Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel - Chapter 727
Chapter 727: Traitor (1)
Why are you here?
That was the look he was giving me with his eyes.
Even though I was impressed by the range of emotions his gaze could convey, I also understood where he was coming from with it. I had spent the last few days being holed up by the king, after all, so no one had seen me anywhere in the vicinity during that time. He probably never expected to see me here.
Then again, he could have heard that I spent time around District Five before I arrived at the gate.
But shouldn’t he be even more surprised if that were true?
Yeah, probably. He would be wondering what I was doing here when I should’ve been in the middle of the district.
“Ah, it’s been a while.”
My smirking reply seemed to have shocked him from his stupor, judging by the way his mouth pursed a little as he spoke.
“Pshehe… We ended up gaining quite a bit of support recently,” he greeted in his usual relaxed manner.
However, it was obvious he wasn’t feeling anything close to “relaxed.” After all, summons that reached a certain level only needed the summoner’s will to act, even if that will be unspoken.
“P-pshehe…”
As soon as the Corpse Collector let out that awkward laugh, the chimera he had been riding so confidently began to retreat from me.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
As I swept away another horde of corpse soldiers around me with the swing of my hammer, he responded in a stutter, “W-well… Ambushing you at night is a bit cowardly, pshe… S-so I’ll s-see you some other time!”
Did he even know what he was saying?
There was no telling, but I didn’t let go of the opportunity and instead clung to my warrior’s intuition.
The necromancer, who should have been stationed at the very back, had shown himself at the vanguard, and I really didn’t know why. Well, if I had to guess, maybe he just wanted to act tough or something like that. Whatever the case, that wasn’t important.
My heart thumped.
If I could just crush his head here and now… Hmm, that wouldn’t be too bad, would it?
No, it went beyond being “not bad” or “great” straight into being the best-case scenario.
He was one of the names on my list, after all.
“How could you just leave like that? Come here for a second,” I beckoned, pointing the hammer at him before gesturing with it. The chimera straight up turned around and began to run away, its four legs accelerating him away from me even as I tried to persuade him. “Just a moment, okay? Let’s have a chat—”
“I-I’m a little busy right now, so…!”
But I was only asking for a little chat. He really was too smart for no good reason.
“Behel—LAAAAA!”
I used Giantization to enlarge my body before charging him. Since I left the gates behind, they no longer had anyone left to defend against the corpse army.
They should be able to handle themselves. I’ve bought them enough time to defend against it.
They weren’t completely left to their own devices either. Although I’d used Giantization to increase the length of my stride, it had an unexpected side effect as well.
Boom! Boom!
As I ran forward with heavy footsteps, the corpses in my way were flattened underfoot.
Crunch!
Not to say I was able to close the distance so easily. That would have been much easier if I had a single movement skill like Leap, but unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten around to getting the movement option for my shield barbarian build yet.
Boom! Boom!
And so, I just moved my giant body forward, and he used all sorts of tricks to try and lose me.
[Abed Necrapeto has cast Corpse Explosion.]
He blew up the remodeled corpses to spew poison.
[Abed Necrapeto has cast Curse of Stone.]
He tried to use CC on me, to block my path with a huge corpse monster, to create a weird fog to mess with my vision, and so on.
He tried everything he could, but there was no way he could stop me when my shield barbarian build’s combat profile was over 70 percent complete.
“Eiyah! This is cheating!”
Such high praise was a given at this point. For a ranged character like him, a tank that couldn’t be stopped was a disaster.
“Just give up and stop! If you stop now, we can settle this with a simple conversation! I swear on my honor as a warrior—”
“Don’t lie! It’s going to be a conversation where our fists do the talking!”
Tsk, how did he know?
Boom! Boom!
In the end, I gave up trying to appease him with words and just silently stomped forward.
Honestly, I wasn’t in a hurry at all. Even running at this pace was getting me closer to him. His movement abilities were apparently as bad as mine.
It’s pretty funny.
He used to be a pretty formidable opponent in the past, but now, he was turning and running just because he saw my face.
A lot of time had passed since those days.
Boom! Boom!
In any case, as I silently closed the distance between us, he began to throw out complaints.
“Ack! Bjorn Yandel! Why are you even here in the first place?!”
“Huh?”
What was that supposed to mean? It didn’t seem like he just blurted that out of frustration.
“Someone, do something! Are you just going to let that monster run around as he pleases?” the Corpse Collector shouted like he was signaling to his allies. However, no one cast support magic or heroically jumped in to save him.
His voice grew more and more aggrieved and frustrated as he shouted, “Are you going to keep ignoring me?! It’s your mistake! You’re the one who said we should mess with District Nine to distract them since Bjorn Yandel is in District Five!”
Oh, something like that happened?
I ended up just lucking into the intel, but in the end, it seemed that the enemies used the fact I revealed myself in District Five to formulate a plan—
“Necrapeto, why is that our fault? If you’re going to blame someone, go blame the vice-captain.”
