Surviving the Game As a Barbarian [EN]: Chapter 230

The absolute monarch, once called the First King and the Immortal King, was Lavigion III.

After his death, having ruled Lapdonia for thousands of years, the newly crowned Cataclysm King implemented numerous policies to eradicate the remnants of the former king that were deeply rooted in the city.

A prime example was the revision of the calendar.

One year, 13 months, 365 days.

To more easily calculate the cycle of the labyrinth openings, he fixed a month to 30 days and created a 13th month of only 5 days to match the remaining days.

He also altered the final labyrinth cycle of the year to 35 days by manipulating the portals.

Of course, there was controversy among scholars.

It was not practical to waste 5 days each year for the sake of intuitiveness.

However, the Cataclysm King steadfastly held grand festivals every 13th month, winning the hearts of the people. As the years passed, people adapted to the changed calendar, and the controversy subsided.

Oh, and the regnal year was changed twice.

Initially, it was named after the Cataclysm King, but because it was long and difficult to pronounce, the people used the king’s nickname. Naturally, the royal family began to use that name as well.

And so, time passed—

Cataclysm Year 154, May 2nd.

Seven pillars of fire erupted from each dimensional plaza, engulfing the skies of Lapdonia. It was a catastrophe that would be recorded in history books by the scribes for a long time.

***

“Goddamn it.”

I grabbed my side and struggled to get up.

Then, I grabbed the crutches that were leaning against the bedside and left the room.

Ugh, these damn stairs.

“Bjorn! If you were awake, you should have called me, why are you struggling alone, meow?” Misha, who was cooking on the first floor, noticed me and came to support me.

This makes me feel like a real patient.

Oh, am I a patient?

They said I should rest for a month, but I still can’t properly use my arms and legs.

“Here, sit down. Isn’t this your first proper meal since you woke up? I put some extra effort into it for the first time in a while.”

While Misha went to get Ainar, I took a moment to catch my breath while holding the spoon.

‘It’s been three days.’

Three days have passed since that day.

Of course, I barely feel it.

On the first day back, all the survivors were dragged to the royal palace to testify about what happened in the labyrinth. After returning home, I just kept sleeping.

‘…Those crazy bastards.’

I still get chills down my spine when I think about the moment the pillars of fire erupted.

I never imagined they would try to rob an empty house.

I never dreamed they would set up traps in the center of the plaza where the dimensional gate opened.

And in all seven plazas, no less.

‘…What’s really going to happen from now on?’

The damage we sustained from the normal closure of the labyrinth was minimal, but many large clans, including the Third Royal Knights, were literally annihilated.

Of course, not all of them were without survivors.

Some who had dimensional gates formed on the outskirts of the center managed to escape with their lives as soon as the magic circle began to glow.

About a hundred people, I think?

Oh, and that’s the total number for all seven dimensional plazas.

It’s a bit ironic.

[A great commander is not one who makes perfect choices, but one who makes the choices that must be made.]

Those who made the choices that had to be made died.

And those who were abandoned survived after fighting for days without proper sleep.

Roles reversed overnight.

What if I had listened to his offer and abandoned my comrades to escape?

“I would have died.”

The moment I unconsciously spoke those words, Misha’s voice came from behind.

“Huh? What did you say?”

“It’s nothing. But where’s Ainar?”

“I slapped his back, but he didn’t even budge, meow.”

“He must be very tired.”

“Yeah. I’ll just try to serve him again when he wakes up later.”

She’s tired too, isn’t she?

Even while we were just sleeping, Misha woke up from time to time to prepare meals and helped us rest. She even got crutches from somewhere and took care of them.

She’s a comrade I can’t help but rely on in many ways.

“What are you doing not eating, meow?”

I, who had been staring blankly at Misha, finally came to my senses and picked up the spoon and put it in my mouth.

A taste that seemed to signal the end of a difficult day.

“…What are we going to do about Erwen, meow?”

Misha asked as the meal was almost finished.

After finishing the investigation on the first day, Erwen took her sister’s body to the sacred place of the elves.

“Well, she said she’d come back after the funeral, so I’m planning to talk to her in detail then.”

“Hmm, is that so?”

Misha, who had a lukewarm reaction, suddenly said, “How about just bringing her to live in this house, meow?”

What is it? Is she testing me?

Or is she just drawing a line in advance?

Several thoughts crossed my mind for a moment, but it didn’t seem like that kind of tone.

“What do you mean?”

“Well… you said you lived with your sister, right? It’ll be harder for her if she stays there. But I’m a little worried about her living alone.”

“So?”

“We can’t go into the labyrinth with six people, so that can’t be helped, but I think it’s right to take care of her until she recovers.”

Ah, right, she was this kind of woman.

I felt a bit proud and teased her jokingly, “Weren’t you supposed to hate elves?”

