Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel 2025 - Chapter 702
Chapter 702: Calm Before the Storm (2)
Even as I reminisced, it felt entirely new.
The sadness of days past flashed through my mind while my eyes took in his frustrated expression.
“Hmm, that’s strange. You may have made a name for yourself, but not enough for the GM to be interested.”
“If you don’t answer, I’ll kill that red cat.”
“Why are you so nice all of a sudden?”
Starting from when this guy didn’t know that I was Hansu Lee.
“Sorry, I can’t give you Kitty back.”
“Did you lose your hearing while living as a barbarian?”
“Don’t pretend you’re the only normal person. It’s revolting.”
To all the days he purposefully caused me trouble even after learning the truth.
All those incidents opened themselves in my mind like a panorama as a joy that was difficult to describe began to fill me.
I finally got an apology from this guy…
Of course, the apology wasn’t anything genuine. But something like that was rare to begin with.
For me, this was enough. It wasn’t like being genuine or not would change much, anyway.
“So… We can stop here, right?”
Baekho then looked up at me like a puppy who knew he had done something wrong.
Well, my answer was already decided.
Although the correct thing for me to do would be to push forward even at the risk of some loss if Baekho continued to act up against me, I also knew that nothing good would come out of trying to push to that limit.
“I mean, what did I do so wrong? I just wanted to ask you a few questions…”
That end would produce no winners. Only a loser would be left alone in hell.
Still, he backed off first today…
Getting greedy and trying to push him at this point wasn’t a logical step. There was only one thing I needed to do here.
“And you were the one who caused this situation in the first place, Baron. If you just hadn’t done all that suspicious talking with the old man and just left quickly like the rest of us—”
As Baekho began to try to shift the blame off of him like usual, I sternly cut him off. “Stop your waffling there. I’ll decide if we stop here depending on the ‘payment’ you’re going to give me.”
In short, he needed to produce enough money to satisfy me because I wasn’t letting him off the hook otherwise.
“How much do you want?” he asked with a sigh. “Ah, can I give you goods instead? I don’t carry that much cash on me.”
I didn’t give him an answer. The first offer should be made by the losing side, anyway.
When I continued to silently stare at him, Baekho carefully did just that.
“How about two hundred million stones per person?”
Was this guy trying to save money even in this situation?
“Three hundred million per person,” I responded curtly to destroy his hopes.
Baekho let out another deep sigh as he nodded. “Fine. Three hundred million stones.”
“Ah,” I said while pointing at Fallen Gramps, “and you and that gramps will be seven hundred million stones.”
Baekho acted up in anger. “What? No, why?”
Was he asking because he really didn’t know?
“Not killing him here is an incredible concession for us right now. If you don’t have money, give up on those two instead. You can try other things, but I will not negotiate on this point.”
He was unable to say anything when I made clear I had no intentions of backing down. Rather, he looked back at Erwen once before nodding powerlessly.
“Fine. I’ll give it to you. Two billion stones.”
“Then our chat is over.”
“Gramps! I’ll pay half, so you pay the other half! You can at least do that, right?”
“What right does a member who follows a loser as his leader have? Do as you wish.’
“Argh, do you think I’m doing this because I want to?”
Baekho didn’t show any inclination to take responsibility for the situation as a leader.
Although the conversation between him and Fallen Gramps was pretty ugly, the truly ugly thing came after.
“Right. You two can pay for your own lives, okay?”
“Wha… What do you mean, Baekho?”
At Baekho’s order, Aures, who had thrown his body in the line of fire and even sacrificed his arm, responded with betrayal plain to hear in his voice. However, Baekho’s shamelessness was world-class.
“Then what? Should I pay? Aren’t you all adults? You all should take care of your own lives. Hmm? Since you have a head, try using it sometime. If I wanted to, I could just abandon you all here and run away by myself.”
Baekho’s reasoning was so absurd that even as a spectator, I was speechless. I couldn’t even imagine what Jaina and Aures must have felt having a guy like him as their leader.
However, it seemed that they were already well-acquainted with the feeling.
“Whatever… I should’ve expected it. I’ll pay for mine. I don’t want to be indebted to that man, anyway.”
“Then… Then I’ll pay mine as well.”
The two of them accepted without much resistance.
And so, after the accounting was done, I received their money with the help of Versyl and GM.
“What? How is the Ogre leather armor only twenty million stones?! It sells for at least forty million on the exchange!”
“The price was determined after taking the commission fee and holding fee until the goods sell into account.”
“What? Are you joking? How much are you taking off for the holding fee?!”
Versyl and GM went through all the items being sold off to us, and whenever Baekho tried to argue, I was called in.
“Um… Captain?”
“It’s good that you’re here, Baron,” Baekho harrumphed. “You know that this doesn’t make sense as well, right? How can ogre leather armor-”
“If you don’t like the price you were given, you can sell it yourself later, but you’ll need to pay with cash today. And if you can’t do that, just stay quiet.”
“Ah, so that’s why you only raised it by one hundred million stones when I offered two hundred million…”
Only then did Baekho realize why I didn’t raise the price even further as he grumbled. However, once he’d accepted that us taking these things off of him was factored into the price, he didn’t make another peep of complaint.
This is a ton.
After getting paid for everything, to summarize what we got…
Seven hundred million stones just in cash.
We unexpectedly made a huge profit in cash alone because once Baekho realized we wouldn’t be giving him full price for the items, he had scrounged up all the cash he could.
