Chapter 24
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: Barbarian (4)
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Four hours had passed since we started dashing through the forest.
The leather pouch we'd received from the Great Chieftain was now stuffed full of Cyclops eyeballs.
We set up a temporary base camp for the young Barbarians, who were already exhausted just from all the running.
"Chief, I'm hungry..."
"Wait a bit, it's not cooked yet."
"I can eat it raw!"
"Just wait!"
"I'm hungry!"
The bald Kellok edged toward the bubbling soup.
"It's still hot."
"Barbarians can eat anything!"
Kellok scooped the boiling soup into his bowl and shoved it straight into his mouth.
He pressed his lips to the bowl and slurped it down in one go.
"Gah! Grrraaah!!! It's hot!"
"Does it not look hot to you?"
"Charging at an unbeatable foe. Classic Kellok."
The other Barbarians watching him burst into cheerful laughter.
Kellok, who had been sticking out his tongue and grimacing for a good while, glared back at his bowl of soup.
"If you don't give up, it's not defeat."
"Shut up and use a spoon."
Once the vegetables in the soup had softened enough, I ladled it out and distributed it to the waiting Barbarians.
The dungeon's dense foliage kept the interior from feeling too cold.
But as the warm soup settled in our stomachs, the tension eased, and our bodies relaxed.
Slowly savoring the flavor, I glanced around. The quiet forest came into view.
'No other monsters besides the Cyclopses. Definitely a good spot for the coming-of-age ritual.'
Cyclopses were fiercely territorial by nature, so we wouldn't have to worry about being swarmed by multiples.
No uncontrollable variables, and clear escape routes.
As I scanned the surroundings, Kellok asked,
"Chief, still hungry. Got any more?"
"Huh? Just scoop from the pot..."
"Already ate it all."
"Hey! You ate it all?!"
Considering the Barbarians' massive builds, I'd prepared enough soup for about twenty servings, but the pot was scraped clean.
"You lot! I only had one bowl!"
"Haha! In the wild, the slow one starves, Chief!"
The moment I raised my hand to smack Kellok's smooth bald head,
a massive tremor rumbled through the ground.
"Chief!"
"Everyone, here!"
I gathered the Barbarians around the pot and cast a camouflage spell.
"Nobody move! Stay still!"
"Chief! The Cyclopses...!"
"Quiet!"
I barely managed to hush the Barbarians when, in the distance, trees began crashing as Cyclopses came charging through.
At first just one or two, then more and more, until dozens of Cyclopses were tearing across the forest.
'Cyclopses running into each other... and not fighting?'
Dungeon patterns, once set, didn't change.
This basic truth was being overturned.
Fortunately, the Cyclopses passed by without noticing us disguised as rocks.
And behind the hundred or so Cyclopses, shadowy black figures appeared.
Wolves covered head to toe in pitch-black darkness, like living shadows.
A straggling Cyclops, lagging behind the pack, was seized by the wolves.
Its legs bitten out from under it, the Cyclops toppled, and the black wolves swarmed over its body.
The Cyclops's agonized roars echoed through the forest.
Judging I'd gathered enough intel, I crept over to the hushed Barbarians and spread my mana among them.
Thankfully, they didn't resist, and we returned to the forest clearing where we'd first entered.
The moment we appeared in the open space, a female Barbarian with a bear tattoo approached.
"How did you just show up?"
"No time to explain. We have to stop the ritual."
I immediately snatched the red signal flare from Brunda's waist.
She tried to stop me in a panic, but I cast a fixation spell and launched it into the sky.
Red smoke billowed up through the trees.
"What are you doing?!"
"Kellok will explain. I'm going to gather the other Barbarians."
"Brunda! I'll explain!"
Kellok held back the furious Brunda as she advanced on me.
The moment I tried to leave the clearing,
three Cyclopses burst into the open space.
"Cyclopses... in a pack?!"
Brunda's trembling voice rang out across the clearing.
Soon after, orange signal flares signaling distress began rising from various spots in the forest.
I cast fixation on the appeared Cyclopses, then used spatial teleportation to head straight for the rising smoke.
Having reached 5th Circle, my subsace had expanded dramatically, and I'd filled most of it with low-grade mana stones engraved with magic circles.
After crossing the Great Wall, I'd been scattering low-grade mana stones like Hansel and Gretel leaving breadcrumbs.
Arriving where the orange smoke rose, I saw young Barbarians hiding against a massive tree, evading Cyclopses.
Thanks to the Cyclopses focusing on flight, no Barbarians had died yet.
"It's Eric!"
"Eric, who beat Chieftain Ulfric!"
The Barbarians spotted and shouted for me, but
I said nothing, spreading mana through their bodies before teleporting them to the clearing.
Ten seconds to here.
If the Barbarians had resisted my mana entering their bodies, who knows how long it would have taken.
Ignoring the danger or not, none rejected it.
I didn't hesitate and moved to the next rising smoke.
Unlike our group, which had run nonstop for four hours,
the other groups, which had spent ages hunting single Cyclopses, weren't far from the clearing.
Before three minutes had passed since the red flare launched, every Barbarian had gathered in the clearing.
"Did you see the black wolves too?"
