Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 631
Chapter 631: Abandoned City (4)
After she heard my question, the woman, this mysterious member of the Order of the Rose whose name I didn’t even know, vanished like a ghost without giving me a chance to hold her here. It was probably obvious, but I didn’t get the chance to hear any answer from her this time either.
Ba-dump.
Even so, my warrior’s heart instinctively sensed the danger and began to beat wildly.
Was my guess true? Or was I just flat-out wrong?
There was no telling, not now.
However, if the palace was planning on blowing Bifron to smithereens, one question needed to be answered.
Noark.
Did Noark know about the plan?
Considering that they didn’t station any soldiers on the walls connected to Bifron, I got the distinct sense that they knew something.
What are the two of them aiming for?
It felt like my head, at least, was going to explode. However, I persevered, determined to analyze the situation without stopping.
Sometime later…
I groaned.
I didn’t know. I thought I might be able to come up with something if I just took a moment to myself.
I finally started making my way down from the castle walls that were bellowing with the night winds. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of time. The deadline given to me by the member of the Order of the Rose was fast approaching.
Twelve hours…
How did that make any sense? Tomorrow at noon, with the sun high in the sky, one of the city districts would blow up.
Well, the explosion was still just a guess on my part. Since I didn’t have the time, after getting down a fair bit away from the ramparts, I jumped off and straight to the ground.
Boom!
It was a little loud when I landed.
Well, I need to wake everyone up anyway.
What else could we do but vacate the premises when the landlord was telling us to leave? We needed to quickly pack everything up and take only the things we needed to take.
***
No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t help but feel that something was hidden in Bifron that I didn’t know about.
But at this point, let’s give up.
We didn’t learn anything even after days of investigation. If we had uncovered even a hint or trace of anything, I wouldn’t have made this decision, but I didn’t have a choice anymore. We needed to leave Bifron under the orders of the palace.
However, that came with its own problem.
“You ask an odd question. They have not been granted permission to enter the living areas.”
That was what the member of the Order of the Rose said when she delivered the royal decree to me. Only those from District Seven were allowed to evacuate, and we couldn’t take the residents of Bifron with us.
This once-abandoned city would be abandoned once more.
This is easy enough.
It wasn’t too difficult to find the solution to this problem.
After getting down from the castle walls, I immediately headed toward Jingjing’s house.
“B-Boss, what business do you have at this hour…?”
“Gather the residents of Bifron right now. Don’t miss a single one.”
“Sorry…?”
“I don’t have time, so I’ll explain everything when everyone’s gathered here. Quickly. And tell them not to pack anything that isn’t necessary.”
He seemed to recognize the severity of the situation even though he didn’t fully understand why. “…Are we leaving?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll round up everyone! H-how much time do we have?”
“Before nine in the morning. But the earlier the better. I’ll get everyone from my side, so you take the residents of Bifron.”
“Yes!”
After telling Jingjing, who had been rudely awakened from sleep, the plan and the deadline, he quickly put on a coat before running off.
Next came my allies.
“A member of the Order of the Rose came to you?”
“Yeah, they’re apparently opening the District Four inspection office around midday, and told us to use that window to escape.”
“Nothing else?”
“Oh, she did tell me that I can’t take the residents of Bifron with me.”
“…And since it’s you, I doubt you’re just going to comply with that.”
“No, I told her I understood. Don’t worry, I have a plan,” I said, then asked them to gather the adventurers from District Seven.
Sometime later, as I waited in the Dimension Square that I designated as our gathering spot, the adventurers and residents who heard the news slowly began to trickle in.
“I-I heard that something urgent was happening…”
“Does anyone know what’s happening?”
“Mr. Feljain said we needed to leave and quickly…”
Since they didn’t get a proper explanation, the people in the square were quite uneasy. However, rather than calming them down by explaining everything, we just proceeded with the preparations we needed to do before midday.
I mean, rather than wasting time sorting out everyone’s worries, the more effective solution would be to get at the root of the problem, right?
“Paper! Gather all the clean paper you can!”
“Anyone who can write, come here!”
In any case, since we had a lot to prepare, I wasn’t enough by myself, so I gathered all the people I could use and put them to work.
Ah, but since writing was a prerequisite, Ainar was excluded from this.
“Ainar! You… Didn’t you say you were learning how to read and write for three years now?”
“H-haha! Missha! Learning never ends!”
Ainar still only knew how to read. To be honest, I couldn’t understand how she could read but not write.
One hour, two hours, three hours…
The time quickly passed, and around the time the sun started to peak itself over the walls, everyone had gathered in the square.
“Everyone, gather here! The baron has something he wishes to say!”
It was finally time to tell everyone what was happening. To be honest, I could have told them earlier, but there was no reason for me to repeat the same thing twice.
“Ahem.” We didn’t even need to prepare a platform. After using Giantization, I looked at the crowd of over a thousand people and got straight to the point to grab everyone’s attention. “I won’t talk long! I was contacted by the palace last night!”
“Ohhh!”
