Surviving game as a barbarian Episode 603

Third Record (6)

When the Guardian is defeated, the rift is cleared, and a portal opens. Stepping through that portal takes you back to the original entrance point.

Well, at least that’s how it’s always worked—until now.

“There are two portals…?”

Not only that, but one is red and the other is blue.

This isn’t some kind of pill choice.

“If we pick the wrong one, will we end up in a strange place…?”

The unexpected situation makes me overthink.

For some reason, nothing in this Basement Floor 1 has gone normally.

It’s like everything is shrouded in mystery.

‘This essence, too…’

The portal that opens after clearing the rift doesn’t disappear over time.

Though I’m not sure if that rule even applies here.

Either way, I put my curiosity about the portals aside and checked the essence.

“It really is a mysterious color…”

The chief’s eyes were filled with fascination.

Given that he lived before Floor Lords and Rifts existed, this must be his first time seeing a rainbow-colored essence.

“Baron, could you explain what kind of essence this is?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ah, so this is your first time seeing this type of monster as well?”

“No, that’s not it…”

Despite my frustration, I let out a deep sigh and continued.
“Soul Eaters don’t drop essences.”
It’s not just that I’ve never gotten one before.

Soul Eaters are monsters that give a massive amount of experience, so even if I skipped other monsters, I always hunted them when leveling new characters.

But they never once dropped an essence.

Despite having maxed-out essence drop rates thanks to beginner’s luck, Melton’s Soul Clover, and other buffs, it never happened.

So I just assumed they didn’t drop essences at all…

“I never imagined this is how I’d get one.”

So then, what the Soul Eater essence actually do?

At the very least, it probably contains an active skill like “Summon Soul Knight”… but I’d have to test it to know for sure.

Of course, I have no intention of consuming it myself.

“Gahyun! Wake up!”

I lowered Gahyun, who had been slung over my shoulder, and lightly slapped his cheeks. Now that an essence had dropped, there was no time to wait.

Essences must be stored in a testube within 30 minutes.

“Gahyun! Gahyun! Gahyun!”

So I gradually increased the strength of my slaps.

I don’t feel great about doing this to someone who passed out from pain, but…

The essence takes priority over a person, right?

“Ugh…”

Fortunately, by the time his cheeks were swollen, Gahyun regained consciousness.

“B-Baron? Where… are we…?”

Still disoriented from the fall, his words were slurred.

I kept my explanation brief. Dealing with mages is always the same, after all.

“While you were unconscious, a Soul Eater appeared as the Guardian. We killed it, and it dropped a Guardian essence.”

“W-What…?!”

As expected, Gahyun’s eyes sharpened immediately, and he sat up straight. Yeah, no mage could resist a new Guardian Essence.

“Ugh… I-I can’t stand up.”

“Obviously. Your legs are bent in ways even a Barbarian wouldn’t be able to move with—”

“…H-Hyiiik!!”

Only then did Gahyun looked at his legs and let out a bizarre shriek. However, he seemed to consider the essence more important than his broken legs.

“Carry me… there. I can’t walk.”

I carried him to the essence and handed him the test tube.

After some time—

“Phew… It’s done.”

The essence slid neatly into the test tube, and Gahyun carefully placed it into the essence storage box, concluding the collection process.

“But… what are those portals? Why are there two…?”

“Oh, those? We’ll have to think about that now. We don’t know yet either.”

“I-I see…”

“So, what’s your opinion?”

“If you’re asking me like that—”

“Just say whatever comes to mind.”

“Hmm… Well, I think at least one of them definitely leads back to where we originally were…”

After I asked, Gahyun shared his thoughts, but then he suddenly trailed off.

“The blue portal…!”

He shouted with sudden conviction, as if he’d realized something.

“The blue portal will take us back to where we originally entered!”

It seemed that his intuition ability that had been sealed upon entering the great demon realm, was active again.

“Then what about the red one? Do you have any idea?”

“Th-That one… I’m not sure. It’s vague. It feels dangerous, but… not necessarily like a bad choice.”

“So it’s a portal that’s risky but guarantees solid rewards…?”

“Uh… I guess you could interpret it that way?”

Hey, I’ve played Dungeon & Stone for years.

I know how this stuff works.

