Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 691
Chapter 691: Mystery (5)
The chamber of Macairo was a hidden area that opened if you went up the seemingly infinite stairs, and it was also the place where we found the mystery box that gave me the new armor.
We had been caught by surprise the last time we came. We’d found the mid-boss Macairo already dead and turned into a meager pile of bones.
Once again, we found ourselves surprised but, this time, for a different reason.
“Where the hell did he go? It’s not like he could’ve gotten up and walked away.”
When we opened the coffin, his corpse was gone.
“Hey, Aures,” Baekho barked with piercing eyes. “You were the last one to come and investigate this place by yourself, right?”
“Y-yes…?”
“Was he here then? Inside the coffin.”
Aures avoided his gaze, unable to muster a full response. “I…”
“‘I’ what? Talk properly. Was the corpse in there or not?”
“…don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What do you mean, are you joking? You came all the way to the chamber and didn’t even check inside the coffin…? Or did you just waste time lounging about?”
“I didn’t do that!” Aures pleaded frantically, waving his hands to stave off Baekho’s interrogation. “I came here to check! It’s just, my legs hurt a little, so I climbed the steps slowly…!”
“Don’t tell him off too much. It’s a mistake.”
Jaina’s words of support from beside him seemed to give Aures confidence, as he raised his voice a little to say, “A-and! Did you think I wouldn’t notice how you are giving me the most tedious work? But even then, I didn’t complain and diligently did my job, but if you’re really going to accuse me now…!”
Although Baekho wasn’t completely innocent, as someone listening from the sidelines, I couldn’t help but be impressed at his audacity. Even though it was a long job, he was given that task because it was the easiest thing to investigate, but he hadn’t even done that properly.
“Hah! You think I’m taking it too far? How about I show you what ‘too far really is, huh?”
“Stop,” Fallen Gramps demanded. “We are the ones who sent Aures by himself. We should’ve expected he wouldn’t be able to accomplish something as simple as this, so it is our fault for not accounting for it.”
Aures seemed confused about whether Fallen Gramps was for or against him, but soon enough, he was nodding along.
“I-It’s just as Sir Ruingenes says!”
So he decided to take it as support.
The whole thing sent a wave of exhaustion barreling into me. Just as Fallen Gramps said, it honestly began to feel like this was our bad.
Baekho seemed to have thought the same as I did, as he just let out a deep sigh and left his berating there. “Fine… This isn’t the important part.”
“Just where did the corpse disappear off to…?”
The derailed topic reoriented itself as everyone began to present their own theories.
“This could be up to interpretation, but I believe that there is a possibility that someone else is hiding within these very ruins right now.”
“And there isn’t a guarantee it’s just one person either.”
“Yes. Also, if that is the case, they are likely quite talented in stealth. Even though we searched every nook and cranny of this place, we didn’t find a single strand of hair.”
“Oh…! From the way you said that this guy could be bald!”
Baekho nodded at GM’s theory. “Someone definitely could be hiding here.”
“Yes. We cannot ignore that possibility—”
“Well, I also think that someone among us could have some ulterior motives as well.”
This guy was the same as ever. Was doubting his allies just a habit of his?
It’s honestly an illness at this point…
Of course, I knew somewhat of Baekho’s painful past so it wasn’t totally inexplicable.
“Don’t suspect your allies,” I warned nevertheless. “That’s something you need to stow away as an absolute last resort.”
He was slow to respond, but clapped back with, “Did I say it was a definite thing? It’s just a possibility like I said, that’s all. You should always be open to all possibilities, no?”
I just let out a sigh inwardly and changed the topic. It was about time I heard an answer from him.
“Drop it, and actually answer me. And don’t even think about changing the topic this time.”
“When did I ever do that?”
What do you mean, when? “Always” would be the answer to that.
“What’s the reason you came outside the walls?”
Why did Baekho drag his allies outside the city walls?
Although I had asked him a few times in roundabout ways, I wasn’t able to get one proper answer out of him.
“Why’s that question relevant to our situation?”
“Of course it’s relevant. From what I can tell, everything we’ve encountered doesn’t seem to be aimed at either me or Havellion.”
The fact that someone destroyed the magic circle that led back to the city before killing himself.
The fact that an unknown man lured us to a dimensional headstone while we were walking around getting materials to recover the magic circle.
And even now that we were stuck inside the Golden Ruins.
“No matter who this mysterious actor is that’s messing with us, I believe they are aiming for you.” When he didn’t respond, I pressed him to answer in my deadly serious tone by demanding, “So just let it all out and tell me. I need to know what your goal is so that I can guess your enemy’s goals as well.”
Baekho looked at me from the corner of his eye for a second before defeatedly admitting, “It’s nothing grand. I just wanted to investigate the ‘gray world’ that you talked about, Baron.”
“Investigate? Keep talking.”
“I just wanted to go and check if that gray world really was expanding or not.”
“Isn’t that something you can check if you stay near it and watch it?”
“No. Not particularly. Even though it seems like it’s slowly getting closer, it’s further away if you come back another day. It’s like the tides.”
“So what was your conclusion?”
