Chapter 43 - The Mage and the Barbarian (3)

“Oh! Bjorn, son of Jandel!”

As soon as I left the Magic Tower, I headed for the lodgings reserved for barbarians. Was it because I was now in my second month? More than half the familiar faces were gone, with new barbarians filling their places.

From what I heard, there was an unspoken tradition of moving out once you earned some money to make room for others...

'Quite a few of the missing ones probably died this time, too.'

Perhaps this was simply your lot if you were born a barbarian. Unlike the elves, whose seniors were closely involved in helping them along, barbarians had to make it on their own once they entered the city.

“Is Aynar inside, by any chance?”

“Aynar left for the sanctuary first thing this morning!”

Tsk. Somehow, I had suspected as much. I had come straight here because I hadn't shown my face in the two days since leaving the Labyrinth, but it turned out to be a wasted trip.

“Oh, have you heard the news?”

“What news?”

“About the Barbarian of Freedom! The whole city is buzzing about him. You didn't know?”

I flinched instinctively.

“... N-no, not at all. Do you know his name?”

“Hmm? No! Strangely enough, that's the one thing no one seems to know!”

Fortunately, it seemed the guild had kept my name anonymous.

“Anyway, I'm just proud that someone like that came from our people! They say he single-handedly beat down hundreds of men and boldly cleared his name of the guild's false accusations. Isn't that amazing?”

“... He beat down hundreds?”

I swear, nothing of the sort had happened. All I had done was grab the district manager's daughter and whine. How had the rumors already gotten so distorted? I was already worried about what would come next, but...

'... It'll die down soon. The guild guys aren't idiots.'

“I'll come back tomorrow morning. Could you tell Aynar that when she returns?”

“I will!”

I turned and headed for the inn where I had been staying.

Now, what was going on here?

“Y-you...! W-weren't you dead?”

The innkeeper recoiled as though he'd seen a ghost the moment he spotted me. That wasn't an entirely inaccurate comparison. Without much questioning, he confessed that he had cleared out my room because he thought I was dead.

“What did you do with my things?”

“I got rid of everything...”

“I'm pretty sure I paid for the room through three days from now.”

Irritation crept into my voice despite myself, and the innkeeper began turning white.

'It's not like I can beat the bastard—'

No, hold on. Since when had thoughts like that come so naturally to me? I flinched at the belated sense that something was wrong.

'... Maybe since the very first day.'

Looking back, everything had been a little strange. Someone had been beheaded right after I opened my eyes, yet my mind had remained calm. The same went for the first time I killed someone in the Labyrinth. I had thought it necessary, but carrying it out had been far too easy.

It hadn't even been a gradual change. From the day I woke up in this body, I had been as violent and simple-minded as the barbarians.

'Just look at today.'

Breaking out of prison? Sure, I would have reached the same conclusion after thinking it over, but my lack of hesitation had been downright strange. My argument with the old man at the Magic Tower was much the same. Flying off the handle over a single unpleasant remark? Lee Hansoo, the twenty-nine-year-old office worker, would never have done that. He hadn't been timid, but he hadn't been bold, either. He was a suspicious man who spent a long time observing before he acted.

'But what about now?'

Until now, I had simply considered it a change brought on by extraordinary circumstances. But the sense that something was off kept growing.

'There's no doubt.'

At last, I was certain.

Just as the instincts ingrained in this hulking body sprang out on their own whenever I fought, something had changed in my mind as well. No, rather than a change, it would be more accurate to call it a merging.

“I-I'm telling you I'm s-sorry! Please stop glaring at me!”

Coming out of my thoughts, I sighed. I had changed. It was strange that I was only realizing it now, but that much was certain. Still, what was I supposed to do about it?

'This is actually better if I want to survive here.'

I decided to look on the bright side as much as possible. As for the barbarian instincts, I could simply be a little more careful about keeping them in check from now on.

“... Give me thirty thousand Stones and I'll let this go.”

So, although I found the innkeeper's behavior infuriating, I decided to settle for reasonable compensation. The most expensive thing among my missing belongings was a set of clothes I'd bought for 2,500 Stones, anyway... Above all, I wanted to rest rather than waste time arguing.

“Thirty thousand Stones! All I sold was a few bits of junk—”

“Didn't you say you threw it all away?”

“...”

“Enough. Just tell me if you won't pay. I'll tell everyone here what happened to me.”

“... How about I let you stay at our inn for that amount instead?”

“No.”

I had no intention of staying at this lousy inn again. I could understand pocketing a dead explorer's belongings, but wasn't waiting until the agreed date the bare minimum of business ethics?

