Barbarian in a Failed Game

006. The Kind mage (3)

Eliya, a mage of the Gray Tower.

It wasn’t that he doubted her from the beginning.

It was during the battle, as she happened to support Khan who was charging towards the mutant troll, that he became certain.

No, on second thought…

“There’s barely a better material for a necromancer than the body of an exceptional warrior.”

“Ah, uh…!”

“You said it yourself. You needed a warrior capable of hunting down the mutant troll in its entirety… So you sought me out the day I stood against the ogre on the frontline.”

The answers were all within the words she had previously blurted out.

“It was the opposite. You needed the body of a warrior capable of fully hunting down a mutant troll. Whether it was your choice or that of your notorious master to target me is…”

Not that important. Khan said coldly as he gripped the handle of his axe.

“Pffft. Wait…!”

“Why would I.”

Shriek─! A terrible scream erupted from Eliya as Khan, after removing the axe embedded in her skull, shook off the sticky blood and locked eyes with her.

“Tougher than I thought. Opting to use your own body as material for necromancy. That’s not common.”

“Eek-ya-yaak! Keeii!”

Eliya, squirming on the ground like a stepped-on worm, no longer possessed her former beauty. That face was probably fake from the start.

Only the tower masters possess the authority to issue a Tower Mage’s Identity Badge, which cannot be forged.

‘She either turned from a Gray Tower mage into a necromancer, or she stole a mage’s body – one of the two.’

Regardless, it was clear she had been wearing someone else’s face.

And Khan was all too familiar with a necromancer from the Argon Kingdom proficient in such tactics.

“A Disciple of Darkin, that pervert, eh?”

Thud-.

The scream ceased.

“How. Did you know?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

Exhaustion evident on his face, Khan raised his axe again.

‘If I leave her be, she’ll slowly regenerate, so I should completely disassemble her now.’

“Spare me…!”

Eliya, who had somehow fully regenerated her facial skin, grabbed the hem of Khan’s trousers.

Why fix the face first, when she had enough power left to regrow other parts?

‘It’s obvious.’

To any normal man, such a seductive appearance could stir dark desires and weaken his resolve. She must be planning to use her beauty as a trap against some naive brute.

“I, I didn’t target you…! That old man ordered me to find you! He threatened to expel me if I didn’t comply! He threatened me!”

Her plea, with a face so beautiful, seemed quite persuasive at a glance.

But only at a glance.

“Not just you! My siblings are out there hunting warriors of renown throughout the kingdom…! I just wanted to live, so I followed the master’s orders, that’s all!”

“Was encountering me really just a coincidence?”

“Halfway… Baron Efill had informed me that you had already departed by carriage… By chance, when I boarded the carriage!”

“Always useless.”

Baron Efill, a name he recalled. A pig wallowing in jealousy towards him. While he was in the East, such an irritating man, now it turns out, was spreading his information far and wide. Khan scowled.

“That pig bastard can wait for his turn… Anyway, you did indeed set your sights on me.”

“I. I can be very useful. I can inscribe the spells you were promised… You, you’re a man, aren’t you? I can transform into any appearance you desire. You’ll never grow bored!”

“What kind of nonsense is this?”

What does this damn mage take me for?

Khan snorted in disdain.

Maybe she finally realized that no matter what she said, it wouldn’t make a difference. Hate flickered in Eliya’s eyes.

“I didn’t want any of this─! To become a necromancer! To do these… these filthy, vile deeds…!”

Crack─!

Eliya’s head tragically soared through the air, landing at Khan’s feet shortly after.

“Such a bitch. Where’s the nice mage? You’ve got to deceive someone who can be deceived.”

*

Immediately after Eliya’s death was confirmed, the experience bar showed significant changes for the first time in a long while. It indicated that her level was not low at all. In fact, the combined attacks of the mutant troll and its minions had been quite threatening. It would have been troublesome in many ways if she hadn’t revealed herself to capture Khan alive.

“Well, I guess she decided to die from the moment she came out.”

Closing the distance and breaking through the magical protection was only the troublesome part. The physique of a mage themselves doesn’t exceed that of a normal human.

“Mages are quite nice in this respect.”

Khan, casually fitting his dislocated shoulder back into place, rotated it to check its condition.

“Tsk, it’s still sore.”

The skill grade of ‘Throwing’, which was initially only E-grade when he arrived in ‘Midland Quest’, continuously rose with each 100% proficiency achieved. As a result, the ‘Throwing’ skill, which was already nearing A-grade, became a monstrous skill, surpassing most attack magics.

[Throwing (B) – 89.6%] ─B-grade Effect, Dragon’s Whirlwind: Creates a powerful whirlwind around the thrown object. The effectiveness increases with strength. ─C-grade Effect, Charging: Power and cost increase in proportion to preparation time. ─D-grade Effect, Bullseye: Increases accuracy.

“Soon to be A-grade, huh?” A-grade effects were of a different caliber compared to those below. It was hard to achieve, and even Khan, with his proficiency bonus, could only afford to have one A-grade skill so far. “Well, it’s not like I have many opportunities to use it because of the side effects.”

He thought it was great to use health instead of mana when choosing his character, but living in that body wasn’t great at all. “Using an A-grade skill once drains all my stamina, either breaking my arm due to its immense power or shattering any weapon I managed to get….”

Even now, he pretended to be fine, but in reality, his shoulder was quite sore from using the throwing skill at its maximum capacity. “I used to manage two or three full charges of throwing in one fight easily before….” But after his strength exceeded 40, it wasn’t easy to do so even once. It was like a glass cannon, a muscular glass cannon, if you will. Any irony here?

