Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 675
Chapter 675: Dream (2)
Even as the rapids thrashed against me, this absurdly heavy body of mine continued to just sink straight down.
My mind was muddy as if I was drunk, and I had one final thought.
Is this how it ends?
After all that hardship and journeying, this was it?
No way.
I couldn’t fall asleep. I needed to regain consciousness and swim back up.
Determined, I tried to swim up to the surface, but I felt my senses fading away as my body refused to listen to my will.
I couldn’t fall asleep like this. I would be in big trouble if I did. Even knowing that, a part of me had already given up.
Ah, whatever…
I was at my limit. I couldn’t hold on anymore. Baekho and the others on the boat would probably rescue me.
Yeah, they would.
So…
Let’s just…sleep…
The moment I was about to let go of the thread of consciousness…
Swoosh!
My vision, which had begun to darken as I sank, suddenly flashed white. My ears began to ring, assaulting my senses.
The sound and the light forcibly woke me up from my sleep.
Clack, clack.
I could hear the sound of heels from somewhere.
After barely managing to wrench open my eyes, I could see the figure of someone through my half-open lids. Her skin was pale-white, as if she had eaten a ghost, and she was holding a tattered doll of someone in her hand. It was an ordinary-looking girl with shoulder-length brown hair who seemed to be around ten years old.
Even though I was dazed, I recognized her instantly.
Elise Groundia…
It was the Earth Witch I had met in that shack some time ago.
Why are you here…?
Although I tried to get the question out, my voice refused to work. However, the Earth Witch seemed to still have somehow heard my voice, as she looked at me with a smile.
“I will fulfill your dream for you.”
Her voice was both dreamlike and alluring as she spoke with an inscrutable sense of reassurance.
“So…”
Her eyes, which seemed to hold great depth, looked directly at me.
“Don’t come back.”
That was the final scene of my memory.
***
“Hwak…!”
Just like someone who just got scooped up out of water, I took a deep breath as soon as I jerked upright.
My entire body froze, flinching stiff not for any physical reason this time, but instead a mental one.
“…It’s thin.”
I looked down at my hand and flexed it a few times before looking around half-aware. I then closed my eyes.
As always, I needed time—the time to take in my situation.
First and foremost, my body was in the worst situation. Ignoring the fact that the infinite energy I used to feel every day had disappeared, it felt more like I had woken up after a night of drinking until I threw up. My head hurt as if it would split open at any second.
I opened my eyes once more to look around. It was that very same place.
“This is…”
The place that I could say was beyond familiar to me.
“My room.”
Hansu Lee’s room.
Just why did I open my eyes here?
Did the Ghost Busters server reopen?
“It’s different.”
Despite my initial reaction, unlike the space I saw inside the community, there was a definite sense of incongruity I could feel where I was now. Unlike my room in Ghost Busters, which was very neat and tidy…
What the hell is this…?
This place was beyond messy. The books on the table next to my computer desk were all spilled onto the ground, and my monitor had disappeared, almost like someone had taken it. My closet and drawers were both wide open, and the clothes within them were on the ground in heaping piles in front of them.
…It did feel like I was missing something.
Belatedly, I realized that I wasn’t wearing a single thing on my body. I picked up some serviceable clothes off the ground and put them on. With bare feet to the cold, linoleum floor, I walked out into the living room.
The living room was also in complete chaos. It was as if a search-and-seizure had been conducted in my home. All the drawers were open and all sorts of random objects were thrown on the ground.
I sighed. I was starting to get thirsty, so I opened the fridge door to get some cold water.
“Urgh…!”
The rotten smell overpowered my senses the moment I opened the fridge, like the appliance had been off for a long time.
After quickly shutting the door again, I flopped down onto the floor.
Ah, this sucks…
My nausea had gotten even worse, perhaps because I smelled that stench while my head was already hurting. Still, I needed to do what I needed to do.
I sat with my back leaning against the wall and waited for my body to calm down as I analyzed my current situation. It didn’t take long for me to come to a conclusion.
I hadn’t come here because the Ghost Busters server had been reactivated. I had been pulled here at precisely the right time. And I hadn’t returned to my real Earth either.
Right now, the highest possibility was…
“This is a dream.”
Under the field effect of the Dreaming Waterfalls, I was stuck in an illusion as I slept.
