Surviving game as a barbarian Episode 673

Star Grave 3

How long had it been since my last Hans?

It had been such a long time since I last encountered one.

‘The last one was K…’

Hans Caesar.

I ran into him by chance on the Dark Continent when I was active as Rihen Schuiz.

And…

We hadn’t even been together for two hours before those Noark bastards launched their surprise attack.

In the end, we managed to get through it without major sacrifices, but it could have been a real disaster.

Had Raven not changed her mind midway, my journey might have ended there and then, trapped forever inside the ‘Cage of Silence’.

If Raven hadn’t changed her mind, I might have been trapped forever inside the ‘Cage of Silence’.

But that’s not important now…

Hans L.

That’s the Hans code for today.

I’m not sure if a guy who turned into a monster before dying still counts as “Hans,” though.

Well, better safe than sorry.

Badump-Badump!

After the frantic beating of my heart, I shouted at the top of my lungs:

“Prepare to move!!!”

Needless to say, the others couldn’t understand my reaction.

“…Huh? All of a sudden?”

“I can’t sense any presence of monsters at all…”

Baek-ho and the Archer looked confused.

They might not have understood why, but they saw how panicked I was and got into position to retreat immediately.

“It’s an emergency. We need to get as far away from here as possible, right now.”

“No, but why should we—”

In an emergency, action is more important than words.

Ignoring their questions, I started running first, and everyone followed behind me, not understanding the situation.

It wasn’t just herd mentality; it was more a belief that I must have a reason for acting this way.

“…Let’s go for now! Baron Jandel must have a reason for acting like this!”

And so, our emergency escape began without warning.

Even as they ran after me, the group continued to voice their confusion.

“Hey, Baron! What’s going on? At least tell us what we’re running from!”

Of course, there was nothing I could say in response.

Because I didn’t know either.

I had no idea what we were about to be running from.

“…You’ll find out soon enough.”

That was all I could say, so I brushed it off like that.

“Man, you’re seriously killing me here!”

Baek-ho reacted as if he was dying of frustration but didn’t stop running.

And after some time had passed like that.

“…A person?”

A human figure appeared at the edge of our vision.

“That’s not a person—it’s a Bayon.”

The monster had dark skin, with a black spider crawling over its face. But surprisingly, there wasn’t just one this time.

“…That’s quite a few of them.’

Starting with the one in the lead, five more Bayons appeared from behind, hidden in the shadows.

“Hey, Baron! What do we do now!”

“We eliminate them as quickly as possible and then move again.”

“Okay. Everyone heard him?”

At my command, our group immediately shifted from travel formation to battle stance and engaged the bayons.

The battle itself wasn’t particularly difficult.

Though there were many enemies, Baek-ho didn’t rush in recklessly as he had before. He fought steadily, assessing each Bayon carefully.

“What the hell? Why are they all using skills?”

“…It’s the Guardian’s Essence!”

“What? This piece of shit has Phianil’s Essence?”

The Bayons we fought this time carried much higher-level essences than expected, so the battle took longer than usual.

“Fifteen minutes, huh…”

For taking down six Level 3 monsters, that was actually incredibly fast. But, given my anxiety about Hans L, even that felt far too long.

‘Anyway, at least no one got hurt…’

I wanted to start moving again as soon as the fight ended, but I couldn’t get everyone to agree.

“Eh, we’re just gonna leave all this behind? Hang on, let’s loot first.”

Baek-ho ignored my order to hurry up and started looting.

When I told him we didn’t have time, he just said I should at least explain what was so urgent.

“Sigh…”

I was frustrated.

Even if I wanted to tell them the truth, how could I?

If I tell him it’s because of the name “Hans,” he’ll just snort and make fun of me.

Maybe things would be different if he’d been there with me, experiencing the previous Hanses firsthand. But if I just told him the story from my perspective, he’d dismiss it as nothing more than superstition.

And then he’d stop taking me seriously altogether.

For that reason, I had no choice but to watch the looting process.

“Six Bayons… that’s a bit unusual.”

“Indeed. It might be possible in the Land of Immortality, but they’re not a common sight around here.”

The two mages exchanged opinions.

As they said, the appearance of so many Bayons was clearly an abnormal phenomenon.

However…

‘This can’t be the end of it.’

There was no way the “Hans effect” would stop here.

Not after everything that’s happened before.

“Okay, all done looting!”

Baek-ho finished looting, and we were ready to move on.

But then someone stopped me.

“Wait a moment! Everyone, wait a moment!”

The tank from Lee Baek-ho’s team, Lex Aureus.

He shouted as if he had discovered something. I was about to ignore him, thinking he’d say something trivial again, but…

“These bastards! These bastards look familiar too!”

“Wait! Everyone, hold on a moment!”

Rex Aures shouted as if he had discovered something important. I was about to ignore him, thinking it was unimportant, but then…

“These guys! Their faces look familiar!”

That was something I couldn’t brush off.

“Bright! Come look at this! Aren’t these guys explorers from our side?”

“…What are you talking about?”

At Aures’s request, the archer approached and peeled the black spider off one of Bayon’s faces.

And then—

“You’re right. Not all of them, but there are a few familiar faces mixed in.”

The archer agreed with Aures’s words.

Hearing this, the GM cautiously put forward a theory.

