Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 698
Chapter 698: Evil Party (3)
Fragments of Records Stone were, just as their name suggested, fragments of the Records Stone, which was said to have written records of all time—past, present, and future.
I knew the power of these records better than anyone else.
Because I had experienced them before.
Ba-dump!
Back when I had been sent to the past by the Records Stone, I had struggled with all my might and caused all sorts of trouble to change the future of one person’s death, but I failed in the end.
All stories written on the Records Stone would come to fruition. Of course, there were tricks like Amelia’s trick of the eye that could be used…
But that won’t work this time.
What could I even do? I wasn’t a killer filled with naivety and innocence and I couldn’t ask them to play dead to trick me either. And right now, I didn’t even know when this prophecy would be fulfilled.
Ba-dump!
Three people.
Three….
In a game like Dungeon and Stone, allies dying was to be expected. And yet, why was I feeling so much despair at such a small number in front of me?
Ba-dump!
Even as I felt my heart start to clench in my chest, my mind went cold as I tried to stay as rational as possible.
Who were the three people?
No, if I were being honest with myself, who would I wish for those three to be?
It was a thought that should never be held in the mind of someone leading an organization. But at that moment…
“Knowing how it ends is the truest suffering.”
Auril Gavis, who had just given me the hardest question to internalize in my life, turned to me and nodded in mock understanding.
The sight of it made me feel like my blood was churning against its natural flow. After a moment of astonishment, I croaked, “What?”
I wanted to raise my fist and just punch that old man’s face right then and there.
He was still wearing that gentle smile.
I needed to stay calm. It would only be my loss if I attacked him here.
“When…” I shivered and gritted my teeth against the sensation, trying my best to hold everything in, as I asked him, “Do you know…when this will happen? When the recorded events will occur…?”
“I do not. Perhaps I could if the Records Stone were complete, but it is difficult to estimate the timeframe with just the fragments.”
What? Then is he saying there is nothing he can do to help me?
As I felt something snap within me, Auril Gavis continued to say, “However, from the way it is recorded here, it should be a singular event.”
In other words, it wasn’t going to be three people total throughout my life, but one incident that would take three people away from me.
My jaw clenched tight as I asked, “Is there a way to know who those three will be?”
I had contemplated asking this hundreds and thousands of times and finally let the question escape in the end. However, I had no idea if this old man understood my troubles, as all he did was give a simple answer.
“I do not know.”
No excuses or explanations. Just, “I don’t know.”
But for some reason, even though that answer angered me, I was also relieved. If he really did give me the names, I might have lost my head.
“I can see your emotional state is unstable. Are your allies that important to you?”
With inhuman effort, I resisted the urge to snap at him. “Don’t provoke me. I’m at my limit.”
“If you say so,” Auril Gavis said passively, not giving me much either.
A period of silence ensued.
Ba-dump!
Even though a considerable amount of time had passed, my heart wouldn’t stop racing, and my body wouldn’t relax.
Information.
My mind returned to me somewhat.
“Sir.”
“Looks like you’ve somewhat collected yourself.”
I mean, as long as it was recorded, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
“Why did you show me this?”
I concluded this was the first thing I needed to find out. The old man here made sport out of playing with other people. There was no way he showed this to me for no particular reason.
“You want a reason… To be honest, it was closer to acting on a whim. If you simply left back then and didn’t ask me about what this place is, I wouldn’t have shown you this either… But it seems you don’t believe that explanation?”
Obviously not. How could I?
While it might have been true that I was the one who stayed behind to ask, there was no doubt in my mind that for him to have shown me this, he had something cooking in the background.
“No matter how I look at it, you are part of the former.”
I hesitated, unsure of what he meant.
“You said before that you were of the latter, but that is only because you want to become that,” he explained. “You are of the former.”
At first, I wondered what he was talking about, but I understood it soon enough. He was continuing that back-and-forth we had before.
A lie you wished to believe as truth. And a truth you wished were as a lie.
“You wish that my acting on a whim is a lie, but it is unquestioningly the truth.”
It felt like he was forcing the point just to make it, but I didn’t have any sharp retorts I could make. Even so, as I tried to find a foothold in the conversation.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean I am disappointed in you. Even if I asked this question to a hundred other people, they would all choose the truth, but when they encounter such a situation, they would flip on their choice.”
I didn’t respond.
“Isn’t that right, Bjorn Yandel… No, Hansu Lee?”
Fuck, there was nothing I could say to that. I decided to cleanly give up trying to outmuscle this old man using words.
“I understand. So you’re saying things just happened to become this way because I asked you a question, and that you didn’t have anything planned at the start?” I asked like I was summarizing the situation.
Auril Gavis looked with bitter eyes up at the Fragments of Records Stone floating about in the galaxy-like space. “No matter how you think of me, I am not a monster. And as Baekho has said, I am not omnipotent either… I am just an ordinary human who struggles and fights as hard as I can for one thing. Just like you.”
Hmm, well. Sorry to say it just when things were getting serious, but even saying that, you just look like a senile old man in my eyes.
There was no reason to say that out loud, however.
“Since I’m here anyway, can I look at some other things before I leave?”
“Your allies would be waiting for you outside. Will that be fine?”
“What allies?” I asked after a moment of pause. They were just companions on this path. “It’s fine, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
“Hmm, if you say so. I will show you one more thing. But what will be the best to…? Ah, how about you choose this time?”
