Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 695
Chapter 695: Wolf (4)
Heerkmuta was supposedly the ancient organization created by the followers of the Wizard of White and the Last Great Sage, Diplan Groundel Gabrielius.
“But isn’t this a little weird? If they’re the white wolves, why are their masks black?”
“Who knows… I don’t know why either. And I don’t think that Bryat will be telling us either. What do you think?” Fallen Gramps asked.
Looking just as unsure, Baekho mumbled, “Hmm… He only got like this after the pain amplification, so we might just need to beat him to death? There’s not much else we can do.” He clicked his tongue in “reluctant” acceptance.
Fallen Gramps was slow to respond. “I also thought that it might perhaps be that a ‘taboo’ was placed on him, meaning he can’t speak even if he wanted to.”
“Taboo? What do you mean, gramps?”
“I remember reading something along those lines when I first investigated this Heerkmuta organization. All members take an oath to protect the secrecy of their group.”
“Isn’t an oath different from a taboo?”
“That is why this is only a guess. However, there is a spell among the forgotten ancient magic that forces an oath upon someone who cannot break it, so this isn’t too far off.”
“Hmm… Is that so?”
Jaina hurriedly called for us then. “Hey! Come over here! Mr. Bryat is dead!”
“Hmm? Oh, that? Don’t worry about him. He’s just stretching out while acting dead—”
“It’s not like that, I think he’s really dead!”
Hearing how serious her reaction was, even though he didn’t look fully convinced, Baekho went over to Bryat. The latter didn’t react at all, even when Baekho tapped him on the shoulder with his foot. However, Baekho didn’t show much concern even at that.
“Wow, this bastard’s doing this again. Do you think we’re morons?” Baekho let out a baffled laugh at the limp Bryat before kicking him properly this time. “Look, look. If I kick him properly like this, he’ll get up… Huh? What the? Why isn’t he waking up?”
Bryat didn’t respond, not even after getting kicked. It didn’t take long for Baekho’s expression to harden.
“Really?”
He looked flustered for a second and quickly bent down to check on Bryat’s condition. To be precise, he slapped him on the cheek multiple times.
“Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Wake up! Don’t mess with me! Hey! Wake up!”
“Stop. He’s already dead.”
“No, but isn’t that weird? I even fed him the potions, so how could he just die out of the blue? Hey! Gramps! Did you do something wrong? Did he die while you were opening the sub-space?”
Fallen Gramps, who had suddenly gotten the blame pushed on him, walked over and inserted a needle into Bryat’s neck. After a short pause, he declared, “It’s poison.”
“Poison?” Baekho echoed, stunned. “Oh! Is it because of that poison dust from before?”
“It’s a poison incomparably more lethal than that. From what I can tell, even if he looks normal on the outside, his internal organs are all melted.”
“Then he’s actually dead?”
“That’s right,” Fallen Gramps answered. “There is not a sliver of doubt this time-”
Baekho acted a step faster than the gramps could speak.
Crunch!
Without giving any notice, he kicked Bryat’s head like a ball and flung it away.
Tap, roll…
Silence filled the room at the sudden turn of events. However, a moment later, Baekho was mumbling something in a low voice.
“Argh, nothing’s going as I want it to.” He stretched his arms like this was light work before trudging back to where we were. “Gramps! Tell me. How the hell did this bastard suddenly die?”
“As I said before, a deadly poison—”
“But that’s weird. We’re the ones who got hit by the poison powder, so why is this guy dead from it?”
Fallen Gramps scowled as if to tell Baekho to stop bothering him. “Not even I know all the happenings of this world.”
Baekho only sighed in response. “Hmm, maybe he already ate the poison beforehand?’
“Ah, I did hear about that. People on secret missions always have a poison pill in their mouth…”
“While everyone was distracted by the sub-space, he could’ve eaten the poison pill. That makes sense.”
It made sense, true, but it didn’t completely erase all the doubts I had. However, it would only prolong the awkward atmosphere if I commented here. Judging from the sigh he let out, Baekho also seemed to be swarmed by other thoughts, but he didn’t say much. Since we had used Misplaced Trust just before this whole debacle, he was hesitant to pull it out and openly throw suspicion on everyone again.
“It’s fine. Let’s just investigate the rest of his things. And tell me if something weird pops up.”
“Ah, understood.”
“If I catch you pocketing anything in this situation, I might actually lose it, so be careful of that,” Baekho said, not forgetting to warn his allies one final time.
If I were in their shoes, I would just get even more pissed at him.
Nevertheless, their only reaction was to shake their heads as a response, so they seemed to be pretty used to Baekho’s antics.
“Alright, then that’s mostly done.”
In any case, we all worked together to organize the dropped items, and they were sorted in no time. Equipment, consumables, commodities. Anyone with a soul would have a hard time not looking at all this, and yet everyone present was focused on something else just this once.
It was the pile of all the mysterious items that we didn’t know their uses for.
“Let’s investigate each one in full. Wolf mask, wolf medal. These things are whatever… This, what do you think this painting is?”
