Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Episode 315

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Inheritance (4)

“Come on, everyone, have a drink! It’s on me, so don’t even think about skipping out! Hahahaha!”

After the labyrinth had been closed, Amelia and I joined the afterparty. The venue was the same pub run by the adoptive father of the Rainweilz sisters.

“Haha! Iron Mask! Do you remember what that guy said when his guts were spilling out? ‘S-Save meee!!’ Ha… You’re not laughing…?”

“Not funny at all.”

“O-Oh, I see…”

I gave Dumbo, who was getting overly familiar, a cold stare before standing up.

Then, I headed toward Felix Barker.

“Yo, Iron Mask!”

“Barker.”

“Haha, just call me Pell if you want?”

“No, this is fine.”

“Want a drink?”

“Sure.”

As I sat next to him and drank, he kept talking without a break. Most of it was just praising me.

The ‘Fashion Barbarian’ strategy worked out as expected. No, it actually exceeded expectations.

Apparently, the ‘warriors’ I trained and distributed to various teams had a higher success rate than mine.

Well, it couldn’t be helped. After all, I always kept my face hidden behind the Iron Mask, which made me more suspicious compared to those who didn’t.

“This is revolutionary! They trusted us far more easily than when we used kids as decoys!”

“So, does that mean we won’t need decoys anymore?”

“Hmm, it’s too early to say. We don’t know how long this method will last.”

I subtly tested the waters, but it seemed the clan leader had no intention of letting the sisters go.

He had some sense, after all.

“Besides, the Rainweilz sisters, at least, have quite the talent. A few more years of grinding, and they’ll be valuable assets.”

Yeah, he had no intention of letting them go peacefully.

‘Sigh, I can’t just kill him here and now.’

I quietly clicked my tongue.

Felix Barker was, in fact, the biggest obstacle to our plan.

Or rather, the essence he possessed was the problem.

A Level 4  rare species: Seamerchant.

A rare ‘neutral’ monster that one might encounter while sailing on the Sixth Floor Ocean, though the chances are extremely low.

Normally, it doesn’t attack first, and if you pour a certain amount of magic stones into the sea where it swims, it throws back a top-tier material called Bluestone.

Of course, you can also hunt it as a monster, and if you’re incredibly lucky, it drops an essence that grants a unique active skill called [Unholy Contract]…

‘Currently, only the older sister is bound by the contract.’

This [Unholy Contract] was the problem.

Thanks to the vile contract he placed, we had to break it to save Laura.

‘Ugh, how did such a precious essence end up with this scumbag…?’

Annoyed, I asked Felix Barker a question.

“But how did you get the Seamarchant essence? I’ve heard it’s quite rare.”

“Oh, that? Why do you ask all of a sudden?”

“I’ve always been curious. I just didn’t ask before because we weren’t close.”

“Hahaha! So, we’re closer now, huh?”

I shrugged, avoiding a direct answer, and he chuckled, interpreting it his way before starting his story.

“It was back when I was still active on the surface with my clan. I was quite young then…”

To summarize his story, cutting out the unnecessary parts:

While on a clan mission, the Seamarchant dropped its essence, and greed got the better of him, leading him to steal the test tube containing the essence.

“I planned to wait until things calmed down and auction it off, dreaming of striking it rich. I thought I’d never have to worry about money again!”

But Felix Barker’s crime was quickly discovered.

So, he fled to Noark, and in the process, couldn’t sell the essence and ended up absorbing it himself…

“Bjorn.”

At that point in the conversation, Amelia approached me.

“Ah, Emily…”

“I think it’s time to head back.”

“Is that so? I’ll take my leave, then.”

As I stood up and excused myself, Felix Barker gave me a lewd grin.

“Hehe, have a good time!”

Looking at that grin, I thought to myself.

I couldn’t wait for the day when I could crush this bastard’s head.

****

Thud.

Alluva Raven closed the book she had been reading all night.

Stretching, she got up from her seat.

Then, her gaze fell on the pile of items in the corner of her lab.

They were Bjorn Jandel’s belongings.

“It’s time… to deal with these too…”

Raven let out a long sigh.

Time was cruel.

At first, she thought there would be some grand secret to uncover and poured over various books. But she found nothing, and as time passed, she began to face reality.

Maybe that was her true nature.

Emotions are fleeting.

No matter how angry or sad she felt, in the end, her rational side would take over.

Bjorn Jandel was dead.

So, it was time to sell these items, convert them to money, and distribute them according to his will.

She shouldn’t be staying up late, digging through books.

That’s what she should be doing.

But the more she thought that way, the more inexplicable guilt Raven felt.

That’s why she had been reading.

Misha and Erwin’s world had changed with Bjorn Jandel’s death. They would never live the same lives as before.

But what about her?

“Sigh…”

She had started eating meals regularly again.

Worried that her health might deteriorate.

And the frantic search for secrets in books wasn’t as desperate as before.

She felt nothing would change anyway.

That wasn’t all.

She drank tea and forced herself to smile and chat when her seniors at the academy approached her.

And Raven knew.

That if this continued, she would eventually return to a normal life.

She was like a matchstick that could burn hot but couldn’t stay lit for long.

‘I did… like him… but…’

She liked Bjorn too.

