Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 682
Chapter 682: Butterfly (2)
The boat traveling on the starlit waters finally made landfall.
Rustle.
[You have entered a Special Area.]
[Field Effect—Dragonskull Mountains is applied.]
As I stepped foot onto the gravelly earth, I felt with my entire body that I had arrived at a new area.
[Status Effect—Dragon’s Curse is applied. Physical Resistance stats are decreased by 50%.]
It felt as if my skin had gone from hard as steel to soft as stone, and the effects didn’t end there.
[A random essence is sealed.]
Ouch… I could feel my stats drain from me.
I feel like it took one of my stat essences…
It was an emptiness that would cause any adventurer pain.
While I was getting used to the feeling and our new surroundings, Baekho gave an order to the rest of the group.
“Let’s check everyone before moving on! Everyone, use each of your essences!”
Under that order, everyone used all sorts of skills they had to check which essence got sealed. However, I didn’t need to do that because I hit it on my first try.
Eye of the Storm.
The grappling skill that I chained Transcendence into refused to activate.
“Hmm? Have you already checked yours, Baron?”
“I got lucky.”
Although I said as much, I’d already guessed as to which one it was going in. Among my essences, the only one that had high Strength and Dexterity—the stats I relied on the most—was the Storm Gush essence. The loss of it was so potent that I noticed its absence as soon as I got off the boat.
Still, isn’t this the best-case scenario?
The last time I passed by here, the Bellarios essence ended up getting sealed so I had a lot of trouble dealing with magic damage. Since I’d been planning on removing the Storm Gush essence anyway, I got the feeling that I wouldn’t be hindered much during this adventure.
Unlike what happened with Baekho.
“Ah, fucking hell…!”
“Baekho, what is it?”
“Man, just why did it have to be the floor essence that got blocked out of them all?!”
In the case of Baekho, his highest value essence, the floor essence, ended up being the one that got sealed. Considering that he would have tailored his other essence choices to synergize with his floor essence, the loss in combat power was even greater as a result.
“Hah! That’s a problem!”
“Wouldn’t it be better to leave now and return later for a different essence?”
“Ugh, it’s fine! It’ll take ten days of staying outside for the sealed essence to reset. We don’t have the time. Maybe if everyone’s gacha rolls were terrible as well, but it’s too inefficient.” Baekho wagged his finger like an old man telling a kid off before he turned and sneakily asked us, “So… How is everyone? Did you get good rolls?”
“Uh… Mine’s much better than last time. Although one of my combat essences was sealed, it shouldn’t affect my ability to fulfill my role…”
“I am good with mine!”
“Then what about you, Baron…?” Baekho asked.
“Same as well. The one that got sealed doesn’t matter much.”
“Aha, I see…?” Baekho gave an awkward laugh. So he hadn’t expected the rest of us to be fine with our seals. Even so, he went for positive thinking. “That’s good, then. So it’s like everyone else got lucky relative to how screwed over I got, right? Bot will carry us.”
“Baekho… What do you mean by bot?”
“It’s whatever. They can’t even pull their own weight and need others to help their lane.”
“Lane…?”
While listening to Baekho and Aures’s conversation, I became sure of one thing.
This bastard’s 100 percent a top laner.
For comparison, I was a jungler.
“Then, if everyone’s finished checking their essences, let’s get moving.”
After we finished our maintenance, we immediately resumed our exploration.
Rustle, crunch.
It was a gray field where small bone shards littered the beach like grains of sand. As a region famed for its abundant size, it didn’t take long for us to encounter a monster.
Slash, slash.
[You have defeated a Skeleton Kinghelm.]
[You have defeated a Lich.]
[You have defeated a Zombie Lord.]
[You have defeated a Bone Drake.]
[You have defeated a…]
Monsters appeared in less than five-minute intervals.
It was the most notable feature of the Dragonskull Mountains. Although hunting was impossible if you lacked the specs, its highest difficulty point was relatively lower than the other fields in surrounding areas.
Except one.
Let’s not even think about that…
In any case, we continued to move in a circle around the areas that we needed to fill on the map. The battles weren’t that difficult, but one point of disappointment was our priest. If she weren’t a priest of Karui but a regular priest, she would’ve been much more helpful in fighting against the undead.
Well… I can’t dismiss the fact that the priest is contributing a lot to the combat already.
She also had a skill that was useful whenever we fought against undead monsters.
[Jaina Flyer has summoned the Lord of Immortality. All rank five and weaker undead monsters in the area have fallen under its command.]
Jaina Flyer was a relatively new member Baekho had recruited into his team.
She’s pretty interesting as well.
Just where did a priest of Karui of her caliber appear from? A lot of offerings would’ve needed to be made to make her this strong.
“Ten-minute break. Go and take a rest.”
I used the break to approach Jaina. She furrowed her brow and looked at me to see what I was doing when I approached her.
She made it seem like I was going to do something bad to her.
“What is it?” she asked warily.
“It’s nothing much. I just have something I want to ask you. It’s nothing personal, so don’t worry.”
“Go on.”
“Is that guy…quiet?”
Jaina only furrowed her brow even more in response.
