Surviving as a Barbarian in a Fantasy World - Chapter 287

Chapter 287: The Vile Rat that Pollutes the Seas (4)

“…Then, the white snowfield, the Forbidden Lands.”

[What you call the Forbidden Lands. The monsters there are the ones that were born in the distant past, from the chaotic cosmos, who appeared first and ruled the world. They are older than the gods, older than demons. They are imprisoned there after losing a war.]

“…Hmm.”

Ketal stroked his chin.

Outwardly, there wasn’t much change, but he was internally quite shocked.

A time when there were no planets, no liquids, no light—just a black, dark age.

To think there were creatures born from that time.

And that he was living alongside such beings.

It was something Ketal hadn’t known.

‘Now I see why the rat always called me a child.’

Ketal would indeed be no more than an infant to a being that had lived since that era.

The Holy Sword continued.

[Did they seem very alien to you? They wouldn’t have followed the usual laws of biology.]

“They didn’t.”

Even the rat was like that.

Its entire body rotting away—it clearly should not have functioned as a living being.

Decay normally meant death.

But the rat moved without issue, scattering its rot.

The creatures of the outer Forbidden Lands were the same.

Primates were creatures that breathed through their mouths, lungs; they couldn’t survive underwater.

Yet, primates were breathing in the ocean’s depths, living in deep waters despite their monkey-like appearance.

At least they somewhat resembled living organisms.

Many were far stranger, not even adhering to the basic rules of life.

[That’s natural. Those things were born in a chaotic world, before the current laws of the universe were established. They don’t need to follow them.]

“Nano, Snowy, even those deep-sea primates—they’re all such beings?”

[Yes. Everything in the Forbidden Lands predates us.]

They were beings that existed before the universe became what it is now.

Beings that lived in a world of chaos, before order was formed.

After thinking for a moment, Ketal asked:

“They lost in the war, you said.”

The Forbidden Lands was a prison for those ancient beings defeated in a war.

If they were the ones who had lost, it wasn’t hard to guess who their opponents had been.

“The gods and demons must have joined forces to fight the oldest ones, right?”

[That’s what I’ve heard. In the end, the gods and demons were beings born after them. Although their relationship is far from good, the oldest ones were a common enemy they couldn’t tolerate. So, long ago, the two joined forces to fight them.]

In that war, the gods and demons won.

They wrested control of the world from the oldest beings.

It wasn’t a difficult concept to grasp.

After all, even in Greek and Roman mythology, the Titans, who originally ruled the world, were overthrown by Zeus and the Olympian gods to seize power.

It was a similar idea.

[After a long fight, the gods and demons barely won, but the damage was significant. Due to the alien nature of the oldest beings, they couldn’t completely eliminate them. So, they had no choice but to imprison them.]

That prison was the true nature of the Forbidden Lands.

[I don’t know exactly what’s inside. But perhaps… you know better than anyone.]

The Holy Sword cautiously continued.

Gods and demons.

Monsters they joined forces to face.

And her master had survived in the Forbidden Lands, where such beings existed.

He had fought against them and lived to tell the tale.

The Holy Sword swallowed hard.

Though it didn’t have saliva to swallow, it felt as if it did. After a brief silence, Ketal spoke again.

“There’s one thing I’m curious about.”

[What is it?]

“Then, what am I?”

Ketal narrowed his eyes.

“What is my tribe?”

[Uh, that’s…]

The Holy Sword hesitated.

It had once been broken for speaking carelessly on this subject, so it had to be cautious.

[Well, uh, that’s…]

It trailed off.

Ketal finally spoke, noticing the sword’s hesitation like a nervous puppy.

“It’s fine to speak freely. The gods and demons called me a traitor.”

They had accused him of being a traitor to this world, seduced by the white snowfield’s allure, and entered it voluntarily.

They called him a traitor to the world.

That was what they said.

[Ah, I know.]

Once given permission, the Holy Sword quickly opened up.

[It’s exactly as they said. The barbarians of the white snowfield, your tribe, are not among the oldest beings. You’re just ordinary humans.]

In the past, there had been those who were fascinated by the power and alien nature of the oldest beings.

They had longed for the Forbidden Lands and desired to become like them.

In the end, they turned their backs on the world and entered the Forbidden Lands.

Those were the barbarians of the white snowfield.

Ketal clicked his tongue.

“Foolish ancestors. How utterly repulsive.”

[Well, uh… yes, yes. Though I can’t understand them, I suppose there could be people who desire such things.]

The Holy Sword stammered, unsure whether to agree or counter his disdain.

[But actually, what I’m really curious about isn’t that.]

“What is it?”

[Your ancestors were ordinary humans who admired the oldest beings and voluntarily imprisoned themselves in the Forbidden Lands. They had no special powers. They were just humans.]

They had no extraordinary abilities, no significant strength.

[The white snowfield is filled with alien and powerful beings. Beings that view you, us, as nothing more than toys. But your people survived there.]

The Holy Sword knew that the barbarians had entered the snowfield long ago, in a distant past so long it was impossible to know when.

For all that time, the barbarians had lived among the oldest beings in the Forbidden Lands.

The Holy Sword was genuinely curious.

[How on earth did you survive?]

And more importantly.

[How did you gain such strength?]

* * *

How did they survive, and how did they gain such power?

Ketal stroked his chin at the question.

“I don’t know. When I was there, the barbarians were already surviving. I helped them grow stronger and expand their territory, but even before me, they managed to survive.”

[But your arrival caused them to grow, didn’t it?]