***

Thanks to Gahyun, our choices were narrowed down to two.

1. Play it safe and take the blue portal to leave.

2. Take the red portal and go for extra rewards.

Now, at least, I had enough information to make a proper judgment.

So, which one should I pick?

‘Considering that clearing the Basement Floor 1 is the top priority, leaving now isn’t a bad idea…’

Just because we’re in a rift doesn’t mean we can forget: our goal is to escape B1. The rift is just a stepping stone.

And the rift’s already been cleared.

But still—

‘Going back with just a single Soul Eater Essence feels kind of… anticlimactic.’

I’ve only been here for less than a week, but the other three, including the chief, have been trapped in this rift for over half a year.

And this is all the reward we get?

I don’t even know how good the Soul Eater essence is, and the High Priest just vanished after turning into a Karui Priest.

“Time to make a decision. I’ll leave it to you. I’ll follow you no matter what.”

“Me too.”

The Chief and Erwin left the decision to me.

However, Gahyun tried to persuade me otherwise.

“Baron, abandon your greed. We’ve already lost the High Priest. Pushing further is reckless. Who knows what lies beyond that portal?”

He wasn’t wrong.

But this isn’t about personal greed.

Extra rewards beyond that portal?

Fine. Whatever they are, they’ll be helpful.

But even if there’s nothing, it doesn’t really matter.

Because what I’m expecting from that red portal is something entirely different.

‘If I go through that…’

Maybe I can get one step closer to uncovering the secrets of this labyrinth.

It might help me escape the Basemen Floor 1.

And most importantly… this is the biggest reason—

‘It’s too easy.’

The difficulty is just way too low.

Sure, we lost the High Priest in the process, but…

Even considering that, it just doesn’t add up.

‘…It’s unsettling, honestly.’

Based on my experience, situations like this always come with a trap.

Therefore—

“I’ll hold off on making a decision for now.”

“Hold off…?”

“If we go back like this, we still don’t know what will happen to the High Priest.”

“Well, that’s true, but…”

Gahyun trailed off.

He nodded in agreement to the “we still don’t know” part, but in truth, both he and I knew.

If we returned now, that would likely be the end of it.

“But there’s nothing we can do. Sacrifices are inevitable. We’ve already lost several people since descending to the first underground floor… If we die here, even those sacrifices will become meaningless.”

A logically sound opinion.

However, his speech was not completely free of the selfish undertones of someone prioritizing his own survival.

But honestly, I’m no different.

“Regardless of the High Priest’s condition, we need to investigate the area before using the portal. We definitely missed something on our way here.”

The four cany.

The field debuff that affected our minds.

The Lord of Silence and Karui’s priest.

The absurdly anti-climactic boss fight.

Somehow, we cleared the rift and opened a portal, but there are too many things I don’t understand. And if we leave now, I might never figure them out.

“…Do we really have to? I can’t even move properly right now.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll carry you and keep you safe.”

“Sigh…”

I’ve heard all kinds of sighs in my life, and I could tell that Gahyun’s was one of approval.

Okay, persuasion successful…

“All right, let’s get moving.”

After memorizing the portal locations one more time, I set off with the village chief leading the front.

“This direction… isn’t this where that monster was?”

“Yeah.”

It was where the Lord of Silence, Siliart, was buried.

Now that Gahyun was awake, I wanted to revisit that spot first.

“Is your ‘intuition’ still working right now?”

“For now… yes.”

“We won’t be able to talk once we get close, so do your best to investigate. Since you can’t move, don’t panic too much.”

“I-I’ll try…”

Gahyun looked like he wanted to turn back and dive straight into the blue portal. However, there was no way he could escape from my grasp in his current state.

Soon, we entered Siliart’s domain.

「The character has entered the range of [Forbidden Speech].」

「All essence skills have been sealed.」

Since all sound disappeared, it seemed the creature was still alive.

And sure enough, the Lord of Silence, still half-buried in debris, revealed itself.

“……”

“……”

It gazed weakly at me. I approached and bent down so Gahyun could get a good look.

“…!”

At first, Gahun trembled, but realizing it wasn’t dangerous, he even reached out and touched its skin.

And after some time—

Tap tap.

Gahyun tapped my shoulder, signaling that it was time to leave.

“How was it?”

Once outside its domain, his report was simple.

