Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 686
Chapter 686: Butterfly (6)
She was certainly an evil spirit, but one that had no memories of the other world. A part of me couldn’t help but laugh at how she expected me to believe her. How absurd.
However, a few moments later, a bolt of inspiration struck me.
“Were you…revived by a Stone of Revival?”
That would explain her predicament.
Many conditions were needed to use a Stone of Revival, but the biggest penalty was memory erasure. I had experienced a few times when I used the stone to revive an ally. Because their relationship value fell to zero, they ended up leaving and made me waste my Stone—
“Stone of Revival…?”
But what was with her reaction?
“I don’t know why you mentioned that, but it doesn’t have anything to do with a Stone of Revival.”
“Then why don’t you have any memories?”
Jaina’s hands clenched hard when I asked that question. “I… Some time ago, I offered all my memories of that world to Karui. That’s why I don’t have any of them left.”
Ah, so that was it. I’d been certain it had something to do with a Stone of Revival.
I found myself a little embarrassed at the correction.
…So you can offer up memories as well.
Recalling the time I played as a priest of Karui, I began to accept her story.
Whenever everything failed and I came ever closer to a game over, Karui would come to make an offer without exception.
I will save you, so pay the price…
That price was always random, and the choices I could make were countless as well.
Things like all relationship values I had with other characters falling to zero. One of the essences I was losing was being stripped from me. Incurring permanent, physical injuries. There were even cases where Karui asked for the soul of another allied NPC.
One of the toughest ones was in exchange for being saved, I needed to go to the city and become the most wanted criminal there.
Contracts with Karui were absolute. Even if the day of payment were deferred, the character would receive divine punishment and die if they didn’t abide by the promise.
Anyway, that wasn’t the important part.
“Guess you must’ve been in a pretty desperate situation to offer up your memories,” I said quietly.
Jaina seemed a little conflicted. “Yes… It seemed to have been. Probably.”
Hmm, it sounded like she was trying to skirt the question.
I thought for a moment if I should inquire deeper, but she ended up talking first.
“I offered up two things on that day. The first one was to move all of us to a safe place… That was when I lost all my memories of the original world.”
“And?”
“The second… The second was to save someone who was dying. The price of that was to lose all memories I had about that person.”
I hesitated. “Were they important to you?”
“I don’t know… But probably. Precious enough to offer the memories, at least.”
“What happened between you and them later?”
“Nothing much happened. They died in the labyrinth not long after.” Noticing my sudden silence, she said, “No need to be so serious about it. I didn’t feel much even when they died in front of my eyes.”
Hearing Jaina speak with a calm tone made me realize all the more why the people of this world called Karui the evil god.
“Then how did you end up teaming up with Baekho Lee? Are you trying to return to your original world?”
“No, I don’t really care about that world. I don’t remember anything about it, anyway. Actually, this is ‘reality’ for me, and that’s the dream world.”
Although our journeys were wildly different, her case was similar to mine. Perhaps that was why. Even though I planned only to gain information from her in the beginning, I started to become genuinely curious about Jaina’s story.
“There’s only one reason I’m working with Baekho Lee,” she revealed.
“What is
it?”
“To regain my lost memories, I need an enormous offering.”
“I see…”
As Jaina said, it wasn’t impossible to regain what one offered up to Karui in Dungeon and Stone. Even permanent damage to the body could be healed if one offered enough to Karui.
“I’m only moving together with him because it’s easy to gain high-quality materials near him. I don’t have any other reason.”
Man, I never expected her circumstances to be like this.
Since she already told me she didn’t care about the modern world, it was clear which memory she was trying to regain. However, that led to one more question.
“…Why are you trying to regain your memories?”
She already lost all her memories of “that person”. And she also told me she didn’t feel much when they died. So why was this woman going to such lengths?
“It…was frustrating.”
Jaina’s answer was quite simple.
“When that person died on that day, I couldn’t understand a single thing they said or the expression they made. It frustrated and pissed me off so much… Why? Is that weird?”
“No… Not at all.”
Soon after, Jaina’s detection spell picked up a monster, so we cut our conversation there. We never returned to the topic, nor anything similar to it.
And yet, the conversation we had continued to swirl in my mind.
An amnesiac evil spirit…
The world was truly large.
***
Boom!
Unrelated to the periodic hail of meteors falling from the sky in the Tomb of Stars, the climate of the Primordial Land changed frequently, and each one was lethal.
“Haah… Haah…”
It was a heat wave this time.
Well, I wasn’t sure if I could even call this a “heat wave.”
Fwoosh!
The trees that couldn’t endure the heat leaked steam from within. Some were even burning outright in the worst-case scenarios.
Still, thanks to the fire resistance from the Orb of Fire, I didn’t get burned or suffer any continuous damage, but I still couldn’t do much about the heat.
If we had a wizard here, I would have asked them to turn on the air conditioner or something.
“…We’re surrounded,” I noted.
“What are you going to do?”
“It’s impossible to escape with our speed, so we’ll have to fight.”
Even though we moved deliberately to avoid fighting monsters as much as possible, there were some cases where we were forced to fight.
