Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel - Chapter 736
Chapter 736: Clown (5)
When Lion first joined the Round Table, Abed Necrapeto was quite shocked.
“The person who recommended me here is your mother. Is there a problem?”
Those prickly words were used in the middle of an event packed with powerful players of every variety.
“Stop, please. Any more, I’m at risk…”
He had the skills to back up his words.
Lion dominated the Round Table in an instant with his overwhelming killing intent, and no one dared to comment on his opinions.
He was a tyrannous existence. Like the Mongol Army who tore through the western regions with their overwhelming power, Lion took conquest of the Round Table immediately.
However, his true danger wasn’t from his strength alone.
“If you catch a Vamdemon in a group of three people, an essence will most definitely drop.”
“A new holy relic has appeared in the world through an oracle from the goddess of the stars.”
“The Stone of Revival exists.”
Lion knew information no one else knew and shared like it was common knowledge.
People started to wonder what the scale of the organization he was leading needed to be for him to know information like that.
A being shrouded in mystery.
So cool.
Abed Necrapeto admired him. No, it was something closer to adoration.
It was understandable, really.
Crushing those he wanted to crush, and treating others as if they were lowly insects.
When he sometimes got bored, he would throw out a piece of meat and observe the others’ reactions to it.
In Necrapeto’s eyes, he was cooler than any villain he had seen since he was young.
“Maybe… Just maybe…”
“If I gave up everything to come under you… Would you accept me?”
That was why he said this during the final Round Table meeting. Although Orcules was a decent organization, he felt that they lacked something when compared to Lion. If he could just work under him, he felt that he could truly become someone special.
Well, he was refused his request in the end, however.
“Bug! Pshehe…! So it seems that everyone looks like that in your eyes, Lion?”
He wasn’t that disappointed. It just meant he hadn’t captured his attention yet. He just needed to accrue more infamy and become an even bigger villain. Then he might reach out to him first. That was what Necrapeto expected to happen. However…
Bjorn Yandel…
The troublesome barbarian who had constantly gotten in his way and who had given him the weird nickname of Toy Collector…
…is Lion?
The first emotion he felt was denial.
There was no way. He was definitely just saying that after hearing it from somewhere.
Ring!
And yet, a part of him accepted it. It was as if the blurry truth he had been trying to ignore was starting to become clearer.
“Lion is Bjorn Yandel.”
That was what Queen had said when Lion had returned after an absence of two years and six months. The light had turned red in the end, but it just showed she had that much suspicion of him.
“A new holy relic has appeared in the world through an oracle from the goddess of the stars.”
The fact that Lion knew the information about the Reatlas Church earlier than anyone else—that made sense if he was Bjorn Yandel. He was the one who received the oracle, after all.
“Clown is the Corpse Collector.”
Same for that as well. When he first openly fought against Bjorn Yandel, he revealed to him while wearing the mask that he was Clown.
“Are you—?!”
The reason he suddenly let out such killing intent back then wasn’t just the whim of the absolute, but out of revenge. Seeing those eyes that looked down on him as if he were useless, Necrapeto came to accept it.
“Boring.”
The Lion that he so adored was Bjorn Yandel.
***
The expression he gave me was exactly the one I was expecting.
At first, he denied reality, then felt betrayed by the situation he had to endure, and finally, in the end, he feared his coming death.
When I canceled Giantization and pressed my weight into him with my foot, he scowled in pain for a moment before starting to laugh maniacally. It probably wasn’t just from the shock of finding out that I was Lion. He only had half of his head remaining, so there was no way he was still sane.
Ugh… That’s gross.
Still, since I controlled my strength on the last attack, he didn’t die instantly. I did consider just letting him go in one clean hit, but…
Yeah, no matter how urgent it is, I still need to loot him.
I wouldn’t get much if I just killed him outright. It would be that Staff of the Netherworld that he was holding in his hand at most.
This is why the highest-ranking adventurers are a pain to deal with.
When going around the lower floors of the labyrinth, I could just kill adventurers, go through their bags, and take off their equipment. However, most higher-ranking adventurers had sub-spaces, and this guy’s sub-space should be much larger considering that he was a necromancer.
“Hey, are you listening? Huh? Can you hear me?”
Although I asked multiple times, he only laughed into the air.
“Tsk.”
In the end, I pulled out a potion from my sub-space and poured it over his head.
Sizzle!
What the, did this guy lose the ability to feel pain?
Even though the potion was boiling and producing steam, he didn’t show any reaction and only stared into space. He only began to scream when his deeply dented head was about halfway healed.
“Pshe! Pshehe! Pshe, pshe, pshehe!”
He convulsed, bouncing up and down as he let out a screaming laughter.
What the hell is this?
I felt spooked by the sudden horror scene, but it was just the consequence of him returning to sanity.
“Ugh, argh! Bahaha, ahhh!”
At some point, as if to prove that his brain just had been malfunctioning, his screams returned to normal.
Alright, this should be enough.
I gently tapped him on his cheek with my hammer.
“Can you hear me now?”
“Ugh, ha, ugh.”
Hmm, so his brain hadn’t recovered enough to let him speak.
“Blink if you can hear me.”
Blink.
“Why are you blinking only one eye? It’s pissing me off.”
Blink, blink.
“You didn’t intend it? Hmm… Sure.”
Well, that wasn’t the important part.
“Alright, then you will undo the ownership seal on your sub-space. Now.”
I went immediately into the main topic against the guy who desperately seemed to need rest, but he, unfortunately, refused me with his eyes.
