I Became a Barbarian Warrior Who Hid His Face in a World Where Everything Was Reversed

Chapter 165: 13th Floor (1)

“I refuse.”

I said in a calm tone to the girl spouting nonsense.

Regardless of what the girl was doing, I had no intention of handing over the weapons that would protect my life to someone else.

It’s something that should be avoided even on earth, but in this dangerous labyrinth, handing over a weapon to someone I’ve never seen before?

That’s crazy.

And the woman who made that request is also crazy.

In fact, the girl should be thankful that she didn’t get her head chopped off by an axe for no reason.

“⋯ Really⋯?”

The girl still answered with a cracked voice and stared at me and the axe.

-Lick.

The moment the girl’s lips quivered.

Gurgling –

The girl’s stomach, which was exactly what it sounded like when her stomach skin was stuck to her back, made a huge sound.

The girl stared blankly at her stomach skin and patted her hungry stomach with her bare arms.

“⋯⋯”

The girl who had been silent for a moment finally turned her gaze away from the axe.

“⋯That’s right. That can’t be. I must have seen it wrong⋯”

And then she muttered to herself and tried to turn around again.

“Wait.”

I stopped the girl for a moment.

I threw a hard stone bread from my subspace backpack to the girl who turned her head back with a blank expression.

The girl stared blankly at the stone bread that had settled on her hand while drawing a parabolic curve in the air, and then looked at me again.

“It looks like you haven’t eaten anything, so eat that.”

For a moment, I thought I had done something useless.

But what can I do?

A girl who looked even younger than Ellie.

A young girl who would be a high school student in Korea, walking around with a skinny appearance suffering from starvation, no matter where I was, I couldn’t help but frown.

I didn’t like the fact that she kept using informal language from the beginning, and I was also wary of unfamiliar and unknown people but my feeble sympathy slightly overtook me.

I recalled something that had become an old memory.

Diana, who had given me a bowl of warm soup while I was wandering around labyrinth city and starving.

I wonder if she had given me soup with this kind of heart.

⋯Diana must have approached me with a kinder and more beautiful heart than I did. Anyway,

“⋯⋯”

The girl who had been staring at the stone bread in silence at my words bit the stone bread with her chapped lips.

Among the groceries she brought, the most tough and hard stone bread required a long time to melt with her saliva, but the girl ate it all in one go.

-Mumble, mumble.

A strange phenomenon occurred to the girl who was chewing the stone bread.

The girl’s body, which had been so skinny that her bones and skin were stuck together, began to swell little by little.

Her frizzy hair gradually regained its luster, and her body began to regain the beauty of a woman as fat accumulated.

It was a change that was made with just one stone bread.

“What is that?”

“Are you human?”

“I’ve never heard of a creature capable of such a thing. Could it be the effect of a blessing?”

As I listened to the voices of the party members who were murmuring, the girl, who had gained weight a little while ago, stared at me straight in the eye and said.

“⋯Why did you give me bread?”

Her voice seemed genuinely curious.

“⋯I don’t know. Because you looked hungry?”

There was nothing else to say.

Because she looked really hungry.

“Ah⋯”

The girl made an expression as if she had realized something at my answer.

Since she looked hungry, I feed her⋯

The girl who had been mumbling quietly nodded alone.

“⋯What’s your name?”

“⋯Balkan.”

After thinking for a moment, she answered.

Based on the atmosphere, it didn’t seem like she was asking for the enemy’s name.

“Balkan⋯”

The girl who had been recalling my name turned around again and approached the descent portal.

And before stepping beyond it, she looked at me who was still on guard and said.

“My name is Belle.”

I knew it.

[Bell LV.47]

[Currently Belle holds 1 blessing and curse]

Because I could see it.

“⋯I will remember. Balkan.”

-Wooooong–

With a short word, the figure of the girl named Belle disappeared.

She had gone to the 6th floor.

“⋯Mr. Balkan. Did you know her? The girl just now. I felt a very mysterious aura⋯”

“It was our first time meeting, too.”

I scratched the back of my head at Hitolis’ question.

She’ll remember? Because I gave her bread and told her that I was worried? I don’t know.

But just like she said, she was a girl with a mysterious aura.

Looking back, it was also quite crazy to give the girl, Belle, bread.

I should refrain from doing so from now on.

“There are so many crazy bastards in the labyrinth, I don’t know.”

“⋯Well. But since there were no problems, let’s just go our separate ways.”

“Good. Still, I think it would be better to wait a little while and go through the portal. We’ll meet again on the 6th floor.”

I actively accepted Jubeel’s opinion.

The party headed to the next floor after a day break.

A week passed like that.

***

“Tatatua.”

“Hey. Let’s stay still.”

