Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Episode 374

Treasure Hunter (2)

13 hours since entering the labyrinth.

We were inside the crystal cave on the first floor.

Despite previously clearing the first floor in just a few hours, there’s only one reason we’re still here.

Because this is where our current exploration plan begins.

“Hmm, I didn’t know you could open a rift like this.”

“Hehe, you really know everything, don’t you, mister!”

On the first floor, there are four types of rifts: the Blood Tinted Castle, Glacier Caves, and two others. These rifts can be deliberately opened by players.

It took us this long because we had to climb up to the second floor to hunt a Level 8 monster and then come back.

‘By now, anyone planning to go up has already gone…’

As I took out the Level 8 magic stone I had stored in my subspace, I glanced around.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve been here.’

We stood in a chamber about 30 meters wide, with a single monument placed in the center.

This was the very spot where the survivors had gathered when the army and large clans had fled through the dimensional gates, leaving the rest of us to figure out how to survive.

Well, back then, the space had been much larger, thanks to expansion magic cast by mages.

“Well, is everyone ready?”

At my question, both nodded, and taking that as a signal, I placed the magic stone in front of the monument like an offering.

And at that moment.

Rumble!

A tremor spread throughout the entire first floor, centered on the stone pillar.

Simultaneously, a green portal opened.

「Your character has entered the first-floor rift.」

Alright, let’s go.

***

Swoosh—!

A cave illuminated by the light from the portal.

Rails were laid on the floor, and wooden debris was scattered around.

It felt more eerie than in the game.

[Green Coal Mine]

One of the four types of rifts on the first floor.

The method is simple.

You start from a point blocked by a collapsed ceiling, wander through the mine following the rails, and defeat the guardian.

“What are you guys doing? Let’s go.”

As soon as we entered the unfamiliar space, the two were busy surveying the surroundings, but I hurried them into the tunnel.

Soon, additional entrants would undoubtedly follow, and it would be best to avoid running into them.

Though I wasn’t worried about myself or Amelia, Erwin had become a well-known figure. Even low-level explorers might recognize her.

Tap, tap.

Soon, we moved out of the area illuminated by the portal’s light.  Erwin summoned a dark spirit to cloak us. Just then, more people entered the rift

“Ugh, woah!”

The first was a man wearing gear suitable for lower floors.

“Huh? Am I the first?”

At first, the man was blankly looking around, but realizing he had entered a rift, a smile blossomed on his face.

And then.

“Whoa!”

The second entrant popped out of the portal and crashed onto the floor.

It was another man.

“Haha, nice to meet you!”

Okay, they’re both men. This should keep things quiet.

Watching the two exchange greetings, I relaxed and turned away.

And…

“Now the sound won’t reach them. Let’s run.”

“Yes!”

We sprinted deeper into the tunnel, officially starting our rift conquest. The first monsters we encountered were, of course, goblins.

These were slightly different from those on the first and second floors.

[Grrrrk-!]

Its height was similar to a normal goblin, but its body was different.

A broad back and tightly packed muscles.

A miner’s helmet on its head and a pickaxe slung over its shoulder.

“A Goblin Miner.”

Level 8.

A monster that only gives experience points in the first-floor rifts.

[Screeech!]

The muscular creature charged at us, swinging its pickaxe, despite the 3:1 odds. 

The force behind its strike was far more intense than that of a regular goblin.

However…

“That’s irritating…”

It didn’t stand a chance.

Even if just one of us were here, we could have cleared the first-floor crack with ease.

Thunk!

Erwin didn’t even need to fire an arrow; she used her wind spirit to pierce the goblin’s forehead.

「You have slain a Goblin Miner. EXP +2」

A one-shot kill.

At our level, this was to be expected, but I was impressed by how she condensed and shot a burst of compressed air at her target.

‘Is that… the Finger Flick Technique…?’

I used to be into martial arts novels.

Huh, can’t I get something like that?

“Schuiz, is something wrong?”

“No, it’s just that you were staring at me so intently all of a sudden…”

“It’s nothing. Let’s keep moving.”

I quickly shook off my wandering thoughts and pressed forward.

If I were to compare my current state to something from martial arts… maybe I’d be at the level of a master who’s perfected an indestructible body technique?

Tap, tap.

Anyway, I led the way, dashing ahead and navigating through the tunnels. Honestly, for the first part, we just had to follow a straight tunnel, so it wasn’t exactly complicated…

“Why are we stopping?”

“The rails are broken in the middle, I think it’s around here.”

I was moving while observing the floor, and as soon as I saw the broken rail, I stopped.

And then…

Bang!

I smashed the surrounding walls with a hammer.

Amelia was startled, asking if I intended to bury us alive, but it was an unnecessary worry.

Rift fields don’t crumble that easily.

When something breaks, it usually means there’s something hidden.

Just like now.

Crrrrack!

The wall crumbled away, almost as if made of styrofoam, revealing a narrow passage behind it.

It was just wide enough for a single person to squeeze through.

