Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 688
Chapter 688: Mystery (2)
Everyone was confused. However, I decided to listen to Baekho’s story before drawing any conclusions.
“Me?”
“Yeah, tell me. You might give me some information that’ll help me understand the situation.”
“I don’t have anything like that… I woke up in the Toxic Lavascape and went around looking for anyone who might’ve fallen nearby… And when I saw that no one was here, I came over to the Primordial Land.”
He didn’t give any hints that could be useful for me. He only found the cloth a few days ago when he entered the Primordial Land, and he didn’t do much other than run over to the monument as fast as he could.
“But what do I find? When I came over, I could see traces of you being here, but I couldn’t see any of you.”
Baekho then explained that he noticed the odd entrance that wasn’t there before and that he saw our tracks leading inside, so he had come in not long ago.
“Ta-da, that’s the end of my story!”
He mocked a stretch before quickly changing his expression. He then looked around at us before asking with a low voice.
“So, where’s our bow guy…? He’s dead?”
At his direct question, my jaw dropped for a split second.
I mean, it wasn’t even my fault.
“Bryat is dead.”
“How?”
“He was alone, and his body was found on the way to the Primordial Forest. It seems he was done in by monsters.”
“…Really?”
Baekho took a moment of silence after he heard that.
Of course, that didn’t last long.
“Hmm, still. It’s a miracle that only one person died.”
He returned to his lively self as if nothing had happened.
“Did everyone have a hard time? Honestly, I thought everyone other than our baron and the gramps here would be dead… But what do we do about our missing archer? Even though he was kinda timid, his skills were pretty good.”
I truly couldn’t read what this guy was thinking.
Did he not feel anything? Even though he had spent at least the last three years with his now-deceased ally?
I couldn’t know, but our talk about Bryat ended there.
“Anyway, that’s not important… So what’s going on? So no one here was the one who put up that cloth?”
“That’s right. Unless you are making a joke out of us, Baekho.”
“Why would I do something like that? Hah… this is really very strange.”
I mean, was it that strange?
“Is there…perhaps a traitor among us?”
Baekho began to scan the group. As soon as Baekho’s eyes landed on him, Aures began to try and defend himself.
“It’s not me! I swear! I couldn’t make a complicated plan like that in the first place!”
This wasn’t a game of Mafia. There was no point wasting our energy here, so I quickly interjected, “How about not putting suspicions on your allies first?”
“Why not? There’s enough grounds for me to—”
What grounds? “If it’s none of us who put up that cloth, it makes more sense to suspect the other side.”
“The other side…?”
“Have you already forgotten? We’re not the only ones who are in this region.”
Baekho seemed to arrive at a realization. “Ah! That bastard who lured us here! Th-th-that name… Han… something? Ah, right! Dalan! That Han—!”
“Stop.” I cut him off before he could say that name which was like a beacon of misfortune.
Jaina stepped forward and asked, “But isn’t he already dead?”
“That’s right! He got turned into a Bayon, we killed him, and Mr. Ruingenes already butchered him as well,” Aures joined in agreement.
Fallen Gramps then spoke, saving me from having to defend myself. “I am also of the same opinion as the baron. He’s someone who could very well have lured us here with a plan. Han—”
“If possible, just refer to him by his surname.”
The gramps looked at me questioningly.
“You two weren’t that close. Be polite.”
He looked at me like I had lost it, but he seemed to not want to bother challenging me on it.
“In any case…” he began slowly. “There is a good chance that it was instead a mysterious entity that disguised itself as Dalan who went to meet us.”
“And what’s the goal of that mysterious entity?”
“I do not know. However, we should be able to learn that with time by investigating this place—the reason he brought us here.”
As Fallen Gramps said, it was something we would learn in time. We were stuck here anyway, and the only thing we could do was to continue through this mysterious space and explore it.
“Alright, then since we got all that out of the way, we’ll be careful of that mystery bastard and look into this area. Right, Baron?”
“Right.”
“If we’re done, shouldn’t we get moving? We might even see the guy if we’re fast enough. That rat bastard.” Baekho walked up to me as if to hasten me. However, I didn’t move out of his way and just shook my head. “Why aren’t you going…? Oh, yeah. You were coming up the stairs when I met you, right?”
Only then did Baekho notice it and ask me for my reasoning.
This was why the command chain needed to be solid. The others would follow me if I forced them, but this guy wasn’t like them.
“Something might appear if we keep going up,” I explained. “I figured we should at least check it out.”
“Something might appear if we keep going up…” Baekho mused. Then, with a slap to his knees, he cried, “Ah! Now that I think about it, this place is similar to the Golden Ruins!”
Man, was it because he had played the original mode for a long time? Even though he came here after beating the cheat version, he knew a fair bit.
“Heh, so you were aiming for that?” he chuckled. “Then sure, that’s worth checking!”
“Um… Did you two already talk about this before…?”
“We have. Just follow us.”
In any case, since our goals were aligned, Baekho joined the group again, and we continued up the stairs.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes…
I didn’t know how long exactly, but it happened around the time I was starting to doubt if this place also had that event since we technically weren’t inside the labyrinth.
