Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 613
Chapter 613: Mystical (6)
Pointy ears. Stout legs. Animal ears with scaled skin.
The creatures that surrounded us all looked like the nonhumans of Rafdonia.
“What are these things?”
“Who knows? I guess…they’re monsters?”
However, they were clearly not the same, somewhere stuck in the so-called uncanny valley. Although they looked like nonhumans, they also had uncanny characteristics that screamed the difference.
“These things….are the most horrifying among the monsters I have seen until now.”
The creature with pointy ears had a horn on its head. The one with short legs had an upper body with a normal person’s proportions. The creature with animal ears had scales all over its body that made it seem like a dragonian.
Some had an additional arm or leg on a weird spot while another looked fine except for its extraordinarily long legs. All of their faces were also asymmetrical, so it was obvious at a glance that they weren’t the creatures we knew.
“When god first created life with clay, if monsters were thrown into the mix and swished about, maybe something like this would come out,” mumbled someone, and I found myself agreeing.
It was as if they were created by rolling multiple dice.
“Kyaaaaak!”
Although they were intelligent enough to lure an enemy, they didn’t have a language.
“Begin combat!”
“Maintain your positions! We first need to obtain information about their… Huh?”
Compared to how on-guard we were, they were far too weak.
Smash! Crunch!
The hammer I had swung to keep them at bay smashed the head of one, and it fell to the ground like an autumn leaf.
…What?
The creatures had avoided detection by all members of the search team, including Amelia, so I expected them to be tricky opponents.
“…These guys aren’t strong at all!”
“Die…!”
As each member realized that our enemies weren’t powerful, they began to fight more actively. I warned them throughout our combat to not let their guard down as I tried to control the tempo of battle.
Crunch! Slash! Boom!
And yet, nothing else happened even as we cleaned up everything here.
Why are they so weak?
Although their physical capabilities were better than those of regular humans, that was all. They didn’t command spirits like the elves or use numbered items like the dwarves, nor did they have a soul beast they made a contract with. They also didn’t use the power of essences.
However, one thing about them was quite peculiar.
“Raven, have you used distortion magic on them?”
“No. I haven’t.”
“But their corpses are still here…”
The field lay littered with dozens of monster corpses whose arms, heads, legs, and other body parts were destroyed.
“…Are they alive?”
“For now…they aren’t breathing. They don’t have heartbeats anymore either.”
I carefully approached one to check, but I could tell that they were dead. Their corpses just weren’t disappearing.
“Check it.”
After putting the rest on guard duty, I ordered the wizards to investigate the corpses. If we wanted to do a proper investigation into them, we would need to put preservation magic on them and return to the main headquarters.
I mean, I was wondering why none of them looked like barbarians.
But after a cursory investigation, we figured out something else. Excluding their appearances, which looked like they had been run over by hauler trucks, these guys all shared one more thing in common.
“Their hearts…look very similar to barbarian hearts.”
They had the hearts of warriors.
A whirlwind of thoughts bombarded me. From my conversation with the old vampire, I realized a secret.
“Duke… What race do I look like?”
“…Obviously, a human?”
In the era the duke was alive, nonhumans didn’t exist; even though the history books of Rafdonia claimed that before the curse of the witch covered the world, the nonhumans also lived aboveground.
How could that be? Among the many possibilities that I thought of back then, there was one that seemed the most plausible.
A similar but different world.
Perhaps this was similar to how Earth also had the parallel universes theory. This was a world where you could walk through a dimensional door into a labyrinth to have mystical adventures. It wasn’t completely nonsensical. However, something led my thoughts in a new direction.
“It’s about the field of alchemy. In truth, I heard that it was a field that started in the past to create ‘humans.’”
Alchemy.
“Ah, didn’t you know? You can sell ancient records to the palace for quite a bit.”
Considering how actively records were sought after, many parts of ancient history were suspiciously missing.
“Humans can wield any type of power. Aura, divine power, magic, even spirits.”
The characteristics of humans that allowed them to wield all powers of all the races.
“It was nothing like magic or an essence. It was as if there was power to his voice, like it had imprinted itself within my blood and soul from the moment I was born. That he is the king, my master.”
Even the special ability of the king was shrouded in a veil.
