Surviving the Game as a Barbarian

The corpse golem’s attack pattern is simple.

Fire corpse bombs at distant enemies.

Pull close and devour nearby enemies.

Using those hundreds of arms sprouting from all over its body, wriggling like tentacles.

“Bjorn!”

Ainar’s worried cry rings in my ears as I maintain my distance.

If I get too close, I won’t be a valid target for the corpse bomb…

Then the target would change to where the wizard is.

Craaash!

I have to stall somehow.

At least until the wizard comes to her senses.

By drawing aggro all by myself.

Craaash!

Each time a corpse bomb flies in, I roll to the side to create some distance, then crouch behind my shield to protect myself from the splattering acidic synovia.

And when I’m doing this for the third time –

“Iherno heindar.”

A baptism of flames comes roaring.

Fortunately, the wizard seems to have come to her senses.

Instead of looking back, I keep my attention focused only on the corpse golem.

Accompanied by the screams of hundreds of voices, the body of the corpse golem is set ablaze, and its shell starts peeling off.

The standard strategy for beating the first pattern is to repeatedly light it aflame using torches while kiting its attacks and managing your distance, but with a single spell, all of that is now completed in one shot.

「The outer shell of the corpse golem has been neutralized. 」

But the burning smell of rotten corpses is even more disgusting.

“U… uggh, eeek!!”

Another scream resounds from behind.

Please, just come to your senses quicker this time…

Well, although, I guess I don’t need a wizard anymore.

“Ainar! It’s fine now, come to the other side!”

I immediately call Ainar forward.

The corpse golem is a level seven monster, but as long as its skin is peeled off, it’s not a monster beyond the reach of two barbarians.

“Grrrrr–!!”

Its gigantic shape has also shrunk noticeably, and now it’s only about 3m in diameter.

Now that the piles of corpses that’d been crawling all over its form have burned and melted, only the remaining bones, like bars of reinforced steel, keep creaking as they move.

I call this, ‘bone golem mode’.

“Kaaaaagh!”

Because of the reduced weight, its movement has become much more agile.

I shout as I block the violent swing of its arm with my shield.

“Porter! You come help, too!”

“I must protect Lady Raven.”

Motherfucker.

Alright, I get it.

Let’s wait and see, what price all my hard work gets me.

Crump!

I leap high and slam my mace on the golem’s torso.

There’s a shattering sound, but that’s all.

Its ribs are so hard that cracking a piece of bone a little is all I managed.

But this is repeatable.

“Ainar! Aim for the chest!”

“Got it!”

Ainar and I attack the corpse golem’s ribs, kiting its aggro between us.

Perhaps after doing that around forty times?

The ribs, hard as walnut shells, crack apart, revealing the kernel inside.

A magical core, a common vital element for golems.

Crunch!

After I break the core with my mace, the corpse golem stops working and dissolves into light.

「You have killed a corpse golem. EXP +3」

The reward is a mana stone the size of a fist, as expected of a level seven monster.

“Ohhhh! How many loaves of bread would this buy?”

Ainar, admiring the first stone she’s seen of this size, suddenly stiffens.

Because the reward doesn’t end with just a mana stone.

Whoosh!

A halo of black light shines softly as it hangs in the air.

“Bjorn, maybe this is…?”

I nod my head, equally nonplussed.

Essence drop.

A rift is nothing less than a treasure trove.

Elite monsters that don’t appear outside in the regular areas are like raindrops in the desert for adventurers who can’t get any more experience from regular monsters, not to mention the loot the guardian spits out.

But the key is that the essence drop rate inside a rift is exponentially higher than the outside.

‘Actually, if you look at the probability, it’s not that strange that an essence came out now… ‘

“What are we going to do?”

I put my thoughts together for a moment in response to Ainar’s question.

First of all, we two should own it.

We almost did all the fighting by ourselves, and this was the promise in the first place.

But…

“…”

Originally, I had two candidates.

Deathfiend for regenerative power, or chimeric wolf for muscular strength.

Both essences are from a level eight monster.

But all of a sudden, here dropped the essence of a corpse golem, a level seven elite monster that appears only inside the ‘Blood Citadel’.

The difficulty of obtaining such a rare essence is incomparable to either of the candidates…

But it’s too average for me to be happy about it.

The penalty is severe, and the unique abilities have their own drawbacks.

[Corpse Golem]

Pain Tolerance +70, Skeletal Density +55, Poison Resistance +12, Strength +15, Cognition -5, Appetite +9, Weight +21

First of all, the basic stats are suitable for tank builds.