“Sigh... Make sure you keep your promise not to tell anyone.”

“Of course.”

After collecting an extra thirty thousand Stones, I headed to an inn I'd had my eye on.

Both the average meal price and the nightly rate were about twice as expensive... but it was worth it.

'Now this feels like living like a human being.'

For starters, the room was one and a half times the size of my old one. It had a window, and the bathroom even had a private bathtub. Being much closer to the Dimensional Plaza was a bonus.

After spending about an hour scrubbing off the grime I'd accumulated in the Labyrinth, I threw myself onto the bed. It was soft. So soft that I found myself wondering whether people lived for these fleeting moments of happiness.

Maybe that was why everything that had happened, from the Labyrinth to my return to the city, suddenly unfolded through my head like a panorama.

“Fuck.”

Why was getting one good rest so damn hard?

* * *

As soon as morning came, I walked into the first open clothing shop I found and bought some everyday clothes. Then I headed to the barbarian lodgings.

“Bjorn!! Where have you been all this time?”

“Something came up. Sorry for worrying you.”

“Worried? What are you talking about? Why would I worry? You could be thrown into hell and still find your own way back alive!”

Right. So that was how she saw me. Well, I liked this much better than some clumsy, tearful reunion, too. Neither of us had eaten, so we headed to a nearby restaurant.

“Oh, have you heard?”

Aynar opened with a question as soon as we sat down and ordered. I'd half expected it, so this time I wasn't particularly surprised.

“Oh, about the Barbarian of Freedom?”

“Huh? The Barbarian of Freedom? What in the world is that?”

Wait, that wasn't what she was going to ask?

“... Nothing. What were you going to say?”

“Oh!”

Returning to her original topic, Aynar leaned forward and lowered her voice.

“I heard this from the elder... Someone stole one of the Six Treasures!”

“One of the Six Treasures?”

I was genuinely aghast.

The Six Treasures referred to six precious objects. In the game, the six races—dwarves, barbarians, elves, Therianthropes, dragonkin, and humans—each kept one. And the problem was...

'Without those, I can't enter the final floor!'

The Six Treasures were key items in [Dungeon and Stone]. The ending... No, honestly, I no longer even knew whether such a damn thing existed, but opening the Gate of Abyss required gathering all six of the Six Treasures. And now one was gone?

“Who the hell had the nerve to do that?”

“I don't know, either. But apparently it was stolen on the day of our coming-of-age ceremony. The elder said the other races might be in a similar situation.”

“... I see.”

It felt as though someone had smashed me in the back of the head with a hammer and run off, but I finished my meal without letting much show.

'Fuck, does that mean I have to live here forever?'

In a sense, my most hopeful option had just vanished. Still, it would be at least several years before the Six Treasures became relevant to me in the first place.

'... I haven't even reached the third floor. This isn't something to worry about yet.'

In the end, what I had to do remained the same: get stronger so that when the time came to make a choice, I would have as many options as possible. Besides, who knew? While I was doing that, they might catch the thief who stole the treasure before long.

“By the way, Aynar, are you free today?”

“I am. I decided not to go to the sanctuary today.”

“Good.”

After finishing our simple meal, I headed to the commercial district with Aynar.

“So this is Commelby! I've never actually been here before! There are so many people!”

Commelby. That was the name for districts two through five, which formed a ring around the first district, the imperial capital of Carnon. Many simply called it the Free Market. That was how much commerce flourished here. Raphdonia's middle class lived here, and a great many artisans and shops were concentrated in the area. This was also where I had come with Erwin before.

'Come to think of it, I wonder how she's doing.'

Only now did Erwin come to mind. Whenever we met, it was always because she came to the inn where I was staying. But now that I'd moved out... meeting again would be rather difficult. I didn't even remember exactly where the elf lodgings I'd visited once were.

'Well, it's not like I couldn't find them if I tried... '

But I wondered whether there was any need to go that far. As long as her older sister was alive and well, we wouldn't be entering the Labyrinth together anyway.

'If we're meant to meet again, we will.'

Honestly, so much had happened lately that my memories of Erwin had faded quite a bit. We hadn't been that close to begin with, either.

“Oh! Bjorn, look over there! People are eating clouds stuck on skewers!”

What? They had cotton candy? Curious myself, I bought one, took a single bite to taste it, and put it in Aynar's mouth. For the record, it really was cotton candy.

“I-I can't believe it! Are all humans geniuses? To make food like this!”

“Stop marveling and keep up.”

“D-don't leave me behind! I can't find my way home alone!”

