Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 626
Chapter 626: District Seven (4)
After the surprise attack to reclaim the great temple of the Reatlas Church—our first target—we moved through our planned routes to save the adventurers who were imprisoned across the many facilities of the city.
“You are…giving us essences?”
“That’s right! You need to become stronger to increase our chances of saving this city! Here, take it!”
Every time we completed a rescue operation, we distributed essences.
I didn’t just give whatever to whomever, of course. I only gave one essence to the highest-ranking adventurers we saved. I needed to do this to keep some appearances up with the palace. It wasn’t as though we had that many essences from Basement Floor One either.
Alright, then that’s the end of the essence distribution.
After freeing the District Seven Public Peace Agency branch, the fourth operation on our route, we used up all the essences we had for distribution.
“So…” Auyen began. “Shouldn’t we at least record which essence we gave to whom?”
He and my other allies who still couldn’t understand my tax evasion scheme were concerned about my shocking actions, though the worry came belatedly.
“Since this is the property of the palace, they’ll definitely try to investigate this even though we did this with a good motive.”
Well, that was true. But so what?
Most people who made “mistakes” like this could look very suspicious, though.
“Nah, what’s the point in recording things like that? That’s tedious.”
I was a barbarian. It wasn’t odd for me to handle things as a barbarian would.
“If it’s too tedious for you, then I can go now and ask the others to start a record—”
“It’s fine!” I boomed. “We’re already busy. Are you going to spend your time checking up on all those little things one by one?”
“Still…”
I sighed. Really, this guy. I was thankful that he was worried for me.
“Auyen, I told you it’s fine,” I said sternly, lowering my voice.
Auyen caught himself and closed his mouth. It seemed that he had finally realized I had hidden intentions.
But it doesn’t look like he knows exactly what I’m trying to do.
I guess it wasn’t surprising since even Amelia of all people was shocked to all hell when I first told her of the plan. She said something about how I was the only person in the world who would try something so reckless against the palace.
“Bjooorn! So when are we moving to our next spot? I want to fight again! Raaah!”
I was getting ready to set out soon anyway, but Ainar couldn’t wait even that long and came to hurry me up.
…Maybe I should’ve only put half as much Aggression in?
After recovering her Aggression, Ainar seemed to be embarrassed about that dark period in her past, considering how she was being much more proactive than she ever was before. It gave me the feeling that she could have been at the level of a normal person if I only put half as much Aggression into her essence.
Nah, then she wouldn’t be a spear barbarian. Just a spearwoman.
This was how a barbarian should be. To be honest, as a barbarian lord, I was glad to see Ainar recover her active self.
I even changed Ainar’s position as a result. Originally, she was to stay next to Versyl and protect the rear.
“Roar, Ainar.”
“Behel—LAAAAA!”
But now, she was following after me and destroying everything on the frontlines and even using her new skills as well.
[Ainar Fenelin has cast Indomitable Soul. Physical stats will greatly increase for a set duration. All status conditions that restrict actions are decreased by 80%.]
Her newly acquired battle buff allowed Ainar to plow through the battlefield like a chariot. Although it wasn’t a skill that gave her CC immunity or a cleansing effect, the 80 percent resistance practically made her unstoppable.
[Ainar Fenelin has cast Focus Strike.]
However, she wasn’t able to put the core skill of the spear barbarian, Focus Strike, to effective use.
[When the next attack deals damage, the effects of all piercing-type skills will be applied.]
The only piercing skill she had was Trident, after all.
That was why I advised her not to use it too much so she could save her mana, but Ainar didn’t seem to want to listen to me. How could she hold back when her spear glowed bright like that?
As soon as the city problem is dealt with, I’ll need to and buy some attack skills to feed her.
If we could get just three piercing skills for her, Focus Strike would function on a level greater than a rank 5 skill. Even then, the true worth of this skill lay elsewhere.
I guess in a sense, this skill is also a switch type?
The condition for Focus Strike was that it utilized piercing-type skills. Because of that, she could utilize skills of other classes that could only be used with bows or ranged weapons. It was also why Focus Strike became the core skill of the spear barbarian build.
“Raaaaah!”
In any case, irrelevant to the inefficiencies of her current Focus Strike, Ainar continued to rampage around the battlefield, reminiscent of when she was called the Wild Sword. Actually, she put on an even greater show than that.
With the upgrades she received, her base stats had become incredibly high.
[Ainar Fenelin has used an attack skill for the tenth time. Passive skill War Machine temporarily greatly decreases the damage taken.]
[Ainar Fenelin has failed to defend. Passive skill Perseverance slightly increases all resistances.]
And thanks to getting two defensive passives, her battle stability had greatly improved.
Stab!
Her damage increased significantly as well.
She may have been better at fighting against hordes of weaker enemies in the past, but her single-target damage was incomparable at this point. Since the Verdurous Giant Spear was the peak of spear-type weapons, just stabbing at things allowed the weapon to pierce through most armor and shields.
“Since when…did Wild Sword start using spears?”
“But it looks like she’s stronger with it than when she used the sword…”
“…The Divine Spear! The Divine Spear has appeared!”