“I’m talking about him, Karui,” I clarified in case she didn’t understand me, but her expression didn’t change.
“I understood what you meant. I just had to take a moment to think why you asked me that question even though you said you wouldn’t ask me something personal.”
“Again, it’s not a personal question. I need to be wary of all the variables since we are moving together as a team.”
“…So what are you worried about?”
“It’s as I said: Karui. I’m curious if that guy is being quiet or not. You haven’t really made an ‘offering’ since we came out of the city walls either, right?”
Offering meant human sacrifice. In exchange for great power, Karui always requested offerings, and the priests would need to go into the labyrinth and kill innocent people periodically to fulfill that offering requirement.
She seemed to understand my worry somewhat.
“…You won’t have to worry, so stop caring about it.”
“Can’t you give me a bit more detail? If you really do want me to stop caring…”
She took a moment to think about my persistent request before letting out a sigh. “As soon as we left the city walls, I stopped hearing Karui’s voice. Naturally, I don’t have a reason to make an offering either.”
“Don’t have a reason? Or can you not make an offering?”
“…I can’t.”
Oh, I see. Then she probably couldn’t use the skills that required offerings.
“More importantly, I’m pretty sure it’s been ten minutes.”
“…True. Everyone, get up.”
Although I had more things I wanted to ask her, I unfortunately had to end the break and resume our exploration.
Offerings couldn’t be made outside the city walls.
This new piece of information gave me more questions.
…Why does her connection with Karui sever when she’s outside the walls?
He was one of the entities that was called a god, so wasn’t that a little suspicious?
***
Boom!
Another meteor fell and obliterated the bone shards that had formed a mound. From the center of the crater formed by the fallen star, a large black monster stood.
“Grrrr…”
It looked like a skeleton at first glance. However, its bones were completely black and of a different thickness and shape as well.
It’s probably that black iron mace in its hand.
No. 687, Siege Slaughterer.
Even though it was a “regular monster,” this rank 3 monster always appeared with that numbered item.
“Vamdemon! It’s a Vamdemon!”
Vamdemons appeared very rarely whenever a meteor fell on the Dragonskull Mountains while it was raining. I never expected to meet one outside the city walls.
“Get ready for—”
As I went to inform everyone to get ready for combat, GM, who was on standby at the back, excitedly shouted, “Wait! Please wait a moment!”
“…Hmm?”
“I have information from a trustworthy source that you can guarantee obtaining the Vamdemon’s essence if only three people defeat it!”
Uh… Wasn’t that information I shared at the Round Table?
From the way he was saying, it seemed that the information I shared at the Round Table got leaked.
“If we begin the combat like this, we won’t be able to get its essence, so let’s decide on—”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“Pardon?”
“So you want only three of us to fight it? Just to get one rank three essence?” Baekho signature cynicism was directed at GM. “And don’t we need to apply ‘distortion’ magic if we want to obtain an essence here? And what if the ‘distortion’ fails?”
“Uh…”
“You’re a wizard, can’t you at least think a few steps ahead? You just want to show off your knowledge whenever you get the chance, don’t you?”
“I-it’s just I wanted to share a different method we could—”
“Stop. Think about it. Why are we even aiming for its essence? It’ll drop its numbered item if we just kill it.”
Even though Baekho was being an ass when he said it, my thoughts completely aligned with his. Normally, the Vamdemon was fought after distortion magic was applied to it. Although its drops were priceless, the real reason was that if the distortion was successful, it would drop its numbered item.
But we are outside the city walls, where the rules are completely opposite to inside the labyrinth.
Unlike in the labyrinth, using distortion in this place would make its body disappear and give us a chance for an essence, while just killing it would give us its corpse. In other words, simply killing the Vamdemon here would allow us to loot its numbered item.
“Behel—LAAAAAA!”
I didn’t need to think about which path to take. I immediately let out my battle cry and charged the Vamdemon.
[Vamdemon has cast Strike of Anguish.]
I couldn’t help but feel a chill go down my spine at the sight of its iron mace awash in fierce light. Even I wouldn’t come out unscathed if I got hit by that straight-on.
Yeah, it’s not called the tank killer for nothing.
In exchange for having low attack speed, each of the Vamdemon’s attacks was powerful enough to be considered instakills. Its pure strength alone was close to an Ogre’s or even higher, and on top of that, we needed to fight it while under the Physical Resistance debuff of the field.
Because of all that, this monster was usually fought with a dex character taking on the role of a dodge tank and keeping it in check, unless the tank’s proficiency level was overwhelmingly high.
Like this.
[Defense successful. Wall of Aegis has absorbed all damage.]
I didn’t need to dodge each strike. I just needed to push my shield up against it.
“Grrk…?”
Why do you look so surprised?
Why else would I have made a build for Giantization, which was only a rank 5 skill? By combining Giantization and Wall of Aegis, I could block attacks that couldn’t be defended to get that “Defense successful” message at the original size.
“What are you doing? Attack!”
After I pulled its aggro, we officially began hunting it. Since we were outside the walls, its aggro dropped from me a few times, but nothing dangerous happened. The monster wasn’t that quick to begin with.
