Surviving the Game as a Barbarian-Chapter 505: The First Basement Floor (1)

‘I thought… things would go back to normal… eventually…’

She had tried to be patient, but her confidence was waning with each passing day.

The reason was simple.

She had seen it.

[I think it’s better for you.]

[Yandel, don’t take this the wrong way. You’re in a very unstable state right now.]

Her first thought hadn’t been ‘I should have done that’.

It had been ‘I lost’.

She hadn't even considered her own feelings.

She had simply answered his question, trying to guess what he wanted to hear.

Even that, she wasn’t sure of, due to the years they had spent apart.

[W-Well… I think… it’s better to… kill them…?]

She hadn’t even thought about what she wanted.

She had just blindly agreed with him. She hadn’t even considered what was best for him.

Come to think of it, it had always been like this.

She had never questioned his decisions, never offered him advice.

She had been prepared to follow him, no matter what path he chose… but that was all.

‘Amelia Rainwales.’

She felt a difference in their levels as companions.

She finally understood what it meant to be a true companion.

It wasn’t that her place by his side had disappeared while she was gone.

The place she thought she belonged… was nothing more than a storage compartment.

“…Are you okay? You look pale.”

She gritted her teeth as Amelia approached her, concern etched on her face.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

It didn’t matter whether she had a place by his side or not.

It didn’t matter whether he acknowledged her or not.

[Because if you don’t, Bjorn Yandel will die.]

She had a mission to complete.

______________________

About an hour after the start of Day 3.

Rumble!

The entire cave shook, and the crystals emitted a crimson light.

Dreadfear, the Lord of Terror, had been summoned somewhere on the 1st floor.

It wasn’t surprising.

There were already eight raid requests filed with the Explorer’s Guild.

The problem was the timing.

‘Summoned after just an hour? How many teams are waiting for him?’

It wasn't something we, a team of seven, should be saying... but it seemed like there were more than eight teams waiting for Dreadfear.

Well, it was understandable.

Slaying Dreadfear, the Lord of Terror.

I had also considered the possibility that it might be the key to the hidden area when I was planning this expedition.

Unfortunately, the raid requests were already full.

Slaying Verzak, the Lord of the Abyss.

If that was the key, we didn’t stand a chance.

‘…I hope no one summons Verzak…’

I tried to be optimistic, but I couldn’t shake off my anxiety.

It seemed like there were dozens of teams waiting throughout the cave.

And if even one of them got greedy…

‘Whatever, I’ll focus on my own task.’

I couldn’t go around persuading every explorer in the cave, so I just increased my pace.

And after a while…

「Character has entered the 2nd-floor Goblin Forest.」

We reached the 2nd floor and then continued to the 3rd floor at maximum speed.

「Character has entered the 3rd-floor Pilgrim’s Path.」

A vast floor with over ten different fields.

We had entered through the Goblin Forest and were now heading towards the Sculpture Temple after passing through the Greentail Marshes, home to lizardmen. ꭆÃ₦ò𐌱Èʂ

A field filled with the ruins of stone buildings.

It was similar to the Pantelion Ruins on the 7th floor, but there was one key difference.

There were statues everywhere.

All of them headless.

“This place always creeps me out.”

“But there aren’t many people here.”

The Sculpture Temple was the least popular field on the 3rd floor.

There was only one type of monster.

「Character has slain a Nameless Statue.」

The Nameless Statue.

A 7th-grade monster that looked like a smaller, more agile Stone Golem.

And…

「The Nameless Statue has cast [Unanswered Prayer].」

…its skill was notoriously useless.

It consumed a lot of MP, but it rarely succeeded.

Well, it seemed to have a higher success rate for the monsters.

「The Nameless Statue is imbued with a great power.」

If the prayer succeeded, the statue would temporarily gain a random essence below 5th-grade.

That’s why it was so difficult to hunt.

Or rather, it was more troublesome than difficult.

You had to deal with a different skill every time, and there were too many variables.

That’s why there were no explorers who settled here and hunted these statues.

The essence was garbage.

And if you were just after experience points, you could just kill one and move on.

‘And the location is terrible.’

If you wanted to go to the 4th floor, it was much faster to go through the adjacent fields.

‘Well, the material drop rate is decent.’

The only advantage of the Sculpture Temple was the ‘material’ drop.

If you used Distortion magic, there was a chance of obtaining a ‘Magic Crystal’, which could be sold for a decent price.

But it was more efficient to farm them on the 5th floor.

Anyway, we were here for the ‘material’.

There was something else that dropped here besides the Magic Crystal.

“Alright, let’s get to work!”

We didn’t have much time, so we started hunting immediately.

「Bersil Gowland has cast the 6th-grade Space-Time magic [Greater Distortion].」

「Bersil Gowland has cast the 6th-grade Space-Time magic [Greater Distortion].」

「Bersil Gowland has cast the 6th-grade Space-Time magic [Greater Distortion].」

We had enough firepower, so Bersil just focused on casting Distortion.