“Tauu.”

I slapped Nuer’s butt, who was shivering from the bitter cold, and tightly tied the bundle that was holding her in place.

If I wasn’t careful with every step in the snowy field of the 12th floor, I could slip backwards and break my head.

And as you can see from the fact that Nuer was still in a state of shock up until the 12th floor, Nuer’s slump didn’t recover even in the fountain of the 10th floor.

“This is crazy cold. My breast milk is about to freeze…!”

“Huh, heh heh. To gain a strong body, you have to endure this level of cold, sniff, sniff…!”

The party members, including Jubeel and Rubia, wearing fur clothes and heating artifact armor, shivered and advanced forward.

In the meantime, I felt relieved from the cold.

‘The magic power is definitely there.’

One of the things Nuer offered as a reward for the quest was an elixir imbued with the magic power of cold.

The power I gained by tearing apart a white lion in my dream granted me resistance to the cold.

-Thump, thump –

A mysterious, inexplicable energy was pulsating near my heart.

I had never touched or handled it myself, but I was certain that this was the magic power I had only heard about.

Every time my heart beat, magic power flowed through my body along with my blood.

‘I should learn how to use magic power at least in the future.’

Even if I can’t shoot magic out like crazy, if I use it well, the scope of battle will be expanded.

-Hoo.

As I exhaled, the snow crystals falling from the sky of the labyrinth froze.

If I slightly mishandled the controls, my body would get frosty, but if I was alert, it was easy to maintain my body temperature.

“Po, Portal! Portal!”

“Finally⋯!”

The party members’ eyes were filled with joy as they saw the swaying ascending portal.

They must want to get out of this cold right away.

“First, let’s get ready and change our clothes.”

I stopped them and adjusted.

“That’s right. The 13th floor is really⋯ hot.”

Rubia, the only one with experience in the middle floors, said as she took off the fur coat she had worn over her thick armor.

The terrain of the 13th floor is a desert.

According to the information I received before entering the labyrinth, when going from the 12th floor to the 13th floor, the snowfields turn into sand deserts, and the cool cold air turns into heat that eats people.

Unlike the snow kobolds who live in groups like goblins, this was also the place where a single monster that reigns as a desert predator appeared.

The party members quickly started changing their clothes.

They quickly put their fur coats and winter gear into their backpacks, and they glanced at me while packing light armor and cooling supplies suitable for the desert heat.

“Why?”

“No, that. Aren’t you going to change your clothes?”

“I’m fine as I am now.”

Thanks to the magic of the cold, I’ll be able to maintain a refreshing condition even in the heat of the 13th floor, so there’s no need to take off my armor and take risks.

“Kuaaak! If you’re the leader, take care of the party members’ mentality as the leader! How can you not take off your clothes when you’re a man! Rubia came to the party to observe your erection!”

“K, keumeum! Hmm! Miss Jubeel! So, girls aren’t particularly interested in that, the male organ…Heh, ah, anyway, that’s what it is!”

I left behind Jubeel, who was whining about something useless, and Rubia, who was hurriedly avoiding my gaze, and changed Nuer’s diaper before leaving.

Thump.

“T, that. Can you just leave it here and go…?”

I shrugged at Hitolis’ question, pointing to Nuer’s diaper lying under the ice tree.

“It’s a bit tricky to take, and it’s still warm, so someone who needs it will probably use it.”

“Is that so…?”

“Isn’t that so, Nuer?”

“Bbaengtta-tta!”

Nuer, who had changed into a new diaper, nodded with a big smile.

The party members, who had finished their maintenance along with their changing clothes, held onto each other’s bodies to go through the portal to the 13th floor again.

Wooooong–

When we opened our eyes with the floating sensation characteristic of portal movement, a completely new landscape unfolded before us, like a desert–

-Wriggle. Wriggle. Wriggle.

we felt something wriggling violently under our feet.

It felt like stepping on a giant liquid monster.

“⋯What is this?”

“Gasp, gasp… Gasp!”

Before we could even observe it, we heard heavy breathing.

As I turned my gaze, I saw a witch wearing a hood, covered in blood and trembling.

A wad of jelly was wriggling in the witch’s arms.

When I looked at her face, I knew her.

Only then did I see the jelly differently.

That wasn’t jelly, it was slime.

They were the companions of the male adventurer Gellen, who once envied me, but now had become an idiot.

[Aldente Lv. 29]

[Fusilini Lv. 31]

And the slime Ain tanker Aldente and the wizard Fusilini of that Gellen party.

Fusilini held the dying Aldente in her arms and reached out to me with a desperate face.

“S-save me…please…”

-Thud.

The party members quietly looked down at her.

Immediately after entering the 13th floor we found a dying explorer.