Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Episode 179

Doppelganger (4)

Rift.

Instant dungeons that exist in each layer, like the Blood Tinted Castle and the Glacier Cave.

There are two main features of the rifts.

The first is the exponential increase in essence drop rates.

The second are the Guardians, special monsters that offer unique rewards that are not available in regular fields.

“Abman, where is the rift?”

At my question, Mr. Bear momentarily closed his eyes in concentration and then opened them.

“Over there. Doesn’t seem too far.”

Yes, that’s right.

I smiled slyly.

Our chances of making it in had increased.

Thanks to the five Steps of Wisdom on the first day, we’ve already reached stage 27.

[23:45]

We’re not even halfway through Day 7 yet.

So, it’s safe to say that there are very few competitors.

The fourth floor rift only appears above stage 25.

And it happened to have appeared nearby?

“Mr. Jandel, of course you’re going to look for it, right?”

“Of course.”

The rift is the flower of the labyrinth.

An opportunity no explorer should miss.

We woke up, and unanimously agreed to quickly pack up the camp.

Then we stood in front of the door Abman had pointed to.

Whoosh-!

After waiting a few minutes, the engraved pattern on the stone door lit up. The four-hour waiting time had ended, and now the door could be opened.

“Nyang, I don’t like this…”

“I just hope it’s not a hallucination type.”

Misha and Mr. Bear groaned together, having experienced this trial before. In contrast, Raven and Aynar seemed motivated.

“I’d actually prefer it if it were a hallucination type. I heard it doesn’t really affect people with strong mental strength.”

“Hahaha! Then I’ll be fine too!”

It seems this is their first time.

I became a bit curious.

A rational mage armed with reason and a fearless barbarian warrior.

Will these two have any special reaction?

If I know that, I might be able to tell whether my case is unusual or not.

[ The character has chosen the Path of Patience]

Just a corridor that stretched out for about 100 meters.

As soon as I stepped inside, my companions disappeared, and a new setting appeared.

The pediatric ward where I spent most of my childhood.

Outside the window, the sky was clear, and so was the face of a child lying in bed.

“It’s a hallucination type.”

As I took a step towards the room with the child, the surroundings changed.

Beyond the window, the sun is beginning to set.

A young student had brought a chair and sat down in front of the bed.

At one time, he was someone I trusted and followed more than my parents.

“Ha, starting with this again?”

I smirked and took another step forward.

Then a conversation between the child and the college student began.

The child, who was playing a game, asked if he could play a little longer, and the college student declined.

It might have ended there.

But the child was young.

As he continued to insist, eventually, the college student’s expression hardened. Then, suddenly standing up, he burst out with harsh words.

Those words hurt more than any hospital treatment at the time.

Thud.

I shrugged it off and took another step forward.

I am now an adult.

Even if I hear the same words, they no longer hurt me.

“Something bad must have happened to him that day,” I thought, not blaming myself.

It was something that could happen in life.

It could be anyone’s fault, but it could also be no one’s fault.

Just that and nothing more.

Thud.

In the car, just before the accident.

An apartment blazing red with fire.

An amusement park left alone.

The studio apartment I moved into when I became a working adult.

Thud.

With each step I took, the surroundings changed, and so did the people appearing.

Thud.

Mother, father, uncle, and an ex-girlfriend.

In each place, new people appeared, throwing words at me that left deep scars.

But, so what?

“Still easy.”

Even without the hallucinations, I can vividly imagine these scenes in my mind.

It’s not even surprising anymore.

There’s such a thing as developing a tolerance to pain.

“What is this?”

As I continued, figures began to appear that had never appeared before.

[Nyang! Bjorn, you’re here!]

[Ha ha, why are you so late!]

Misha and Dwalki, arms crossed, wearing happy smiles. They were welcoming at first, but as I took another step closer, their expressions grotesquely twisted.

[Nyang, If only you weren’t here, everyone could have been happy.]

[I’m glad you survived instead of me.]

It’s a pattern I’ve seen a lot in comics and films.