Sigh,  if my body hadn’t shrunk, I might not have been able to enter—

Ugh, even now, my shoulders are getting stuck.

Having no choice, I turned my body sideways and sidled through the passage like a crab.

And then…

“I’ve earned 3 million stones already.”

Inside the cramped space, I pulled out a single green gem from a hidden chest, and repeated the process to squeeze my way back out.

“I had no idea something like this existed in the mine.”

“But… Mister, we don’t have a wizard with us. Can we even take that out?”

“It’s fine. Usually, items like this don’t require distortion magic.”

Take the blood-tinted castle on the first floor as an example.

Things that require distortion magic are usually junk like bricks or building ornaments from rifts.

But valuable items, like the Necronomicon, are classified as items and can simply be carried through the portal…

Ah, she wasn’t there at that time.

“Let’s move. We’ve gathered everything we can here.”

Since we had gotten all the hidden treasures in the first chapter, we focused solely on moving forward. Before long, we reached a cliff.

A bridge that’s more than two-thirds collapsed along with the railway tracks.

Normally, we’d take the side path to detour around…

“If only I still had ‘Leap’, I could’ve just skipped it.”

It’s a shame my mobility skills are gone. 

This part could usually be skipped with even a mid-tier movement ability.

‘There’s no hidden piece on this route anyway. We’d just waste time fighting more Goblin Miners.’

It wasn’t the most rewarding route, but we had no choice but to take the side path. We blew up and killed every goblin miner we saw and exited through the opposite exit.

That took about 30 minutes.

“As expected of a first-floor rift, it’s easy.”

“It’s certainly a bit different from what I expected…”

Erwin seemed disappointed by the rift, but it couldn’t be helped. We were a party capable of clearing the seventh floor, so of course, the first-floor rift would be a breeze.

In a normal RPG game, they don’t even give you experience points.

Ah, but coming to low-level hunting grounds to grind for experience—that’s the more brutal system, isn’t it…?

“Don’t be disappointed. We’ll finish soon and get out.”

Sensing everyone’s boredom, I sped up the exploration of the rift.

We bypassed the collapsed bridge, hunted the monsters in the second chapter, and moved on.

[You have defeated a Hobgoblin Miner. +EXP 3]

[You have defeated a Mineral Slime. +EXP 2]

[You have defeated a Copper Golem. +EXP 3]

These were the new monsters in the second chapter.

Ah, I should add the mid-boss too.

「You have slain a Goblin Bomber. +EXP 4」

As expected, no essence dropped.

Well, we don’t have any test tubes or a mage to carry it anyway.

‘The second chapter was combat-heavy, so it ended quickly.’

It only took about 10 minutes to clear the mid-boss. Afterward, I searched the area for hidden pieces.

Breaking the minerals around the mid-boss room reveals this:

[Gobble Quartz]

Oh, it dropped three of them.

“Perfect. We can split these evenly.”

I was about to share the Gobble Quartz when Amelia and Erwin grimaced.

“You… eat that?”

“It smells funny and feels sticky…”

“Well, it raises your poison resistance, so yeah.”

“In that case…”

Amelia, who had grown up in Noark and likely developed a strong stomach for odd foods, swallowed the Gobble Quartz without hesitation. Erwin, squinting her eyes, put it in her mouth as well.

“Is it really that bad?”

“Surprisingly, it has no taste at all.”

“The texture is… quite strange.”

“Oh? That’s all?”

The texture might be strange, but nothing to worry about, then.

Crunch!

As I chewed the Gobble Quartz with my molars, I felt a really strange texture.

The outside was soft, but the inside felt like biting into a rock.

Barbarians are used to chewing bones, so it wasn’t a big deal.

[Your character has consumed Gobble Quartz]

[Poison resistance permanently increases by +3]

[This effect does not stack]

Anyway, the rest of the rift exploration went pretty much the same.

We smashed through every monster we encountered, paused only to grab the hidden pieces.

Thus, the third chapter, where we descended the spiral staircase designed along the edge of the cliff, ended.

And then…

“Now, this is the last.”

We arrived at the deepest part of the mine and stood in front of a collapsed tunnel as if something had been sealed.

Normally, we’d need to find explosives hidden throughout the mine to open the path…

But high-levels like us have our own shortcuts.

By smashing the supporting pillars with the demon crusher, the lower section crumbled, and an opening wide enough to pass through appeared. We slipped inside.

[The sleeping green king awakens]

A vast cave with a radius of about 50 meters.

At its center, a green slime squirmed and howled.

[Kyueee!]

The guardian of the ‘Green Mine,’ the King Slime.

***

At that time, at the entrance of the rift.

Relying on a single flickering torch in the deep darkness, two men were shivering.

“Do we really have to go by ourselves?”

“What other choice do we have? The portal closed.”

“I heard rifts are supposed to be explored with a party of five… What’s going on here?”

At the words of the axe warrior, the archer sighed.

Even if he complained, there was no way for him to know.