“Well… It just looks like a piece of art to me…”
“I don’t see anything written that’s hidden by mana either.”
“Alright, then this. What do you think this is?”
“Isn’t this…women’s underwear…?”
“So it wasn’t just me…”
“Argh! Why the hell does he have this?!”
Although we used our group intelligence to check on each of the suspicious items, we didn’t get anything useful. That was until we got to one particular piece of parchment.
“Why was this put in this pile?”
“Isn’t this just a magic scroll?”
It was a scroll that would allow even ordinary people who had no training in magic to cast spells just by ripping it. So why was this in this pile?
“Who put it here?”
“It was me…” GM cautiously raised his hand at Baekho’s question.
“Why did you put it in this pile?”
Fallen Gramps scanned the scroll with his eyes before answering in GM’s stead. “This is likely not an ordinary magic scroll. There is ancient magic held within.”
“What sort of ancient magic?”
“I can sense it is a teleportation-type spell, but I can’t tell anything else.” GM then turned to Fallen Gramps to ask, “Do you know what it is?”
The latter nodded. “I do know. It could become our saving grace as well.”
“Saving grace…? What are you talking about? Just spit it out,” Baekho urged, suddenly interested.
“Return Scroll. That is the name of this object.”
Return Scroll.
I had never heard of that item during my time playing Dungeon and Stone. However, thanks to how intuitive the name was, I could tell why Fallen Gramps called it our “saving grace.”
“Then can we use this to return to the city?”
“Nobody knows. This scroll only has the effect of ‘returning’ the user to a designated location.”
“If what you’re saying is true, then this is amazing. Even without using an inscribed magic circle or a mana converter, just one scroll is enough to teleport people.”
“That is why this is an ancient magic scroll. It is said that more amazing spells were possible in the ancient times.”
Unlike what we expected, it wasn’t a scroll that would allow us to immediately return to the city, but everyone still looked expectant. Our current circumstances were just that dire.
“Then if we use this scroll, we’ll at least be able to leave the ruins?”
“That’s right. However, we must think about the worst-case scenario as well. If the place this scroll leads to is the gray world, we will be in great trouble.”
“So we’ll need to seriously consider taking it or not.”
As always, Fallen Gramps only gave us the information and left us to make the decision.
With that, the members all looked towards me and Baekho. I could tell that they knew it would be trouble if Baekho and I had differing opinions.
“I want to use it and see where it goes. What about you, Baron?”
“I agree.”
We were aligned in our opinions this time.
I wasn’t expecting it to be safe to use just because it was called a Return Scroll, but he and I would at least need to be in danger if we were going to fight it out at this point. I was already sick and tired of just being stuck here for the past few days.
“But we’ll need to do all our preparations before we rip the Return Scroll.”
“Agreed.”
I sent him a look.
“Ahaha, I just mean I agree with you, Baron.”
And so, after aligning our opinions, we looked over the other items that we hadn’t investigated yet. However, none of them were as special as the Return Scroll.
“There are a total of eight Return Scrolls…”
“I guess with this, everyone can use one and we’ll have two left over.”
Since we had a total of six people here, Baekho and I took the remaining two. We also fairly divided up all the equipment and consumables we got from Bryat. After that, we each had time to collect and ready ourselves to be in the best conditions possible.
“If everyone’s ready, I’m going to rip it.”
Baekho lifted the return scroll, and everyone nodded and raised theirs.
Rip!
We ripped it at the same time.
***
[You have used a Return Scroll. You are transported to the set location.]
***
Tink, tink, tink!
Water droplets tinked in the distance.
At that, I opened my eyes before quickly checking the surroundings.
“Is this…the Crystal Cave?”
“Not quite.”
We were inside a cave that looked very similar to the first-floor Crystal Cave.
“Still, we thankfully have everyone here.”
We had all successfully transported to the same place, and there weren’t any monsters or enemies nearby.
“Quiet.”
Red light reminiscent of a campfire flickered at the end of the passage we found ourselves.
Fwoosh!
After confirming the sight, Baekho and I sent each other signals with our eyes and I naturally stepped up to the front, taking steps forward as quietly as I could.
Well, no matter how carefully I walked, there was no way this huge and armored body wouldn’t make any sounds.
As I turned the corner, I could see a stranger sitting in front of a campfire. It was odd how I couldn’t sense their presence, and they didn’t even move or sway at all as they stared down at the campfire.
“The fact that you are here…means that Bryat is dead, no?” He didn’t even look at us as he continued, “He was a faithful friend…”
“I don’t care. Who are you?” Though he put up his guard, Baekho still asked his question aggressively.
Does his voice sound…familiar?
Alarm bells began to ring in my head at the disturbance.
That was when the mysterious man lowered the hood covering his face and looked at us.
“Still, it has been a while, everyone.”
A face littered with wrinkles.
Pure white hair and beard.
Intense eyes that contrasted his gentle expression.
It was the creator of Dungeon and Stone, Auril Gavis.