The fact that the background was the modern world wasn’t that surprising. Up to now, I would sometimes dream about people in the modern world before I came to this one through the field effect.
Well, I was a little skeptical about whether this really was a dream since I had never had a headache this bad before, but regardless, the situation was clear. What I needed to do from now on was even clearer.
Either I needed to fight an enemy that was hidden somewhere, or I needed to complete a mission to obtain a key that could let me wake up from the dream.
However, there was one thing that still nagged at my mind.
…That must have been a dream as well, right?
I met the Earth Witch right as I was losing consciousness. And that conversation I had with her…
The more I thought about it, the more doubt I felt—
Bibibeep, bip, bip, bibeep…
Someone was punching in the password for my lock at the front door.
Ba-dump!
Although I wasn’t in the body of a savage warrior, my heart still beat heavily when I detected the danger. As soon as I heard the sound, I immediately opened the lower cabinet in the kitchen.
I mean, you know. As stated before, this place was inside my dream. The person trying to open the door and enter my home was likely an enemy who was trying to kill me—
There’s…no knife?
Although unexpected, it wasn’t the first time something like that happened to me. I immediately adjusted my plan and quickly headed toward the front door. It was a shame to not have a weapon, but there was nothing I could do.
Without my teeth, I would just have to bite down with my gums.
And since all my physical stats were stripped from me, the level of my enemies probably wasn’t that high either.
The scene is also set in the modern day as well.
Beep, bibeep…
The numbers were pressed one at a time as if they were robbers.
I wasn’t just going to wait for them to open the door. An ambush was best sprung when the enemy least expected it.
Clack!
Before they could finish inputting the rest of the password, I shoved the door open from my side and stretched forward—
“Ack!” the stranger shouted as his nose was smacked in by the suddenly opened door. He wasn’t the only one who looked confused.
“Huh…” I mumbled. It wasn’t just one person? “I didn’t expect there to be multiple people.”
My aching head made it hard to shake my daze, but my decision was lightning fast as always.
I stretched out my hand to grab the man I hit on the nose by his collar before dragging him into the room like a grab attack.
Boom!
I then slammed the door shut again before using the manual lock to create a seal.
“Wh-what?! You…!” cried the man whom I had thrown under the shoe rack. He looked up at me, openly bewildered. Hostile voices began to shout from beyond the door.
“What the—? Team Leader Kang! Team Leader Kang!”
“Who the hell are you, bastard?! Open this door right now!”
I didn’t have time to waste.
I clenched my hand into a fist before slamming it as hard as I could into the collapsed man’s face. Although I didn’t hear the sound of watermelons cracking like from when I was a barbarian, that much should’ve been enough for a solid hit.
…I guess not.
“You ass!” The man stood up even after getting hit squarely in the face, then grabbed my shoulder and pushed me against the wall. “Hah, fucking bastard…”
He was much bigger than me. He had that giga-chad physique people talked about, but made real. If I was the me of the past, I would’ve just gotten scared and not been able to do anything when I saw his build.
“Who are you? What are you? Huh?”
All of that was true about him.
So why is he so sloppy?
I didn’t get nervous at all. How many times had I escaped from the jaws of death at this point, really? Even if I was back to having commoner stats, I honestly deserved to die if I couldn’t solve a problem of this level.
“Ack!”
After bending backward the fingers he was using to grab me, I made a straight punch against his face while he stepped back in pain. He stumbled, pushed back by the impact, and I used the opportunity to quickly move inside his guard and swiftly swerve around into a back choke.
“Gugh— Heup—!”
I choked his neck to block the vessel that transferred air to his brain, and he began to flail even harder.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
He used his elbow to strike my ribs and slammed down on his foot onto my foot. But no matter how much he struggled, it didn’t matter to me.
“You pleb, don’t underestimate a veteran tank.”
Did you think I would bend over in pain just because I wasn’t being protected by my Physical Resistance stats?
“Gak… S-save…”
He seemed to sense that there was no point struggling. He stopped, then changed his tactic and tried to tap my arm to beg for his life.
The people outside seemed to have heard the commotion as well.
Bang, bang, bang!
The knocks grew louder.
“Team Leader Kang! Team Leader Kang! Are you alright?!”
“What are you doing in there, you bastard?! Open this door!”
“What are you doing?! The password! Don’t just watch, punch the password in!”
