Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 654
Chapter 654: Event (3)
“Kyaaaak!”
Screams and shouts erupted from the audience as soon as the explosion rang out.
“There! The magic came from there!”
“Block all the exits! Don’t let anyone leave!”
The soldiers, who had been stationed on guard just in case an accident happened, immediately charged toward the spot where the magic originated.
“G-get out of the way…!”
The spectators stumbled through their ranks, causing more chaos as they tried to run away from the source and not get swept up in the terrorist attack.
“Lord Marquess! Are you injured?”
A terrorist attack.
An attack had been planned for such a huge event, brazenly targeting the prime minister of the nation.
“…I haven’t experienced something like this in quite a while.”
He seemed pretty experienced in that sort of thing.
Though momentarily dazed, the marquess quickly soon himself out of it and stood, dusting off his clothes. “I am fine. Look over that friend first,” he said, speaking toward me in a much gentler voice than usual.
At that, a priest who had been attending the event quickly got up to me and began healing me.
“We need to quickly move away!”
“Give me a moment.”
Even as the knights tried to hurry him off the stage, the marquess waited for me to heal somewhat before approaching me.
He didn’t wax eloquent about his gratitude.
“Thanks for today.”
Yet it felt strange to hear it.
Thinking about it, had I ever received any mention of thanks from the marquess?
…I don’t think so.
I could probably remember a time if I tried hard enough, but it was probably much different from what I was hearing now. I had never done anything that prompted a truly genuine display of gratitude from him either.
“I’ll call on you later when all this is settled.”
With that, the marquess left with the escort of the knights, and I was left alone to replay the events that just transpired in my head. It wasn’t really something I should be thinking about after receiving his thanks already, but…
…Why did I do that?
To be honest, I regretted it a little. What was the point of throwing my body into the line of fire for the marquess? It wasn’t like I really liked him. The magic was also strong enough to deal considerable damage to me even when I entered dragon mode.
I should’ve just left him to die—
Ah, maybe not that?
In the past, when I asked Baekho Lee if he could kill the marquess, he answered with this:
“Yeah, about that… Even if I kill that bastard, he’s just going to revive in the palace.”
“…Revive? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, right. I guess you didn’t know since it wasn’t in the game. Anyway, there’s a royal treasure that can revive you, and the marquess is currently holding onto it.”
No matter if I flung myself in front of him or observed from behind, the marquess wouldn’t have died anyway.
Hmm, if that’s the case, I guess this might turn out pretty well?
I could gain earn some brownie points with him, then betray him even harder later. Betrayal was reserved for friends, right?
…Anyway, I should fix my habit of jumping into danger.
Although it didn’t turn out as badly as it could have, I decided to use the incident to reflect on my bad habit. It was probably because my role in the labyrinth was to get beat up in the place of others, but a deep instinct had rooted itself in my body that I was the one who needed to get hit first, no matter the situation.
“Th-thank you.”
“…Hmm?”
What was this now?
As I checked to see who was talking to me, it was Count Ranglestern, the one who came first in the contest.
“If you didn’t push me out of the way in time, I would’ve gotten hit by that explosion as well. Baron Yandel, you saved my life.”
Ah… I supposed my actions could be interpreted like that.
Well, it was true that he would’ve gotten seriously wounded if I didn’t push him away. When the magic attack flew in, this old man was right next to the marquess.
“I’m glad to see you’re okay.”
As I gave a generic response, Count Ranglestern carefully asked, “But… This may be odd, but why did you save me?”
Fortunately, he asked the same thing the marquess asked.
I responded with a smirk. “Why shouldn’t I save you?”
“Well…” He trailed off, then spoke frankly, admitting, “I am your competitor. If I wasn’t here, you would’ve ranked first in the contest.”
I was honestly baffled. Did he take the contest that seriously? Like a battle royale?
Or…maybe the way he thinks is just the way nobles think.
“And even if not that…there is no reason for you to be looking out for me either.”
To put it simply, he was talking about how he had talked down to me before.
Honestly speaking, he had just gotten swept up in the atmosphere of things. I had forgotten the guy was even here until he came up to thank me.
However, there was no reason for me to tell him that.
“I don’t care about things like that. I saved you because I could,” I said, patting him on his shoulder.
The count looked up at me with an odd expression. “Baron Yandel… You truly are like the stories say. I truly apologize for the disrespect I showed you before.”
Hearing something like this from someone who used to hate me… That felt pretty good.
***
[Your fame stat has increased by +10.]
[Your fame stat has increased by +10.]
[Your fame stat has increased by +10…]
***
The construction contest received a lot of attention.
A terrorist attack had even taken place at the end.
Naturally, as soon as the next day came around, the whole affair became the talk of the town for everyone living in Rafdonia.
An assassination attempt against the marquess, and the hero who stopped it—the Giant, Bjorn, son of Yandel.
The headlines were all different, but they were all talking about the same topic and nothing else.
That it was an assassin sent by Noark.
That it was a political attack.
Or maybe that his son was aiming for his position and other such rumors.
Although many rumors were being created and spread around on the streets, the papers didn’t talk about any of that. Even the third-rate newspaper agencies that lived off of controversy and drama kept quiet about it.
The marquess’s power is incredible.
It was amazing, honestly. Even the papers that would normally try to twist the narrative to paint me as the bad guy were falling in line this time.
I mean, maybe I should’ve expected it. This was related to the second most powerful person in the nation, after all.
“Wow… This guy still hasn’t gotten caught.”
In any case, three days after that day, as I opened the paper today to check the news, Missha pushed her face up to me from behind.
“Bjorn, who do you think it is? Noark? A political opponent? Or just his son acting out of line?”