"I only saw the Cyclopses swarming."
The Barbarians' murmurs filled the clearing.
Even as they buzzed, new Cyclopses kept emerging from the forest.
I helped Brunda hunt the newcomers.
"Something's off."
"In this mess, what's not off?"
Brunda, having felled a fresh Cyclops, looked at me.
"Even if every Cyclops in the forest fled, this is too many."
"We've only caught about twenty. There were way more in the forest."
"If they were just fleeing the black wolves, no reason for this many to show up."
The massive Cyclops pack our group first spotted still hadn't appeared.
I didn't know the wolves' approach direction,
but mindless flight in a confined space like this clearing was unnatural.
"The Cyclopses we met elsewhere focused more on escape than fighting."
"The ones reaching this clearing all charged us."
"It's not just chance encounters in their flight..."
What if their destination was here?
Before I could finish, a colossal tremor shook the ground.
"Earthquake!"
"The Earth God Noum is angry."
"Everyone up!"
I conjured an invisible staircase in the air, creating another space above the clearing.
Once all the Barbarians were airborne, I dispelled the stairs linking to the sky-high clearing.
Through the dense treetops, countless Cyclopses became visible.
And behind those Cyclopses surged a black tidal wave of wolves.
Cyclopses packed into the clearing below our feet.
"Insane..."
The densely clustered Cyclopses in the clearing were assaulted by the black wolves.
Cyclopses swung massive trees to sweep away wolves, but
even more wolves swarmed in, dragging them one by one from the pack.
The forest filled with the horrific screams of dying Cyclopses.
'They're planning to flee once an escape route opens.'
Monsters escaping dungeons to the outside happened in every dungeon.
But unless something special lured them, most monsters avoided leaving, preferring to live within.
'Problem is, we still have to wait eight hours...'
Only four hours had passed since the ritual began.
'Can't hold out here with my mana alone until an exit appears.'
This platform now held over sixty Barbarians.
I was pouring mana nonstop to maintain it, but even exhausting all my mana stones, it wouldn't last an hour before my mana ran dry.
Right now, my mana was melting away in real time.
'Why won't the escape magic work?'
Since gathering the Barbarians, I'd tried linking to the mana stones left outside repeatedly,
but the spells failed as if the original world had vanished.
'Did the dungeon linking to another realm introduce new variables?'
No time to obsess over what wouldn't work.
I shifted my gaze to survey the forest.
In the distance, a pyramid-like structure caught my eye.
"Brunda, what's that?"
"The entrance to the next floor. Don't tell me..."
"Yeah, we can't hold out here forever. We have to move."
"Soldier ants live on the next floor! We absolutely can't go there!"
"So it's an ant nest, huh?"
Open terrain in all directions was the worst for a space mage.
Even stronger foes would favor me in tight spaces.
"The next floor doesn't drop you in immediately, right?"
"No, but..."
"No time. Once the Cyclopses are all dead, we won't be able to go even if we want to."
Glancing down, the Cyclopses packing the clearing had dwindled by more than half.
"Wait here a sec."
"Huh? Eric! Where'd you go?!"
I cast camouflage, teleported near the pyramid, tossed a low-grade mana stone, and returned.
"Alright, everyone. Let's move there together."
"I saw you hide just now! Can't we all just hide like that?"
"Camouflage breaks if anyone touches it. With black wolves prowling the forest, we'd be spotted in no time."
As I spread mana through Brunda's body while explaining,
"What are you doing?! Spreading your mana in my body?!"
"This is how we move together."
The pyramid was too far to make an aerial path without wasting mana.
"The others didn't complain."
"You lot! Didn't they teach you not to let a mage's mana into your body?!"
"Eric's not a mage. He's a Barbarian, so it's fine."
"Too much, Brunda! Scolding your own kin like that!"
"Wait, you do know the danger, right?"
Thinking about it, Barbarians constantly warring with the North wouldn't be ignorant of foreign mana in their bodies.
"What if I had bad intentions and you didn't resist?"
"Why would Eric have bad intentions?!"
"Eric! You didn't have bad intentions, did you?!"
"No, but..."
Only then did I realize what it meant to be accepted as one of their own by the Barbarians.
Their excessive trust weighed heavy on my shoulders.
I grinned and approached Brunda.
"Wh-what?! S-sorry for doubting you! I didn't mean..."
As she stammered excuses, I tossed her my sash.
"Sorry about earlier... Huh?"
"I challenge you to a rank match. If I win, I'm the ritual overseer."
"Haha! Deal! Eric's a true Barbarian after all!"
Brunda finally smiled.
Her bear tattoo glowed as her skin flushed red.
I lightly hoisted and tossed Brunda, then spread mana through her as she hit the ground.
This time, no resistance.
"I'll enter the pyramid first! Brunda, check nobody's left behind and come last!"
"Don't worry, secure the safe zone. I'll kick every last butt inside."
Even for a top-tier space mage, teleporting dozens at once was no easy feat.
Mana aside, it demanded precise control.
But after countless spatial jumps exploring the dungeon with the Northern Duke, it was child's play for me now.
Confirming my mana had spread through every Barbarian, I teleported us to the pyramid.