Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel - Chapter 611
Chapter 611: Mystical (4)
Our large ship had been dropped in the middle of the jungle.
After getting everyone off the ship first, it was unsummoned. With how tilted the ship was on land, it was getting too precarious to stand on, and we needed to get off the boat anyway, even without that factor. It wasn’t like we could travel through the jungle by boat—
“M-monster…?”
“What? A monster!”
It couldn’t be helped that a commotion was created while getting Hamsick off the boat. We needed to get through this at least once. I had put Hamsick in my armor to hide it while moving ships during the rainy season, but I couldn’t hide it forever.
However, the reaction it received was different from what I initially expected.
“Wh-what’s with that monster…?!”
“But for a monster…isn’t it cute?”
“This is my first time seeing such a thing.”
The reactions were a far cry from the horror Hamsick received on Library Island. Everyone was seeing it in its true form.
“So this is what it looks like.” Amelia returned to the boat from scouting out the area and stepped up to my side. She then looked at Hamsick with a sparkle in her eyes. “Can I touch it?”
“Ask it yourself…isn’t what I want to say. Let’s get a bearing on our situation first.”
I quickly intercepted the situation and asked everyone to lower their weapons aimed at Hamsick.
“This is the entity we met at Library Island and isn’t our enemy.”
“S-so it’s not a monster?”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but I believe that this guy will help get us out of Basement Floor 1.”
“Ah…so it was because of this monster. The reason you visited that island before.”
“So when are you going to lower your weapons? Do I need to say it again?”
“Ah! I-I apologize!”
In a military setting, it was only right to blindly obey the orders given by those higher in rank than you.
As I was the supreme commander of this expedition group, everyone followed my orders and put some distance between them and Hamsick while looking at it with wary eyes. Nevertheless, no one did anything rash.
“(…What is going on? I can’t understand what they are saying, but they’re looking at me differently than usual.)”
“(Ah, about that,)” I said pleasantly. “(It looks like everyone can see your true form here for some reason.)”
“(What? But if they are, why are they still so on guard…?)”
“(It’s natural. Even if they can see your true form, it’s true that you’re an unfamiliar entity.)”
“(Ah… I-I guess that makes sense…?)” Like the people, Hamsick seemed quite flustered, judging by how it couldn’t come to an obvious conclusion like that. And maybe because it had nothing it could rely on, it stuck close to me and grabbed onto my clothes.
“(Don’t stand there. Come here.)” I just grabbed Hamsick and put it on my shoulder.
It was surprised at first and struggled by kicking its arms and legs a little, but it soon gained its balance and curled up. I could tell that Hamsick liked being on my shoulder.
Well, I guess it’s like raising a pet.
In any case, the problem with Hamsick was resolved.
“Search captain,” I called in a quiet tone, and Amelia finally looked away from Hamsick. “What did you find when scouting?”
“There’s nothing in our immediate vicinity. Not even that flying entity that you say you saw. The wizards of the search team didn’t find anything peculiar either.”
“I see.”
Alright, then that meant there was nothing dangerous in our immediate vicinity.
Tap, tap.
After a moment’s contemplation, I ordered the deputy commander to get everyone to set up camp. Although exploration was a top priority, I decided that rest and reorganization came first. Since every member of the expedition team was an elite, the camp was set up very quickly.
“Listen up before you go and rest.”
I gathered together the members who survived the rainy season with me. Although they all looked exhausted, none of them complained. This was a world of loss. Everyone already knew what we were going to do.
“Deputy commander, I’ll leave it to you now.”
Once I handed the baton to the deputy commander, he slid into flowery language to state the name and occupation of the deceased and what that person died for.
“Archbishop Altbehimun, if you will.”
The priest prayed for their souls, and with the wizard handing off the cremated remains to the people closest to the deceased, the ceremony promptly came to an end.
“The ones who are part of the patrol detail, go and rest now! Today may be the last day we can rest like this! Ah, and don’t forget your shift orders!”
The members quickly went to take a rest—and would have done so even without the deputy commander’s orders.
There were, of course, a few exceptions.
“Armin.”
The captain of the Armin Adventurer Group, Myul Armin.