“R-right…!”
With that, the front door began beeping again as the password was entered.
Hah, the difficulty was nightmarish from the start.
“S-save…”
I put more strength into my choking arm as I visualized how I would need to fight. A total of five nemeses.
If I get this guy now, that’ll only leave four…
Well, it seemed possible enough. Though, it would nearly kill me.
Alright, got one of them.
As soon as the man in my hand stopped struggling and went limp, I immediately let go of him before standing.
“Oh, that’s a good starting weapon.”
I looted the three-segment baton on the collapsed man’s hip and equipped myself. I did notice that he was trying to pull something from his hip area, but I never expected it would be something so useful.
The difficulty has decreased quite a bit with this.
After extending the baton to its max length, I swung it a few times before a satisfied smile crept across on my face.
Forget the Demon Grinder, even the 200,000-stone steel commercial mace would be better than whatever this baton was. Still, it was a considerably high-ranking weapon at this stage. I lacked the strength to wield the other weapons right now, anyway.
Beep, bibeep, bibeep…
The password was entered much more quickly than before.
To be honest, if I just pressed the forced lock button from my side, they would have no way of entering my home. However, rather than lock the door, I just stood directly at its threshold.
My life as a barbarian had taught me something: There was a golden time for all things. If I tried to avoid situations like these, it would only come back to bite me in the end.
Clack.
I opened the door first from my side—
“Ack!”
And toward the head of the man whom I had slammed with the door—
“Swing.”
I swung down with the baton.
Since this wasn’t the demon grinder, I couldn’t see the defense-piercing effect of that weapon.
Crack!
But the sensation coursing through my hand told me all I needed to know.
The man collapsed after being hit by my crit, and the other men around him then charged me.
“You monster!”
“Grab him!”
Although using narrow corridors to my advantage was my specialty, since I didn’t have the physical stats to back me up, I took a few back steps to put some distance between us.
“T-Team Leader Kang!”
As I backed up all the way to my living room, the men who had entered my home saw the man I had knocked out earlier and couldn’t help but tense up.
“Looks like you’re the type to have tight camaraderie?”
Although I personally liked people like that, it was only a weakness I could exploit when they were my enemies.
“Team Leader Kang! Please wake up! Please?!”
One of them is checking up on that guy’s condition…
I only had two people I needed to face.
The problem was that those two weren’t unarmed either.
Swing!
If that Team Leader Kang was a regular Goblin, these guys would be veterans.
Goblin Sword Masters…
“No, since you’re holding batons, I guess you’re Goblin Officers?” I smiled at the pointless thought.
“This bastard is smiling!”
After being “taunted” by me, the Goblin Officer swung his segmented baton as he charged me.
Vwoong!
The swing was powerful enough to audibly slice through the air. However, it was too honest of an attack in my eyes. I just twisted my legs a little and dodged to the back, then immediately counterattacked with my own baton and struck his temple in a direct hit.
Smack!
Although it may be small, this was the definite difference between an ordinary person and an adventurer. Weapon or not, whenever they swung or struck with force, the untrained would not be able to strike their target as they pleased.
And they can’t even impart any strength into their attacks.
I, of course, had already passed that limit.
Thud.
The man fell powerlessly after being struck in the head, scaring the others. The one who had been standing to the side slowly took a step back while looking at me.
It was a great situation for me. There was no easier enemy to defeat than one that was overtaken by fear.
With that, I pressed forward aggressively, and when I reached the distance I wanted, I used the strength of my hips to swing the baton again.
Vwoong!
Hmm? He dodged that?
His posture collapsed though.
With my rich battle experience, I could tell that he would not be able to dodge my attack with his current stance.
I was guaranteed victory already.
After I defeated this guy, the last one would be piss-easy to defeat.
I grinned and swung my baton against the head of Goblin Officer C who had lost his balance.
Tang!
Then, a tiny, weak sound that was too weak to be from a gun—like from a BB gun—rang out. Something long and sharp pierced my body, sending pain ricocheting through my system. When I turned my head to see where the sound had come from…
“Die, you bastard!”
The one who had tried to resuscitate Team Leader Kang had gotten up and was now training a weapon in my direction. Only then did I realize what had happened to me.
“No, you fucking…”
Buzzzzt!
“A taser is cheat…ing…”