Barbarian in a Failed Game

Chapter 090. The Dungeon (6)

The puppeteer, now devoid of the characteristic cold logic common to mages, served as a disturbing example of what becomes of a mind consumed by the dark energy of the demonic realm. Deprived of his essence as a caster… He had become a monster intent only on annihilating invaders from the demonic realm. Yet, in this moment, he showcased a power befitting his title as the ‘puppeteer.’

Khan, having dealt with the creatures that spawned beside him, checked his experience bar. Not a single flinch. “Impressive.”

The fact that every one of the small giants spawned around him seemed to be merely an extension of the puppeteer indicated a terrifying level of control.

Martial arts novels might praise the ability to split one’s consciousness into two as the pinnacle of martial skills, or laud the Dual Mind Technique of the Great Daoists, but this creature was manipulating hundreds of avatars simultaneously.

“Damn fantasy.”

Magic, divine miracles, and so forth… Fantasy simply brushes aside the need for plausibility far too easily.

What’s more depressing is the realization that monsters far more terrifying than the puppeteer, making him seem almost adorable in comparison, are bound to run rampant across Midland in the future.

Descendants of dragons surviving to the present day, ancient giants, demons descending upon Midland one by one, transcendent beings starting to break free with the death of the emperor…

With such perilous beings poised to wreak havoc, it was imperative to find a way back to Earth before disaster struck. “When that time comes, fighting will be the only option for survival.”

Hence, this journey to the north was of utmost importance to Khan.

Or rather, it became important.

The being that handed over the dragon scales to Darkin. The mysterious technique of soul extraction from living beings. The ambiguous actions of past acquaintances.

The sudden intrusion of the demonic realm’s corruption… As Khan moved forward, new pieces of the puzzle emerged, unexpected situations arose, and a certain intuition began to tell him that he was getting closer to his ‘goal.’

“But first… it’s time to break the demonic realm.”

*
*
*

The puppeteer’s phase 2 was the worst matchup for Khan.

Unless the battle ends with him, there was no telling what might happen. Ashes, the follower of truth and the grand duke’s advisor mage, was nowhere to be seen, nor had the grand duke himself, the instigator of the corruption with his magic circles, been dealt with.

“Above all, the ‘Alpha’ that I saw in the puppeteer’s memories…”

That moment was still vivid in his mind.

Frozen in time, locking eyes with it.

“I thought there was something odd about it…”

Being ‘observed’ by it, even as Khan peeked into its memories, was enough to prove the anomaly of this ‘Alpha’. Khan deemed it highly likely that this entity called ‘Alpha’ had a significant hand in the occurrence of the corruption.

“Die──!!”

Khan mechanically reached out to respond to the all-too-familiar attack pattern, just as a decoy blew itself up. At that moment, he created a small ‘Sanctuary of Protection’ while feeling something leave the ‘Mark of the Depths’ on his right chest. The explosion and the extraction happened almost simultaneously. A gray fist extended from Pashantu smashed the decoys.

“We’re almost there!”

Khal Elson, having blasted away the decoy’s self-destruct attacks leaving no trace behind, shouted out.

At this point, the number of decoys, which had filled the audience hall akin to a sports field, had decreased by more than half.

“I am complete…! I am immortal──!”

“What a cliché.”

Khan, now sheathing his shield and slicing through three decoys with a single stroke, muttered almost reflexively. The ease of the situation seemed to afford him the comfort to make such a quip.

Indeed, a swarm attack pattern was the worst matchup for Khan, acting almost like facing cannons with glass.

If Khan had been alone, or only with those who had been with him from Wagner, it would have been a precarious situation.

Not quite ‘superhuman’, but certainly enough to be considered superhuman strength—

Owners of might far beyond the realms of the ordinary.

Crash──!!

The destructive power activated by Pashantu with the artifact bestowed by the black duke was shocking even to Khan.

Swish.

The swordsmanship and absolute lethal force displayed by Khal Elson, leaving even Khan to yield, reduced the number of decoys in flashes.

“Honestly, when it was just one, it was more troublesome. What was this thing even trying to achieve?”