“Eek, what do you take me for, meow? I went to all the trouble of preparing a meal for you, spit out everything you just ate. Spit it all out!” Misha glared at me, grumbling.

It was a strange feeling.

Just a moment ago, I felt like my chest was being crushed by all sorts of thoughts.

“Why are you laughing, meow? It makes me feel bad.”

“I was just grateful.”

“…Ugh, suddenly again.”

Misha, who was avoiding my gaze as if annoyed, gulped down water.

I quietly watched her.

In fact, if it weren’t for the ears and tail that sprouted on her head, she would just look like an ordinary human.

The reddish-brown bob that had grown a little more than when I first saw her.

A sharp nose and slightly upturned eyes.

Even after just a few words, you could tell she was a bit of a scatterbrain, but when I first saw her face, I thought she would be very cold and aloof.

“…”

“…”

I belatedly realized that it was quiet around us.

A strange, awkward silence filled the kitchen.

“Um…” Misha was about to open her mouth when—

Knock knock.

A knock came from the front door.

“I’ll go see who it is.”

“…Okay, I’ll clean up the table, meow.”

I walked to the front door with my crutches and opened it to find a familiar figure standing there.

“Kyle Febrosk.”

“Haha, nice to see you. Have you been resting well?”

“I just woke up after sleeping since I got here.”

“Then, would you have some time to talk for a bit?”

“Of course. Come in.”

I stepped aside, and Kyle entered the house. He then greeted Misha, who was clearing the table.

“Oh! Mr. Kyle?”

“I’m sorry, Miss Kalstein. It seems I’ve interrupted your cozy time together.”

“Eek, don’t tease me, meow! We’re not like that.”

“Hmm, not like that? Then I apologize.”

Kyle apologized as if he genuinely didn’t know.

Misha glanced at me as if giving me a look, then turned her head away and continued doing her chores.

So, we sat on the sofa in the living room.

“Actually, I was going to come earlier, but as you know, I have a lot of work to do.”

“I understand. After what happened…”

“Yes, that’s right…”

An uncomfortable silence fell as we mentioned the incident.

Then, Misha put the cookies she had bought before on the coffee table and went back to her room, telling us to talk comfortably.

“Oh, is this from Lanemus Confectionery?”

“Really? Is it a famous place?”

Thanks to that, the atmosphere changed.

I opened my mouth more comfortably.

“If you have enough time, I’d like to hear everything from the beginning.”

“I have quite a bit of time until my next schedule, but from the beginning?”

“About the Ruin Scholar. What happened with that old man back then?”

It was a story I was curious about but hadn’t had a chance to hear.

When I woke up, it was almost the end of the 7th day, and even then, I had to take care of Erwen.

Not to mention after returning to the city.

The dimensional plaza that day was a chaotic mess.

“Ah, you mean that…” Kyle took a bite of a cookie and began to tell his story.

There were many parts that I found difficult to understand because he was talking about a battle with a mage, but the gist of it was simple.

He lost in a one-on-one fight.

The ‘awakening’ he had been preparing for years was pushed into a corner by an overwhelming magic combo before he could even use it properly.

So, he activated the magic in an incomplete state and managed to inflict some damage, but…

“I thought I had finally caught up after all that effort, but it was all my delusion. No, it seems the gap has widened even more than before.”

Kyle had hit a wall.

A wall that he could never overcome no matter what he did.

What was even more humiliating was that he had survived despite that.

“…He said my talent was a waste. Isn’t it funny? I wasn’t even his match. If he hadn’t tried to save me, I probably wouldn’t have been able to inflict that much damage.”

When he finished his story, Kyle’s face was full of shadows.

“It wasn’t a topic you wanted to bring up, but thank you for telling me.”

“I thought you should know. You might become their target because of this incident.”

Sigh, so the old man thinks so too.

“Because of this incident, the royal family has raised the Ruin Scholar’s threat level by one stage. He’s right below the commander. Honestly, having experienced him firsthand, I think he’s on the same level as the commander… but no matter how many times I say it, everyone thinks he’s not that level.”

“They won’t know until they experience it themselves.”

A mage who can break through my anti-magic setup with a normal attack.

How many monsters like that could there be in this world?

If we were to meet him by chance in the labyrinth in our normal states, we would be annihilated in a matter of minutes.

“Anyway, that’s why I wanted to tell you to be careful.”

Well, considering the Ruin Scholar’s personality, I don’t think he’ll bother to come for revenge.

The clown might, though.

“What happened to the Corpse Collector?”

“There’s no news yet. I heard he was fatally injured by you before he left, but he’s probably still alive.”

“…I see.”

The clown is better off.

He lost a corpse legion of thousands this time.

It will take a tremendous amount of time to recover, so at least we have time to grow.

“Ah, so how many survivors are there?”

“Are you talking about those who escaped through the dimensional gates?”

“Of course. I thought I heard about a hundred people survived.”