“The palace contacted you!”
“Can we leave this place?”
As expected, the crowd’s reaction was pretty intense.
It was truly bizarre. Every time I did a speech like this, it was too easy to get the reaction I wanted out of them.
…Is it like this for other people as well?
I didn’t know, but I needed to focus on giving my speech.
“That’s right! The palace has told me they will open the District Four inspection office and we can use that to leave to the city!”
“Whoooa!”
“W-we’re—”
“However!” I boomed, cutting through the noise.
Since I told everyone the main point, it was time to give them the twist. Bad news needed to be given first to make the good news that followed sound even better.
“That damn palace said we couldn’t all leave together.”
My words cut through the cheers of the crowd as silence settled over the square. Thousands of faces looked at me with confusion and shock.
A resident of Bifron who ended up meeting eyes with me asked me a question. “We can’t all leave together…? Wh-what do you mean?”
“Just as I said. The palace said they would only accept the residents of District Seven.”
“Th-then are we— are we excluded?!”
“That’s right. They told me the residents of Bifron can’t come with us.”
We didn’t even need the name tags. Just by looking at the expression of the people filling the square, we could tell who was a resident of Bifron and who was an adventurer of District Seven. The residents of Bifron went wide-eyed when I announced their death sentence while the adventurers of District Seven lost their words and could only stand there in silence.
A clear line of separation was formed in the crowd.
“Then—! Then why did you call us here?!” someone shouted angrily from among the crowd. “If you’re going to leave us behind, why did you call us here?!”
The words no longer held any respect. Well, I could sympathize. Someone pushed to the edge of their life was bound to react like that.
I smirked, downplaying the situation. “That’s because I’m going to take you with me.”
The eyes of the angry man became blank with confusion. “…Eh?”
“Are you deaf?”
“Ah, ah, n-no… Not that… But you said the palace won’t accept us…”
Oh, that?
It was only natural for these guys to be confused. In this peculiar city, going against the word of the palace was something they couldn’t even imagine. Bifron was filled with the people whose lives were spared by following the will of the palace.
“That’s true. And I said I will take you with me.”
“B-but! Aren’t you a baron?”
“A baron? Yeah, I am. What of it?”
The man raised his head and looked at me with shaking eyes. “Why…? Why are you doing all this for us?”
Honestly, that was pretty interesting. I had the same thought.
No matter how one looked at it, what I was trying to do now was something that wouldn’t look good to the palace. It would make my life in a noble society more difficult in the future too.
Then why did I make this decision? Why was I able to come to this conclusion so easily?
Thinking about it, the reason was simple. “Because I want to.”
“Pardon…?”
“Why? Are you saying I can’t?”
“N-no, that’s not what I meant…”
“Anyway, that’s the end of that. If we want to leave on time, we need to finish our preparations. Follow the instructions and finish the documents! That is all!”
That was the end of my announcement, and the residents were guided by my allies and signed their documents.
That was close.
Around the time that ended, the doors of the inspection office opened at the promised time.
The doors of the inspection office that had been closed for so long slowly opened with a loud creak. The crowd gathered in front, waiting. There was a collective gulp as they eyed the entrance with nervous expectation.
As they did, a knight order wearing the insignia of the palace on their chests clanked out in their metal armor and formed a path at the entrance of the inspection office. It was as if they were waiting for someone to come out behind them.
“S-someone’s coming out…!” a voice cried.
Then, a woman appeared at the doors of the inspection office from behind the knights.
Step, step.
She was wearing the same uniform as the knights in front of her. However, it was obvious at a glance that she was of a higher station than them. This was because she was the Order of the Rose member I saw yesterday.
“There are…” The woman scanned the people gathered in front of the inspection office before landing on me. “…more people than expected?”
She looked at me as if to ask what scheme I had cooked up.
However, I didn’t have any reason to back down. I mean, I wasn’t doing anything illegal. “Is there a problem with the number of people here?” I asked nonchalantly.
The woman shook her head without any reaction. “No. Those who are not qualified to pass won’t be able to anyway.”
It was pretty chilling to see her react so calmly even in a situation she probably never expected. That order didn’t have any simple women among its ranks. Still, those words were what I wanted her to say, to be fair.
I smiled. “Then that’s good. No one not allowed to pass will be passing here today.”
She furrowed her brow with genuine confusion this time. “What do you mean, Lord Baron?”
Rather than answer her, I handed her a document. Her words failed her.
“What…?”
Haha! She probably never expected—
“What is this?”
Oh, so she still didn’t understand what these documents were.
Well, even I wouldn’t have been able to cook up this solution if I hadn’t gone around looking in Bifron for every rumor and story just to uncover something that might exist.
There was exactly one method for the residents of Bifron to be granted exit, other than to receive the proof of worth when they were fourteen.
I made my victorious grin obvious as I kindly explained to the woman what these documents were. “It’s an employment contract.”
“Employment contract…?”
“To put it simply, these people are now servants of the Yandel Clan.”
Oh, and they didn’t have monthly wages.