Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 623
Chapter 623: District Seven (1)
After toiling away in the labyrinth for long enough, you could reach a point where you communicate with allies with looks alone.
Just like we were now.
I don’t know what’s going on, but let’s capture him first.
After receiving that message through my look, my allies nodded and drew their weapons.
“So you have no intention of being obedient and answering.”
Fortunately for us, the other leader seemed to have come to the same conclusion as their group charged us.
“Capture them for now!”
There were a total of fourteen enemies including their leader. Since it wasn’t a multiple of six, we couldn’t evenly divide our forces.
But well, this wasn’t the labyrinth, but the middle of the city.
[You have cast Giantization. Your threat level and physical value increase in proportion to growth in size.]
We didn’t know how strong our enemies were, so I increased my body’s size first. However, they seemed to have noticed something after seeing my enlargened body.
Our charging enemies suddenly stopped in shock.
“B-Bjorn Yandel…?”
“…It’s the Giant!”
“How is someone who went missing here…?”
Hey, thanks for recognizing me, but…
“R-run away!”
“Call for reinforcements—!”
Where do you think you’re going?
***
It didn’t take long to suppress the Noark forces we met in the destroyed Dimension Square.
Their numbers ended up decreasing from fourteen to twelve during the process. Ah, naturally, this wasn’t because a few of them ended up escaping. They just died while trying to run away.
There are a few skilled individuals here.
Judging by how quickly they spread out to run away, I assumed these guys trained together quite a bit. Two of their fastest members nearly got away with it when we tried to capture everyone alive.
“Good work, Erwen. Things could’ve turned messy if we let them get away.”
“…Don’t mention it.”
In any case, since we captured all of them, I approached one of them who was on his knees.
Twelve people.
It was a number I was much more comfortable with.
“Emily, take all their gear off, including from the dead two.”
I didn’t know how much time I would have, so I neutralized them while carrying out my interrogation.
And this guy seemed the perfect one to talk to.
“…Ugh!”
I grabbed the leader, who had been staying silent and only looking at the ground, by his head and lifted him. “Hey, Stink Eye.”
Ainar tilted her head. “Huh? Bjorn, do you know this guy?”
“No?”
“Huh? Then how do you know his name?”
“… What are you talking about? I just called him Stink Eye because I don’t like how he’s looking at me.”
How the hell was Stink Eye the name of a person?
Every once in a while, I realized just how unaware Ainar was.
“Haha… I just…” Ainar scratched the back of her head, looking a little embarrassed, and I naturally turned my attention away from her.
“Anyway… Hey, Stink Eye.”
Even after calling out to him again, Stink Eye refused to talk, and I just carried on without waiting for him to reply.
“It’s been a while since we’ve been in the city. What are you guys doing here?”
Sure enough, he still didn’t answer me, and I immediately swung down with my hammer.
Not at the leader…
Crunch!
…but at the hand of one of his subordinates kneeling to the side.
“Aaaah!”
Subordinate A let out a pained cry at the sudden attack.
I started with him and went down the line, smashing one hand of all the other members with my hammer. I then asked the leader again, “It’s been a while since we’ve been in the city. What are you guys doing here?”
Naturally, I didn’t receive an answer, and I began to hammer down, starting from Subordinate A again. My target was nowhere else but the very same hand I destroyed on the previous rotation.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
I asked the leader the same question again, and he didn’t give me an answer again. However, it seemed that the subordinates understood the method of interrogation now, as they clenched their eyes shut.
“Hold them properly this time as well, Auyen.”
“Yes…!”
As I mechanically struck down in order, one of the subordinates hurriedly spoke up. “I-I’ll—!”
I paused. “Hmm?”
“I’ll answer for you! That question!”
“Oh, really?”
Since this was the response I was aiming for, I wasn’t that surprised. The leader, however, didn’t expect his Subordinate G to betray him.
“You rat bastard…!” Stink Eye broke his silence and glared at Subordinate G.
However, as a macho member of Noark, Subordinate G didn’t take any crap either.
