Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 617
Chapter 617: Homunculus (4)
“Th-this is…”
“Kaislan, are you awake?”
He still seemed out of it from the way he spaced out while looking at nothing. In the end, he finally fully awoke when I slapped him on the cheek once.
“Aah!”
Yeah, this was the most effective way.
“Yandel…! It’s great to see you safe!”
It was honestly moving how the first thing he did after regaining consciousness was to check for my safety. Nevertheless, I said half-jokingly, “I told you to call me commander.”
“Haha, commander. It’s good to see you well.”
“Do you think you can stand?”
I helped Kaislan get to his feet. We then shared all the information we gathered until now with each other and asked him if he had anything new to tell us.
“…I can’t remember. Unlike Ms. Raven here, I can’t seem to remember anything.”
“Are you the type to forget things when you drink too much?”
“…Not at all. And it’s not as if I like drinking in the first place.”
“I guess with this, we at least learned that the capacity to remember in that state is different for each person.”
“No,” Raven immediately refuted. “There’s a chance that this is due to distance. When the incident happened, I was far away from the main camp while Sir Kaislan was right next to the temple.”
“Well, that is definitely a possibility.”
It was all just guesswork at this point, so we needed more information. Thus, we continued to wait in front of the conveyor belt as if we were its gatekeepers, and whenever an ally passed by, we woke them up. Thanks to that, we learned something new.
“Hmm…so you can remember any details, anything at all? Weren’t you near the temple?”
The clarity of memory turned out not to be related to distance and was more likely just an individual difference. It was like how some people could remember their dreams while others couldn’t in a way. I myself was the latter type. From what I heard from my allies, I supposedly ground my teeth and spoke in my sleep, but I couldn’t remember anything about what I dreamed.
“…Do you mean that jail we were in?”
“I just… Sorry, I can’t remember it well.”
However, unfortunately for us, even the ones who could faintly remember things couldn’t tell us where the others were being held.
“With this much, you’ll be safe even without me.”
After saving at least ten people to bolster our numbers, I revealed to my allies my plan to go exploring by myself.
“Commander,” Kaislan hedged, sounding worried, “wouldn’t it be better to wait a little longer and move together?”
no longer had the time to spare here, however. Although I wasn’t making a show of it, my heart was still being eaten away even at that very moment.
“As you said, there is a possibility that the search captain who passed through already could still be fine-”
“It’s only a possibility,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to stay here under the hope that everything will be fine if I just wait around.”
“…It seems I have misspoke.”
“It’s fine. I’ll leave everyone here to you.”
I smiled and patted him on his shoulder, and Kaislan smirked back and sent me off with a “Roger that.”
Wow. I figured it was because he was a soldier. Even though he obviously said it as a joke, it sounded pretty legit.
“Raven,” I called.
“Yes. What is it?”
“If you can get more people, try and scout around the area here. Just whatever is within your means. Ah, but if that’s too difficult, I’m not forcing you to—”
Her burst of laughter cut me off. “I get it. I get what you’re trying to say.”
“Still, I’ll say it before I go. Your safety is of higher priority than investigation, alright?”
“Yes. We’ll be waiting for you here.”
I took a deep breath. Since I made sure to tell her outright, she probably wouldn’t overdo it.
After exchanging a glance with Kaislan, who was always a reliable subordinate, I left this damned factory.
***
Every minute, every second was important.
Even knowing that, though, I didn’t move hastily. Just like the proverb “haste makes waste,” I instead slowly tried to map out the structure of the building we were in.
At the very lowest point is this factory, with a total of four stairways that lead down here.
However, there were other routes that one could take to get down here. Hundreds of conveyor belts with unknown origins filled the space, and all those belts were connected to the conveyor belt of the underground factory. I even considered going up each one of those conveyor belts as a result.
This won’t work.
However, when I went up one of them, I saw it split into dozens more and gave up. It would honestly be more efficient to look through the entire building.
With that, I started from the underground factory, climbed one floor at a time, and mapped the entire place out.
It’s not here.
But even after completely filling in my mental map, I couldn’t find the room that my allies were trapped in.
However, I didn’t despair. It wasn’t as if the room didn’t exist. More than likely, there was a hidden room somewhere not noted on the map, and it was probably impossible to find a room like that with such a simple method.
Do I need to try going up the belts even now?
That thought occurred to me as well, but I shook my head. I didn’t think that method would be useful in finding a room that was hidden on purpose either.
With that, there was only one thing I could do.
“(Hamsick, do you remember anything more?)”
“(…I’ll tell you when I remember.)”
Something hidden. I needed to find a hidden secret.
Just like how I obtained that weird metal card from moving the wall tile by relying on Hamsick’s memories, if I continued to take a detailed look at our surroundings, something was bound to catch its eye.
And there must be a way to use this card as well.
With that thought in mind, I continued to look around the entire structure while scanning everything in sight.
Tap, tap.
As I was kneeling on the ground to take a closer look at it, something tapped me on my shoulder.
“I finally found you, Yandel.”
I jumped, startled. I hadn’t sensed a presence.
When I turned around, someone completely unexpected was standing there.
“…Amelia?”
“Didn’t I tell you to always call me Emily no matter where we are?”
When I heard her say that so nonchalantly, all the strength drained from my body in a deep, relieved sigh.
She was fine.
***
“What happened? What about your body? Are you okay? Did you also turn into that mana stone—”
“Calm down. I’ll explain everything.”