[Leyton Bryat has cast Aiming Stance. A special defect will be bestowed on the next ranged attack relative to the time taken to aim.]
The Vamdemon couldn’t move fast enough to escape my tenacious grasp, and in the end, it got hit directly in the face without being able to even approach the others.
Thud!
Unlike in the labyrinth, the Vamdemon didn’t disappear into a burst of light.
“What’s up, Fallen Gramps? Anything else we should loot other than that?”
“Excluding the eyeballs and spine, none of the others are worth taking the time for.”
“Oh, really?”
As soon as we finished looting its corpse, Baekho approached the Vamdemon and grabbed the iron mace with both hands. “Argh, why is it so heavy—”
“What are you doing?”
“Eh? It’s heavy, so I’m going to put it in my sub-space?”
“And I’m asking why it’s going into your sub-space.”
As I used one hand to move Baekho’s hands away and grabbed the Siege Slaughterer with my other, Baekho looked confused for a moment before smirking. “Ahaha, right. That’s right. You’re not on our team, are you a baron?”
“You need to be clear with things like this.”
“But I’m pretty sure I let you have that imprint material for free before?”
“And I remember giving you other materials after that.”
“If you’re going to be that stingy about it, isn’t the ratio off? We have five and you only have two.”
As a former adventurer himself, Baekho let his tone grow sharper as soon as money talks came out. However, I wasn’t particularly uncomfortable with the exchange either.
How many years have I been an adventurer at this point? I had encountered this situation countless times since the Bloody Citadel encounter with the dwarf and Raven.
Well, that was probably true with Baekho as well.
“It’s no joke, how a party can be divided by loot disputes, and then wind up annihilated inside the labyrinth. How about you two wash your hands of the details and decide on the matter with this?” Fallen Gramps stepped forward after not being able to just sit by and watch and presented two dice with his hand.
“…I’m good with that.”
Although I agreed that this was the fairest method, Baekho didn’t seem satisfied with it.
He sighed. “Are you really going to do this? Can’t you just let me have it this time?”
“Is there a reason I should?”
“No, but it’s not like I’m going to be the one using it, anyway. I felt like I could hold onto it as a weapon our warriors can swap to.”
“Oh… Baekho! I didn’t realize you thought so much of—”
“Just shut up and sit still.”
Aures, who had been approaching us with arms open wide, lowered his arms dejectedly. An uncomfortable silence fell over the area.
Baekho stared at me as if trying to see through my mind, and I didn’t avoid his gaze nor step back away from him. Maybe that was why…
“Hah… Fine. I haven’t thrown dice in a while. But it’s only going to be once per person, alright? Since we have five people, we’ll roll five times. And you’ll roll twice for your two. The one who rolls the highest among the groups will take it, okay?”
“Let’s do that.”
As the agreement was about to hold, GM carefully raised his hand. “Um… Could I play for myself? So that I can take it if I win…”
Wow, I really couldn’t trust anyone.
“You can discuss that with the baron later… Then we’ll roll first, alright? Hey, I’ll roll all of yours, okay?”
“Uh… Baekho? I feel that maybe we should roll our own dice…?”
“Do you not trust me?”
“That’s not it…”
“Then it’s fine.”
After seizing control of the situation like a dictator, Baekho began to roll his dice, and I nervously checked the results with a gulp.
Two.
Through this process, I learned something new.
Three.
What the hell?
Two.
Was this guy’s dice luck worse than mine?
Four.
The numbers were too low considering the results were the combined totals from two different six-sided dice. However, the number of tries saved him.
“Nine…?”
“It’s a nine…?”
“I did it!”
After rolling the dice five times, Baekho finally got a decently high result of nine.
“Th-then I’ll roll as well…”
After that, GM rolled, hoping for a good number, but the result disappointed him.
“Ah… It’s an eight.”
“Alright then, looks like only the baron needs to roll…? And right, since this is rolling the dice, this won’t count as you being generous if you lose. Okay…? If you gave it to me from the start, I would’ve been nice the next time something popped up.”
“Be quiet. I’m concentrating.”
After making Baekho shut up, I focused on the dice in my hand and tightened my grip.
The weight and texture of the dice. The flow of wind passing over my skin. I felt all of them line together.
Now!
I opened my palm and threw the dice onto the plate.
Clatter.
And as always, the results determined the victor in an instant. The dice stopped rolling and presented me with my number.
“…Huh.”
“It’s a twelve?”
“It’s twelve.”
It was the highest result one could achieve from two six-sided dice.
“Argh, that’s rigged. Did you use a trick?”
“Baekho, there was no interference in the roll.”
“Wow, Baron. You’re pretty damn lucky.”
Having declared he would uphold the results, Baekho turned around from the Siege Slaughterer lying on the ground.
“Hah… What are you doing? Aren’t you going to take it?”
“Uh…”
The current situation was clear. I was “lucky” enough to win the dice contest and obtain the highest value loot of the adventure until now. It was something I should be glad about.
However…
Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump!
Just why…
I… I won the dice roll…?
Why was my heart beating so fast?