had no accidents while crossing the river. The actual problem came after we had crossed.
Boom!
As soon as we stepped foot onto the earth beyond the river, a heavy rumble from the forest shook the ground beneath us. It was the footstep of a large monster that any high-ranking adventurer would be familiar with.
“Ready for battle.”
Just in case, we prepared so that we could retreat on our boat in the worst-case scenario, and so we took on our battle stance.
Boom!
The loud footsteps grew even louder, and the monster finally revealed itself from the forest.
Boom!
It looked slightly bigger than an ogre. Unlike regular armored monsters, it had smooth metallic skin and pipes all around its neck.
Flash!
It even had red eyes that reminded me of infrared rays.
“…It’s a Mechanical Giant.”
“A rank 3 monster that appears in the Panthelion Ruins.”
Fortunately, it wasn’t a new monster.
Well, it was still quite a rare monster, so my first time killing it was at Library Island.
It’s not too difficult if there’s only one around….
But I still kept my guard up.
Since it appeared in this area, this monster could have something special going for it, and there could be other enemies nearby as well.
“Extend your sights and be wary of our surroundings!”
With that, rather than focusing everything on fighting it, we continued cautiously while on the lookout for any possible variables. It was a Mechanical Giant that was in the upper ranks of rank 3, so it wasn’t particularly difficult for us. And after coming down to Basement Floor 1, I had been boosted quite significantly as well.
“Behel-laaaaaa!”
Wall of Aegis.
And my biggest weakness of Mana Resistance was bolstered through the consumption of the Bellarios essence as well.
[Mechanical Giant has cast Mana Lazer.]
[Mechanical Giant has cast Call Reinforcements.]
[Mechanical Giant has cast Nuclear Reactor.]
No matter what it did, I was able to block it without a problem and hold its attention. While I did, the search members kept watch of our surroundings and I positioned myself so that I could protect our damage dealers. Thanks to that, the damage dealers were able to focus solely on attacking, and after piling on more and more damage to it, the battle came to an end.
[You have defeated a Mechanical Giant.]
The mangled body of the mechanical giant sparked before dissipating into light.
“An essence…!”
An essence dropped.
Why did it not work last time when I had Beginner’s Luck active?
Although it was a precious rank 3 essence, I wasn’t as enthusiastic about it as I thought I would be. I mean, how many rank 3 essences had we obtained on the underground floor already? I couldn’t even remember what number this was anymore.
Even if I didn’t, though, selling a rank 3 essence should fetch a hefty price. The reason rank 3 essences were still so expensive was because of the aftereffect of the last dimensional collapse.
“We will collect the essence in a magic vial.”
At my order, Raven, a member of this special group, came up and stored the essence. Although I wasn’t as excited as I was when I obtained Wall of Aegis, I was still a bit impressed.
It’s difficult to obtain one of these even if you go in with a plan to get it, yet we ended up getting one this way.
The essence of a Mechanical Giant was decent enough. Even excluding the base stats and the active skill, the value of the passive skill Mechanize was pretty high. With it, it became possible to restore MP by consuming mana stones. Because of how inefficient the recovery was, you needed to spend a lot of money on it.
But the ceiling is insane.
It meant that with enough money, you could have unlimited MP.
“By the way, I don’t see that group of humans I heard about in the report.”
“It seems we’ll need to do a scan of the area around us.”
Once the battle was finished, we immediately began drawing our maps as we expanded our territory. However, it wasn’t easy to find the group of humans that the investigation team had spotted on that day.
But it didn’t seem like they had mistaken something else.
And I don’t see any monsters going after the Mechanical Giant either…
Please, I wished something would come out-
“Mr. Yandel, come over here! The search team found a mark!”
“What?” I immediately headed toward the edge of the perimeter where the search team was.
“Ah, you’re here.” Amelia looked at me while she was crouched on the ground.
“So, what’s the mark?”
“It’s here.”
What I saw was a clear human footprint stuck on the ground.
“Not a group, but one person.”
“Where are they going?”
“We’ll know if we follow it. After checking the mark, it seems like this footprint was made pretty recently.”
“Then let’s hurry up and follow it.”
At that, Amelia stood at the front and began to follow the marks, and we followed behind her while keeping our guard up to our surroundings.
“It ends here.”
After following it for a few hundred yards, the footprints stopped in the middle of an empty field.
“Did they notice we were following them and erase their tracks?” I asked aloud.
Amelia didn’t respond. However, it seemed that she was focusing on something. As she looked around a few times, she mumbled with a cold expression, “…It was to lure us.”
What? Damn it. “Are we surrounded?”
“Most likely.”
Even Amelia, who could be considered an expert in this field, couldn’t be sure yet. However, our questions were answered pretty quickly.
“Looks like we are surrounded.”
“…Prepare for battle!”
As soon as we took our formation, creatures that had human forms walked out of the forest naked. When I saw them, I let out a deep sigh.
You said they were humans.
They weren’t humans.
Some had pointy ears, and others were very short, while others still had animal ears on their head.