「Character has slain a Nameless Statue.」

「Character has slain a Nameless Statue.」

「Character has slain a Nameless Statue…」

「….」

We smashed every statue we encountered.

But we still had some downtime, so we split up and started luring the monsters.

“Behel—laaaaaaaaaa!!”

Unlike humans, monsters would blindly charge at you if your Threat level was high enough.

We lured the statues to the center of the field and then had Bersil cast Distortion before killing them.

And while they were respawning, we moved to a different location and repeated the process.

We divided the field into three sections and rotated, so we didn’t have any downtime.

「Character has slain a Nameless Statue.」

「Character has slain a Nameless Statue.」

「Character has slain a Nameless Statue…」

「….」

After a while…

‘We’ve obtained six Magic Crystals.’

…the item we were looking for finally dropped.

“Bjorn! This! Isn’t this what you were looking for?!”

A small stone fragment with an artificial pattern.

「Character has obtained a [Nameless Fragment].」

It was the Sun pattern.

______________________

Nameless Fragment.

An item that could be obtained with a certain probability by slaying a Nameless Statue with Distortion magic.

It didn’t stack in your inventory, and it dropped with one of three random patterns.

And you couldn’t take it back to the city.

‘I have the Sun pattern… so I need the Moon and Star patterns.’

I had a feeling there was a secret behind these fragments, so I had experimented with them in the past…

And now I finally had a use for them.

“So you were after these fragments…?”

“Doesn’t it seem plausible? Star, Sun, Moon…”

“…I don’t know, but it seems like a good idea. Time is a problem, but it’s not impossible.”

We had to farm the fragments on the 3rd floor and then return to the 1st floor before it closed.

It was a difficult task, but not impossible.

It would have been much easier if we had started on the 3rd floor instead of wasting two days on the 1st floor.

“We might be able to do it next time.”

As Bersil had said, it seemed unlikely that we would be able to enter the hidden area this time.

It had taken us eight hours to obtain a single fragment.

‘Sixteen more hours for two more fragments.’

Even if we assumed that the remaining fragments would drop without any duplicates, we didn’t have enough time.

And it was difficult to increase our hunting speed any further.

We had only managed to obtain a fragment in eight hours because we had been luring the monsters and using AoE attacks.

‘And we can’t use Distortion once Bersil runs out of MP…’

Damn, it seemed impossible this time.

I had thought we might be able to pull it off if we hurried…

Maybe I had been too optimistic—

“Oh! Bjorn! Another one!”

Huh?

I looked at the fragment Ainar had handed me.

「Character has obtained a [Nameless Fragment].」

It was the Star pattern.

Which meant we just needed the Moon pattern.

‘What? Ainar found another one?’

‘Beginner’s Luck’ didn’t increase the drop rate of items…

But luck was like momentum.

“I’m changing the plan.”

“……?”

“Ainar will be in charge of slaying the monsters from now on. The rest of you will lure them towards her.”

I decided to prioritize efficiency over speed.

We continued hunting, and after about five hours…

「Character has obtained a [Nameless Fragment].」

…another fragment dropped.

“It’s the Moon pattern…”

It was time to admit it.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.

“Ainar.”

“Praise me all you want!”

“Barbarians are the superior race.”

“Wooooooooooooh!!”

I didn’t stop Ainar from cheering. In fact, I activated [Gigantification] and tossed her into the air repeatedly.

“Wahahaha! Hahaha!”

She seemed to be enjoying herself.

Kwang!

Okay, that settled the reward distribution.

I gathered my team and headed back.

Day 5, Day 6, Day 7…

We were going backwards, a rare experience in the labyrinth.

Thanks to Ainar, we could afford to take breaks and rest, managing our stamina as we traveled.

And finally, on the afternoon of the 7th day…

We arrived at our destination.

The central area of the Goblin Forest.

The clearing near the portal to the Crystal Cave.

The same place where we had fought the three Noark explorers who had tried to block the entrance.

“…What’s this?”

The clearing was filled with explorers.

Over a hundred of them.

They didn’t look like the explorers who had given up on the 1st floor and come up here.

If they had, they would be gathered near the portal…

Flash!

…and their condition wouldn’t be this bad.

“Priest! Is there a priest?! Help!”

“Here, drink this!”

What was going on?

As I approached the portal, the explorers started whispering.

“The Giant…?”

“Wasn’t he on the 1st floor?”

They were surprised to see me coming from the opposite direction.

Damn it, I had wanted to avoid attention…

But it was too late now.

I approached an explorer who seemed to be the most talkative and asked,

“What happened?”

He answered immediately,

“…Verzak! That demon appeared!”

Damn it.

“…….”

I had been too lucky.