Surviving the Game as a Barbarian
Chapter 528: Escape Plan (1)

It was the first time in a while that one of my teammates had gotten a spec upgrade. Since Erwen had been on a solo power trip after absorbing the Chaos Essence, this event was a welcome change.

Well, I would have to wait and see what the actual specs of the essence were.

I was about to approach Ainar and ask her about the changes when…

“Yandel.”

“…Hmm?”

I felt a chill and turned around. Amelia was staring at me, her eyes cold.

“I’d like to talk about what happened earlier.”

“Ah…”

Here it comes.

She hadn't said anything before, so I thought she had let it go.

Had the appearance of the essence just delayed the inevitable?

“Ah! You mean that thing from earlier!”

I laughed heartily and approached Amelia, praising her contribution to the battle.

“We were able to slay the giant thanks to you and Misha. If it weren’t for you two, it would have regenerated, and we would have failed! Thank you for your hard work! Ainar! You should thank them too!”

“Th-Thank you!”

Amelia’s expression barely changed despite our sincere gratitude.

“So… that’s how you’re going to play it.”

Right, she had seen through my attempt to deflect the conversation.

This was troublesome.

As I was trying to find a way out of this situation, her gaze turned even colder, and she said,

“Carlstain, why are you so quiet?”

She was trying to corner me by bringing Misha into this.

But it was a mistake.

“…Huh?”

“You should also speak your mind. If you’re unhappy about something, you should say it. Otherwise, you’ll just suffer in silence—”

“Uh? I’m not unhappy…?”

“……What?”

Amelia was taken aback by her nonchalant response.

“What… do you mean?”

She seemed genuinely confused, and Misha glanced at Amelia and then at me before speaking softly.

“Well… I… I finally feel like I’ve contributed something… so I wasn’t upset…”

She wasn’t making excuses.

She was just stating the facts.

“Carlstain, you…”

“…Yes?”

“…Never mind.”

Amelia closed her mouth, as if she had a lot more to say, and then she sighed and looked at me.

“Let’s end this here. I’ll be watching you, Yandel.”

It seemed like Misha's answer had deflated her.

Okay, this issue was resolved for now.

“Ainar, do you feel any different?”

“Uh… not yet! I think I’m stronger…”

We left the other members on standby and started examining the new essence.

We started with the active skill.

“Curl up.”

Ainar obediently crouched down, mimicking the Hippermachant’s posture.

“Now, use the ability.”

There was no need for a lengthy explanation.

「Ainar Frenelin has cast [Curl Up].」

Ainar, having absorbed several essences already, skillfully activated her new ability.

Whoosh!

A translucent yellow barrier enveloped her curled-up body.

「All Resistance stats increased by 20 times for 3 minutes.」

「Natural Regeneration increased by 20 times for 3 minutes.」

「All stats greatly increase after Curl Up ends, proportional to the damage absorbed.」

We conducted several tests, and the skill itself was identical to the Ogre’s [Curl Up].

‘The Resistance and Regeneration buffs are the same…’

And just like the Ogre’s version, the stat boost after absorbing damage didn’t work on humans.

It probably only worked on monsters, just like in the game.

“Um… may we offer our assistance?”

As we were about to examine Ainar’s stats, the three mages from the Armin Exploration Team approached us.

“W-We brought an essence analysis kit… It’s not as good as a proper lab, but it should be helpful.”

“Oh, that would be great. Thank you.”

It was much better than our usual trial-and-error method, so I left Ainar with the three mages.

And after a while…

We had a rough estimate of the essence’s base stats.

High Strength, Natural Regeneration, and Physical Resistance.

Medium Magic Resistance, Bone Density, and Lung Capacity.

Low Vision, Patience, and Mana Sensitivity.

And…

“There’s a negative stat.”

A negative stat?

“What is it?”

One of the mages glanced at Ainar and said,

“Fighting Spirit.”

It was an unexpected stat.

But…

“Fighting Spirit…”

Come to think of it, Ainar had been unusually quiet.

She would have usually complained about the boring experiments and suggested that we just go hunt some monsters…

“How much has it decreased?”

I asked for a precise number, but the mage said it was difficult to measure with their current equipment.

So I decided to use a more… primitive method.

“Ainar! I’m bored. Want to spar?”

A barbarian never refused a sparring match.

It was practically a form of entertainment.

If you went to the barbarian quarters, you would see warriors fighting each other from morning till night.

But…

“Spar… Hmm…”

Ainar, the most barbarian of all barbarians, hesitated and then said,

“…Let’s do it later! We should focus on the research!”

She refused?

‘So that’s why that giant kept running away…’

How much had her Fighting Spirit decreased?

______________________

The explorer you saw yesterday and the explorer you see today are different people.

This saying usually refers to the ruthless nature of explorers, but it's also literally true. To survive in a labyrinth filled with monsters, you have to absorb essences, and those essences often affect the explorer's personality.

Just like Ainar now.

“A fight? Well, I’ll fight if I have to… but do we have to go looking for one? It’s so peaceful right now…”

The barbarian warrior, who had lived for the thrill of battle just a few minutes ago, had completely changed.

