Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 671
Chapter 671: Tomb of Stars (2)
The Lord of Darkness, Deadred. His strength could be explained in just one sentence: He was the Lord of the Dark Continent, the seventh floor.
Well, the seventh floor was a special case where there were two Lords, but that didn’t diminish his strength in the slightest.
How the hell did he get his hands on that to eat…?
To be honest, I still couldn’t believe it. Unlike the cheat versions of the game where someone could just type in the essences they wanted, it was practically impossible to defeat Deadred on the original difficulty unless you knew ‘that method’.
Did that mean I had underestimated Baekho this entire time? Maybe he was more impressive than I gave him credit for.
…Or he just got really lucky.
While I didn’t know the specifics of how he obtained Deadred’s essence, if I were to take a guess, he probably obtained it a long time ago.
Right… It was around eight years ago when that boss was last summoned.
Given that the labyrinth was prone to be bustling with adventurers, it was impossible to summon a Lord of the Floor without anyone else finding out about it. There would’ve been no opportunities for him to have obtained it in the last eight years, even if he wanted to.
That, of course, only accounted for obtaining it through typical means.
I did get the feeling that the palace has at least one magic vial of each of the floor essences.
I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that he obtained it through a trade at some point down the line. However, the circumstances suggested that the possibility was quite low.
…So he really summoned it on that day.
While adventuring through the labyrinth while dreaming of a harem, Baekho’s identity was revealed when his ally betrayed him. Notably, that interpretation would fit the timeline of events.
So then, the palace just blamed the Lord of the Floor in order to hide the incident around Baekho Lee. I heard that a lot of adventurers died that day.
Baekho was definitely the one to summon it as well.
To continue with my theories, I hypothesized that Baekho Lee was the one who summoned the Lord of the Floor. After being backed into a corner, he wanted to shake up the situation by gambling on—
“Its power is unbelievable every time I see it…”
While I was inside my own head, Aures mumbled to himself from where he stood next to me, then let out a long sigh.
“Is everyone alright…?” Like the tank he was, he seemed to be in the habit of asking about his allies’ conditions.
“I’m fine.”
“Also fine.”
The healer Jaina and the archer Bryat collected themselves and answered him, but the same didn’t go for GM, whom I was carrying on my back like a piece of luggage. He seemed to still be out of it.
“…Wh-what was that just then?”
What the? Had this guy never defeated the Lord of Darkness a single time while playing the game? I could tell just by looking at it that it was that skill.
“I-I never heard about an ability like this…”
Still, I could understand his shock. It was my first time seeing the skill in real life too, and it was enough to leave goosebumps all over my body. And I knew that skill actually existed.
Sizzle!
The heat left on the ground evaporated the falling rain, causing steam to rise like we were at the scene of a fire.
Of course, that didn’t last long. The heat dissipated quickly, and so did the steam, and our vision finally returned.
The crater had grown even larger than when that meteor had fallen on us. In its depths, only Baekho stood alone.
He looked up at us.
“Surprise!” he called, waving his hand with a joking smile.
Honestly, seeing him act like this was pretty funny.
But to think that he’s hiding a nuclear bomb behind that smiling face…
Maybe it was time for me to reevaluate that statement I was so confident about. The one about how I was sure I would never lose if I fought him.
“What are you all doing? It’s all done, come over here!”
At Baekho Lee’s summons, we once again went down into the crater.
“Fallen Gramps! Take this first! It’s super expensive, right?”
Baekho was pointing to a white marble with sparkles in his eyes.
Bzzt!
The lightning stored inside the marble moved within as if dancing.
To compare it to a modern object, it was something like a plasma ball. One of those things that were sold in tarot shops.
“This is…a Thunder Sphere.”
“Ah, right. That was its name. So how much is it?”
“This is a treasure that is difficult to put a price on, as a wizard.”
“Well, so how much is it?”
