Barbarian in a Failed Game

Chapter 055: The Horde (5)

The party truly experienced the dangers of the “Horde” Khan had warned them about. They also understood why Aryong was classified alongside monsters on par with ogres, indiscriminate of its targets.

“Damn it, this is endless…! This is just ridiculous!”

“Lady! Behind you!”

“Damn it─!”

Maya, having skewered two Blade Wolves with her spear, retreated and fiercely swung her spear shaft.

A goblin, aiming for a blind spot in her vision, was struck and sent sprawling.

There was no time to breathe a sigh of relief. As soon as Maya’s spear touched the ground, it breathed fire with a fierce noise. The spear, wielded like a staff, pushed back the encroaching monsters.

Normally, that alone would have sufficed. The power of the spear, crafted by a Dwarf, combined with Maya’s spearmanship, could easily strike down a monster like a goblin in a single blow.

But the number of monsters was overwhelming.

“Die!”

Crack!

Maya pierced the vital points of the monsters with her sharp spear tip, twisting their necks to cut their breath short, all while trying to regulate her heavy breathing.

“It’s endless….”

Monsters surged to fill the gaps, even as she killed them over and over again.

Knowing the battle that lay ahead and the need to conserve strength, the sight of the wave of monsters involuntarily made her exert more effort.

This form of battle was unfamiliar to Maya, who usually dealt with mercenaries breaking the guild’s rules.

“I’ll take the front lines with Jan, you take a break!”

“Take a break, where can I possibly do that…!”

Despite facing nearly a hundred monsters, the reason they sustained only minor injuries was primarily due to Ron swinging his iron hammer wildly at the forefront and Jan occasionally casting spells to reduce their numbers.

‘Most of all, without that monster-like man, we would have been annihilated by now….’

As Maya caught her breath watching Jan’s spell sweep through the front, her gaze drifted.

Beyond the waves of monsters, where their battle was taking place, stood a giant barbarian with a presence that could not be ignored even from afar.

As the Dwarf-made axe and the red magic sword flashed, monsters were torn asunder, sending blood and dust mixed in a violent spray. It was a superhuman battle that transcended human capabilities.

She was certain the number of monsters Khan alone had slain far exceeded their collective total.

Yet, the battle remained stagnant, due to the overwhelming scale of the monsters.

‘No, are we the ones holding him back…?’

Gritting her teeth, Maya felt frustration.

Born as the second daughter of a knightly family, she possessed exceptional talent even among her siblings.

However, in the noble families of the Argon Kingdom, there were limits to what a woman, regardless of her talent, could achieve. Hence, she became a mercenary and caught the eye of the guild master, achieving considerable success.

Trained through the systematic discipline of the Eldred family, Maya’s skills were unparalleled among mercenaries.

Coupled with the authority of the guild master, she continued to achieve success without knowing failure.

‘Damn it….’

This was the first time Maya had faced failure and felt despair, all due to the Executioner… Khan.

Following the guild master’s orders to contact the barbarian causing significant incidents in the north, she attacked the Executioner, known for his indiscretion, and was utterly defeated.

It was hardly a fight. The moment she crossed weapons with Khan’s axe and spear, she felt death, and only by the barbarian’s capricious mercy did she survive.

‘Messing around and then suddenly backing down, how irritatingly ambiguous. My taste isn’t that fringe.’

Returning to headquarters, carrying the shame and fear, she was punished for initiating combat without orders.

Subsequently, at the guild master’s request, after the barbarian had left for the east to cool his head, she was effectively exiled in Wagner.

“It all dies….”

Maya’s spear traced a grand arc, slicing the air as the necks of the monsters invading the streets snapped open with a visceral sound. Their fate was sealed the moment they ventured into her designated territory. With precision, she pierced their vitals with the spear’s tip, smashed their skulls with the shaft, and for those who got too close for a spear strike, their heads were crushed under her gauntlet.

“Damn it! All of you, come at me!”

When Maya reunited with Khan in Wagner, she was once again confronted with the fear she felt at that time. It was as if she had become an extension of Khan’s limbs, being dragged around and eventually abandoning the Wagner branch. She couldn’t resist his will. The fear deeply engraved in her by the executioner was that intense.

With a heavy resistance felt in her hands, Maya’s eyes seemed to blaze with fire. A monster resembling a wild boar, a D-Hog, was charging at her. Its assault, difficult to even scratch with ordinary weapons, was lethal for a spearwoman like her.

Maya’s response was simple. She leaped onto the D-Hog’s back as if springing off the ground with her spear. Although the D-Hog tried frantically to throw her off, Maya was quicker. Her gauntlet pounded the beast’s most vulnerable spot, the eye sockets, until its skull was crushed, and it collapsed, leaving Maya to roll on the ground.

Gasping, she inhaled a mix of the corpse’s blood and dust, rising to continue the slaughter.

‘How long are you going to cower, Maya Eldred…!’ She thought of Khan, who had grown stronger during her brief absence. Could there be a secret to his strength, given his mana-less lower-class body? Perhaps he was a subject of a dark mage’s experiment or, as Ron rambled, born with the blood of giants…

Determined to uncover his secret, she silently followed Khan, realizing, ‘While I’ve been showing off by beating up idiot mercenaries, he’s been facing these battlefields all along.’