Not romantically, but she had the most affection for him as a person.

She learned a lot from him, and being with him was enjoyable.

Emotionally, he had the most impact on her since ‘that woman.’

But just like back then, she was recovering.

And with that recovery came guilt.

“…I should at least tidy up. I can sell them later…”

Muttering to herself, Raven started sorting Bjorn Jandel’s belongings in earnest.

First, she appraised his equipment and noted their values. Then, she organized the items from his subspace.

Among them, something caught her eye.

“Huh? This is…”

A golden mask.

An item that could be obtained from the ‘Crimson Fortress’ on the first floor, but the method had been erased from her records due to erosion.

“How did Jandel get this…?”

She once suspected Jandel had a copy of the ‘Chronicles of the Rifts’ when she saw him use the ‘Tear of the Goddess’ to defeat a vampire.

But she let go of her suspicion when he swore on a warrior’s oath that it was just a coincidence.

But what was this?

“…Could he have lied?”

Maybe he did have a copy or had read it.

As she was about to delve into that thought, she remembered her teacher once suspected him of being an evil spirit.

‘Ugh, what am I thinking…’

Raven chuckled and continued organizing his bag.

Then it happened.

“What’s this?”

She found a magical tool with an unknown purpose.

Judging by the inscriptions, it seemed to be a device for ‘communication’ and ‘recording’…

Click.

Raven pressed a groove at the bottom.

Then, a voice began to play.

[What’s the dilemma? They’re just NPCs anyway.]

[But still, we’ve been through so much together—]

[You’re kidding, right? You think they’d feel the same if they knew the truth?]

It wasn’t Bjorn Jandel’s voice.

Then who were these two talking?

The answer came quickly.

[Your comrades believed they were your friends because that was the real Hans. But as you know, the real Hans is no longer in this world.]

[But… I still think of them as my real comrades.]

It was a conversation between Hans Chrisen and the dwarf from Noark, whom she had met in the Doppelganger Forest.

So, this was what they meant by ‘weakness.’

Who would have thought he still had this?

Anyway, she should reset it if she planned to sell it later, right?

Swoosh.

Raven let her magic flow into the device, analyzing its circuitry. As a mage specializing in magitech, this was a simple task.

‘Press twice and hold once for a reset.’

She figured out how to reset it, but instead of pulling her magic out, she continued to analyze the circuits.

The structure was unique, and she wanted to examine it a bit more.

As she delved deeper and started reading the residual magic…

‘The maximum number of plays for recorded content is limited?’

Her hand twitched.

“Huh?”

The device could only play a recording up to 100 times, after which it would automatically reset.

But…

‘Only two plays left?’

The playback count was strangely unsettling.

Too strange for a simple error, so Raven injected more magic and inspected it thoroughly.

Then she checked the playback history.

“What the…”

Except for the two plays, all others had occurred after leaving the Doppelganger Forest. In other words, Bjorn Jandel had played it 96 times.

“Why… did Jandel play this conversation so many times…?”

She couldn’t understand.

But Raven’s instincts screamed that something was wrong.

Just then.

Knock, knock.

Someone knocked on her lab door.

Raven paused and opened the door.

An unexpected visitor stood there.

“Misha…?”

“Yeah… Can I come in…?”

“Ah, yes! Of course! Please, come in! I’ll just tidy up a bit…”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Okay… But what brings you here all of a sudden…?”

Flustered by the unexpected visit, Raven trailed off.

“I have something… important to tell you…”

A sense of foreboding filled her.

***

“Drinking again?”

“Well, there’s nothing else to do…”

Amelia glanced at me as she hung her coat on the rack.

Gosh, give me a break.

It gets pretty boring being here alone.

“Did you collect the payments?”

She chuckled at my question.

“Do you think I can’t handle something like that?”

“It’s not that, but you never know. They could’ve tried something funny…”

“Don’t worry. I made sure we got our share. Not that it matters much.”

“True…”

Money wasn’t our goal.

It wasn’t entirely meaningless, but it would only matter after we saved Laura and figured out how to return to our original timeline.

“So, what’s the plan? After talking to him, it seems like it’ll be tough to break the contract before that incident…”

“Nothing changes for now. We’ll keep trying, at least until we come up with a better plan.”

“Alright…”

Two weeks had passed since we returned to Noark.

During that time, we discussed our plan extensively.

How to save Laura.

But even after days of talking, we couldn’t find a clear solution.

‘Ugh, I feel like I’m so close to figuring it out…’

The more frustrating it got, the more I looked forward to the 15th midnight.

Meeting Auril Gavis again, gathering information from other members—I hoped it would spark a good idea.

“It’s tonight, right?”

“Two hours left.”

Amelia nodded at my response and went to wash up. Afterward, she just chatted to pass the time.

Before long, the moment arrived.

[23:59]

Ten seconds until midnight.

I closed my eyes and focused on the ticking of the clock.

Tick, tick, tick…

Soon, I heard the tenth tick.

And then…

“…What the.”

I opened my eyes immediately.

Tick, tick, tick…

In the silence, the ticking continued.

“…Did we already go?”

Amelia looked at me in confusion, but I just stared at the clock in a daze.

Tick, tick, tick…

What’s going on? Why didn’t it take me?