The Fallen Scholar mumbled the estimated worth of the item at Baekho’s persistent questioning, and the latter’s eyes went wide.
“Whoa, that much? I nearly made an expensive mistake.”
I understood the relief Baekho was feeling. He had just used a powerful skill that blew away an area of about seventy yards in one blow. If he was fighting an ordinary monster, it would’ve been annihilated instantly, and we wouldn’t have been able to get its drops.
“Hmm? So can we just pick this up?”
“Although this is the first time I’m seeing one, from what I know, when dealing with this material, you do not require any magical methods.”
“Ah, I see… Then give it here.”
With that, the dropped Thunder Sphere went straight into Baekho Lee’s sub-space. While I didn’t feel good seeing him just take it, I didn’t try to challenge him.
I need to at least let him keep the worth of showing off that skill.
It wasn’t because Baekho was stronger than I expected. Rather, he had just displayed one of the hidden cards up his sleeve. If he hadn’t and instead kept it a secret until the end, the battle would’ve taken a turn for the worse. And it wasn’t like I needed a Thunder Sphere right now either.
It’s great for making a hammer for a DPS-tank barbarian build…
Since I already had No. 87, Kraul’s Demon Grinder, I didn’t need another weapon, nor did I have anyone among my allies who needed a lightning weapon.
I didn’t bother going into loot distribution talks. If something came out that I really wanted, I could use this concession as a bargaining chip then.
“Alright, then since we’re done looting… Let’s keep doing what we’re supposed to do.”
Once the looting was over, Baekho whipped around and approached the headstone that had fallen over during the creation of the crater.
“Thankfully, this thing doesn’t even have a scratch on it. Should I just try and put it in my sub-space? It might be worth just holding onto.”
I got the feeling that he yammering on to drive the topic forward and leave no opportunity for anything else.
Is it because he’s worried I’d talk about Stellar Extinction?
Although I couldn’t know what he was really thinking, his actions ensured I ended up missing my window to ask him about his essence.
…But I don’t think asking him would’ve changed much.
In any case, since I was also curious about that headstone, I quickly rejoined the group. Baekho and Aures were trying their best to shove the headstone into his sub-space.
“Move. I’ll help too.”
With my assistance, the heavy stone was lifted easily.
“Ack?!”
As soon as it touched the edge of the sub-space, the headstone was flung back out with frightening force.
Boom!
It then struck itself halfway into the ground with a loud boom.
“What the! What the hell is this?!” Baekho spluttered.
GM approached the headstone and crouched next to it. “How peculiar. Although I can’t feel any internal mana circuits or any similar structure, it showed such a strong resistance to the sub-space.”
“It’s definitely suspicious.”
“Yes… We might need to take some time and investigate this more thoroughly.”
“How’s that? He says he needs to investigate it for a while… Ah, do you agree to this, Baron?”
I smirked as Baekho tried to smoothly regain control over the group. “Sure,” I said nodding. “Let’s do it.”
The heavy rain continued to fall, and although we were in a dangerous area where meteors periodically fell, perhaps this headstone was the key for us to return to our previous location.
“Well then… I want to investigate its material composition first, so, ah… Sir Aures? Could you hold this part?”
“Oh! Of course!”
Time passed quickly.
***
Where we were was honestly very similar to the ninth floor’s Tomb of Stars, and not a great place for someone to sit still and investigate one thing for a long time.
Fshhh!
The storming rain did more than make us cold and uncomfortable. It began to steadily raise the water level in an apparent flash flood.
Boom!
Meteors also fell every once in a while.
Flash!
There was lightning, blizzards, strong winds, hail, earthquakes, hurricanes, and so on.
We experienced all sorts of natural disasters, and while that was happening, monsters continued to appear, so we had to fight them off.
“Hey, we’ve given you a week now. Shouldn’t you have figured out something?”
No response.
“Fallen Gramps, you didn’t figure anything either. If you can’t do it, say you can’t. At least then we won’t all be wasting our time, hmm?”