At my words, Kyle sighed.

“To be exact, it’s 103 people. But I don’t know if you can call them alive.”

“What do you mean?”

Kyle used some mage-specific jargon to explain.

To summarize:

“So, it’s a unique magic with dark magic mixed in, and it can’t be properly healed with divine power?”

“That’s right. They’re all unconscious right now. It’s unclear when they’ll wake up. Or even if they can wake up at all.”

“Damn, that’s a real mess.”

After the talk about the survivors, we talked about ‘that incident’.

How exactly did it happen?

Kyle, who was considered a high-ranking member of the royal family, told me everything he knew without hiding anything.

“We were confused at first. It’s a magic that takes at least a few months to prepare to barely activate, so how could they prepare something like that in the plaza in just one day?”

The question that all the explorers, including me, had that day.

The answer was actually quite simple.

“It turns out they drew the magic circle in the sewers to avoid detection.”

Like the creatures that live in the tunnels, they did their work from below.

“According to the investigation, there were no abnormalities in Noark’s barrier. That means they either have a way to get out or they have personnel that were smuggled in beforehand.”

At his guess, I smiled awkwardly.

It’s probably personnel that were smuggled in beforehand.

For example…

‘Amelia.’

A spy from Noark who infiltrated the city.

Until now, it was ambiguous to call them enemies.

Their hatred was directed at the royal family, not at me.

But…

‘It’s right to see them as enemies now.’

That woman will continue to work under Noark, and if I’m unlucky, I could lose my life because of it.

Unless I go to Noark myself.

“Then, let’s get to the main point.”

“The main point?”

“The current situation in the city is not good. Many of the key personnel who maintain this city have died. If this continues, the economy will collapse.”

This was something I had expected.

Explorers are miners who extract resources from the labyrinth.

Even if the knights are strong, they can’t even come close to the explorers in this regard.

But the top explorers are all dead.

Well, there are still quite a few top explorers who were boycotting or watching the situation even after the identification tags were created…

The real problem is something else.

“They probably won’t try to enter the labyrinth anymore. At least until they are sure that the labyrinth is safe.”

An unsafe labyrinth.

It’s a funny expression, but I understand.

In this round, less than two thousand people have returned alive from the labyrinth.

In this situation, who would want to enter the labyrinth to mine magic stones?

“…It can’t be helped. Until now, the identification tags and the presence of the Third Royal Knights reassured the explorers, but now the truth has been revealed.”

The knights who were supposed to protect us from Noark in the labyrinth opened the dimensional gates with the big clans. And they abandoned tens of thousands of explorers and ran away.

“It’s embarrassing, but someone said during the meeting that it might have been better if there were no survivors at all.”

At Kyle’s words, I smiled bitterly.

The more I experience it, the more I think this is a cruel world.

Well, it’s not like complaining will change anything.

“So, now I have to be careful of the Ruin Scholar, the Corpse Collector, and even the royal family?”

“Haha, that’s not possible.”

Kyle waved his hand at my joke and genuine concern.

“You’ve been at home, so you don’t know, but you’ve become a very important figure to the royal family right now.”

“…Explain in detail.”

“Even at this moment, stories about you are spreading from the mouths of the survivors who were with you that day. In a few more days, there won’t be anyone in this city who doesn’t know who you are. A divine being who single-handedly brought the Corpse Collector to that state!”

“…Single-handedly? Please, I beg you, don’t spread such nonsense anywhere.”

“This friend is so humble.”

No, it’s not humility, I’m really burdened.

If it was just a good guy who worked harder than anyone else, that would be fine, but this is a reputation that I can’t handle.

If anyone fought alone, it was the clown [referring to the Corpse Collector].

Even while fighting our team, he was pushing the main force of hundreds of mid-level explorers with his countless corpse legions.

‘Thinking about it like that, he’s a real monster too.’

I cleared my mind of the fleeting thought and got back to the main point.

“So, what does that have to do with the royal family? There must be plenty of explorers at my level in the royal family.”

“But there aren’t many symbolic explorers like you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Isn’t there already distrust towards the royal family? It’s obvious that this incident will be the catalyst. The royal family has decided that if you become their focal point, it could turn into a big fire…”

Goddamn it.

“…Huh? Why do you have that expression?”

I answered honestly, “It just sounds like they’re going to eliminate me.”

I was saying it with 100% sincerity.

But whether he knew my worries or not, Kyle chuckled.

“Don’t worry. The decision on what to do with you has already been made through a meeting.”

It’s been decided?

Ah, so that’s why he said I didn’t have to worry about the royal family?

“Stop beating around the bush and tell me. Now that I think about it, it seems like that’s why you came today.”

When I urged him, Kyle smiled as if he was even more proud and continued, “Congratulations. You’ll be getting a very, very, very big reward soon.”

The royal family has decided to give me a carrot.