I looked up at the appearance of a new voice only to see a familiar woman flying low on a broom. It was the Wailing Witch, Lyranne Vivian.
“And we’ve told you from the start—don’t act up and just stay in the back. But if memory serves, you’re the one who insisted you take the front line!”
“Is that important right now?! And why are you only showing up now?! Whatever spell you’ve got will do, so use your magic against him—”
“Eck… I don’t wanna,” the Wailing Witch refused with a disgusted look.
“Eh?”
“Don’t you remember? How am I supposed to stop a monster that keeps reflecting the magic I use on him?”
She seemed to be referring to the essence of Gachabone that I’d already gotten rid of, but that was neither here nor there. I had a much stronger defense skill now, anyway.
[You have cast Scales of Greed.]
I activated dragon mode just in case. The skill didn’t have any reflect mechanic baked into it, but that didn’t matter. I now had the active effect of Dragon Plate of Aegis, which would stack with every hit I took and then be converted to an explosive attack.
This is a shame.
Getting attacked would’ve been better, honestly. That way, I could gain more stacks. Sure, that would be a frightening prospect for the enemies facing me, but so what? Those were just the facts—
“So just grab my hand,” the Wailing Witch concluded.
Huh?
“Grab your hand?” said the Corpse Collector, echoing the Wailing Witch’s words and my surprise.
“Two people riding will be a bit hard to manage, but now’s not the time for that, right?”
That was something I couldn’t let slide as a barbarian.
Damn it.
These guys called themselves the elites of Orcules, yet they were already thinking of escaping?
At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to do anything but watch them fly away.
Oh, but I do have that.
I pulled out the hand axe from my sub-space and threw it as hard as I could. I didn’t think of it right away since I never needed to use it, but thanks to practicing in my spare time, I chucked it in a straight line toward my target.
“Agh!” Vivian cried. She quickly retreated the hand he’d been reaching out and turned in the nick of time to dodge the axe.
“Hurry!” the Corpse Collector urged her.
Vivian got closer once again and reached out to him. I threw another hand axe at her, and she reacted with a barrier this time.
That didn’t matter much, of course.
Vwoong!
Although it was a simple axe throw without the help of any skills, monstrous enough strength was indistinguishable from skills.
Crunch!
Sure enough, the barrier shattered easily as soon as my axe made contact. After breaking through her barrier, the axe’s handle hit Vivian square in her temple. She screamed, then fell off her broom and rolled to the ground.
“Argh, damn it!”
The Corpse Collector let out an expletive but kept running, not even bothering to stop for his fallen ally after she’d tried to help him.
“Wh-where are you going?!” she demanded.
“I-it can’t be helped! A wizard can be replaced, but I can’t!”
“Shut up and come here! Take me with you, you son of a bitch!”
“I need to survive while I still have a chance, pshe!”
It was such a dishonorable thing to say that even I did an audible double-take as I chased after him.
“Hey! You bastard!”
Vivian continued to shout enraged obscenities at him, but the Corpse Collector’s chimera never turned around.
Should I continue to chase after the Corpse Collector? Or should I at least secure her?
I hesitated for a moment, but in the end, I stopped in front of Vivian, who was crouched on the ground with a broken ankle. I nearly stumbled myself after witnessing such an absurd scene.
“Hah, what a joke… I surrender.”
You can’t surrender when you already lost.
Vivian ground her teeth as she watched me silently approach. Surprisingly enough, her anger wasn’t directed at me.
“Mister, can’t you just let me go? I’ll kill that bastard myself… Hmm?”
The look in her eyes told me she was being 100 percent sincere.
I weighed whether letting her go would benefit me more in the end.
“Nah.”
However, I merely rejected her offer and raised my hammer.
“No, really!” she cried. “I-I’ll do anything you tell me to do… Please?”
Vivian tried to use her beauty and sexuality like a weapon, but she chose the wrong opponent. I was a K-Barbarian who knew what gender equality truly was after growing up in Korea. If I lowered my hammer here, it would be unfair to all the men I had killed up until now.
Men and women were equal. As proof of that, if either one were struck on the head with a hammer, their head would explode—
“Your allies! I’ll take you to where they are!”
Huh?
I froze with my hammer raised high while Vivian, who had clenched her eyes shut, slowly peeked up at me.
“M-maybe…?” she trailed off.
Wow, she was still trying to suss out the situation.
“Say what you have to say. I don’t have time,” I commanded.
“I-I can take you to where your allies are! S-safe and sound!”
Hmm…
“Or I can help you in many other ways!” she pleaded. “D-don’t you need a wizard?”
I already had one of those.
“And if it’s to kill that son of a bitch, I-I’ll even offer you my soul…!”
What should I do about this?
If I just smashed her head in and went to chase after the Corpse Collector, I could probably catch him as well.
I’ll give you just ten seconds to think about this.
Just as her ten seconds were up, Vivian suddenly spoke.
“The t-traitor!”
I tilted my head at the word. “Huh?”
“I’ll tell you who among your allies is the traitor too!”
I needed to hear this one.
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