“What the hell do you want me to do, then? You can get through this by staying quiet, but we’re all getting pummeled here.”
“…What, do you think he’ll let you live if you answer?!”
“No. But if I’m going to die, I would rather die a painless death, no? What’s the point in staying loyal if I’m going to die anyway?”
“If your betrayal becomes known, your family in the village—”
“Fuck you!” He spat at his leader, snarling, “You bastard. Did you not even know your subordinate is an orphan with no family?”
From my perspective, Subordinate G had won this exchange. Stink Eye couldn’t retort to the logical and piercing words of his subordinate. Though, it did seem like he wanted to curse him out at the end.
“You son of a—”
I didn’t have the time to waste on watching them fight themselves. “Shut up.”
“Agh!”
“Alright, so tell me. Just why are you guys here?” I asked after shutting Stink Eye up.
Subordinate G began to explain everything that happened in the city while we were away, and the events could be summarized in two main points.
First was that around two months ago, the remnants of Noark had secretly returned to their old residence in the underground city after going outside the castle walls. And they had done it to invade Rafdonia.
“Invade…?”
“…They’re out of their minds.”
My allies were shocked as they listened to the story with me. Amelia even shook her head in disbelief, but I wasn’t that surprised. I had already heard this from Clown in the Round Table before.
But I didn’t expect them to carry it out this quickly.
Versyl looked much calmer than the rest of my allies as well, perhaps because she too had been there when Clown revealed his information.
“So? What’s the situation?” I pressed. “Did you guys win? Is that why District Seven is in this state?”
“No… We didn’t win. We’re in a bit of a standoff.”
…Tell me in detail.”
“Two days ago, we came through the sewers up into the city and successfully ambushed a few districts, and we succeeded in taking over them in a day.”
“Two days ago…?” I listened to more of his explanation and learned that today was exactly a day after the labyrinth closed. “So you aimed for when the adventurers entered the labyrinth. And a good chunk of the palace’s forces would’ve entered the labyrinth then too.”
“Yes, that’s right…”
After hearing all that, my first thought was how unlucky I was. We returned after barely scraping by, but that just happened to be when the city was being invaded. It was like I was always tripping only myself.
“I’m listening, so keep talking.”
“Ah, yes…”
Subordinate G went on to talk about the state of the battle.
They had aimed for between day one when the adventurers left for the labyrinth and day two when they returned. Thanks to that, they were able to deal with the guards of each district and had successfully taken over the city.
“We surrounded the adventurers who returned from the labyrinth yesterday and suppressed them from the square, and we’re now using them as hostages while fighting against the forces of the palace.”
That was the current situation.
“The palace also seems to value the lives of the adventurers more than regular citizens, so they haven’t pushed through yet.”
“Then why are you guys here?”
“We were on patrol. We figured the palace might send in infiltrators, and we were looking for any stragglers who were still hiding. The wizard of our patrol group said he suddenly felt something from the square…”
“Are there more patrols?”
“Not any nearby…”
From the way his words trailed off, I could tell there was something more that he was hesitating to say. It was time to use my secret weapon.
“It’s fine, you can tell me. If you are helpful, I wouldn’t be opposed to letting you live. No, I will swear upon my honor as a warrior that I will send you back alive.”
It was the warrior’s oath that I had used to quite a bit of success since the very start.
Subordinate G seemed to hesitate at that before revealing everything. “It’s around time to send in our scheduled report. If we don’t make a report at the set time, they might send another patrol group here—”
Even Stink Eye couldn’t hold back and shouted, “You son of a bitch…!”
That was probably the last lifeline they had.
Shut up, so annoying.
“This scheduled report, can you do it?”
“Yes, I can. I’ve done it a few times. He’s handed it to me a few times, saying it was annoying to do.”
“Really?”
“You bastard! Don’t you know how much I—!”
Then this guy was useless.
Crunch!
I crushed the head of his boss right in front of him, but Subordinate G only flinched before finding his calm again.
“There should be a message stone in the things you took from us. If you give it to me, I can deal with it.”
“Looks like it’s this thing.” Amelia, who had been watching from the side, immediately found the message stone and handed it to me.