It was only natural for him to grow stronger. One must sharpen oneself through real combat to be deemed a true knight, as the Eldred family taught. It was then Maya truly understood this lesson.

And she thought, ‘If I keep following Khan and facing these dangerous battles, I’ll become strong like him.’

“Come at me─!” With that thought, the physical pain seemed trivial, and Maya burst into laughter, thinking that Khan must regard pain as a stepping stone for growth…

It was, quite frankly, the moment a ridiculous misunderstanding began to form.

*

*

*

Heaving heavily, Khan let out a deep breath after moving non-stop, arms hanging limp. He noticed the number of monsters attacking had dwindled to a countable few, a sign of his significant physical endurance.

‘Definitely. My stamina has increased unbelievably.’ Stats needed to complement each other. High strength required endurance to sustain it, and agility was necessary for swift reflexes and smooth movement in battle. In essence, balancing stats was crucial for optimal physical performance.

‘Of course, they were all quite weak, so I did hold back a bit…’ Regardless, it was an encouraging development. Facing roughly two hundred creatures and still being in almost perfect condition proved his growth. This is what made the game system absurd. While warriors of Midland usually hit a growth plateau, Khan could continually grow stronger with each stat upgrade.

‘This should be enough. I won’t be beaten down by them so easily now.’ Referring to the culprits behind Midland Quest’s notorious power creep: the superhumans currently tied down with the conquest of the great demon realm, unable to intervene in the main story.

“What a hassle. They’ll come into play after the current Emperor has died, so it’s premature to worry about it now.”

When exactly did the Emperor die…? As Khan mulled over his memory, he snapped out of his reverie upon detecting the approach of his party members.

“Boss. The back is mostly cleaned up. The rest is being vigorously taken care of by Lady Maya.”

It was Ron, who had been protecting the rest of the group while wielding his hammer. However, the expression on his face as he reported the situation seemed somewhat unsettled.

And just as Khan’s face began to mirror Ron’s unsettled look due to a piercing scream he was about to inquire about, they heard,

“Uahahaha! Hurt me more! I just get stronger─!”

“Cough. She’s indeed fighting very hard…….”

“What’s up with that reaction now?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps she underwent some sort of emotional change while fighting…?”

Emotional change? Could it be demonic possession? Khan grimaced as he watched Maya, who had now abandoned her spear in favor of using her gauntlets to bludgeon monsters to death.

She was already known for her bizarre habit of inconveniencing herself in the most unusual ways, and now it seemed she found pleasure in being hit.

‘This is a bit too much even for a character trait.’

“Lady Maya truly inherits the lineage of a noble family, after all.”

“What are you talking about now?”

“Well, there’s a saying, isn’t there? That among nobles, there are many with strange inclinations.… Given Lady Maya is of noble blood, perhaps it’s not far-fetched she might find pleasure in pain.”

“What, do nobles share some kind of kinky DNA or what?”

“DNA? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“…It’s something that exists. Let Maya enjoy herself for now, and let’s prepare to move. We never know when more will come.”

Upon Khan’s order, Ron promptly agreed and went back to where the rest of the group was, while Khan surveyed the devastation he had wrought as if committing it to memory.

‘Goblins, kobolds, blade wolves, D-hogs, draugr….’

The corpses of various monsters littered the area. Every creature that had faced Khan’s attacks was left in an unsightly state, creating a grim spectacle.

Yet, Khan had a reason for closely inspecting the dead.

‘Based on the game, they’re just minor mobs.’

The strength of a monster horde directly relates to the power of the lesser dragon controlling them.

In that sense, it might suggest the lesser dragon in question could be weaker than anticipated. However…

“Warrior. I have a question. Is it normal for a horde to act like this? Their movements seem strange, as if they had targeted us from the very beginning. I hope I’m just imagusning things.”

Responding to Khan’s concerns, Jan approached, posing his question as if he and Ron were taking turns.

“It shouldn’t be. lesser dragons usually prefer to remain hidden within their domains. The monsters under their control do nothing but guard the vicinity of the dragon’s territory, normally.”

“But they attacked us first this time. Does that mean this is lesser dragon’s territory?”

Khan shook his head in denial.

“We’re close to Al-Rasdel, so that shouldn’t be it. They don’t like disturbances. It’s unusual for them to claim the area around a city as their territory.”

“Then… why did these monsters ambush us?”

That was precisely Khan’s question.

What did it mean for Al-Rasdel and the pathways to Al-Ranzas to be occupied by the lesser dragon’s forces?

Especially since the monsters seemed to have detected and attacked them preemptively—

‘Whatever the case, it means the one waiting ahead isn’t going to be ordinary, does it…’

Khan decisively cut through his tangled thoughts.

Be it strategies in a game, in reality, overthinking rarely solved anything—a lesson he had learned firsthand.

“Let’s just go and see. To Al-Rasdel.”

What kind of dreadful situation awaited them could only be determined upon their arrival.

And after traveling for a full day to reach Al-Rasdel, what the group encountered was neither refugees from other cities nor thieves lurking for the city’s riches.

“Grrrrr─.”

“Woooaaaah…!”

A monster horde far stronger than any they had previously encountered and

Keiiieeek─────!

The ear-splitting roar of a dragon, pulling forth the primal fear inherent to humanity.