Four hundred million stones in monster drops.
Although we only called it four million, if we put it all on the exchange, then we could make at least double that.
Of course, our real gains were something else.
Nine hundred million stones in equipment.
We couldn’t lower the prices for these pieces of equipment as much as we did for the drops. However, there were some things in the world-precious equipment-that couldn’t even be obtained through money.
No. 696, Imperial Bow of Raindres.
I could probably just give that to Erwen who was using any old bow after returning the Sacred Bow to the elves.
No. 989, Orb of Circulation.
That item greatly increased Natural Regeneration speed when not in critical condition, and our wizard Versyl could probably take it.
To be honest, it was most effective when equipped by a priest, but our clan didn’t have a single one. We could hand it over in the future when we recruited one.
No. 1001, Alonso’s Travel Bag.
To be honest, this was the most unexpected gain. Although its number was lower than the previous pieces of equipment, it could be considered rarer in a sense.
“A bag? It’s small enough to be attached to a belt. Is it like a sub-space bag?”
“No, this is a talisman item.”
Although many took it to be a regular bag or sub-space based on mere looks, Alonso’s Travel Bag was a talisman. Though, it was designated as a “Charm” in English in the game.
“A talisman… Is it something like No. 9999, Beginner’s Luck?”
“Yeah.”
Ainar was the only person within our clan to possess a talisman-type item. Hers was an item that increased the chance of an essence dropping when hunting a monster for the first time, but because it was a binding item, she couldn’t remove it or replace it with something else.
Unlike No. 1001, Alonso’s Travel Bag.
“Then what’s its effect? To be honest, I have no idea…”
Amelia was the one who answered Versyl’s question. “It increases your chances of not being attacked by monsters, and when a monster dies nearby, it gives you additional mana stones.”
Honestly, she was weirdly knowledgeable about items like this. She was like those kids who could rattle off the names of dinosaurs with difficult-to-pronounce names.
It felt just like that.
However, as the expert of Dungeon and Stone, to provide some additional context…
Rather than lowering the chance of being attacked, it just lowers your threat level.
Because of that, this was a talisman that I as a tank could never take. Not to mention, the threat level wasn’t lowered by a set amount but by a percentage.
I think it was around a 40 percent decrease?
In any case, we obtained an item that was good to have around for any party. Ignoring the threat level part, it would allow us to obtain additional mana stones as we went along defeating monsters in the labyrinth.
We’ve permanently increased our mana stone gain by 1.5 times.
I would need to think more about who to give this to later, but I decided to let Auyen, our weakest member, hold onto it for now.
“Alright, then that’s that, right? Today’s mistakes have been taken care of, okay? We won’t bring this up in the future, alright?”
“Of course not.”
Baekho sighed. “I don’t know how things ended up like this… Alright, we’re off.”
“Wait, where are you going?”
When I hurriedly stopped him from leaving when the payment was settled, Baekho shot me a look that practically shouted, “What is your problem?”
“Why? Didn’t we do everything we needed to?”
“I can still ask, can’t I?”
“I don’t know. Our original plan was to find a way to fix the magic circle to return to the city…but it can’t be helped. Even if we go back now, there’s nothing we can do.”
The subtext was that if he tried to continue with the original plan, that old man would come and eliminate him. But that wasn’t important, so I let it be.
“Then where are you going?”
“Anywhere. It’s not like we can continue to travel around with you like nothing happened, right, Baron?”
Hmm, honestly, I was considering that as a possibility.
An evil spirit from another world, —, after losing three of his allies, will realize the path he must take.
If I could make them my allies and travel around with them, I could maybe offer them up to the prophecy instead.
“So don’t try to stop us. No matter what you say, we’re not going to be traveling with you.”
There was no way that prideful guy would work with me after being humiliated.
Alright, let’s just make a clean break.
Ultimately, I didn’t think it’d work out either. No matter what happened, it wasn’t as if I would think of these guys as my real allies to begin with. And if I actually did begin to consider them my real allies, the plan would become meaningless, anyway.
Baekho hacked out a spitball and spat it on the ground. “We’re going now,” he declared, then left with his “allies.”
“They’re gone…”
As the tension suddenly left my body, my allies came up to me.
“Mister, are you alright…?”
“Y-you look pretty exhausted…”
I lay flat on the ground, arms wide, and watched the worried faces of my allies surround me.
“Bjorn Yandel.”
And among them, I could see Amelia looking pretty angry.
“You’ll tell me how you ended up coming out here, why you weren’t returning, and why you were fighting with them.”
Yeah. It made sense they’d be curious about that. I had disappeared for a few months without a word.
I used all the strength in my body to sit up and begin, “Well—”
“There are a lot of questions we need answers for, but you look tired.” Amelia smirked before gently pushing my shoulder back down to the ground. “Rest for now. We can hear you out after you do.”
At that, something in my chest eased, and my eyelids drooped closed. It felt as if I would fall asleep at any moment.
However, my mind continued to race.
Ba-dump!
My allies luckily ended up coming outside the city walls on time and helped me avert danger. We were also able to push Baekho back and gained a lot from him.
However, even after all that…
I ended up meeting them here.
Could I really consider this a good thing?
The fact that I was able to reunite with my allies that I only hoped to meet again a few months later….
An evil spirit from another world, —, after losing three of his allies, will realize the path he must take.
Was it really just a coincidence?