“Ah, come to think of it, that old man from the magic tower only realized who he was and followed suit after the rest of us kneeled.”
After combining many different pieces of information I obtained through my travels, everything pointed to one possibility. Maybe, just maybe, the five nonhuman races could have been made by someone. And made because someone required them. No, if I had to choose a culprit…
It’s probably the palace. It doesn’t make sense unless it’s them.
I felt like I had stumbled into being a conspiracy theorist, but it did sound plausible enough.
In a sense, the nonhumans were like slaves to humans-specifically, slaves who used their superior physical abilities to go into the labyrinth to mine the mana stones.
Also, the nonhumans are taxed much higher than the humans.
Of course, there were historical reasons for the increased taxes on nonhumans, yet I began to doubt those records as well. Not so much that the historical events didn’t happen, however.
But maybe someone orchestrated those events.
Something had pushed the nonhumans to cause the event to happen without making it obvious. With how many spies and agents the palace had, it wouldn’t have been too difficult for them to—
“…What are you thinking so hard about?”
“I was wondering which jerky I should eat later,” I said evasively, avoiding Raven’s question.
Although I was pretty certain of my theory, it was just one of many
possibilities, and if it were true, I couldn’t speak about it. It was too heavy a secret to share with others.
I cleared my throat. “Anyway, cast preservation magic on all of them and store them up. You’ll need to conduct a thorough investigation into them when we get back to the main camp.”
“Are we going to return right away?”
“Not at all. We’ll continue with this expedition. We haven’t been able to find anything about this place yet, not really.”
After we finished our battle, we quickly wrapped up the investigation and continued to explore our surroundings.
One day, two days, three days…
Exploring a wide area to fill out more of our map left us to encounter many more monsters, including the many different types of mechanical monsters that appeared in the Panthelion Ruins. We faced the Mechanical Giant a few more times as well. There were even more Doppelr too.
“Doppelr” was the name Raven gave to the monsters who looked like nonhumans. It was a word from the ancient language with a very simple meaning: another being. Raven’s characteristically lofty naming sense was evident again, but considering its meaning, it fit them pretty well—
“Yandel.”
Whoa, that scared me.
“At least make your presence known if you’re back,” I scolded. “Did you just come back from your patrol?”
Amelia nodded. “During our investigation, we found a peculiar artificial structure that seemed to lead somewhere. I think it’ll be best if we go and check it out together when the sun comes up.”
“An artificial structure?” I asked Amelia about the specifics, and after listening to everything she said, I got the feeling that we finally discovered something relevant. However, since everyone was tired, I decided to take a rest as Amelia suggested and to go and check it in the morning.
“It’s here.”
The next day, we followed Amelia and arrived at an ordinary jungle. No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t look that different from the areas we had explored before.
“…We’ll need to be more wary of what we’re stepping on.”
“This was discovered by accident as well.”
I swiped away the grass that came up to my knees, only for something to reveal itself from below. There was a hatch that looked like a manhole cover situated on the ground, even fitted with a round handle at the top that signified that it could be opened by turning it.
“I thought it may be trapped, so I didn’t try to touch it after discovering it.”
“Good thinking.”
I asked the wizards to investigate it, and soon after, they reported back that there didn’t seem to be anything dangerous about it.
Hah, then could we really just open it?
Creak, clack, clang!
As I turned the handle, it sounded as if a lock was being undone before the hatch opened. As expected, it opened up to a circular tunnel that led downward, and I could see a ladder attached to the side of the wall.
Its depth…
It looked to go down about twenty yards after checking with the light orb magic. However, due to the angle, I couldn’t see what was actually down there.
“Then I’ll—”
“Not a chance. I’ll go down,” Amelia interrupted me while stepping forward. I got the distinct sense she wouldn’t back down no matter what I said.
Our eyes met in a staring competition of sorts.
“Why are you even arguing about this?” Raven responded with a smirk and got between us. “I’ll check it.”
“What?”
“Ah, of course, I’ll use magic.”
“Ah…”
As Amelia and I stepped back sheepishly, Raven levitated the recording crystal used for logging our expedition before sending it down. It was a much safer method than sending a person down.
However, there was a limit to exploring with only tools like this.
“When you go down, there is another one-way passage that leads to a closed metal door.”