“Ah, got it.”
Once I finally calmed down and focused on listening, Amelia explained everything that had happened to her step by step.
“Unlike the others, I was able to regain my senses in the middle of it.”
“What? How?”
“Well, I don’t know either. One of my essences might have an ability to resist an attack of this type.”
I knew Amelia better than she knew herself. There weren’t any essences among the ones she had that gave Mental Resistance. There was, however, one thing that may have worked.
“It’s most likely thanks to the Twin Hydra’s Dual Control,” I explained.
Dual Control was a passive that allowed her to split her consciousness into two. In the game, when that passive was chained with a skill like Self-Replication, it gave the clone a better AI and increased the effectiveness of the skill.
It might have an effect that I didn’t know about. Those things sometimes popped up in Dungeon and Stone.
“Huh? This skill can block that skill?”
Things like that.
They were high-quality pieces of information that couldn’t be predicted just by reading the description of the skill, and could only be obtained through experience.
In any case, that wasn’t important right now.
“Can I keep going?”
I stumbled out of my thoughts. “Ah, uh…yeah.”
When she regained her senses, she was on top of one of the conveyor belts. She was being transported somewhere, so she ran against its movement to escape and then went searching around the structure by herself. During this process, she naturally ended up discovering the underground factory.
“Thankfully, a few people were already awake.”
That was after I had already woken up Raven and Kaislan. After receiving information from them, she immediately ran back out of the factory to look for me.
My legs gave out from beneath me, my strength drained once more. I grabbed Amelia’s shoulder to stabilize myself as I spoke. “I’m so glad. Really. To see you safe…”
Amelia only looked up at me and didn’t answer. I then slowly pulled my hand off of her shoulder.
Or rather, I tried to.
Before I could, Amelia softly placed her hand atop mine where it lay on her shoulder. It was small and thin, yet hardened with callouses. She tapped the back of my hand twice as if to comfort me before clutching it tightly.
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
The time continued to pass quickly as my mind cleared.
What’s this…?
Why was the mood suddenly like this? This was like a man and a woman who had a thing going on. For me, who chose to always keep allies as only allies after what happened with Missha, the sudden change was pretty awkward.
I quickly swiped my hand away from hers.
Is she…fine with this?
Amelia’s expression didn’t change at all. She just looked up at me as she did…
Smack!
…before punching me straight in the gut.
“…Why?”
Rather than pain, I was more shocked by the sudden attack, but I couldn’t really say much after I heard what she said next.
“I told you to wait a second…but you just said you’d take a quick look inside and ran in while ignoring what I said. This is punishment for that.”
Ah… She really was someone who couldn’t live with debt.
I scrambled to change topics and cleared my throat. “Anyway, it’s great! A relief! I was really worried that you’ve been turned into a mana stone.”
Amelia seemed to think now wasn’t the time to tell me off as she accepted the shift. “I heard about that mana stone thing. This is a pretty interesting place.”
“…It really is. Ah, so you investigated the building? Did you find anything else?”
“I did. Three things.”
“You did?” And three things at that?
As I urged her to continue, Amelia smirked. “One is an exit to get out of this place. It feels different from a portal, but if you go through that door, you can leave the temple.”
“So it’s the door I used to come into this place. What about the other ones?”
“The second one is on these stairs. There was a small indent so I checked it, but there was an empty opening beyond the wall. It’s big enough to hide something small in it, but there wasn’t anything in there when I checked.”
Ah, so it was that. But how did she find it in the first place? I barely got it with Hamsick’s guidance, but she just noticed the small grove with her naked eye.
“What? What’s with your expression? Do you know something?”
“I do. That opening is something I found before.”
“…You did?” Amelia looked quite surprised, and I brought out the item I had taken from the wall. “So…this was inside the opening?”
For some reason, Amelia seemed to have expected the card.
“Do you know how to use it?” I asked curiously.
“I haven’t checked yet.”
“What is it? Tell me.”
“It’s related to the third thing I found. I found a hidden door, but there wasn’t any way to open it.”
“And you think this might be the key?”
“If my assumption is correct. There is a small slit next to the door, and it’s about the size of this object.”
“Hmm, I see.” There was no point discussing here if this card was a key or not. We just needed to go there and test it out. “Where is it? Let’s go.”
“On the very top floor.”
After following Amelia, I arrived at an empty hall that was at the top of the building. I had visited this place when I mapped out everything, but I hadn’t been able to find anything then.
“Only this part and this part of the wall are unnatural.”
Even when Amelia kindly guided me to the wall to show me, I couldn’t tell. Just what about it was unnatural?
“Most hidden doors are situated like this,” she explained. “But they usually don’t have this obvious of a joint.”
“Really?”
“And most damningly, there’s this slit here. I became sure that this was a door after I saw that.”
Just as she said, there really was a small opening where a card could be inserted. I hadn’t been able to find it during my own investigation, and even if I had seen it, it was so small that I probably would’ve just ignored it.
“Then…I’m putting it in?” I asked carefully.
Amelia gave a small nod.
After looking at her eyes for a second, I immediately put the key into the hole.
Clank.
Like when inserting a card into a vending machine, I felt something catch the card at the end.
“Huh, nothing is happening—”
“Yandel, step back.”
Srrrrk!
After a short moment, a part of the wall sank into itself, revealing a hidden pathway.
“…It really was a door.”
After looking at each other once more, Amelia and I carefully stepped into the passageway.