Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 672
Chapter 672: Tomb of Stars (3)
We came to know about the dimensional headstone when the man outside the walls told us about it. After using it, we came here—a mysterious land that looked very similar in nature to the ninth floor’s Tomb of Stars.
I first thought that maybe we were inside the labyrinth…
This confirms that’s not the case.
But we were still outside the city walls. The increased intelligence of the monsters was proof of this, and also the fact that the monsters left behind their body when they died.
The problem here is that it’s impossible for us to walk back to where we were.
This place was practically an island. No, in a sense, it was even more extreme than an island. Even if we were somewhere on the continent, because of the gray boundary that surrounded us, we had nowhere we could possibly go.
In other words, we were physically trapped with no way out.
Baekho glanced at me, then asked, “Baron…? Now what?”
The nerve of this guy, I swear. He had been trying to swipe control out from under me all this time, but when worse came to worst, he handed all the responsibility back to me.
“You’re the one who said that if we take a long walk around the place, we would find a path out of here,” he complained.
“I said there could be a way out for us.”
“Eh, isn’t that the same thing?”
I wondered if anyone in the world could be more annoying than him, but I would be the loser if I responded to him in the same way.
With that, I just ignored his input and went back to the main topic. “We still gained something.”
“Yes. We figured out that we’re stuck in here for good. Isn’t that right?”
Ah, should I hit him once over the head?
Though that desire welled in my heart, I thought about Stellar Extinction and did my best to hold back.
“Yes…” I ground out. “That is a great gain. And we’ve finished this map somewhat.”
“But you’ve only drawn the outer perimeter. The inside of the circle is completely empty.”
“That’s why all we need to do now is check the parts that are empty on our map. I’m sure that if we keep looking, there should be a dimensional headstone that leads somewhere else.”
Although I spoke with my confident-leader voice that I had trained through countless experiences, Baekho didn’t seem impressed as he grumbled, “Isn’t that just baseless confidence? How can you be so sure a dimensional headstone exists here?”
That was just the type of game Dungeon and Stone* was.*
It could be just me being complacent, of course. We were outside the city walls, a place which I had never been to within the game, and the reality of this part of the world was certainly different from the game I had played.
“So what?” I barked defiantly.
I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean. Even if someone found themselves in a situation that looked hopeless and inescapable, there was definitely a way to get out. It was something I truly believed in.
“If you’re not sure yourself, are you saying you just want to sit here and rest?”
“Nah, that’s not what I—”
“Then just shut up and follow me,” I commanded, looking directly into his eyes. “Even if you all give up and say it’s impossible, I will find a way out of here.”
Baekho went speechless for a moment. Then, his tone turned impressed as he said, “Whoa. You’re pretty good at speeches, Baron. Is this how you got everyone to believe you all this time?”
The archer standing next to him also added his own comment. “It’s an interesting experience. For a second, I truly stopped worrying.”
“Hahaha! I believe that the baron hasn’t said anything wrong! We need to keep trying! If we just sit still, we’ll only get hungry!” Aures guffawed refreshingly, allowing the situation that was bordering on in-fighting to finally resolve smoothly.
That was the reason an optimistic warrior like him was needed in any party. After being a leader for so long, I had a good sense of just how much the presence or absence a character like that could have.
“Alright, then let’s set off again.”
Let’s go.
***
There was only one thing we needed to do. We needed to go around the incomplete map to look for a dimensional headstone or another method to get out of here.
The problem was, if we wanted to do that, we would need to search all the nooks and crannies of this vast area.
With that in mind, our exploration plan was very simple.
“Under a tree, a cliff, a cave, a small crack, a structure… Anything will do, so even if something small catches your eye, tell me. Understood?”
I didn’t just leave it to our scout Bryat, but instead roped in each member of the team to pay close attention to our surroundings.
“It looks like a shallow pond, but it is very deep. This is the perfect place to hide something.”
“Alright. we’ll take a moment to investigate it.”
When we found something, we would scan the area with magic, and even if we couldn’t detect anything, I would go out of my way, for example, to go into the water myself to check the area. Although some complained and asked if we really had to go this far, I never compromised.
That previously undiscovered dimensional headstone that the one named Dalan found was hidden a crack within the cliff, after all. It would’ve been difficult to notice otherwise. This much needed to be done before I would concede that there was no dimensional headstone here. That we needed to use a different method.
“Baron! Look at this! Isn’t this suspicious?”
“What’s suspicious about it…?”
“Here, here! The leaf of this flower is bent!”
“…It’s fine. Let’s keep moving.”
Ah, of course, we still moved as quickly as possible to save time.
“Why?! Didn’t you tell us before to tell you anything and everything?”
No, well, I did. But what was I supposed to do with a bent leaf? Just what did we need to check about it?
“Sir Ruingenes! Can you at least check it?!”
When I ignored him, Aures went and nagged Fallen Gramps instead. It may have been obvious, but the gramps didn’t listen to his request.
“Let’s move.”
“Sir Ruingenes!”
“We’ll keep moving.”
With that, our investigation continued.
Since we were paying close attention to everything, we were moving relatively slowly. Slowly but surely, however, the map was starting to be filled.
We have around 70 percent of the Ancient Stone Plains done…
The layout of the area we were in currently was simple.