“Alright, then do it. Don’t think about doing anything reckless.”
“Okay…”
With the message stone now in hand, Subordinate G reported to his higher-ups that nothing was going on with the area. Perhaps because he had done this multiple times before already, the report ended without much trouble.
And so, we resumed our conversation.
“Anyway, you said you took over a few districts. Which districts are they?”
“District Thirteen and District Seven.”
I let out a deep sigh.
“Wh-what is it…? Did I make a mistake or…?”
I was really unlucky. Among the many districts, they had successfully taken over two of them, but one of them just had to be our District Seven.
I couldn’t stop the sigh from escaping me, but I kept my emotions in check and continued with the conversation.
“It’s fine. Keep talking. What happened to the holy land?”
District Thirteen had the holy land of the beastpeople, and District Seven had the holy land of our barbarians. As the chieftain of the barbarians, I couldn’t help but be worried for my holy land.
“The holy land is currently cut off from the city.”
“Cut off?”
“I-I’m just a soldier, so I don’t know the details…but I heard that they used a magic circle created by the palace a long time ago. And I…I heard it was made to restrict the nonhumans…but I’m not sure since it’s just stuff we talk about in our group.”
Subordinate G seemed to belatedly remember that I was the chieftain of the barbarians as he quickly added on, “S-still, since it completely separated the holy land from the city, there must be relatively less damage there than here.”
Relatively.
From that word, I could tell that there was some damage done to the holy land. But well, it couldn’t be helped. I just needed to be thankful for the relativity.
“District Thirteen… What about the beastpeople, then?”
I asked that as well since I was worried for Missha’s homeland, but I couldn’t get a detailed response.
“That district is a little different, so I don’t really know…but that side probably isn’t any different.”
“Really… I see…”
Missha bit her lip. Even though they were people she hated, she seemed worried about her family.
“Yandel, it looks like we’ve got all the information we need here, so how about we move first?”
“Move?”
“Just in case. If we get surrounded here, even we’d have a difficult time.”
Following Amelia’s advice, we first decided to leave the area. The report was made without a problem, sure, but we could still be discovered by someone else.
“Then clean up everyone other than him. Don’t leave a single trace of them.”
Amelia glanced at Subordinate G. “What about him?”
“We’ll take him alive with us.”
Subordinate G immediately stood up at my answer. “I-I believed you, Lord Baron! I knew you would keep your promise!”
“Don’t make me laugh.” Amelia let out a dry laugh in disbelief.
I mean, she knew that I was a fake barbarian who didn’t care about any oaths like that.
Still, I can’t just ignore it when Ainar is here as well.
Of course, the biggest reason was that I still had more information I wanted to get out of this guy.
Pshhhh!
With Versyl’s magic and Amelia’s adventuring “gear,” the traces of the corpses were erased. We then moved as stealthily as possible. Since the entirety of District Seven was taken over by the Noarkans, we needed a hideout to stay in for the time being.
“How about that house we lived in in the past? I don’t think it’s too far from here…”
Following Erwen’s suggestion, we quickly moved to the mansion we’d once taken out a loan for. The fences were tall and there was a basement as well, so it was a pretty good location for us in many ways.
However, in the city-turned-battlefield, there was no way the mansion would have been safe.
“N-no… My house of memories… I wanted to get enough money to buy it back in the future…!”
After arriving at the building while avoiding other patrols, we saw that the second floor had collapsed from what looked to be flame magic. The surrounding area was heavily charred as well.
“Still, it’s not too bad. It just looks like this on the outside, the first floor is fine. Plus, with how it looks and all, we’ll be able to use it to hide for a while. The fences are destroyed in some places, but with the way the posts are angled, they won’t be able to get a look inside.”
Amelia gave a passing grade for the building, and we carefully stepped into it.
“Auyen. We’re going to have a meeting, so put that guy in the basement.”
“Yes.” Auyen immediately went to lock Subordinate G in the basement. “Sunlight won’t reach this place, but you’ll get your meals on time. Probably.”
He seemed really excited for some reason.