The decline in cognitive ability affects the visual acuity of the body as well as the speed of judgment, and the body will become dull overall…

In return, other stat increases are very high.

‘Skeletal density’, which affects defence as well as physical resistance, is +55, and ‘weight’, which used to affect knockback and blunt damages in the game, is +21.

‘Pain tolerance’ is also very useful in reality compared to in the game, ‘appetite’ is insignificant, and ‘strength’ as well as ‘poison resistance’ are unconditionally helpful stats.

But…

Special:

(P) Acidic Bodily Fluids – Blood becomes acidic.

(A) Flesh Explosion – Create a powerful explosion from any part of the body.

The abilities have huge flaws.

‘Flesh explosion’ does boast tremendous damage, but it uses the character’s HP as a cost.

What if you just don’t use the active skill?

Sealing a skill is a huge loss in the first place, but even disregarding that…

If you eat this essence, every time you get injured, the durability of your equipment will drop drastically.

Because whenever you bleed, your blood will splatter and corrode whatever it touches, including your equipment.

“Whoo…”

Outrageous potion costs and horrendous equipment costs.

Usually, whenever this essence dropped in the game, I fed it to whichever NPC I was carrying with me at the time, pretty much throwing it away.

You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit[1], and this essence is the same.

It’s a waste to completely throw it away, but it’d be problematic to feed it to your player character.

‘Anyway, the essence you eat at the start has to be thrown away someday, so taking this now wouldn’t be such a bad thing… ‘

“Let’s put it on hold for now and treat the dwarf first.”

Even if there’s no owner, the essence will remain for half an hour, so there’s no need for haste.

I don’t know if I might be able to trade something for this.

Having made such a judgment, I turn to our rear and witness a scene that can be summed up in one word – a mess.

Did the porter give them potions?

The dwarf is rolling on the ground with the pain from the potion, and the wizard somehow looks half-dead.

“Do not come close.”

His name… right, Tarzine.

This sleek-looking escort bastard blocks our way as soon as he sees us coming closer.

Fuck, what did we do?

“What happened?”

When I keep my distance and ask, the porter answers.

“She’s suffering from backlash because she forcefully cast magic.”

Backlash…

He seems to be referring to ‘circuit break’, a condition that sometimes occurs when casting fails.

Upon closer inspection, the wizard is literally vomiting blood, not just spewing out the contents of her stomach.

“Ugh, huurrrk!”

Is this the bitter price of using magic in the midst of a stomach upset because of the smell?

It’s a weird sight for sure, but…

In fact, in [Dungeon and Stone], that’s a good thing.

Unlike other games where the chain of causality is transparently visible, in this game, small ’causes’ that seem insignificant can sometimes threaten your life.

“Are you going to leave her to it? I think it’d be better to move her outside first.”

“… I will ask you to carry the dwarf, then.”

After escorting Raven and the dwarf to the dungeon basement, things get better in a while.

The dwarf is the first to come to his senses.

“I have no excuse… Thank you. Things would’ve been a nightmare if it weren’t for the two of you.”

“I’m glad you understand that.”

I don’t try to act humble.

Because there’s no going back.

I’m sure I made a difference, and I’m going to use this to raise my hourly wage a little bit more.

For that, it’d be better to go high than to go low.

“If it weren’t for Ainar, you’d be dead already.”

“I know. It’s really embarrassing, but as soon as I saw it, my body stiffened. I used to think I’ve seen everything there is to see…”

Once again, this place emphasizes the harshness of reality.

If it were a game, he would’ve been more than strong enough, but due to his fragile mentality, he was almost killed by a midboss, not even the rift guardian.

“So what’s up with the lady?”

“Backlash. She’s drunk a potion, so she should get better soon.”

The wizard, who’d been screaming instead of vomiting, comes to her senses about ten minutes later.

“It hurts, ouch.”

She speaks pretending to be careless, but there’s no more of that earlier lofty atmosphere.

The corners of her mouth and the nape of her neck are caked with vomit and blood, and even her fine blonde hair hangs loose and matted.

Same with her robes, covered in dirt and grime.

“We took care of the corpse golem.”

“Yes. I know. I overdid the magic, but well done.”

Really, is this how adventurer bastards behave?

Rather than saying thank you, the first thing she mentions is her own achievement.

If I let it be, there’ll be no hope of increasing my wages.

I need to get a confirmation somehow.

“We saved you. By more than a person’s share. Do you agree, wizard?”

“… I agree.”

Raven nods as if in anger.

It seems that it was quite shameful that the two barbarians whom she’d been taking for granted did such a great job.