Step.
Finally, the stairs ended and a narrow pathway appeared.
“…Huh?”
“It really did end…? I naturally expected it to just be an illusion or something.”
“What’s going to come out of there…?”
They seemed to want an explanation, but when I silently began walking through the corridor, they quietly followed me.
Step, step.
Around ten yards in, the darkness disappeared and a stone door revealed itself at the end of the path. I wondered if I should do a short briefing before we entered, but I decided to skip it.
They can easily hunt rank 3 monsters, so do I even need to?
The Golden Ruins was a rift on the fourth floor. That, and the enemy here wasn’t even the Guardian of the Rift. He was more like a hidden mid-boss, so the battle itself shouldn’t be difficult.
“Then let’s begin.”
I raised my hammer and slammed it down on the stone door.
Boom!
The door shattered in that single strike.
…What?
Even though I was the one who struck it, I was caught off guard. This door had a pretty high durability in the game, after all. Even though my barbarian build was both a tank and a damage dealer, I expected at least five hits to be needed for it to break.
Fwoosh.
GM used wind magic to blow away the dust, and when our vision recovered, I carefully entered and checked the interior.
It was a rectangular room. Although it was better than the narrow pathway, it wasn’t much wider. The art on the walls spooked me for some reason.
Step.
In the center, there was a golden coffin that was ten feet long.
It was indeed the hidden secret that could be found if one continued to go up the stairs in the opposite direction.
Step.
When that coffin was opened, a rank 4 monster named Macairo would appear from within it. When it was defeated, it would give a battle buff that would last until one left the rift, and if the adventurers were lucky, they could even get a very special numbered item.
After kicking open the lid of the coffin, I quickly stepped back and put some distance between us.
Boom!
I lifted my shield and got into a battle stance, and the others also got in formation after me.
“…Isn’t something supposed to pop out?”
Even after the dust completely settled, the boss monster showed no signs of waking.
What’s going on?
I covered my torso with my shield and slowly approached the coffin to check inside it. When I did, I froze.
Baekho slid next to me, then mumbled, “What the? It’s already dead?”
The coffin only contained a pale skeleton of a corpse, the bones of which were situated in the funeral position inside the coffin.
As I stared at it in a daze, Baekho called for Fallen Gramps.
“Gramps, loot this thing first. Even though the precious eyes and ears are gone, Macairo’s bones should still fetch quite a bit.”
“There’s no need. The bones have already lost their worth.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The reason the bones of monsters have any worth is because of the mana that is contained within them. However…” Fallen Gramps picked up a bone and revealed, “I cannot sense any mana from this. These are even more worthless than the bones of a Goblin. They’ve already dried up and can’t even be used as canes.”
“…It’s my first time feeling absolutely nothing from the bones of a creature like this,” GM admitted. “There’s usually not enough time for the mana density to fall to zero.”
“In that sense, it will be worth it to take at least a few of them. As our friend here has said, it is a very peculiar case.”
Fallen Gramps promptly picked up a few of the larger bones before putting them in his pack, and GM followed suit.
“Whoa, then are you saying the only thing we got after coming here are just a few bones that are worth less than a Goblin’s?”
“Unfortunately, that is the case.”
“How did that happen?”
“Well, there are two theories we can work with.”
With that, Fallen Gramps put up two fingers.
“First is the way this monster died. A phenomenon like this can sometimes be seen when a body is drained of all its life and mana by dark magic or authority of Karui.”
“Then you’re saying the one who lured us could be a dark magician or a Karui worshiper? Alright, check. Then what’s the second one?”
“It is when a lot of time passes after it becomes a corpse. For the remains of all living creatures, as time passes, they will weather away and the mana within them will disperse.”
“Then why do we make equipment out of bones? The piece I saw last in the auction house was said to have been used by a pretty famous adventurer thousands of years ago and was pretty expensive.”
“That is because a spell is cast on those so their mana doesn’t disperse…”
“So how long does it take for bones to become useless like this?”
“Luckily, there is a recent example of an experiment in this vein by the magic tower.”
“Ah, you’re talking about Jaymetal’s Goblin bones. I heard that around four thousand years have passed since the experiment began as of last year.”
“Is that so? But it still contained mana within it.”
The talk about the bones extended for a little, but it could be summarized quickly enough.
“To put it simply, it’s been more than four thousand years since this guy died?”
“Unless he was killed by dark magic or others of a similar nature.”
It wasn’t something we needed to spend time debating, no matter which possibility ended up being the correct one. What was the point of knowing how it died or how long ago it died?
…It’s a bit of a shame to not get that buff. And I was honestly looking forward to fighting it since it had a low chance of dropping a good item—
“Hmm? Baron, what’s this? There’s a box or something here…”
“What? A box?” I flicked my head toward the direction of the voice to see Aures holding what looked like a cubic box. “Where…did you find that?”
“I wouldn’t say I ‘found’ it… It was just in that corner over there.”
“Hand it here.”
After practically swiping it out from under him, I quickly checked its exterior. This was a genuine item.
“What is it…?”
“No. 777, Macairo’s Storage Box.”
It was the item that was usually called the mystery box.