Picking up the pace, we soon reached our destination: the arms shop where I had sold equipment before. I sold not only the equipment responsible for landing me in prison but also my own gear, which had been reduced to scrap. The sale brought in about eight hundred thousand Stones.

I hadn't yet sold “that thing” I'd acquired right before leaving the rupture, but...

'I'll put that at a comfortable five hundred thousand Stones for the calculation.'

“Aynar, here's your share.”

“A-a-are you sure you can give me this much? I even got an Essence thanks to you...”

“Don't be shy. Take it. You've earned it.”

For the record, the split was eighty-twenty, as promised. Even so, she had probably earned the most of all the barbarians from our cohort this time.

“I promised, didn't I? That if you followed me, I'd help you earn plenty of money.”

“But three hundred thousand Stones! Isn't that too much? How many of those cloud sweets could I buy with this?”

Apparently, cotton candy had already been elevated to another unit of currency for Aynar.

“Anyway, I'm getting hungry.”

Was it because the Corpse Golem's Essence had “Appetite +9”? It felt as though I was getting hungry much sooner.

“Already? It hasn't even been three hours!”

“So you're not coming?”

“Of course I am! I'll buy the meat today!”

Having quickly finished selling off the equipment, we stopped at a nearby restaurant for a meal. Just as we were about to head out again, Aynar looked me straight in the eyes and spoke.

“Bjorn, thank you.”

There was sauce around her mouth, but her eyes were uncharacteristically serious. Sigh. It only made me feel awkward when she acted like this.

“Forget it. Like I said earlier—”

“I'm not talking about the money.”

Huh? Then what was she talking about?

“I just... wanted to thank you for treating me normally, like before.”

I'd listened to find out what she meant, but I didn't understand at all. Still, Aynar looked far too serious for me to say so. I watched her in silence, and she struggled to speak.

“Well... As you know, my appearance has changed quite a bit. The others avoid me, too. Perhaps they don't think I'm a warrior.”

“That's—”

“Lately, humans even keep coming up and pestering me wherever I go! That never happened before...!”

Certainly, for someone who took pride in being a warrior, this seemed like a serious concern. Though, honestly, I couldn't really relate. That was probably because I was fundamentally different from a barbarian. As I listened quietly, Aynar cried out in frustration.

“Bjorn! Tell me honestly! Have I really become that ugly?”

... What?

“I've made up my mind! Bjorn! I can't go into the Labyrinth with you anymore!”

No, hold on. How did she arrive at that conclusion?

* * *

I'm drinking lukewarm beer, sitting alone on the ground floor of my inn.

“Ugh...”

How could beer taste this bad? I seemed to have picked the wrong inn. The food was pretty good, but the owner was hopeless at brewing.

“Whew...”

I let out a long breath, as if to expel the bitter taste. At the same time, my conversation with Aynar that afternoon came back to me. We'd talked for a long time after her bombshell declaration, but the outcome hadn't changed.

“Alone again.”

Aynar had left. She'd merely been rambling in typical barbarian fashion; once I heard her out, it turned out her appearance wasn't the only reason.

[“Actually... Yesterday, an elder asked if I would become his successor.”]

An elder of the sanctuary. One of the rare elders renowned as a master swordsman had taken a liking to Aynar. And today, she had decided to study swordsmanship seriously under him.

[“But a trip into the Labyrinth is only one day here, isn't it?”]

I had asked her. Just one day a month. Couldn't she take that one day off and enter the Labyrinth with me? Aynar could only look troubled.

[“I want to, too... But apparently there's a special training method, and I won't be able to set a single foot outside the sanctuary for six months.”]

Special training... Could it be that? If so, I could accept that she wouldn't be able to enter the Labyrinth with me for six months. I also knew just how good an opportunity this was.

[“I won't ask you to wait. Nor will I ask you to take me back unconditionally when the time comes. I swear I'll train hard and return as a great warrior who won't hold you back.”]

So I couldn't stop her. After all, on this expedition, she had been forced to yield to a plunderer's strength and swear an oath against her will. And what about inside the rupture? While the mage, the dwarf, and even I, who had started out alongside her, had played active roles, she had been helpless.

'That was probably what really made up her mind.'

Though I couldn't know for certain, her changed appearance had probably done little more than give her a final push.

“Ugh...”

Driven by a thirst I couldn't explain, I swallowed another mouthful of lukewarm beer. Bitterness rose from my throat.

'So I have to find another companion after all.'

I'd wanted to take a break this time and get ready at my own pace. Why did the quests never stop coming, day after day?