When she heard the adventurers make a fuss while giving her a new title, Ainar asked me, “Bjorn, what’s a divine spear?”
“It’s someone who’s good with the spear.”
“Whoa! I’m a divine speeeaaar!”
Ainar now had a new title.
***
[Ainar Fenelin’s Fame stat has increased by +1.]
[Ainar Fenelin’s Fame stat has increased by +1.]
[Ainar Fenelin’s Fame stat has increased by +1.]
[Ainar Fenelin’s Fame stat has increased by +1.]
[Ainar Fenelin’s Fame stat has…]
***
After we returned from the underground floor, we received a lot of attention from the adventurers who followed us, although most of them didn’t leave as big of an impact as Ainar did.
“What’s that shield…?”
“I don’t know. But I can tell it’s not any ordinary piece of equipment.”
“From what I can tell, the Giant’s women have also become stronger.”
It wasn’t just me either. Amelia, Missha, and Erwen had become much stronger with their new essences and were praised by the adventurers.
“…I don’t know what sort of adventuring he did there, but the Giant has wings on his back now.”
“What’s the point in getting surprised now? He’s an adventurer who has left his name on the Stone of Honor. Even when that man dies, he will be remembered as a legend of this city.”
It was a little embarrassing, but he wasn’t completely wrong either. Through this adventure, we gained power to progress even further. We would need to deal with our current predicament before I could think of any of that, of course.
“…It’s empty here as well.”
We reached the underground prison of the Adventurers’ Guild’s western branch, the ninth destination on our route. However, when we arrived, the underground prison had already been emptied.
“Looks like us defeating them handily in the last battle left a mark.”
“The other facilities should be looking similar to this.”
From the third facility onward, the Noarkans became aware of our presence and readied quite a bit to fight back, leading to fierce battles. However, after the seventh facility, their forces became weaker and weaker to the point where the ones who should be guarding the prisons and the ones who should be in them were both gone when we arrived.
It wasn’t unexpected by any means. No matter how much of a mess we made here, the Noarkans’ main concern was still the palace forces from beyond the walls. They needed to focus the majority of their forces around the walls just in case, and if they pulled too many people our way to suppress us, the palace would probably notice that something was happening in the district.
Simply put, they could neither ignore us nor try to overpower us at once.
Tsk, looks like it’s going to be difficult to get the palace’s help.
Honestly, there was a best-case scenario I was hoping would occur as we went about our plan. It was for palace soldiers to push through using the opening we created.
The news of the Basement Floor One expedition’s return would have already been relayed to the palace. They would know that we were in District Seven, and I hoped they would notice something was up when they saw the Noarkan soldiers being moved away from the castle walls.
“We’ll need to progress to the next step of the plan,” I determined.
However, you couldn’t expect everything to go your way in life. It was something I had confronted countless times in my years. All I could do here was to make my decisions quickly.
“By next step of the plan…”
“I’ve already told everyone, so why do you ask like you don’t know? We will use our current strength to break through the wall and leave the district.”
I shared this bit of information with my clan members during the planning process.
It looked like, however, I had perhaps forgotten to tell the adventurers who were just freed.
“Huh…? What do you mean?”
“From what I heard, the walls are crawling with those Noark bastards…”
The adventurers who overheard me grew unsettled.
“Will it work with just us?”
“We don’t even have proper gear on us!”
“I know that you think this is a good plan, but I can’t help but be a little wary and express to you my concern about this move…”
Honestly, I had a lot of ways I could persuade these guys.
We were strong enough to at least attempt it. Also, if we struck first and the palace soldiers got wind of it, there was a very high chance they would support us. No matter how injured we got, we would be healed if we could just get over the wall, and so on.
If I could just smooth out their fears with words like that, they would be convinced and follow me.
“Ah, shut up. I don’t know why you adults are whining so much.”
“…Pardon?”
Looking at the stunned adventurers, I spoke directly to them. “Those who are afraid can stay behind. Then isn’t that problem solved?”
“…What?”
“What are you confused about? Did you think I was going to try and persuade you or something?”
They probably did expect it, seeing how they became speechless.
Hey, I ain’t your dad.
“Set off!”
Without the need for any longer conversations, I stood at the front and started moving, and that was enough.
“…A-are you going to stay behind?”
“Are you nuts? We need to follow him!”
“The baron must have a plan if he’s acting like this. I trust in the baron!”
From what I could tell, I saved twenty minutes with that.
***
Since District Seven was practically my home, it wasn’t difficult to find the paths to move quickly through this ruined city. We could see the tall walls even from here, anyway. However, the problem was that the closer we got to the walls, the forces of Noark who noticed us began to approach us.
“Looks like there are at least twenty times more of them than us.”
“The problem is that this isn’t all of them. There will be more if we waste time here.”
It wasn’t just that their numbers were greater. The Noarkan squad who came to stop us had a level of aura to them, and one of them was someone I was quite familiar with.
“Looks like you ended up crawling back to life even from that place, Bjorn Yandel? It would’ve been better if you could’ve just died there.”
I smirked at the one who called out to me from afar.
“Pshe.”
This guy was still the same as ever.