“Ultimately, yes.”

The barbarians of the white snowfield, once mere prey, had, with Ketal’s arrival, claimed territory in the snowfield.

Under his protection, powerful individuals who could fight even the bear had emerged.

It meant that Ketal alone had the power to disrupt the balance.

[It sounds like they worshipped you. Didn’t they try to stop you when you left?]

“They tried to stop me as if they wanted to kill me. I was so annoyed that I broke them to the point they couldn’t move for a week. Even then, they didn’t listen, so I had to issue a command as their chief just to leave.”

[Is… is that so.]

Ketal shook his head.

His tribe had been persistent, to the point that it had been more bothersome than completing the final quest.

“To answer your question, I don’t know either.”

Before he arrived in this world, how had the barbarians survived?

That was a mystery even to him.

Ketal muttered,

“They must have somehow managed to avoid attention and survived. Honestly, I don’t really care what those damned ancestors were up to.”

To him, the past of the barbarians in the White Snowfield wasn’t important.

The tribesmen had said something about their ancestors, but he hadn’t paid attention.

What mattered to him was getting out of this place.

That was his only focus.

“To answer another question, I gained this power to survive and to get out. I didn’t get stronger just for the sake of being strong.”

[Is that… is that true?]

But the Holy Sword couldn’t accept Ketal’s words.

The power he had shown when fighting the rat—it was monstrous.

A strength that seemed impossible to handle on this earth.

Ketal had even broken the rules set by the gods of the Pantheon using sheer strength.

The Holy Sword still didn’t understand the limits of Ketal’s power.

Had he really gained such strength just to survive and escape this place?

It was incomprehensible.

If that were true, there were only two possibilities: either that place was so dangerous that survival was almost impossible, or escaping from it was an unimaginable task without that kind of power.

The Holy Sword had yet another question:

‘To get out of that place…’

What did you do?

What did you face?

The Holy Sword was incredibly curious, but couldn’t bring itself to ask Ketal.

His mood didn’t seem great, and it feared what kind of reaction he might have.

So, the sword kept quiet.

However, Ketal could clearly sense the sword’s curiosity.

“Hmmm,”

Ketal stroked his chin.

* * *

In his conversation with the Holy Sword, some questions were answered, but others arose.

The next day, Ketal went to see Bayern.

“Are you feeling better?”

“…Reasonably so.”

Bayern’s complexion had improved slightly, but his arm was still in bad shape.

Pressing on his arm, Bayern asked,

“You called that creature a vile rat polluting the sea. What level of monster is it?”

“It’s a powerful monster in the White Snowfield, like the great snake and bear that dominate vast territories. It has exceptional strength, even within that place.”

The rat’s power was formidable, even within the White Snowfield.

It was no easy feat to carve out its own territory in that vast space unless it was an extraordinary creature.

“…So it really was a powerful monster. I was worried I had lost to something insignificant, but I’m glad that’s not the case.”

Long ago, the emperor’s army had tried to conquer the White Snowfield.

Among them were heroes of immense strength, but none had returned.

There was no way the rat could have been weak.

But a loss was still a loss.

Bayern’s mouth tasted bitter.

Ketal tried to console him.

“That place is already the rat’s domain. Even if it’s only the outskirts where the miasma is weaker, fighting there isn’t easy.”

Honestly, even Ketal had been surprised by the outcome of Bayern’s fight with the rat.

He hadn’t expected the rat’s filth to have such a significant effect on a powerful warrior from outside.

‘Maybe I should reevaluate the strength of the monsters in the White Snowfield,’

Ketal thought to himself as Bayern looked at him.

“You must have had many clashes with the monsters of the White Snowfield. That includes the rat, right?”

“We fought frequently over territory.”

“How should I deal with it?”

“Hmm.”

How to fight the rat?

After organizing his thoughts, Ketal began to explain,

“As you’ve probably noticed, its power is filth. It can taint the world and turn it into its own territory.”

The more ground the rat corrupted, the stronger its influence grew.

That was why it was so obsessed with expanding its territory compared to other monsters.

“And it can move freely within the areas it has tainted.”

The land corrupted by the rat became polluted deep into the earth, allowing the rat to move underground like a mole.

Its surprise attack on Bayern and its escape from Ketal were both thanks to this ability.

Bayern frowned.

“…So I have to remove the territory?”

The rat’s power came from its tainted domain.

Therefore, erasing that domain was the best way to deal with it.

Bayern asked Ketal,

“How can the territory be removed?”

“To be honest, I don’t know.”

Ketal had only been able to drive the rat away before it could corrupt more land.

He had never figured out how to undo the corruption itself.

Bayern looked shocked.

“Then how did you fight it? If you can’t erase the corruption, it’ll just keep expanding.”

“Over time, the corruption naturally cleanses itself from the land. I would wait for that moment to drive the rat back.”

“So it’s just a matter of time?”

Bayern clicked his tongue.

The inability to actively remove the corruption was bad news, though it wasn’t the worst, since at least time could solve it.

“How long do you have to wait?”

“Hmmm. Time flows differently in that place…”

After thinking for a moment, Ketal answered,

“Roughly… about a hundred years, I think?”

Bayern, who had been deep in thought, suddenly froze.

“…What?”

“Oh, no, wait. It wasn’t a hundred years.”

“Y-yes, of course. It couldn’t possibly be that long…”

“It was closer to three hundred years. Or maybe five hundred? It was definitely a long time, but I can’t quite remember.”

“…What?”

Bayern stared at Ketal in disbelief.

———