Since there was a metal door right at the entrance, there was nothing more we could do with the crystal.
“…Don’t even think about going down first. I am the search captain of this expedition.”
In the end, Amelia was chosen to go down first.
Hey, how long ago was it that you were mad about earning yourself a weird title?
In any case, Amelia took the ladder down first, and a wizard followed in after her.
After confirming that it was somewhat safe, I went down after them as well. However, even with Giantization deactivated, the interior was cramped, making it pretty difficult to go down the ladder. It felt as if I’d get stuck even as I squeezed my shoulders together as much as possible.
A sad day for a barbarian.
It seemed that racially discriminatory buildings existed in every era.
“This way, Yandel.”
Once I finally got myself down the ladder, Amelia called for me at the end of the passage. “Unlike above, I can’t see any locking mechanism on this. And I don’t know what it’s made of, but even using aura can’t make a mark on it.”
Hmm, if it didn’t take damage from aura, it practically had physical damage immunity.
“What about with magic?”
The wizard who had entered after Amelia carefully answered my question. From what I remembered, this guy was the right-hand man of the search captain.
“Including the dimensional severance phenomenon, the flow of another special mana structure is detected. However, due to its low density, there is a low probability that it will be an attack or a trap. With such a weak flow of mana…it’s probably just used to open and close the door.”
“And?”
“Unusually, the dimensional severance phenomenon isn’t on the door, but beyond it.”
“Hmm, then you’re saying the aura isn’t working not because of the severance phenomenon?”
“That’s how I am looking at it.”
“A metal that isn’t damaged even by aura…”
Tap, tap.
I tapped on the door a little as if knocking on it. I didn’t know what was hiding beyond this door, but I could tell that it was important just by the quality of the door itself.
“Search, vice-captain.”
He blinked. “Are you talking about me?”
“Yeah. Could we perhaps just take the door itself? I think we should melt this down and turn it into armor.”
“Uh…I do think it is worth it to try. I believe that this is a very precious material, even if it’s never used to make armor.”
Alright, I got you.
I couldn’t tell why they would want to make armor with it, but it seemed the wizard agreed with me about taking this door—
“Huh?”
At that moment, a slight tremor shook the door.
“Yandel, step back!” Amelia shouted.
I jolted back, but nothing really happened. The door just seemed to make a noise before smoothly rolling open.
[Qualifications to access the First Record have been confirmed. Entry is permitted.]
“Do you know why it suddenly opened?” I asked suspiciously.
“I don’t. It didn’t react to us when we touched it.”
“I see…”
I was a little taken aback, but there were two possibilities now. Either someone opened the door for me after they heard me knocking, or…
A special condition that I don’t know of just got fulfilled.
Personally, I had a feeling that it was the latter, but it wasn’t too important right now. While the wizard relayed the situation to those above using his message stone, I slowly walked past the metal door.
Huh?
Then, we were met with a little problem.
When I happened to turn around, I could see Amelia stuck right in front of the door. It looked as if she was miming, as her palms were flat against the air and her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear any words coming out of it.
Noticing that something was off, I quickly stepped back out and asked, “What? Can you not enter?”
“And how can you enter?”
After testing the oddity a few times, I was able to confirm something.
“The door has opened, but the dimensional severance phenomenon is maintained as usual. I really can’t understand it…”
Although we couldn’t know why, only I could walk through this door.
“Then wait here for a bit. I’ll take a quick look inside.”
“What? Wait—”
Before Amelia could start her nagging, I quickly went back through the door.
Fwoosh!
The interior was dark, but it got a bit better when I got into my Candle-Barbarian mode.
It feels as if I’m inside a submarine…
The entire place was plated with metal and unknown pipes stretching into long lines.
Clang, clang.
Since there were no crossroads, I walked straight down for about one hundred yards before coming to another hole with a ladder I could go down. However, before I went down there, I decided to open the metal door that was next to it first.
Clank.
Fortunately, the door opened without a problem. After checking the inside, I slowly closed my eyes before opening them again and sighing.
It was a long corridor that didn’t seem to end, and along its length were large, green test tube vats filled with green liquid lining the sides. To be honest, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know when the game genre changed to sci-fi.
Doppelr.
However, the monsters that Raven named were curled up in those vats and staring at me.