Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 685
Chapter 685: Butterfly (5)
The light faded and vision returned to my eyes.
Well, it was a bit of a stretch to say that it “returned” to me, but whatever.
When I opened my eyes, my vision was blurry and faint. However, I gathered as much information as possible using my other senses.
Swoosh.
I was sinking in the water.
Very quickly at that.
Thud!
My body slammed into the ground not long after I woke up, sending a tremor up my spine.
Ouch, that hurt.
I felt something prick my shoulder like I’d been stabbed by something sharp. Startled, I turned my head to look at what was next to me, only to see a monster that looked like a goby clamp down on my shoulder with its mouth.
Uh, this guy is…
The rank five fish-type monster Hopfish. Once I recognized the monster through my hazy vision, I naturally realized where I was as well.
This particular monster only appeared in two places: the oceans on the sixth floor and the Dreaming Waterfalls of the Tomb of Stars on the ninth floor.
I didn’t even need to take time wondering which of the two I was at.
[You have entered a special area.]
[Field Effect—Dreaming Waterfalls is applied.]
Now that I’d obtained this additional information about the fish, a general outline of what had happened was drawn in my mind.
The teleport had succeeded despite the Bone Dragon’s Dispel. However, the spell’s casting was just a bit incomplete.
Seeing how I’m the only one here, it looks like everyone got teleported to random places…
I was struck by sudden worry about the safety of the others. Excluding Baekho, who was adept at solo-play, it was near impossible for wizards and priests to survive by themselves on the ninth floor.
Let’s focus on the important thing first.
I needed to worry about how I was going to survive.
I swung at the Hopfish biting into my shoulder and punched it away.
Let’s go.
I moved my dense body that refused to float on the water and walked forward.
It wasn’t difficult to figure out the right way to go. All the currents in the Dreaming Waterfalls headed toward the center of the field. Any boat set loose on the waters here would drift toward the falls without fail.
So if I walked in the opposite direction, I was bound to reach dry land at some point. And seeing that the Hopfish was around here, I wasn’t too far from the shore either.
Pwoosh, pwoosh.
I moved forward, and with each step, my feet sank into the ground up to my ankles. Unfortunately, I continued to have company on my travels too.
This is driving me nuts.
Every time I took a step, the monsters asleep in the waters around me woke up and came to attack me.
Pwoong!
They were so annoying that I even tried to swing my Demon Grinder at them, but it wasn’t that effective. Due to the resistance of the water, my attack speed had decreased dramatically and it was far too difficult to fight the monsters who were made to live underwater.
Vwoong!
Every time I swung my weapon, they would quickly swim away before charging at me once more to rip into my flesh when the swing had passed them by.
Damn bastards…
In the end, I gave up on trying to get them off of me, instead ignoring the few Hopfish that continued to enjoy chewing on me and just focusing on walking forward.
“Puhah!”
Still, I was able to leave the water soon enough thanks to being so close to shore.
Hmm… I guess it wasn’t that close? Hah, I thought I was going to die.
I really thought I was just going to drown to death, but I thankfully was able to get out in time.
After that, I enacted my vengeance.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
I smashed and killed the monsters who had followed me out of the water before collapsing on the ground onto my back.
“Haah, haah, haah…”
Since I’d fallen into the water immediately from that intense battle against the Bone Dragon, I didn’t have any strength to even lift a finger. As such, I just laid on my back while I collected my thoughts.
As always, the most important thing to consider when in a dangerous situation was what I should do going forward.
There was no need to think too deeply about it.
We’ll need to regroup first.
Since I was alone, I would need to move even more carefully to search the ninth floor while looking for the other members of the group. That was my current highest priority.
A secondary goal I had would be to find any clues regarding how we could escape from the Tomb of Stars.
With that, I suppressed my desire to just stay on my back here and got up with a sigh.
Although my chances of surviving the ninth floor were pretty high, that wasn’t the case for the others, not including Baekho Lee. Since I could move around more freely than the others, I should work harder to—
“…Huh?”
I froze just as I was about to take a step forward.
I had no idea how it happened…
“Jaina?”
But I ended up finding the first member already, five yards away from where I had been lying.
How did I not see her before?
Despite the niggling thought, it wasn’t all that absurd that I hadn’t seen her. I honestly didn’t have the mindfulness to be observant.
Anyway, that wasn’t important.
“Jaina!”
I quickly ran over to check on her condition.
When I saw her from a distance, she looked like a corpse, but she thankfully was breathing. At least, for now.
I took off the heavy cloak that she always wore, then spied the azure inner armor she was wearing.
No. 2,578, Sky Armor.
It wasn’t an item that raised stats, gave abilities, or increased regeneration speeds, but it was one of the highest-ranked defensive items.
An item that I used to call the “life jacket.”
She survived thanks to this.
Ironically, however, this was also the reason she was dying. The solar plexus of the Sky Armor was bent inward and pressing down on her lungs. And from what I could tell, her ribs were broken as well.
I clicked my tongue, then sighed.
How do I get this off of her?
This was certainly a predicament. To heal her, I needed to get her armor off, but that wouldn’t be possible at this rate.