Though he would be put on guard duty soon enough, he was standing quietly in front of the place where the bodies were cremated.
Walking up to him, I asked, “Where’s Wyatt Hektz?”
“…He seemed to have gone to sleep.”
“Well…I guess he would be pretty tired. What about you?”
“…I’ll need to go and rest as well.”
Although he said that, he was probably going to put off going back for a while. Unlike the Hektz Clan, which seemed more like a business, the Armin Adventurer Group were all pretty close and had a long history with each other.
“Sure, I’ll go first, then,” I obliged. “Make sure to rest up.”
“Alright.”
After that, I patrolled around the campsite. Amelia, Erwen, Missha, Goblin, Versyl… Everyone seemed to have been exhausted, as each of them was sleeping already when I found them, so I moved toward my tent as well—my one-person tent in the center of the camp. It had been put in place by the deputy commander, who said it would not be right for the commander to stay only near Squad 4.
They even got me a camping bed as well.
I smirked and put Hamsick onto the camping bed.
“Goodnight.”
A blanket was enough for a barbarian.
***
Guard duty was done in shifts so that each member of the expedition could take a good rest. After spending a day changing our personnel, we officially resumed our exploration. Of course, since we had over a hundred people here, we couldn’t move without a plan.
“Investigation captain.”
“Yes?”
“…You know, right?”
“…Yes. I’ll be back soon.”
After attaching the investigation captain, who was quite proficient just as a wizard as well, to the search captain, they were able to scout out a much larger area in a shorter time, and we held a leader’s meeting with the information they gathered.
“We searched in a wide radius around our group, but we couldn’t find any monsters.”
“What about that temple in the distance? Have you checked that as well?”
“Yes. We weren’t able to check the interior of the temple, but we didn’t find any monsters near it.”
“Why didn’t you check the inside?”
“Something magical was blocking the entrance.”
“Something magical?” It was an outrageous thing to hear from a wizard who was elite enough to be a member of the expedition group.
However, the investigation captain spoke confidently. “I’ve investigated it, but I wasn’t able to figure out its mechanism. This is just a theory, but I feel it is a similar effect to the dimensional severance phenomenon we find in rifts.”
“A dimensional severance phenomenon… Ah, you don’t have to explain that. Any adventurer would know what you’re talking about.”
Dimensional severance phenomena could just be called a “barrier.” It occurred in the Witch’s Hut and the Bloody Citadel. The place you entered after walking through the portal seemed like another world, but due to the barrier that surrounded the place, it couldn’t be destroyed no matter what you did.
“So what you’re saying is, it’ll probably be impossible for us to just force our way in.”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “We can’t ignore the possibility that we can’t enter it in the first place—”
“No, that won’t be the case.”
“Pardon…?”
“…I just have a feeling.”
I belatedly caught my mistake and tried to pass it over like a barbarian would, but I had proof that gave me some certainty. Not really proof, but just some statistics.
Even though there are some situations where it’s impossible to exit a set area, there has never been anything that stops someone from entering a place.
It was more normal for there to be a certain condition that needed to be met to be granted access to the interior.
“…Then could I continue with the report?”
“Ah, go on.”
After that, the investigation captain explained everything he found or figured out during the survey of our surrounding area.
Even though we were in a jungle, he couldn’t see a single insect. He saw multiple plant species that were found more commonly on the Dark Continent. And he also told us that he found a few rusted metal fragments on the ground.
He continued to rattle off small pieces of information that seemed insignificant now but could be useful later, and I tried my best to at least keep a few of them in mind.
I made my decision after the report was finished.
“Be ready to move as soon as this meeting is over.”
“Are we going to head toward the temple?”
“That’s right.”
Since that was the only interesting thing we found nearby, I was planning on going there and checking it out myself. If there was nothing dangerous, we could recenter from that place and investigate the area around it then.
Making a map first is the best no matter what we do.
And with that, our exploration began.
Our hundred-some-strong members moved in set formation as everyone moved in their assigned positions through the jungle, and soon, we reached the temple, where dozens of stone buildings encircled the large monument.
“Hmm…doesn’t this look a bit familiar?”
“I feel the same way. It’s as if I have seen this somewhere before.”
“Where did I see something like this?”