Isn’t there something more original?

“Yeah, it’s not my fault. Blame God.”

I continued walking, not avoiding their gazes.

[The great warrior Jandel’s son Bjorn!]

[Give me back my friend’s body!]

In addition to Aynar, who appeared next, connections I had made as Bjorn Jandel kept appearing, throwing strange words at me.

All of them were things I don’t remember.

But they weren’t unfamiliar.

I had thought about them at least once.

“Yep, still doesn’t work.”

I continued moving forward without stopping, not covering my ears or closing my eyes.

“The trial has been completed.”

Soon, the hallucination ended.

Before I knew it, I had reached the end of the corridor and was standing in front of the stairs.

The same was true for my companions.

“Nyang, Bjorn!”

“If you cry again, I’ll really leave you behind.”

“Sob.”

I turned away from the tearful Misha to check on the others.

Mr. Bear had an indifferent expression.

He looked displeased, but that was all.

Aynar was surprisingly alright.

“Are you okay?”

“Ah, well… it was just a bit of an unpleasant experience.”

Indeed, when you think about it, barbarians are all mentally strong.

Their race learns to overcome by fighting rather than fleeing.

What about the mage, then?

“…”

The last one I checked on, Raven, was staring into space with a blank expression on her face. Even from a distance, I could feel her body shaking like a leaf.

What exactly did she see?

I was curious but decided not to ask.

It seemed unlikely she would answer anyway.

“It’s all over now.”

“Oh…… yeah. Right…….”

I approached and patted Raven on the shoulder, snapping her back to reality.

Her forehead was dotted with cold sweat.

“Let’s go up and rest for a bit, hang in there.”

“Yes…”

I managed to rally my companions and we climbed the stairs.

We then took about a ten-minute break.

In fact, I usually avoided choosing the Path of Patience in the game for this reason.

It significantly drains stamina.

Although I didn’t realize that was the reason.

“Abman, which way do we go from here?”

“That way.”

After the break, we resumed our exploration.

Deciding that the rift was the priority.

Next, we chose the Path of Wisdom and cleared the maze over the next two hours.

We reached the next stage

“It’s a portal!!”

In the empty stone chamber, a rift had opened.

By the way, the portal flickered vigorously in green.

“The Doppelganger Forest…”

After the Blood Tinted Castle and the Glacier Cave, this was the third rift I was gonna explore.

“The character has entered the rift on the fourth floor.”

There are two types of rifts on the fourth floor.

The Golden Ruins, where money pours forth, and the Doppelganger Forest.

“…It’s not the Golden Ruins.”

I tried to hide my disappointment and called the mage.

“Raven.”

“Li’eate.”

As soon as the light sphere appeared in the air, our new surroundings came into view.

We were trapped inside a huge cage.

Beyond the bars, the outside was covered in the darkness of the labyrinth, invisible to us.

“Bjorn! What’s going on, Nyang!!”

Hmm, should I explain?

As I was pondering, Raven spoke up.

“Don’t be alarmed. It will open when it’s time.”

“Nyang, What? What does that mean? Explain more!”

“We’re just waiting for the full number of participants to arrive. This place can hold up to three teams.”

That’s the difference from the first-floor rifts.

The Doppelganger Forest can accommodate up to 15 people through three portals. Unlike previous levels that involved individual cooperation, this one requires team collaboration.

“Is that also mentioned in the book?”

“Yes. You’re in luck. I don’t know much about the Golden Ruins.”

Well, since she’s read the Rift Compendium, I guess she can handle the hidden pieces.

Should I just leave the entire strategy to her?

The decision was quick.

“That’s good. Then you give the orders this time. We’ll all follow.”

“You want me to take on the leader role?”

“Isn’t there a saying that in places like this, we should follow the mage’s lead?”

“Hehe, alright. Leave it to me this time.”

After a slight encouragement, Raven confidently took on the task, ready to handle all the burdensome duties.

What an easy character to manage.