With the Primordial Land we arrived at through the portal at the center, the Ancient Stone Plains was to its west. The north was the Toxic Lavascape. The east had the Dreaming Waterfalls, and to the south was the Dragonskull Mountain.
Excluding the Primordial Land, all the other areas were cut off by the gray boundary.
The biggest problem is the Dreaming Waterfalls…
Although both the Toxic Lavascape and Dragonskull Mountain were challenging places to be since this was the same area as on the ninth floor, they weren’t as difficult as the Dreaming Waterfalls.
It wasn’t just plain difficult, and since we needed to investigate the area thoroughly to look for any sign of the dimensional headstone—
“A person! It’s the tracks of a person!”
Huh?
“It’s true. This is definitely someone’s footprint.”
While we were investigating the Ancient Stone Plains, we stumbled upon some human tracks. And we, who had been looking for anything suspicious, couldn’t just walk past after noticing it.
“Bryat, from now on, you will move ahead of us and track this. We will now move as fast as we can,” I ordered.
After doing just that, we eventually could see the back of a man standing tall all by himself in the middle of the plains. He looked very dirty and unkempt, as if he hadn’t taken a shower in months. He looked pretty similar to the Dalan who had lured us here.
However, the moment the man turned around after detecting our presence, we could tell it wasn’t “Dalan” or even a “person” at all.
A black spider was stuck to its face.
“What the… It’s just a Bayon.”
The rank 3 humanoid monster, Bayon. It was the monster that was the original owner of the Transcendence skill that I now had, and usually appeared in one of the fields of the seventh floor’s Dark Continent, the Land of Immortality.
Sometimes, however, it appeared on the ninth floor’s Ancient Stone Plains too.
“Hah, I really thought it was Dalan.”
“It was a dud in the end…”
Everyone seemed a little let down at the identity of tracks, but I was pretty glad to see that monster here. I was so glad that I needed to school my expression.
“I finally found one.”
The Bayon was one of the monsters I most needed to kill to grow my shield barbarian build. I needed to grab Transcendence off of it, and the Parasitic Spider, one of its drops, usually never made it to the auction house.
“But you must be glad, Baron. That guy drops one of the stage 8 imprint materials. I’m so jealous. You can still become even stronger.” Baekho said his poison-filled joke while waving his arms around as he stretched.
Dash!
He turned his attention dead upon the Bayon.
It was an unexpected action that anyone who had experience as a leader would be frustrated about.
“Wait!” I shouted.
“Why? It’s just a rank 3 monster.”
Just a rank 3 monster.
Although he wasn’t wrong, Bayons were still pretty dangerous. Unlike other monsters, each Bayon’s strength was unique, and each entity also had different abilities as well, so the best course of action was to observe it thoroughly before—
Crunch!
Well.
I guess it didn’t matter?
“Ah! That felt good!”
With just one punch from Baekho’s gray-aura punch, the Bayon’s heart was destroyed.
With that, I felt like something was filling me up. It was a feeling that any adventurer would recognize.
[You have defeated a Bayon. EXP +7]
I wasn’t sure back then after the fight against the Gigazeros because it was so hectic, but I could now confirm that we still gained experience out here.
“Let’s see… Maybe we’ll loot the material our Lord Baron needs first… Hmm?”
After approaching the dead Bayon, Baekho pulled off the spider that was on the monster’s face before freezing stiff.
“Baekho?” Aures asked, stepping up behind Baekho. “Why are you— Ack! What the hell is that?!”
I knew immediately that something had happened and rushed to check the body of the Bayon.
“…Huh?”
What the hell was that?
I stared down in disbelief at the face behind the spider, and the rest were shocked just the same.
“The color changed, but…i-isn’t this him?”
The humanoid monster Bayon that we found in the Ancient Stone Plains.
It had the face of Dalan.
***
We continued to encounter more and more mysteries.
Dalan had lured us here before disappearing. Why had he turned into a monster?
“Could I hear what your opinion is?”
At GM’s careful request, the Fallen Scholar responded, “Although I am not certain, I read about this in an old book a long time ago. That Bayons were really ancient adventurers who died in the labyrinth.”
Fortunately, I also knew about that. I had researched the lore and setting of the game every day just to try and find out if there were any hidden secrets.
“Oh! Then that’s the reason that the Bayons can use essences like adventurers can!”
“That’s what it said, but it didn’t produce much evidence to support the claim. It was closer to a story that was told for the purposes of entertainment.”
“…I see.”
What was happening to us?
While the others continued to dive into the mystery of it all, I first took the loot off of the monster from Baekho. I mean, I was curious, sure, but this was another matter entirely.
I only need one more now…
With that, I had only one material left to collect for the stage 8 imprint.
Well, if I use the fact that I’m outside the city walls right now, the last one might not be difficult to get either…
That, and the fact that I met a Bayon, which wasn’t all that common and was rare to see even here, I could say I got pretty lucky—
“Oh! He really is Dalan! I’ve even found his identification here!” Aures excitedly stood up. He was holding a small ID card in his watermelon-sized hand. “Let’s see, his name…”
Ba-dump.
“Hans…? Ah! Right! This was it! His name was Hans!”
Ba-dump!
My heart began racing.
I quickly made my decision and shouted at the others. “We’re moving!”
We needed to get out of here.
As fast as possible.