Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel - Chapter 692
Chapter 692: Wolf (1)
I couldn’t follow what either of them was trying to say in their conversation. Not Baekho, who suddenly asked her if she wanted to kill him, nor Jaina, who answered plainly without giving it a second thought.
What was the relationship between these two?
“Oh, looking at me with those eyes again?”
“S-stop, Baekho… If we fight in this situation, it’ll only be good for that person who trapped us here!” Aures pointed out, actually saying poignant as he tried to calm the tension in the air.
“Just shut it and stand to the side. Did you think I wouldn’t know you still talk with the castellan?”
“Wh-what do you m-mean?! I—!”
“Hey, you do know that you can’t lie here, right? Still, since you said you didn’t tell anyone that you were leaving this time, I’m letting you be.”
“Th-thank you…”
Something about their conversation gave me the feeling that that moron Aures was actually scheming something behind his back.
Why do these guys work together if they’re going to be like this?
It seemed that my idea of “allies” was completely different from Baekho’s.
“Lord Baron,” GM pleaded. “Maybe you should say something. If the group falls apart because of this…”
“Stay still for now. I’ll do something if it gets more serious,” I denied, deciding to just observe the situation for now.
I mean, you know, at first, I didn’t understand why Baekho suspected his allies. But yeah, it’s understandable if this is what was going on behind the scenes.
They seemed so friendly with each other that I nearly misunderstood, but in the end, all of them were the same type. They were only working together because each of their goals happened to align.
These guys weren’t “allies” at all.
“Gramps…” Baekho went to say something to Fallen Gramps before just letting out a sigh and shaking his head. “It’s fine. I already know you’ve been scheming something from the start.”
I didn’t know why, but I could tell he looked sick of all this. Did he suddenly get a reality check or something?
Clack.
No matter his reasoning, the duration of Misplaced Trust ran out.
Fallen Gramps spoke up to say, “Anything more will be a waste. This should’ve proved that there are no traitors among our group.”
Even with all said and done, Baekho seemed wary as he put Misplaced Trust back into his sub-space. Nevertheless, he added his usual unnecessary tidbit in the end.
“Still, I’m glad. Even I would feel a little bad if I had to kill a few people I’ve been traveling with for the last few years. But I don’t have to do that anymore.” Then Baekho looked up and smirked at Jaina. “Oh, but I guess you wouldn’t know what that feels like? Since you couldn’t even remember things properly back then.”
I didn’t know the details, but I could feel instinctively that these words were meant to pierce deep into her heart.
Jaina’s whole form was shaking as she silently took a step and then another toward Baekho before stopping.
“What?” he taunted. “You gonna hit me?”
Jaina gritted her teeth, glaring up at Baekho as she muttered, “Baekho… We are not toys for you to vent your anger on… So if you’re going to act like a child, go do it to your mother.”
It was a painful retort that made even GM and Aures flinch from their place on the sidelines.
“Oh, I guess you can’t? Since you’ll never be able to return to your original world—”
It was then that Jaina pushed him over the edge.
Baekho’s form suddenly disappeared from view—
Boom!
And an ear-piercing burst of sound accompanied the kicked-up dust.
“Heh, that’s fun.”
Put simply, Baekho had tried to attack Jaina, and Aures jumped in from beside her and stopped him with his shield.
“What the? You were talking about getting back your memories or whatever, but you already got someone to stick to?”
Even as an outsider, it was a cringe, third-rate villain thing to say. It felt like I had been confronted with the lowest point of this man named Baekho.
“Baekho, I understand that this is a problem, but get a hold of yourself. This isn’t like you,” Aures argued.
“And what is like me?”
“You’re always unpredictable and a headache, yeah, but you’re at least not someone who causes problems like this.”
Even as Baekho looked like he would go in for another hit, Aures confidently faced him and said what needed to be said.
Yeah, this is what being a tank means.
There were no bad tanks in the world.
Baekho took a while to respond. Finally, he sighed.