‘Could they be part of Hans Dailan’s group?’

“…Huh?”

“You know, he said there were over a hundred of them wandering the outside world together. Maybe these are them…”

“Eh? But didn’t he say they got separated midway?”

Aures looked doubtful, but I considered it a real possibility.

The best way to hide a lie is beside the truth.

It’s true that hundreds were left outside the walls.

However, the part about them being scattered is a lie, and perhaps they got caught up in an incident.

There was even evidence suggesting it.

“…Judging from the state of the bodies, these people have likely been turned into monsters for several months.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know much about Bayons, but look at the one with the cut on its neck. It likely died from that wound and then transformed into a monster afterward.”

“…And?”

“But the bloodstains on its collar are several months old at least.”

A reasonable deduction from a mage accustomed to experiments.

The Ruin Scholar nodded in agreement.

“Hmm… then that Hans Dailan fellow may also have died months ago…”

I cut him off mid-sentence.

“Daylan.”

“…What?”

“Just call him Dailan. Drop the ‘Hans.’”

Because every time I heard that name, my body twitched reflexively.

“You sure are sensitive about strange things.”

He gave me a puzzled look, but then the Ruin Scholar continued.

“In any case, if this Dailan guy really died months ago and turned into a monster, then things just got complicated.”

“Indeed. That would mean the ‘Daylan’ we met isn’t actually Daylan.”

“Huh? What are you both talking about? I don’t understand a single thing!”

“Aures, put simply, someone pretended to be Dailan and lured us here.”

“What?! Then it’s a trap!” It was only after Jayna had explained it in simpler terms that Rek Aures shouted in shock.

The mages, now used to his theatrics, ignored him and kept talking.

“If our theory’s correct, those Bayons won’t be the last of them.”

“Yes… If over a hundred people were caught in some incident here…”

“Then that many Bayons might be roaming around this area.”

Just as they reached that conclusion—

“Monsters approaching!”

 

Archer Bright, our scout, shouted loudly.

“Five… no, six… seven, ten, fifteen…? They are continously increasing!”

He called out the numbers in real time.

It didn’t take long for the number, which started at five, to grow to over thirty.

“A monster surge! No—‘surge’ doesn’t even begin to describe how many there are!”

It was explorer slang for when monsters suddenly appeared in massive swarms.

“Whoa, a sudden monster wave?”

Players sometimes call this a monster wave.

“Bright, where did the monster tide start?”

“There’s no specific location. They’re swarming in from all directions as if they’re targeting us specifically!”

A clear anomaly.

Bayons, which had barely appeared before, are now showing up by the dozens all at once.

‘……Did killing one of them trigger something?’

I couldn’t be sure, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

“Even for this team, fighting that many would be rough.”

“If other monsters appear, or if a meteor falls in the middle, we’ll be in deep trouble.”

“The northeast side has the fewest numbers.”

“Lead the way. We’ll move while avoiding combat as much as possible.”

“Yes, Understood.”

Using his sharp senses, the archer guided us around the Bayons, avoiding as many as possible and proving why he was a top-tier scout.

“This way!”

He weaved us through the gaps between the monsters with remarkable precision, using his keen senses.

“How about that? Our archer’s quite the guide, huh?”

Baek-ho grinned proudly, and Bright smiled awkwardly.

“Baek-ho, we were only lucky this time. …If we’d stayed where we were, by the time I sensed them, we’d have already been surrounded.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“At first, I was unsure, but now I’m certain. If we had been at the spot where we first killed the Bayon, by the time we sensed their presence, we would have already been completely surrounded.”

 

At that, Aures clapped his hands together in exaggerated amazement.

“Oh, really?! That’s incredible, Baron! You said we had to move, and you were right!”

“…I’m curious too, Baron. How did you know?”

Even the archer seemed impressed, while Baek-ho’s eyes turned sly.

“Heh… so our Baron has some kind of detection skill, huh? Let’s see, what kind of tank skill would that be…”

Lee Baek-ho genuinely believed I had such a detection skill and started shadowboxing with possibilities.

“Hmm, [Hyper-Sensitive Muscles] doesn’t have that effect, [Clock Hands of Regret]—nah, not that. ‘Fate Tracker’? Didn’t seem like it triggered… What could it be?”

He was clearly fishing for a reaction, tossing out guesses one by one.

I said nothing.

Because, really, what could I say?

That it wasn’t a skill… it was Hans.

Even if I told them, they wouldn’t believe me. In fact, it was better for me if they kept believing I had some hidden detection skill.

Thinking that, I sealed my lips and focused on breaking through the Bayons’ encirclement and escaping.

And after some time had passed like that.

「The character has entered a special area.」

We had escaped the Old Rock Plains and stepped into a new field.

[Field Effect – Toxic Lava Zone Activated]

[Poison Resistance fixed at 0]

「Soul Power recovery rate is reduced by 99%.」

[Warning: Beware of explosions!]

The green lava bubbled ominously, releasing poisonous gases that filled the air like smoke.

“…It seems they’re no longer pursuing us,” Upon entering the new field, the scout declared the situation over.

“We made it.”

“So it seems it wasn’t an unconditional pursuit after all.”

We had escaped the Bayon monster wave.

But there was still one problem—

My rapidly beating warrior’s heart was telling me otherwise.

Badump—!

That this was far from over.

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