To solve this, his stamina stat needed to catch up with his strength, but due to the racial bonuses of a barbarian, that was impossible.

“…Guess I’ll have to do some farming.” Khan’s lips curled upwards as he rummaged through Eliya’s belongings to soothe his suddenly gloomy mood. True to a mage wealthy in mana, the loot was quite useful.

“This must be… the Messenger’s wristband, right?” Simply wearing it increased the stamina stat by 1, and it had the added effect of reducing fatigue from long runs or jumps—precisely what Khan desperately needed, like an oasis in the desert.

“No wonder she climbed mountains so well.” She had been hiding such a precious item inside her robe.

Khan casually slotted the orange wristband on his left arm and then looked at the silver ring on Eliya’s finger. “This is something I’ve never seen before.” Seeing the magic stone embedded in it, it seemed to be a magical tool with an embedded spell.

“How does this work?” Examining the ring from various angles, Khan slipped it onto his middle finger and curled it, wondering if it might work.

A nearly invisible gray thread shot straight out – it was the ‘Silent Thread of Arachne’ Eliya had used just before. “So she’s been posing as a Gray Tower mage with this.” Khan played with the thread shot from the ring, hurling the axe far away. He then fixed the axe handle with the gray thread and spread his fingers. As the thread retracted into the ring, the axe was pulled back and caught in Khan’s hand with a snap. A smile formed on Khan’s lips. “This is nice.” As long as he replaced the magic stone regularly, there would be no issue using it, even without mana. “Didn’t get a magic axe, but got something similar, huh?”

Khan also took the Tower’s ID card before carelessly burying Eliya’s body. “I really need a bath now.” He immediately descended the mountain and headed straight for Maris’s nest.Having paid for his room on the second floor in advance, he had intended to wash up and immediately fall asleep in bed.

“Kyaak─!”

In the process, he inadvertently scared a young maid, but nonetheless, after spending an entire day asleep, Khan woke up to find himself plunged into deep thought.

Suddenly, a reality he had ignored leapt at him.

Darkin Perayas, the corpse-maker.

The master of a dark mage, whose neck had been severed by Khan’s hand the night before.

Even now, with most of the game’s story forgotten, his was a name that remained etched in Khan’s mind, one of the notable characters.

And for good reason.

He would become a grand mage, swallow an entire country, and establish a kingdom of corpses under his school of necromancy.

“He’s targeting me….”

Despite believing that a mage’s words aren’t to be trusted, the characteristics of Darkin, as remembered by Khan, made it a plausible scenario.

Timing-wise, it was certain that he hadn’t become a grand mage yet.

Then, he would be in the process of strengthening his forces with the corpses of formidable foes.

It wouldn’t be strange for him, known as the ‘Ogre Slayer,’ to drool over such a prey.

“Damn-. This is troublesome.”

Khan scratched the back of his head.

The moment Darkin learns of Eliya’s failure, it was inevitable that new pursuers would follow.

In the worst-case scenario, he might come forward himself.

‘Considering it’s still early in the game story… His skills wouldn’t be at their peak yet.’

Even so, the situation was just as problematic.

“Ha….”

A heavy sigh was exhaled.

Despite his efforts to stay out of the game’s mainstream narrative by operating in the outskirts of Argon, a kingdom on the fringe, they reached out to him first.

‘I can’t leave Argon because of clues related to an ancient god either.’

According to a document he had recently obtained,

“When humans rebelled to escape the tyranny of a dragon, a scale was torn from it. Enraged, the dragon smote the earth with its tail….”

“The dragon said, ‘So you never forget today, I will leave one of my scales. Let it be a reminder of the dragon’s fear for generations to come.'”

The helper’s interpretation suggested that over time, the scar left by the dragon’s tail formed a vast mountainous region, and the nation built upon this wound was Argon.

Moreover, the location where the dragon’s scale fell was highly likely to be the great western mountain range.

Having committed an act that necessitated his departure from the east, he had followed this lead toward the western part of the kingdom.

In other words, to achieve his goal, he had to head to the western mountain range.

Therein lay a problem….

‘Darkin Perayas. His base is also in the western part of Argon Kingdom.’

*

*

*

A master of necromancy spells, Darkin Perayas would gain infamy as a grand mage in the distant future but was already notorious enough.

Constantly changing his identity by stealing other people’s skins made tracking him nearly impossible, and his stature as a dark mage was quite high, making it impossible for any moderate force to subdue him.

Furthermore, he wasn’t alone. There were at least a dozen disciples like Eliya, whom Khan had killed.

‘If a few dozen dark mages can establish a country, that says it all.’

Given that persistent man, it was certain he would be searching for Khan, Eliya’s target, the moment her communication ceased.

And Khan, for personal reasons, had to venture into the western part of the kingdom, where Darkin resided.

‘I’ve been avoiding the main story as much as possible, but getting entangled like this feels like cheating.’

Of course, at this point, neither his strength nor his forces were likely to be significant.

Darkin’s ascension to a grand mage and the swallowing of the Argon Kingdom were events of Act 5, and currently, Act 1 was underway.

‘That is to say, if there’s a time to deal with him, it’s now….’

The western great mountain range, where the dragon’s scale was said to have fallen, was a dangerous magical land on its own. It was not a place to wander with lingering fears of a stab in the back.

After considering various factors…

Khan concluded that he had to eliminate Darkin Perayas.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve leveled up.’