“I haven’t made one yet. I wanted to make a precise investigation out of it, so I just marked a few places and was about to go back.”
He was about to go back…
Something suddenly popped into my head at that.
Maybe this mysterious person wasn’t trying to stop Baekho from accomplishing his goals outside the city walls. No, there was a good chance that this person’s goals were…
“Ah, this is fucked. From what I heard from gramps, this is going to take at least a year to fix.”
To stop Baekho from returning to the city—that was why that person destroyed the return magic circle and removed all evidence of it.
But it just so happened that GM and I were outside as well so we lumped up together.
GM could fix the magic circle before the estimated time, so because he appeared and threw a wrench in this person’s plans, they lured us to the dimensional headstone to trap us here.
…Maybe that’s jumping to conclusions?
Hmm, well… I didn’t think it was complete nonsense, but I lacked the evidence to be perfectly certain this was how things were going.
I decided to ask a few more questions.
“That thing happening a year from now, the one you told me about.”
Maybe this would be the most important thing to help me understand our situation.
“Just what is going to happen then?”
He didn’t answer.
“Tell me,” I commanded. “I need to at least know that to be able to guess as to who destroyed the magic circle.”
“Hah… I’m going to die from this headache.” Baekho kneaded his forehead before shaking his head. However, he seemed to have concluded hiding the information from me wouldn’t be helpful for anyone. “I’ll only say this once, so listen closely.”
At that, Baekho slowly began to speak.
“It’s war.”
“…War?”
“When the Noarkans finish their preparations, they are going to head straight to the royal capital of Karnon and kill the king of Rafdonia.”
For some reason, I could already smell blood in the air.
***
Noark was planning to kill the king.
And Baekho was probably very closely related to this plan.
No, he might even have a core role in it. With one skill from this bastard, half the palace will get blown away.
However, the problem now was that there were too many people who might want to stop Baekho. Pinpointing who exactly it could be would be difficult.
And if we’re going this route, the most likely thing is that the palace obtained this information and took the initiative to act…
Dealing with people through sneaky and underhanded methods like this was also one of the core techniques of the palace as well.
“But Baron. If they really are aiming for us like you said, then you know that the story becomes even more fucked, right?”
I paused. “What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t like we told everyone that we would be going outside. We didn’t even tell the castellan of Noark that we were leaving.”
“So?”
“It means there really is a traitor among us. Either they are a complete lackey of the palace and are messing with us, or they leaked the information that we were leaving.”
Baekho used his tiger eyes to scan his allies as usual, and Aures was once again the one who flinched of his own accord.
Why does he have no guts despite being a warrior?
“He’s like that because he nearly got punched to death in the past,” Jaina whispered to me.
“By Baekho?”
“Who else?’
Aha, I did wonder why he reacted the most to Baekho’s glares even when the rest didn’t seem affected.
Baekho chose that moment to slowly step forward and stand in the middle of everyone.
“Anyway, that’s why I think I’ll need to interrogate you all. Anyone have any objections?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Me neither! I don’t mind either!”
“Getting this well and truly over with now may be for the best.”
Everyone agreed to Baekho’s suggestion without a question, something that would be hard to elicit if there really were a traitor present. However, he still seemed to want to confirm everything down to the last detail.
“Alright, since I got everyone’s consent…”
Baekho then pulled something out from his sub-space.
It was No. 7234, Misplaced Trust, an item I myself had used a few times at this point.
Still, did this guy make a habit of carrying one around even though he could tell whenever someone was lying?
“This is better for confirmation compared to my ability. I’m going to use it, and everyone is fine with it, correct?”
Even after Baekho pulled out Misplaced Trust, his allies remained calm.
Vwoong!
He clicked the on button, and the compass on top of the round plate began to move.
“Jaina Flyer, have you ever told anyone that we were leaving the city walls?”
“No, I have not.”
Baekho asked the question to each person in order. Although I expected it somewhat, everyone was able to answer him when they were asked the question. However, he didn’t seem fully satisfied with just that.
“Lek Aures. Are you sure you have no relation to why or how we are trapped here?”
To give them no wiggle room, Baekho changed the questions he was asking as he repeated the process. However, even after multiple rounds of this, the result was the same.
“No, I have never done that.”
“Baekho, stop. At this point, we’ve proven that everyone here is innocent.”
“I guess? Looks like we really don’t have a traitor here?”
Baekho’s suspicion seemed to have died down as well, judging by the reduced heat in his voice. However, he was even more stingy than me.
“B-Baekho? If that eased your mind, then we can stop—”
“No, we still have some time left. It’s a waste if we stop.”
“A waste? What do you—”
“Exactly like I said. Since I have it on now… Let’s take some time to get to know each other a little more… We have been together for a while, but we don’t really know much about each other, right?”
Baekho grinned, breaking his somewhat serious demeanor, then turned to Jaina Flyer.
“Alright, in that case, the first question: Jaina Flyer still wants to kill me, Baekho.”
I didn’t know why a question like that was suddenly asked.
“Answer yes if you do, no if you don’t.”
The humor had left his eyes and his words at some point.
At that, Jaina also turned more serious as she answered with a colder voice.
“Yes.”
…Just how were these guys working as allies?