Khal Elson, having personally slashed through more than half of the decoys himself, spat on the ground and moved beside Khan.

Just like Khal Elson said.From the moment they split into avatars, there was no longer a need for Khan to step forward. When he was a giant, at least, he could overwhelm them with his sheer size and mass. But the avatars, now reduced to a size similar to that of humans, posed no significant threat.

“Hmph. Can’t make any more? I was just starting to heat up!”

Boom! Thud!

The once numerous avatars were now reduced to a countable few. Even they were soon to be extinguished by the rampant unleashing of power by the artifact wielder, Pashantu.

“I am…I am…!”

As if having completely lost all reason, the puppeteer began repeating the same phrases over and over like a parrot, when he opened his mouth. Given how simplistic his battle patterns had become, it seemed he had even lost his identity as the ‘Puppeteer’.

“I’ve become a complete… human….”

Playing the role of a ‘false sage’ on the outskirts of Ro-Elpellan had been more troublesome and threatening.

Back then, the Puppeteer lured the party into a battlefield he had prepared. Armed with overwhelming firepower from red spells and defensive spells of incredible intensity with virtually zero cast time, not to mention handling intangible shockwaves, he had pushed Khan to the brink.

“Was the erosion of the Demonic Realm actually poison to him?”

No, he had experienced the emotions he had so longed for, if only for a moment. So, in his way, he had achieved his goal. Khan looked down with cold eyes at the Puppeteer, whose human form was revealed as the dark red flames dissipated.

“I’m not… a fake…!”

The Puppeteer, now left alone, could no longer sustain the burning dark red flames. It seemed he had expended all his power in what could be likened to a second phase of a mob pattern.

The original plan was to subdue him and then engage in a serious conversation to extract various pieces of information. But even the threat of the Cold Peaks method, transcending language and racial barriers in persuasion, seemed futile now.

“I wanted… to become human…”

Crunch.

Before he could say more, Khan’s axe buried itself into his forehead. Like many mages before him.

“After all, there are still mouths left to extract information from.*

With unfeeling hands, Khan extracted the axe, watching the experience bar fill.

Unlike before, it filled up to just shy of leveling. A proof that the Puppeteer had indeed faced true death.

Yet, Khan could not feel joy.

‘If the mid-boss is this weak…’

It meant that the core of the Demonic Realm had concentrated most of its power upon itself.

*
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*

Although Khan considered taking a break, he decided to move forward.

“We should rest outside. Can’t even stretch out properly in a place like this.”

“I can still fight!”

Fortunately, Kal Elson and Pashantu did not object to Khan’s decision.

Their reasons seemed somewhat different.

“But how do we get out of here?”

“Well…”

It was time to start looking.

Despite the fierce battle that took place, Khan surveyed the audience chamber, which remained unscathed.

The blueprint Lebron had shown became largely pointless with the onset of the Demonic Realm’s erosion. Entering the Demonic Realm had immediately ensnared them in illusions, and upon escaping, they found themselves in the audience chamber. It was best to discard any preconceived notions of the fortress’s structure from their minds.

“Let’s split up and look around.”

With three of them, they were bound to find something. If not, they might as well start knocking on walls…

Bang! Rumble.

Khan’s eyebrow twitched. Just as he thought of breaking the wall, actual sounds of crumbling walls echoed. Unless he had unknowingly attained some enlightenment, allowing him to use sword qi like a martial arts master, it meant there was another culprit attempting to break the wall. That would be-.

“Found it!!”

Pashantu’s booming voice echoed throughout the audience chamber. Looking up, an excited Pashantu was waving his arms, urging them to come see.

“A passage! I found it first!”

“It’s not a competition… Does it matter who found it first?”

Accompanied by a grumbling Kal Elson, they approached where the Puppeteer had initially sat on his throne.

‘Now that I think about it, this throne was already shattered.’

To progress through the dungeon, it was essential to find and destroy objects not affected by the immutable laws of the Demonic Realm. In games, these targets were called ‘triggers’. In this case, the throne within the Demonic Realm served as the trigger. They should have realized something was amiss when something in the otherwise indestructible Demonic Realm was broken…

Focused entirely on the Puppeteer in front of them, this detail had completely escaped their notice.