“Understand that it’s to save you,” I declared, asking for the unconscious Jaina’s understanding. Then, I put my fingers in the small cracks between the armor.
“Raaah…!”
I used all my strength and ripped the armor from the sides.
The armor wouldn’t have even budged under normal circumstances, but its durability must have dropped significantly from that damage it took beforehand. It slowly creaked open until finally, the armor ripped apart, destroyed.
Can this… be fixed?
I decided not to dwell on the thought. Even if it couldn’t be repaired, she could just buy a new one. I got the feeling she had a lot of money saved up.
Sizzle!
After taking off the armor that would have gotten in the way, I poured the potion on her.
I winced at the sight of how the wound bubbled, but she didn’t react at all. Maybe she really was on the verge of dying.
I used one more potion just in case and stayed beside her to continue watching over her.
Sizzle!
That frightening sound continued to echo out.
“Ugh… Ergh…”
Jaina’s consciousness seemed to be returning. She let out groans as she twisted her body a little.
I ended up seeing it by accident.
She has a tattoo on her side.
Although it wasn’t surprising to see an adventurer have a tattoo, the tattoo on Jaina was pretty unique.
First, it was really small, the size of a thumb. It also looked messy like an amateur did it, and it seemed to have been done a long time ago as well, as it looked quite faded.
…Is she from Noark?
When I had remained in Noark, the deepest of slums, I had seen young children with tattoos like this once or twice. These tattoos weren’t placed on them according to their wearer’s wishes… No, they were given to them upon a moment’s whim for pleasure and entertainment.
Just like the tattoo under Amelia’s eye.
“Haah… Haah… Haah…”
Around ten minutes later, Jaina groaned, struggling as she began to pant loudly.
She then began to mumble to herself, talking in such a quiet voice that I couldn’t understand what she was saying at first. It felt like she was chanting something.
However, after listening to her for a while, I understood it—though I still had no idea what she was saying. She wasn’t talking in the tongue of this world.
…I never expected she’d be an evil spirit.
Well, there was the possibility that the “evil spirit language” Baekho always used in joking contexts ended up ingraining itself into her mind and was now being spoken back out unconsciously. However, I got the sense that wasn’t the case.
“Haah… Haah…”
Eventually, her mumblings ceased and her breathing returned to normal as well.
In my experience, this was around the time I would be able to speak with her.
“Are you awake?” I asked, shaking her shoulder gently.
Her eyes opened powerlessly. “What…happened…?”
Wow, she was trying to understand her situation the moment she woke up as well. People like this usually lived long lives. Maybe it was because she came here from Dungeon and Stone?
“How much do you remember?”
“I was…hit in the stomach…and I fell unconscious…”
“After that, we used teleportation magic as planned,” I explained. “However, the Bone Dragon interfered, and the spell was incomplete.”
“In…complete…?”
“Seems like everyone was teleported to a random coordinate. I fell into the middle of the Dreaming Waterfalls and barely managed to swim to the surface, where I found you.”
“So that happened…”
“How are you? Can you move? We’ve been here too long, so I’m thinking of getting out of here.”
“Please…help me.”
I supported Jaina’s body and got her to stand. However, because she couldn’t stand by herself even after that, I just carried her over my shoulder.
“Ack…!” she yelped.
“Just carrying you might be easier for the both of us.”
Since it wasn’t wise to stay in one place for long, I continued to talk to Jaina while carrying her on my shoulder.
“Where are we going…?”
“Primordial Land,” I deadpanned. “Since it’s the central area, there is a good chance everyone is going to go there when they wake up.”
And since the Primordial Land connected to all the other regions, it was advantageous for us in that we would be able to move anywhere necessary quickly.
“In any case, we’ll avoid combat as much as possible, so when you get your energy back, try and scan our surroundings.”
“…It feels like I’ve become a tool.”
“If you don’t like it, heal up already. Then it’ll be much easier for me as well.”
That was the start of our journey.
However, her words were calmer than usual, maybe because it was just the two of us.
Maybe it’s because she knows it’ll be the end for her if I leave her behind?
There was no telling, but I was able to hear shy words of gratitude from her.
“…Thank you. For saving me.”
“If you’re thankful, heal me properly during our battles. I can tell that even when both me and Aures get injured, you cast more healing on him than me.”
“…You’re overthinking it.”
Hmm, I don’t think so…
“By the way,” I began, “are you an evil spirit too?”
Her hands clenched against my back at the completely unexpected question.
“It seems it is true,” I mused to myself. Jaina stayed quiet at that, causing me to smirk. “Is there a reason to hide it? Just by moving about with Baekho Lee, you are a sworn enemy of the palace.”
Saying that seemed to have been the deciding factor, as Jaina just accepted my accusation without much pushback.
“…How did you know?”
“While you were unconscious, you kept mumbling in the ‘evil spirit language.’”
However, the reaction I got after presenting her with the evidence was unexpected.
“I did? There is no way…”
“Most people who talk in their sleep don’t know that they—”
“No, that’s not what I meant. It just… It doesn’t make sense.”
Confused, I asked, “Doesn’t make sense?”
Jaina hesitated for a long time before responding, “Although I am an evil spirit, I have no memories of the other world.”
…Huh?
What the hell was this now?