“I’m going to cool my head.”
He then left the room as if running away, and Aures let out a deep sigh. It seemed the situation had just hit him.
“Baekho’s killing intent is always scary to experience. I really thought I was going to choke to death.”
“Haha, even still, you didn’t show any signs of backing down. I’ve seen you in a new light.”
“Ahaha… It’s to protect an ally. How could I back down from that?”
Quietly, Jaina said, “Thank you.”
Aures scratched the back of his head, looking embarrassed.
“Then does everyone want to go first?” our priest asked. “I’ll follow after cooling my head a little.”
“Oh… Right! Should we?”
What do you mean, should we?
Before Aures could say something else, I quickly interjected, “I won’t allow anyone to act without getting the okay from me. There’s no guarantee that we’re safe just because we’re here.”
“Uh… But didn’t Baekho just leave by himself?”
Hey, don’t talk back to me. Do you think Baekho and the priest are the same?
“No is no.”
Although I sternly made my stance known, Aures asked once more, “If it’s a problem for her to be by herself, then I’ll be with her. That solves it, right?”
Uh…when he says it like that, there’s not much I can say back to him. Could this guy speak so logically all this time, and just didn’t do it?
Unrelated to my surprise, I wasn’t going to allow him. “No.”
“Why not?”
There were a few reasons. Firstly, leaving the priest with just this guy didn’t fill me with any confidence whatsoever.
“Didn’t you say that being alone is the problem? Then what’s the problem if I’m together with her?”
The second was a problem with the guy himself. If another relationship problem popped up when things were already as unstable as this, something irreversible would happen more likely than not.
“Answer me. If you don’t, I’ll never come back—”
Man, shut up.
“You can go first, then. I’ll stay with her.” Since I got the feeling he would never back down if I just told him no, I decided to take his place.
Sure enough, Aures was flustered. “Uh… Huh? Y-you don’t have to…”
“It’s fine. Aures,” Jaina said. “I’ll follow soon, so don’t worry.”
“Understood.”
With Jaina joining in, Aures had nothing more he could say and left with drooping shoulders. Once it was just the two of us left in the stone chamber, Jaina turned to me.
“He’s a funny guy, huh?” I began.
“He’s been like that for a while now. Even while joking, he keeps glancing at me from the side.”
“You knew?”
“How could I not? When he’s such a straightforward person.”
I guess?
To be honest, I didn’t really notice it until today.
“By the way, it’s just us two again.”
“Yeah, it worked out that way. I’ll be quiet on this side, so you can collect your thoughts yourself.” I sat down crossed-legged near the entrance, and Jaina leaned on a wall some distance away.
Silence ensued.
While I thought about a few things while chewing on the jerky, Jaina spoke to me again.
“Are you…not going to ask about it?”
Although it felt like it came out of nowhere, it didn’t affect the conversation itself.
“Didn’t you need time alone?” I questioned.
“But I’m not alone, anyway.”
Hmm, that was true.
“Then are you going to tell me if I ask?”
I didn’t put much thought into that question, and Jaina replied in a similar vein.
“It’s not like I can’t tell you. It’s not something I would bring up myself, but it’s not something I need to hide either. And didn’t you say you’d stay with me because you were curious about it?”
Well, that was one of the reasons. “The biggest reason is something else.”
“What is it?”
“Things could get messy if affection comes into play with how things are,” I answered honestly without hiding it.
Jaina laughed, seeming to have not expected to hear it before changing the topic. “No, as I thought. I’m not going to say it.”
“What? Suddenly?”
“Just because. It’s not that interesting of a story anyway.”
“Really? Do as you wish.”
Tsk, I got excited for no reason. I felt the tension leave my body as I sighed.
However, she seemed to feel a little guilty when she saw my reaction.
“Still, I’ll at least tell you this. I lied to you before, Baron. No, to be precise, I omitted a section on purpose.”
“What was it?”