“Dunno, but I think there’s a high chance that it is from Noark… But why are you so close to me?”
“Why? Am I closer to you than an ally should be?”
Lately, I’d gotten the feeling that Missha had become more active. Did something good happen to her?
Since it was the first time in a while that it was just the two of us, I asked her about it, and I was able to learn why she had become so energetic.
“Hmm? Not really? I don’t think I’ve done anything big… I just exercise with Ainar in the morning… And draw a bit after the afternoon tasks are done…”
“Drawing?”
“Ah, I took it up as a hobby not long ago. I went to the art gallery with Ms. Raines before and got interested… Ah! Don’t even think about asking me to show you my drawings yet!”
If she went to an art gallery with Amelia, then her days of being an outsider were well and truly over. And that seemed to have brought back her old personality little by little.
It was cute to see her curl up into a ball as well…
As we talked, I learned she seemed to have a pretty decent relationship with Ainar, Amelia, and the others too.
“I’m not that close with Ms. Gowland yet, but I don’t think she’s a bad person… And Erwen… I don’t know. Thinking about it now, I did feel like I wronged her more, so I went to apologize not long ago, but she avoided me…”
“I see.”
“Still, I got really close with Ms. Emoor. She was really curious about Mr. Rotmiller, you know? Right, I saw Hikurod and Rotmiller two days ago.”
“What? Then why didn’t you invite me?”
“Hmm, you left that day too, saying you were busy.”
If it was two days ago, it was when the palace’s Department of Intelligence came to question me about a few things related to the terrorist attack.
I sighed. If I knew something like that was going to happen, I would’ve postponed the talk with the intelligence agency.
“So… What are you doing today?” Missha asked.
“Today?”
“Yeah. If you have nothing to do, do you want to go to Kommelby with me later? I saw yesterday that my sword was a little damaged, so I was thinking about replacing it…”
“Ah… Is it alright if I go but don’t come back with you?”
“Hmm? Why?”
“I’m meeting with the marquess in the afternoon. I’ll probably have to go straight to Karnon from Kommelby. Hmm, then again, how about we do this later—”
“No, it’s fine, so don’t worry about it! I’m just going to leave my sword there, anyway! I’ll go get ready right now!”
Missha disappeared before returning lightning fast after getting completely ready. We then left the holy land and headed for Kommelby.
There, after leaving her sword at a forge, we shared a light meal at a nearby shop. And since we were in Kommelby anyway, we went to the exchange and spent time looking at the goods.
“Whoa! Why is everything so cheap? If I had the money, I would’ve bought everything here!”
“Since the labyrinth’s closed now, not many people will be looking to buy these right now. You should wait a bit more, even. Adventuring equipment will probably keep dropping in price.”
“Okay… I had fun today.”
“Yeah, me too. I honestly want to stay here and keep hanging out with you…”
“But you need to go, right?”
“It is a meeting with the marquess.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you later…”
After saying goodbye to Missha, I went straight to Karnon. Since I was here on an appointment, I didn’t have to do any nonsense at the gate. It was all open to me.
“We welcome your visit, Baron Yandel. The marquess is waiting for you. Please follow me inside.”
I saw that the butler had waited outside the home, matching my estimated arrival time, before he led me through the gardens into the home. There, I saw the lines of servants bowing and welcoming me to the house.
…A noble house really is different.
Once again, I wondered how long it would take for those servants to learn to be able to gracefully greet people like that.
I wasn’t sure. I didn’t own a mansion yet.
I followed after the butler, and as the door to a room smoothly opened, I could see a meeting room that looked both very fancy and very imposing.
…Just how many meeting rooms does the marquess have?
Now that I thought about it, I went to a different meeting room every time I came here. I got the feeling that he had a lot of them made so he could tailor each meeting with each guest.
This place looks the best among the ones I came to.
Even at just a glance, I got the sense that he was treating me pretty well this time.
“You’re here.”
And as soon as I entered the room, the marquess got up and personally welcomed me.
It was a new feeling. I mean, in the past, I had come to this mansion only to talk to him through a mana crystal.
“Please sit, your legs must hurt,” I said.
“Haha, you can sit down first. You are the guest here.”
“If you say so…”
Only after I sat down did the marquess sit down opposite me. We then naturally transitioned into a conversation.
“All everyone is talking about is that incident these days. Have you figured out who the culprit was?”
“Not yet. The more we look into it, the more we realize that it has been in the works for quite some time. If it weren’t for you, I would’ve been in a lot of trouble.”
“Anyone would’ve done the same thing.”
A lot of trouble… So he still had no intentions of revealing the revival item to me?
I couldn’t tell what he was really thinking, but he continued to praise me.
“Anyone would’ve done it… Who knows? There were many nobles there, along with their many knights, yet when it happened, only you were the one who jumped to my rescue.”
“You just got lucky.”
“Through the news, I was able to hear what you said to Count Ranglestern as well. You saved him because you could? Is that truly what you said?”
“Well… It is true…”
Since I didn’t like getting complimented straight to the face like this, I tried to change the subject. “So, why did you call me here today?”
“I thought it is only fair that you know about the situation this time as well. Ah, I was planning on telling you that the Yandel Barony will take on the reconstruction work of District Seven as well. A message should’ve been sent to your people.”
Oh, that was nice to hear—
“However, that isn’t the main reason I called you here, so let’s move on.”
“…Huh?”
I tilted my head. If that wasn’t the main topic, then what was?
“Since I know your personality, I’ll be frank.”
The marquess erased the gentle smile that had been on his face and called my name in a cold voice.
“Bjorn, son of Yandel. I believe that you are an evil spirit.”