From just the reaction of the expedition members, I could tell that I wasn’t mistaken.
“…Panthelion Ruins.”
“Hmm?”
“Weren’t the ruins you saw there in a formation like this?”
“Oh! It does feel like this is what those ruins would be like if they were still standing!”
If what I was thinking was right, then the place we were in was the Panthelion Ruins on the seventh floor. Or rather, it was highly likely to be a recreation of that place’s original form.
“Then let’s check the temple first.”
We immediately made our way toward the temple.
The stairs that were situated at the center weren’t that tall, and the entrance was around the third floor in height. There, we found a stone door that seemed to open from the side or slide up and down.
“Investigation captain, have you found a different way we can enter the temple?”
“No. It seems that the dimensional severance phenomenon isn’t just for the stone door, but the entire temple…”
“Sure. Then you don’t have to join in on the exploration, so continue to focus only on investigating the temple.”
“Lord Baron… No, commander, where are you going to go?”
“I’m not going now. I’m thinking of spending a few days here and increasing our search radius with this as our new focal point. It’ll become easier if we have a map.”
In truth, after giving them the duty of scouting, I put more focus on creating a map.
Each squad deployed a few individuals to increase our search radius, and we put our highest priority on creating a map, but after spending an entire week on our search, we didn’t learn anything new.
This place is pretty big.
Unlike most rifts where the dimensional severance phenomena could be seen after deviating just a bit from the central area, this place was quite wide.
A river.
Also, far to the east of the temple, there was a flowing river. Considering that we were suspecting this place to be the Panthelion Ruins, that river was likely to be the Aribeona Estuary considering its location…
It’s a lot different from what I know.
But it was a lot different from the Aribeona Estuary that I knew, so I was still a bit confused.
I can decide after searching the area beyond the river as well…
The search and investigation teams weren’t finding much, but surprisingly enough, the research team headed by Raven found something.
“The metal pieces we picked up in the forest. They aren’t normal metal.”
“Is it a new material?”
“Yes. I don’t know if we can even call it a metal. There’s no metal in this world that, rather than rusting, rots with time.” She showed me a metal sample with black splotches like dead skin and a disgusting stench. “If you look, you can see its size decrease as it continues to rot.”
“…What an interesting metal.”
That was the knee-jerk reaction I had to Raven’s information, but my attitude quickly changed at what Raven said next.
“But….I did think of something as I looked at it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s about the field of alchemy. In truth, I heard that it was a field that started in the past to create ‘humans.’”
I had heard of it before. Well, nowadays, it was just a field that used the energy of the mana stones to create other materials.
“So?” I prompted.
“I got interested in it in the past, so I read up on it a little. But do you know the reason why the ancient alchemists failed in creating a human? It’s because they couldn’t create flesh.”
“Flesh?”
“Yes. Flesh, skin, muscle…things like that. That’s why even if you give it a soul and do whatever to it, you couldn’t create a human. Creating golems with intelligence was doable, however. You know it as well, right, Mr. Yandel? About the Meltai Statue.”
“You mean that steel golem that protected the kingdom during the Iron Wall Revolt before being destroyed?”
“Yes. That’s right. Meltai is one of the most famous golems that were made after being imbued with a human soul. Of course, it’s now illegal to create golems using souls, so no one can research it any more.”
Oh, I didn’t know that.
“…Alright, so what’s the point you’re trying to get at?”
Raven looked a little sheepish before summarizing everything in a single line. “It’s just…if a metal like this existed back then, I feel like what I spoke about might be doable in real life.”
Even though it left me feeling quite disgusted, the story continued to stick in my brain for some reason.
However, maybe she just discovered a new material that could be useful for us in the future.
“Raven, research it well. Try and think of a way we can use it as well.”
“Alright.”
With that, my conversation with Raven ended, and as time passed, that story naturally faded from my brain and so did my interest in the new material.
“Commander!”
However, a few days passed after hearing that story from Raven.
As I woke up from my sleep and received the report, I couldn’t help but freeze, blindsided by what I heard.
“It’s humans! An unknown group of humans were discovered near the Estuary!”
Why was it that the first thing I thought of was the conversation I had with Raven?
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