‘Shit. When did I, a modern person with intellect, start to take the act of breaking walls for granted?’

Feeling an inexplicable sense of defeat, Khan realized that he, despite his civilized mind, had considered ‘breaking walls’ as naturally as a Pashantu, who was barbaric by nature.

Moreover, it was somewhat ironic that Pashantu, whether by luck or something else, immediately found the part that Khan had missed.

“What are you doing? Let’s go.”

After all, thanks to Pashantu’s efforts, they could skip the tedious process of searching…

The hidden entrance discovered by Pashantu was exceedingly narrow, feeling almost like a needle’s eye to the naturally towering barbarian warriors, who were over 2 meters tall.

Creak. Crunch!

For Khan, who was relatively small among the barbarian warriors, it was possible to squeeze through somehow, but for the much larger Pashantu, it was impossible without widening the entrance around it.

Fortunately, the area around the entrance seemed to be set as a ‘trigger’ because it collapsed with just a slight force.

And then, a familiar landscape unfolded.

‘The passages in the Puppeteer’s memories.’

Of course, it couldn’t be exactly the same as before. Who could predict how it had changed under the erosion of the demonic realm?

However, based on experiences so far, it was highly probable that what awaited us at the end of this passage was the dungeon boss, that is, the core of the demonic realm.

‘After all, there was an Alpha creature in the secret workshop beyond this passage. Maybe even the duke…’

But certainty is forbidden.

Even the mages of the Magic Tower and the scholars of the continent had nearly abandoned the study of the demonic realm. It’s considered an unknown phenomenon beyond the current knowledge, enough for the Empire and the Tower to conclude as much.

But Khan was different.

Not a mage or a famed scholar, but a player who had explored and conquered numerous demonic realms. He could very well be the human with the most experience in such matters among all the mortals and transcendent beings of Midland.

‘As soon as I left the City of Skulls, what I did was wander in search of demonic realms.’

Khan’s experience and intuition were simultaneously suggesting the same conclusion.

‘Traps that trigger upon entry. A somewhat clumsy mid-boss. Triggers placed to be easily found. And then, the boss room straight ahead…’

Although the form of demonic realms varied greatly, it was still possible to categorize them into common patterns. Isn’t that what gamers are? Eccentrics who manage to find decodings and discover the optimal routes for conquering.

To Khan, who was undoubtedly an expert among the quest users of Midland, and was so well versed in this field that calling him rotten water wouldn’t be an exaggeration if one excluded the story and detailed settings.

In his opinion, the demonic realm of the great castle was…

‘It’s best to assume the worst.’

As always.

Like every other moment he had faced since being dragged into this damned world.

*
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*

“Why suddenly looking at the sky?”

At the old man’s question, the man was silent for a moment before shaking his head and answering.

“It’s nothing.”

“What a bland response. Sometimes I eerily worry it might be senility.”

“That’s not funny at all.”

“Yes, I know. It was just something to say. I’d be the first to go senile anyway.”

The man chose to remain silent to the old man’s frivolous tone. He knew too well that such behavior was a struggle not to be consumed by the void.

The man simply stared at the chaos-filled sky with indifferent eyes. In his vision, beyond the chaos, the flow of the void that had invaded this space seemed almost tangible.

‘It’s stirring.’

Something was happening outside, on the continent.

‘An event significant enough to twist the fate of the continent.’

“It seems I need to hear about what’s happening outside.”

“Eh? What’s this all of a sudden…”

“Among the disciples you’ve trained, there was a suitable child. Command that child to investigate the major events occurring on the continent.”

“You’re rough with the old body. Sending news from here to the outside requires quite the ordeal, as you well know. Moreover, the emperor won’t likely be pleased…”

“So, you won’t do it?”

“I have to. Yes.”

The old man drooped his head in gloom. The man continued to observe the void without sparing the old man a glance.

‘Soon, there might be a need to go outside.’