I didn’t mind Auril Gavis’s suggestion. If I could choose what I looked at instead of being shown something at random, then I could mitigate his trickery to a certain extent.
However, as I struggled for a while to choose which one to look at, Auril Gavis apparently grew impatient as he added one more thing.
“What are you thinking so hard about? It will be up to fate what you choose.”
“If you think that, why do you breathe and think in the first place?” I spat.
Still, I did agree to the point that there was not really a point in thinking too hard about the choice.
“That over there,” I said. “Give me that sturdy-looking, upside-down triangle.”
I chose the fragment that looked like the biggest. A bigger one would probably have more to read, was my thought.
However, the old man seemed to have memorized the contents of all these fragments or something.
“Hmm… I didn’t expect you to choose that one in particular.”
“Why? Is it a problem?”
“No, nothing of that sort… Well, this is also your fate.” He asked me one last time if I wanted to look at it, and after thinking for a while, I confirmed my choice.
As the old man opened his palm, the fragment slowly descended onto it. Soon enough, the fragment was close enough for me to read the text.
However, I seemed to have made a wrong choice.
Why are there so many blank spots?
Even though it looked like the biggest, when I got closer to it, there were many broken and damaged parts, leaving me with not much to read as a result. Even so, I read what I could.
(…day of…tal…non’s burning, … evil spirit’s trusted… lly… betray… em.)
First, the marking that signified a name was the same as the one I saw in the previous fragment, meaning the text was talking about me.
“On the day of Royal Capital Karnon’s burning…a trusted ally will betray me…?”
As I tried to weave together the broken words with context clues, that was the story that came to light.
“Is that the right interpretation?” I questioned.
“No matter the circumstances, your interpretations are solely up to you.”
I clicked my tongue and sighed.
Not reading it may have been better for me, as my chaotic mind only fell deeper into confusion.
A certain incident would kill three of my allies, and even though I didn’t know if this new event would take place before or after, one of my allies would also betray me.
Once again, learning about an unchangeable future felt closer to a curse than a blessing.
“Interesting.”
“Are you enjoying my suffering that much?”
“More than that, it’s interesting that among the many fragments here, you yourself ended up choosing that one. This is the power of fate.”
It seemed that he genuinely found it intriguing. He even asked me if I wanted to look at one more.
“No, it’s fine,” I refused. “I don’t want to get an even worse headache.”
“Hmm, you saying so means it was meant to be. Understood. I won’t force you.”
And so, after ending the Records Stone tour there, I took the steps back down into the cave. We didn’t engage in any particularly interesting topic as we descended.
“So, are you going now?”
“Yes. Just being this far behind them will probably put Baekho on my case for a bit.”
“You are quite similar to that fellow. Both of you want to know everything.”
“When was it that you said I shouldn’t get close to him?”
“That advice still stands. Nothing good will come out of being friendly with him.”
“That advice… Is that for my good? Or for yours?”
“Both.”
Though it had been a while since I last experienced it, extended conversations with this old man here never actually gave me anything of substance. Even more so because I couldn’t tell if each word he spoke was a truth or a lie, which meant that I couldn’t really trust anything he told me no matter how long we spoke.
“Since it did come up, I’ll tell you this one last thing.”
I sighed. “Sure.”
“Be careful of Baekho.”
“Didn’t you tell me that before?” I asked, tilting my head.
Auril Gavis ignored me, continuing as if commanding I listen to his warning in full.
“Although I said he played a supporting role in all this, Baekho is still quite the character. Do you see that?” He pointed back toward the hundreds of fragments that were slowly rotating in the air. “I have personally read not just the ones here, but countless more fragments of the Records Stone, but there is not a single record about Baekho.”
I furrowed my brow.
“This is a very peculiar thing,” he insisted. “The fact that someone of such influence—and most importantly, someone with such a close connection to you—has no records at all.”
If what he was saying was true, it absolutely was weird. Was there some secret about Baekho that we didn’t know about?
There was no telling.
“So be careful of Baekho. The fact that he doesn’t appear in the records also means that he is free from it. Although not completely free, he at least is compared to us.”
“I’m keeping my guard up against him anyway, so don’t worry.”
“That’s a relief to hear.”
“Even if we part here, I’ll see you again someday, right?”
“That is what you call an inevitability.”
“Then I’m heading out for today. And if possible, let’s meet each other as far in the distant future as possible.”
“I also wish for that.”
Auril Gavis looked at me in silence, and I didn’t say much either. I just eyed him up and down once before giving him a slight nod and then taking the portal.
“Oh! You’re here!”
“I-I’m so glad! I was worried!”
“What the hell! Why are you only out now? Baron! You talked with that old man, right? Huh? Huh?”
I opened my eyes to see the many faces trying to catch my attention.
Baekho.
Lek Aures.
Jaina Flyer.
Belbev Ruingenes.
Yurven Havellion.
Ignoring the fact that they were all evil spirits, there was a complete party of six here including me.
“What? What’s with that look? I think I just got a chill.”
I ignored Baekho’s fussing and recalled the record I read before, suddenly struck by inspiration.
An evil spirit from another world—after losing three of his allies, will realize the path he must take.
The three allies weren’t mentioned in detail.
“You lot, become my allies.”
Maybe there was a way around it.