A tank and a priest. Although it certainly wasn’t a good composition to hunt monsters, we were still able to endure well enough by ourselves, and that was because…
[Jaina Flyer has cast Rotten Wind.]
[All enemies within the area will take dark attribute damage, and will have their Physical Resistance stats decreased.]
The priest wasn’t an ordinary priest to begin with.
[You have cast Swing.]
And I was no ordinary tank either.
Crunch!
Any monsters rank 4 and lower were manageable, though they did take us some time.
Boom!
“It’s a Bartanus!”
“Get on!”
In any case, whenever a rank 3 monster appeared while we were fighting, I would carry Jaina on my back and run as fast as I could. Since we were a tank and priest combo, we could kill it if we fought for a few hours, but that was only possible if it were alone.
And we didn’t have hours to spend here.
…Huh?
I froze, making Jaina cautiously ask why I stopped in front of her. Rather than answer, I just pointed with my finger at the torn piece of cloth hanging on the tree.
It was the trace of a human, one we hadn’t seen when we passed by here before.
I reached out and spread the cloth to see writing on it.
If you see this… … …monument.
The intense heat had burned the middle section so black that I couldn’t read it, but I immediately understood what it was trying to tell me.
“It’s telling us to come to the central monument at the Primordial Forest.”
Baekho Lee, Fallen Gramps, Archer, and GM.
It seemed that one of those four had left this mark here to inform us to go to the central monument.
“Why those four…?” Jaina wondered.
“Do you think Aures would’ve left something like this?”
“Ah, got it.”
“In any case, if we go to the monument, we’ll be able to meet up with at least one more person.”
It was good news. Other than Aures, the rest were damage dealers. No matter who among the four we found, we would get our damage, tank, and healer formation. After that, our safety and movement speed would increase significantly.
“Let’s get moving.”
“Right.”
After determining that we might lose them if we were late, I moved as quickly as possible to head in that direction.
One hour, two hours, three hours…
As we marched on without rest, we suddenly heard the voice of a familiar man pierce the silence.
“B-Baron?”
Yikes, that scared me. I nearly swung my hammer.
I looked in the direction of the sound. “Havellion?”
GM suddenly appeared out of thin air, undoing his invisibility. Surprisingly, we were able to reunite with an ally before arriving at our destination.
“Baroooooon!”
I quickly sidestepped GM as he went for a hug, then asked him, “Were you the one who left a cloth with writing on the tree?”
“N-no. I saw it not long ago and was following it as well!”
Hmm, I see.
For some reason, things were going pretty well. At this rate, there would be one more ally at the monument since they would’ve been the ones to hang that cloth on the tree.
And our two suddenly became three.
“What happened with you, Baron—”
“We’re nearly there, so let’s talk when we get there.”
I was curious about what happened with GM as well, but since we weren’t far from our destination, I decided to keep my focus and continue moving.
“What’s this…?”
Around thirty minutes later, as I moved past the brush, I could see the headstone that had been struck into the crater we had seen before. However, the problem was…
“W-was that originally here?”
“No way.”
Where there should only have been the headstone, there was instead a mysterious building next to its resting place. It was like the entrance of the temple but without its door. I could see steps that led down, but even when I went up to look inside, it was too dark to see anything.
“Those letters are red… That wasn’t like that before, right?”
“No! I am sure of it since I investigated the headstone before. It wasn’t like that.”
There were incomprehensible hieroglyphs on the top line of the headstone.
Just what was going on?
Although everything was confusing, the biggest question was something else.
“…But why is no one here?”
We’d come here after reading the message on the cloth, yet there wasn’t anyone waiting for us.
“Let’s wait for now. They might’ve gone to write more messages nearby.”
“Right…” GM said reluctantly. “Then I’ll investigate the headstone for the time being. I can sense a flow of mana, unlike before…”
“I’ll go look at the building. It feels pretty familiar,” Jaina remarked.
Surprised, I asked, “Familiar?”
“It’s difficult to explain. Just know that it feels related to an ancient entity.”
“…Got it.”
With that, the two went about investigating, and I stood guard on observation duty.
Why is no one coming?
After about three days of waiting for someone to show up later, just as I was beginning to doubt if there was even a point in waiting…
“Thankfully, it seems I am not late.”
Fallen Gramps appeared, looking pretty relaxed.
He looked too normal to be a wizard who had just walked around the ninth floor for three days all by himself.
…I guess he can solo the game somewhat even as a wizard.
Although it was surprising, I had something I needed to ask before checking out his skills.
“Were you the one who put up that cloth?”
“…Cloth?” he asked, seeming to have no idea.
I explained the cloth had been tied to the tree, and Fallen Gramps informed me that he hadn’t even seen it.
“I just assumed someone would come to the central monument, so here I am.”
“Then you don’t know who put up that cloth either.”
“No, that is probably Baekho’s doing.”
“How are you so sure? There is no way Aures would’ve done it, so he’s the only one left.”
“Pardon?” GM asked with a tilt of his head. “But It could’ve been Mr. Bryat.”
Fallen Gramps’s response was curt.
“Bryat is dead.”