“War cry.”

“…Huh?”

“Let out a war cry. Now.”

“Behel… laa…?”

“Damn it.”

This wasn’t something to laugh about. It was a serious problem.

It wasn't unusual for essences to have side effects, but Ainar’s greatest strength had always been her recklessness.

“Yandel… is she going to be okay…?”

“…This is scary…”

The other teammates, having heard her lifeless war cry, also realized the gravity of the situation and cautiously approached me.

They were worried about our main DPS dealer losing her fighting spirit.

But there was nothing I could do right now.

She would eventually recover after absorbing another essence with a high Fighting Spirit stat…

‘But how long will this last?’

I was starting to get curious.

How much had her Fighting Spirit decreased?

She was naturally aggressive, so a small decrease wouldn’t have affected her this much…

‘…It must be at least -100.’

I was also a little worried.

It was good that her negative stat was a non-combat stat like Fighting Spirit, not Strength or Resistance… but it was still a problem.

‘…I would probably be the same if I absorbed this essence.’

And I would be absorbing it after removing the Orc Hero essence, which had +40 Fighting Spirit, so the effect would be even more pronounced.

“What about the passive skill? Is there any way to identify it?”

I decided to focus on identifying the passive skill first.

“It’s difficult to identify the exact passive skill with our current equipment. But we can determine the general type.”

“Go ahead.”

The mages approached Ainar with their tools and returned after about 30 minutes.

“It seems to be a support-type passive skill. That’s where the biggest stat change occurred.”

“Not survival or defense?”

“There were some minor fluctuations in those areas, but nothing significant.”

It was an unexpected result.

I had assumed it would be a survival or defense-type passive, considering she had survived a fatal blow to the head.

[Last Stand], [Phoenix Heart], [Close Call]…

I had been expecting something like that, but…

‘Then what is it?’

I couldn’t figure it out, so we conducted a few tests.

“Ainar, this might sting a little.”

“I don’t like pain…”

“That’s because there’s something wrong with your head right now.”

“Oh, really?”

We cut off a small piece of her finger, but we couldn’t find anything unusual.

The sparring match we had after much persuasion also yielded no results.

“…That’s enough sparring.”

“Oh? Really?”

We decided to postpone the passive skill investigation. We had already wasted a lot of time.

“Let’s go.”

We resumed our exploration.

______________________

We spent the next three days thoroughly exploring the island.

Our top priority was to complete the map.

And of course, we encountered many monsters along the way, including the Hippermachant.

We had encountered it about eight times.

We skipped three encounters because there were two of them, and we failed twice because it ran away.

So we successfully raided it three times.

But we didn’t obtain any magic stones or essences.

The Distortion magic had failed every time.

‘The Distortion magic has to succeed, and then the essence has to drop… ’

I hadn’t realized it at first, but now I understood how lucky we had been to obtain the essence on our first try.

The drop rate for essences from monsters that didn’t leave behind corpses was abysmal.

‘And if the Distortion magic hadn’t worked… we wouldn’t have even gotten a magic stone…’

Anyway, thanks to our repeated encounters with the Hippermachant, we had learned more about it.

‘The Elder’s book estimated its rank at 2…’

But I didn’t think it was a 2nd-grade monster.

The size of its magic stone was comparable to a high-level 3rd-grade monster.

Well, it had [Curl Up], which significantly increased its effective HP…

But its attack power was relatively low.

We had to take that into account when estimating its rank.

‘Considering its social behavior… I would say it’s around 2.7.’

That seemed about right.

It didn't have any 2nd-grade skills.

I suddenly wondered about the accuracy of the information in the Elder’s book, but I decided to treat this as a special case.

He had stated that he hadn’t witnessed these things himself, but had only heard about them—

“We’re… finally leaving this island…”

Wyte Hex approached me as the island shrunk in the distance.

“You seem relieved. Even though we haven’t found a way out yet.”

“Well… it’s better than being trapped on that island… We didn’t know what was going to happen…”

That was true now as well, but I didn’t say anything.

Even at the bottom, there was a hierarchy.

It was better to be here, with a glimmer of hope—

——————————!

A sudden gust of wind rocked the ship.

‘What’s that?’

I was about to call Erwen when…

Wyte Hex pointed at something in the distance.

“Over… there…!”

There? What was there?

I turned my head…

And froze.

Everyone on deck froze.

“…..”

“…..”

Something was rising from the center of the shrinking island, its eyes fixed on us.

And it let out a monstrous roar.

[Uwaaaaaaaaaaa—!]

Thankfully, it didn't seem to be chasing us.

“W-What is that…?”

Wyte Hex was speechless, and I muttered softly,

“It seems like that explorer wasn’t hallucinating after all.”

It was a giant, over 40 meters tall.

There weren’t any Floor Lords that size.

I couldn't even imagine how to raid it.

But…

Swaaaaaaaaaa!

As our ship sped away from the island…

‘…If we want to escape this island, we’ll probably have to slay that thing…’

…I couldn’t help but think that.

How were we supposed to kill something like that?

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