Only two people entered the rift, so why did the portal close?

At first, they thought it was a temporary error.

But after waiting near the closed portal for over three hours, hoping someone else would show up, they had to face reality.

“Enough. Let’s just go. If we’re going to clear this rift with just the two of us, we need to start moving.”

“…All right.”

The Axe Warrior, who despite his size had a timid personality, led the way, with the Archer following in support.

‘Fucking buggy game.’

The archer usually considered himself lucky.

Well, he might have come here after stumbling upon the game by chance and playing it, but other than that, his life had always gone smoothly, even after waking up in this unfamiliar world.

Just look at his first exploration.

From the start, he was lucky enough to consume some essence, and on the second exploration, he stripped an explorer and a plunderer of their equipment, securing some early funds.

This laid the foundation for his steady growth.

But…

‘To think that something like this would happen when I came to check out the first-floor rift on my third exploration.’

Though he grumbled inwardly, he stayed sharp.

It was the only way he would make it out alive.

“…Hold on a moment, stop.”

“…What’s wrong?”

“Something’s off. By now, we should have run into some goblin miners…”

“You seem to know quite a bit about this rift?”

“I just know a little. I’ve always liked to study, that’s all.”

He made up an excuse, but that wasn’t the truth.

He was actually someone who had played the original version.

Though he hadn’t made it far before quitting, he eventually found out about a cheat version and managed to beat the game using that.

The game’s insane difficulty meant reading “Elfnuna’s” Newbie Guide multiple times was a necessity for anyone serious about progressing.

“…Let’s keep moving. I’m not sure why we haven’t seen any goblins yet.”

But waiting wouldn’t change anything, so he chalked it up to a glitch between the game and reality, cautiously resuming their advance.

In any case, waiting wouldn’t change anything, so he resumed moving cautiously, thinking it was just a discrepancy between the game and reality.

And then…

“Oh, there’s a side path between those collapsed walls!”

At the point where the rail was broken.

Seeing that the wall was pierced there, he realized the truth.

“…Someone came in before us.”

“…What did you say?”

“Just talking to myself.”

Someone had entered the rift before.

And they numbered three.

‘Then… they must have killed all the monsters.’

As soon as he realized this, a wave of relief washed over him, and his legs felt weak.

After the relief subsided, he started to think of it as an opportunity.

‘Judging by the lack of battle traces around, it means they’re strong enough to slash through everything.’

They probably weren’t interested in the essences of the first-floor rift.

And the essence drop retention time is about 30 minutes.

If we hurry and follow now, we might be able to get the discarded essences in the later parts.

Maybe we can also collect any hidden pieces they left behind.

“Let’s go quickly. Don’t mind the monsters.”

“…What do you mean?”

“There probably won’t be any monsters ahead. If you don’t believe me, I can go first.”

The archer said so and began running through the dark tunnel without hesitation.

But…

‘They took the Gobble Quartz.’

In the second chapter and the third chapter, there was nothing left. The ones who entered earlier were so knowledgeable about the rift that there was nothing left uncollected.

‘I didn’t even know about this… Seeing it’s broken, there must have been something hidden inside.’

Anyway, after running for quite a while, he arrived at the final boss room.

It took about 40 minutes to get there.

If the guardian’s essence had dropped, and they hadn’t taken it…

‘It might still be here.’

Soon, he and the axe warrior entered the boss room.

And then…

Shhhhhhh!

Seeing the essence floating in the air, greed filled the eyes of the two men.

Of course, there was a difference.

“That’s… the essence!”

“Indeed.”

“Could it be… the guardian’s essence—”

The eyes of the axe warrior at the front held more surprise than greed, but the man behind was the opposite.

Thwack!

The man grabbed an arrow with his hand and stabbed it into the axe warrior’s shoulder.

“Ahhhh!”

Letting out a scream at the sudden attack, the axe warrior rolled on the ground.

Of course, he tried to gather himself and pick up his axe, but unfortunately, he couldn’t.

Clang.

The axe slipped from his hand and fell.

“It’s no use. I coated the arrowhead with paralysis poison.”

“Wh-why are you doing this! Y-you can have the essence. S-so please!”

Sensing defeat, the warrior pleaded desperately.

But the archer’s eyes were cold.

“Why does an NPC cherish his life so much?”

“N-NPC…? What are you talking about? No, more than that, Dragoon! Please, spare me just once. I have a daughter at home—”

The man smirked and pulled out the embedded arrowhead.

And then…

“My name is Hans Ellivian”

“…?”

“That’s my name. Though, now that I think about it, it’s not my real name.”

“Y-you’re not—!”

The warrior tried to shout something, but he didn’t get the chance.

An arrow pierced his throat before he could finish.

“Killing goblins is no different.”

The archer stood up quickly and moved toward the floating essence.

A sly smile played on his lips.

I’m lucky.

He genuinely believed he was lucky.

「The essence of the Slime has merged with your soul.」

Until he saw the new skill he’d acquired.