To be honest, it’s quite refreshing, but leaving her some room at this point will help the negotiations.

“Of course, your magic was amazing. With such strong flame, you must’ve overdid it for the sake of the team.”

“Well, I guess… So, what do you want to say?”

I say bluntly.

“We will take the rift stone.”

Essence, numbered item, rift stone.

These are the three possible loot drops from a rift guardian.

When I’d first asked for this, they’d glared at us saying we were being too greedy for two useless rookies.

But what about now?

“…”

There is only a strange silence.

I wait patiently without urging.

Patience is the basis of negotiation.

“I agree. If it weren’t for this barbarian girl here, I’d be dead.”

Is this him repaying the favour?

The dwarf is the first to express his affirmation.

But…

“I disagree.”

Raven doesn’t allow it.

But it’s not like she’s giving no concession at all.

“But if the rift stone does drop, I think we can at least give them an equal chance.”

Simply put, it means that we’ll be given the opportunity to bid.

It’s a little disappointing, but it’s true that she’s helped a lot too, so it might be nice to be satisfied with this.

Because I don’t have much time.

Then, on to the next item.

“Ah, and there was the essence.”

“Essence? Could it be that the corpse golem dropped an essence?”

“Yes.”

The dwarf and Raven both gape, perhaps not having expected to see something so rare.

“It’s amazing. It looks like you haven’t gotten a single essence yet, but you got this one as your first.”

“I heard that the corpse golem’s essence is so rare than even the Adventurers’ Guild doesn’t understand its properties.”

Raven admires the essence that’s even rarer than the essence of a guardian.

Her eyes are shining with the lust for research. It’s a bonus.

I hide my happiness as much as possible and bring out the proposal I’d been holding back.

“You can exchange it for the essence of the guardian if you want.”

“Yes? But we’re not sure if the guardian will even drop an essence… “

Raven wiggles in place with a strange face.

She really likes the suggestion.

“I’ll take the chance.”

“Okay then, alright. I really don’t know how adventurers think. Actually, the corpse golem is a lot more interesting to me. I didn’t know this would drop…”

Negotiations, success.

“Miss Raven, I’ve heard that wizards can’t absorb essences, so are you going to feed it to your porter?”

“No, the essence by itself is worth studying.”

Raven took a test tube from the porter’s bag.

This was one of the reasons wizards were such a cheat.

Even if they didn’t directly absorb the essence into the body, they could still take it outside.

They did need to prepare for that though.

“Ah! Did you bring a test tube? I heard they’re exorbitantly expensive!”

“… This is the only one I have.”

In fact, putting an essence below the sixth grade in a test tube was almost a waste.

But Raven seemed to value the corpse golem’s essence quite highly.

Whoosh!

As Raven chanted a spell, the essence was sucked into the test tube.

She carefully double-wrapped the item with cloth and stored it properly in her backpack.

“Then let’s get out of this terrible place.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to say that!”

We climbed up the grimy ladder and moved quickly through the water pipes.

The only monsters that appeared were skull rats and deadmen.

Although the place smelled foul, it was nothing compared to the stench in the corpse golem’s arena.

After traveling for about thirty minutes, we reached our destination.

“I’ll go up first.”

There was a staircase beyond the rusty iron fence that looked like it would crumple with one kick, and when I climbed it, a spacious stone chamber appeared.

Breathing in the fresh air as much as I could, I checked my surroundings.

“It doesn’t look like a gargoyle statue, what is that?”

“It doesn’t feel magical, so it must be a simple sculpture.”

Demonic sculptures were everywhere.

And the floor was littered with human skulls.

“Perhaps there was a house right above here. If it hadn’t collapsed, I would’ve been able to investigate inside… “

As if she didn’t feel the eerie atmosphere, Raven spoke as if it were a pity.

“As you can see, it has the typical look of a religious facility. However, hiding it underground means that this faith did not fit the social norms of the time. For example, worshipping an evil god.”

“I, I see.”

The dwarf was taken aback by Raven’s enthusiastic explanation as she showed off her knowledge. I brought them back to reality by interjecting before they could go off on even longer tangents.

“Why don’t we stop talking and get a little rest?”

In fact, this was my warning to myself as well.

Because the last chapter of the rift, the ‘demonic shrine’, was not a place to be taken lightly.

“Bjorn, I’m feeling something ominous in the air.”

Especially for an unlucky bastard like me.

Editor’s Notes:

[1] 계륵과 (lit. chicken ribs), something that has no great use or benefit, but not worth completely throwing away.