“The person I saved while giving up my memories of them to Lord Karui. I was the one who killed them. Well, you might’ve guessed it after hearing what Baekho said.”
“Could I hear how that happened as well?”
“It’s nothing grand. It’s just that Karui asked them to be an offering. I was promised a new authority, and so I killed them.”
I didn’t respond.
“It’s a powerful authority that has saved my life a few times at this point, but… I shouldn’t have done it. If I knew I would feel this frustrated now, I would’ve never…”
A deep sense of regret laced Jaina’s voice, so I didn’t ask her anymore and let her have some time to herself.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes…
Around thirty minutes later, Jaina got up and said she was fine now before going back down the stairs.
“Are you feeling better now?”
As I stepped inside the ruins again, I could see Aures approach Jaina. The two were having a conversation, but I didn’t go out of my way to listen to them.
When I approached GM to ask where Baekho was, GM just told me he wasn’t back yet.
I sighed. Was this guy going through puberty or something?
“Should we go look for him?”
“It’s fine. There’s no point. He’ll come back if we keep waiting for him.”
“Still, couldn’t an unknown entity be here in the ruins with us?”
“We can wait a little more, and it won’t be too late to go look for him then if he doesn’t come back beforehand.”
More importantly, I had a conversation I needed to have while Baekho was away. I left my conversation with GM there and approached Fallen Gramps.
“Hey.”
“What is it, Lord Baron?”
“I have something I want to consult on with you.”
“Speak.”
Since this gramps wasn’t one to talk a lot, I went straight into the topic.
“About Baekho, did he seem normal to you?”
This was something I had been sensing for a while now. Even if Baekho wasn’t a normal person, he wasn’t someone who would act this recklessly. He only ever did something that would be of benefit to him.
“He probably isn’t in his right mind if you are also saying that.”
“So you sensed something off about him as well?”
“His point of reference isn’t something like good and evil. No matter the situation, he thinks and tries to act rationally. However, the things he did today were too emotional.”
“What’s the possibility he’s like that because he feels pressed for time?”
“That is a laughable theory. If he feels impatient because of something like this, he wouldn’t have been able to run toward his singular goal for close to twenty years.”
“I see…”
Then what made Baekho act this way? Was there a field effect in play that we weren’t aware of? But everyone other than Baekho was too normal for that to be the case.
While I was thinking it over, Fallen Gramps carefully approached me and presented a different topic.
“I am more curious about something else.”
“What else?”
“This is something I thought of as I continued to run through what happened. As I thought, the only explanation is that there is someone within the group who is leaking our information.”
“Haven’t we already resolved that?” We had even used Misplaced Trust to check not just Baekho’s teammates but also GM as well. Well, Baekho couldn’t use it on me because it didn’t work on me, but why was Fallen Gramps bringing it up now?
There was only one conclusion I could draw.
“Are you…doubting me and Baekho?” I asked in a lowered voice.
Fallen Gramps smirked. “That’s not it. Of course, you certainly have the motivation to get in our way… But there is someone I doubt more than you.”
“Don’t drag this out. Get to the point.”
“There is one more person we haven’t gotten answers from.”
What was this gramps talking about? If he kept spouting off like this—
“It’s Bryat.”
I paused. “What?”
“We didn’t hear from Bryat that he wasn’t the one leaking the information.”
“Do you…think he’s alive?”
“Well, as the one who saw his corpse myself, I see that possibility being very low… But his death doesn’t prove his innocence.” Fallen Gramps continued with a completely neutral tone to say, “I’ve reached the same conclusion multiple times even after thinking over it… If one of us is the traitor, then it can’t be anyone but Bryat.”
I didn’t know what proof he had, but Fallen Gramps seemed adamant that Bryat was the traitor.
With that, I took some time to think as well.
The priest wants to kill Baekho, the warrior is a pawn of the castellan, and the wizard is scheming something else. And the archer was now the traitor… Did Baekho even try to make a team?
I wasn’t even surprised at this point.
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