Blink, blink, blink, blink.
His left eye blinked rapidly.
“So you’d die rather than give them to me?”
“Ugh, agh… Eurgh…!”
“I can’t tell what you’re saying so just talk with your eyes,” I griped, openly annoyed.
His eyes only blinked even faster. It seemed he didn’t want to just die like this.
“Then what? Do you have something to say?”
Blink.
“Alright. Then I’ll pour a bit more of the potion on you. When you can talk, you’ll open up the sub-space as payment for my potion. Alright? Answer me.”
Blink.
I got the feeling that he blinked a little later than he could have as if to say he didn’t like my suggestion, but I was probably just mistaken.
If a mute were offered an opportunity to speak, they would give up all the money in the world just to do so.
Yeah, my suggestion was fair and logical.
Crunch!
Since he could run away again after his brain healed, I broke his legs with my hammer once more.
Sizzle!
When I poured a higher-ranking potion over his head to fulfill my end of the deal, his screams became louder and louder. Still, it seemed his shattered head was beginning to reform itself somewhat.
“Aaaaack! Ugh… Aaack!”
The Corpse Collector began to scream more normally than before.
Sizzle!
After ten more minutes passed, he finally calmed down enough for us to be able to talk.
“Um…”
“Sub-space. You need to keep your promise. Take out your sub-space before we start talking.”
“N-no, how can you do that—?”
“I’ve wasted my time,” I said coldly and slowly raised my hammer.
He quickly shook both hands and shouted, “I-I’ll give it to you!”
Yeah, should’ve done that from the beginning.
“B-but you need to keep the promise that we’ll talk for a bit…”
“Don’t worry about that.”
I was generous enough to let him at least leave a will if he truly handed over his sub-space willingly.
“I-it’s done.”
When he undid the ownership seal, a bright light shone from his heart as a translucent marble popped out.
It looked ordinary on the surface, but when looking at it closely, dozens of very small magic circles were overlaid on the marble.
Wow, a sub-space that wasn’t even a bracelet but was held within the body was pretty expensive from what I knew.
“You’ve been carrying around something pretty good.”
“I-I lucked into it.”
I supposed bad guys living better was just the truth of the world.
“I-if you want to open the sub-space, you’ll need a wizard to reimplant it later…”
“I know. You don’t need to explain. Alright, I’ll give you ten minutes.”
Even as I gave him the hard deadline, I grew curious.
What would he say in those ten minutes? Would he act like he was repenting and beg for his life? Or maybe he would offer something up for trade?
The answer I got was completely different.
Before he even opened his mouth, he looked intensely focused, like an announcer on standby before the broadcast.
“Pshehe…”
And then, he laughed like when he wore the Clown mask.
He’s laughing?
He continued as if he heard what I was thinking.
“Why? Did you think I’d shake and beg and plead for you to spare my life?”
Uh… It would be a lie if I said “no” now, but it pissed me off to acknowledge it.
When I just stayed quiet, he laughed again.
“Pshehe… I was truly surprised! Bjorn Yandel, on top of you being a player, you were even Lion!”
“What are you trying to pull here?”
I couldn’t hold back at his dramatic monologue, and he laughed again at my question.
“What? I know that I’m going to die soon, so I’m taking the time to have my final conversation.”
Wow… This guy was fully into character. To be honest, I thought he was just roleplaying being unhinged, but now I could tell it was genuine.
I was lost for words at the true extent of his depravity.
“Do you have no desire to live?” I demanded.
“Of course I do! But it’s not like you’ll let me live just because I beg for that, right?”
That was also true. But wouldn’t people usually at least try?
“Pshe, I’m different from those ordinary people.”
“What’s so different about you?”
“The law of the jungle is the law of the world. I don’t have even an inkling of complaint about that.”
“Then? Why did you ask for time to talk?”
“I mean, isn’t this more fun?”
Oh, I see…
It seemed that his brain hadn’t fully healed yet. Yeah, that was why he was saying this nonsense ten minutes before he died—
“Psheheshe…”
At that moment, I could feel a familiar emotion coming from the smiling eyes of Clown.
Huh?
Fear, despair, regret, disappointment… The dark emotions couldn’t help but appear when a living creature was about to meet its end.
“Why? Are you disappointed? Because I didn’t cry and throw a tantrum and beg you?”
Upon closer inspection, I could see that his body was shaking very subtly as well.
I realized it only then.
“You’re only acting like you’re fine.”
He paused. “What do you mean? I really am fine. I was weak, and you were strong. That’s why you have the right to enjoy the rights of the victor.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to go out honestly in your final moments?”
Although he deserved to die more than most, my advice to him was genuine.
Everyone wore a mask, and it wasn’t wrong that they did. However, maybe it would be best to take off that mask during one’s final moments. That was my thought, and it was the sole mercy I could show him in the moment.
“Pshe…”
However, even with my advice, he continued to maintain that false smile on his face. Still, it did seem like the words reached some part of him.
“To be honest… This is quite a tough world to live in. Ah! Of course, that doesn’t apply to someone as strong as you. Pshe!”
Law of the jungle, law of nature, no intention of resisting. That last sentence felt more genuine than any of the other things he had said.
Hah, this is driving me nuts…
I should’ve just killed him before.
Even then, I ended up asking him, “Hey… What’s your real name?”
The Corpse Collector, Abed Necrapeto.
“Pshehe, are you suddenly interested in me?”
“Yeah.”
I ended up becoming curious about him.
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