‘If there’s a problem later, I’ll step in then.’

In this new team, I need to be careful to hide my uniqueness, as advised by Rotmiller.

If I act like before, Raven or Mr. Bear might notice something is off.

“Then I’ll start by telling you what to watch out for. Most of the monsters we’ll meet here are likely doppelgängers…”

Raven’s briefing continued from there.

Everyone listened intently, except Aynar.

I knew all this, but I listened carefully in case there was something new or a correction needed.

How much time had passed?

“…That should be enough.”

“What? I haven’t even talked about the herbs that appear here…”

“We can do that as we go along, but we need to take rest first.”

I cut off Raven’s endlessly lengthy explanation and we took a break.

Considering the trial of patience we’d been through and the fact we hadn’t really slept because of the rift, conserving energy for the actual game was necessary.

Rumble, rumble…

Aynar began to snore as if she had been waiting, and Misha and Mr. Bear sat with their backs to the bars.

And Raven…

“It’s fascinating. To obtain a mirror on the first exploration and a rift on the second…”

For some reason, she came over to chatter beside me.

It seemed the excitement of entering the rift hadn’t worn off for her.

“When you think about it, I must be quite lucky. Remember when we entered the Blood Tinted Castle?”

Is that what she thinks?

“Sure, you’re absolutely right.”

“…You’re teasing me, aren’t you?”

“Of course not.”

“Maybe keep a straight face when you say that?”

She’s unnecessarily quick-witted.

“Enough of that, I’m going to rest. You should too.”

With that, I ended the conversation with Raven, and closed my eyes.

Time passed, and it was the morning of the eighth day.

[07:11]

In other words, about five hours since we entered the rift.

Clang!

The closed gate finally lifted.

It meant that the entrance quota was full.

“Let’s go then.”

I was the first to leave the cage, starting our real exploration.

“Li’eate.”

Raven increased the number of light orbs to three for better visibility, revealing the cave hidden in the darkness.

Aynar tilted her head.

“Didn’t you say it was a forest?”

“I thought I explained that earlier.”

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t catch that.”

Her honesty is too much.

Raven couldn’t even get angry.

“…The forest comes after this cave ends. That’s when all the teams that have entered converge.”

“I see!”

“…”

Raven just clenched her fist and trembled slightly.

I could empathize with her without trying, but…

Right now, I’m just a normal barbarian following orders.

Sometimes, it’s good to have days like this.

“…Let’s just get going.”

“Right. We should hurry. We’re short on time.”

Following Raven’s lead, we moved quickly along the path.

The reason for the rush was simple.

The first chapter of the Doppelganger Forest was the Shadow Cave.

Teams start from different locations and meet in the center.

“We need to get to the center as quickly as possible. That way, we can also grab rewards from other routes. Otherwise, it’ll be the other way around.”

In the end, the final boss would be a joint effort, but until then, it was virtually a competition.

Who could collect more along the way.

That was up to us to decide.

“There’s something ahead!”

As we were running down the straight corridor, Mr. Bear sensed something and stopped the group.

After waiting a moment, a figure emerged from the darkness.

Thud.

Unkempt brown hair.

A scruffy beard.

A muscular build over 2 meters tall, draped in a Litinium breastplate.

And he was armed with a massive shield and mace.

“It’s Bjorn!!!”

Aynar, looking back and forth between the two of me, fell into confusion.

At this sight, Raven couldn’t hold back and shouted.

“I told you there will be doppelganger!!!”

“A doppelganger?!”

“Oh, come on, that’s it, get ready for battle!”

It seemed like the first time she had shouted like this.

Perhaps there really is no being that can verbally defeat a barbarian?

I smirked at that thought for a moment.

“Bethel—raaaaaaaaa!!!”

The audacity of the doppelganger to invoke the name of our ancestral god.

At the same time, its body swelled up like a balloon.

It was time to be a bit tense.

[The doppelganger has cast [Gigantification]

[The doppelganger has cast [Wild Burst]

I’m quite powerful, you know.