Even after investigating the headstone thoroughly for a week, we couldn’t figure anything out other than the fact that the headstone was very sturdy.
Well, we did gain something else. As we continued to fight, we were able to figure out more and more details about the monsters in the area.
My threat level is definitely not working.
It was difficult to pull aggro properly in this area, and it wasn’t because of some sort of field effect that reduced my threat level to zero.
“It seems to be a phenomenon caused by the higher intelligence of the monsters here.”
Even the monsters that excitedly charged at me would notice that I wasn’t taking any damage and change their target to the damage dealers. It was as if they were learning.
Since the aggro isn’t being drawn properly, it feels like the battles are three or four times harder.
That didn’t mean we had to fight every battle with the threat of someone dying, however. Although we had a few close calls, humans were pretty good at adapting to new environments.
“Monster from the north-northeast!”
“…It’s a Ledytros.”
“Positions!”
I no longer stood at the very front to tank, but rather stood next to the group and focused on defending them.
“It’s just one monster! Don’t be hasty and focus on protecting!”
We fought as carefully as we could, using the fact that there were significantly fewer monsters here than a regular field to our advantage.
“Hey, why are you trying to take all the materials of a random rank 5 mob? We don’t have space. Throw away the ones that are too big!”
“Even if it is of low rank, these are very rare materials. If we return to the city—”
“Wow, you’re pretty greedy. Even if you store the materials you need to, you’ll be able to make a pretty penny back there.”
We gave priority to materials that were especially pricey and threw away the rest. It’d take at least a few months for us to return to the city, and we could run out of inventory space before then. It was ultimately a time-saver for us.
“…So what are you thinking, Baron?”
“We’ll stop our investigation here and keep moving.”
“Where?”
“I think it’d be best if we choose a direction and move forward.”
“I mean, I guess that might work. Then which direction?”
We were currently in the ninth-floor Tomb of Stars, specifically the Primordial Land at the floor’s center. If we fulfilled a certain condition, we could summon the Primordial Dragon too.
But it’ll be game over as soon as we summon it, so pass…
I declared the decided-upon destination. “West.”
“If it’s west… The Ancient Stone Plains? Why there?”
The reason was simple. “There is a ‘spirit gate’ there.”
“Ah, so you want to check where we’ll go if we take that.”
“Well, I’m not completely sure if it’ll be there or not.”
“I see. I just thought you wanted to go there to get another stage 8 imprint material!”
…Quick-witted bastard.
“Whatever, let’s get moving,” I dismissed. “I don’t think we’ll get anything more from trying to investigate the stone further.”
“Yes, yes! Everyone heard that, right? Let’s go!”
Situation resolved, we moved west just like I planned. Four days or so later, our destination, the Ancient Stone Plains, came into view.
“Hah… I never expected it’d be blocked like this.”
Around halfway through the Ancient Stone Plains, an impassable obstacle blocked our path.
Shwaaa!
It was the same gray world that I once saw on the coast of Rafdonia—the world that lost its color.
“Don’t try to touch it. You’ll die as soon as you do.”
Oh, then did that mean if I pushed Baekho into it, he’d die?
Despite the impulse, I didn’t act on it. Working together to escape was our top priority.
“We’ll use this boundary as the perimeter and walk along it.”
With that, we moved left of the gray boundary.
One day, two days, three days, four days…
And then, fifteen days.
After keeping up the pace for over fifteen days, we talked less and less. The more we filled out the exterior of our map, the more and more justified we felt in feeling uneasy.
“So…”
“Just stay quiet. We’re not sure yet.”
“Okay…”
After that, two more days passed. Seventeen days.
We arrived back at the Ancient Stone Plains, having taken one, long loop after walking left the entire time.
Scritch.
After finally finishing off the circle on the map, I let out a deep sigh. There was no point trying to deny it anymore.
“Damn it.”
We were trapped here.