“…I’m sure of one thing: it’s not our enemy. The moment our eyes met, alarm bells went off in my head telling me not to kill it.”

…Hmm.

“My guess is… maybe the reason the guardian was weak was all because of the baron’s actions.”

“Because of what I did?”

“You said you could’ve killed it but let it go. I think that’s the cause.”

In short, if I had killed it, the boss battle might’ve been much harder.

‘If that’s true, it does explain the easy boss fight…’

Then what about the Archbishop?

He suddenly went berserk and transformed into a priest of Karui.

Was that part of the event?

Or could we have prevented it?

Feels like the latter.

It would be too absurd if it wasn’t.

BOOM—!

Suddenly, a distant explosion shook the ground.

It came from where the Lord of Silence had been.

「The Sealed One, Siliart, has died.」

What the hell happened?

The answer came from Gahyun, hanging over my shoulder.

“Th-The Lord of Silence is dead…!”

The Lord of Silence, Siliart, was dead.

And then—

“We have to run! This isn’t the time to worry about what we missed during the investigation!”

“Calm down and explain properly—”

“The portals are about to close!”

“What?”

There was no need to ask how he knew.

His intuition must have activated again.

“…Run!”

I could think while moving.

I ran toward the portal at full speed.

“Mister! Behind you! The High Priest is chasing us!”

As expected, the one who killed the Lord of Silence was the high priest.

“How fast is he?”

“About the same as us… W-Watch out!”

Watch out for what?

I didn’t know, but I twisted my body on instinct.

And in that moment—

Stab—!

Something sharp pierced my left shoulder.

The wound wasn’t too deep.

Only because I was carrying Gahyun on that shoulder.

“…Ghk! Ugh!”

Blood gushed from Gahyun’s mouth, staining my upper body.

“Hah… Hah… Ugh…”

His breathing was ragged, as if he could die any second, but it wasn’t a big problem.

Thankfully, the portal was right in front of us.

Once we got out, the combined healing power of countless priests would save him…

Yeah, so—

Plop.

As soon as we reached the portal, I shoved Gahyun’s body into it.

Whoosh—!

Though it had shrunk to half its original size, the portal still worked.

“Erwin, you go too.”

“Mister! What about you—?!”

Before it shrank further, I threw Erwin in as well.

“What about you? Why aren’t you going through?”

“The more I think about it, the more this doesn’t feel like the right answer.”

I turned around and saw the village chief frowning, and beyond him, the High Priest was approaching first.

The High Priest, his spine grotesquely twisted, floated in the air, engulfed in tentacles.

A horrifying sight that sent chills down my spine just by looking at it.

“Are you seriously thinking of taking the other portal?”

“First, I need to confirm one thing.”

“You really never change, do you? So, what do you need to confirm?”

“Earlier… you said that if we went all out, we could kill the High Priest, right? Is that still possible now?”

The chief paused briefly before answering.

“Well…”

Despite his words, his eyes showed no hesitation.

“No one else is watching anyway. It’s not like my body matters, once I die, it’ll just reset…”

“Get to the point.”

“Yeah, sure. I don’t think it’s impossible.”

The village chief shrugged and asked me,

“But why the sudden change of heart? Leaving now would be easier for both of us.”

“Like I said, there’s something I need to check. So, will you do it?”

“…You’d better keep your promise.”

With that, his sword began to emit aura.

Whoooom—!

A trademark of Count Saintred: a radiant white aura.

But this aura was slightly different from what I remembered.

‘What the hell is that?’

The aura around his sword kept growing—

As if there were no limit to it.

Whooooom—!

The overwhelming aura even made the High Priest, who had been charging forward mindlessly, stop momentarily.

And then—

“How did you do that…? Can you really use the abilities from when you were alive?”

The words slipped out of my mouth without thinking.

“Well, if you want to call them ‘abilities from when I was alive,’ I suppose you could.”

The village chief chuckled softly before continuing.

“The knights of this era are just a complete mess.”

“……?”

“Aura isn’t meant to be used like that.”

With those words—

——————!

A flash of light erupted.

「Special Condition – The Third Record has been fulfilled.」

Continue reading more chapters at henprogressive.com

Please join here, I need supporters to help me continue translating STGB and Lee Gwak