Phase 8 of the Undying Engraving doesn’t provide any stat increases.
But in exchange, other effects are added.
「The soul residing in your flesh is enhanced.」
「When the character casts [Savage Outburst], all undead take damage.」
「The unique effect [Unification] gains the ‘Affectionate Weapon’ bonus.」
From now on, [Savage Outburst] deals bonus damage to undead only, and [Unification] gains an extra option.
‘Affectionate Weapon’ is an option that grants strengthening effects based on how many days you've had the weapon equipped.
The condition for stacking is to kill a monster with the weapon once per day.
Unequipping the weapon doesn’t reset the stack, but if you switch to a different weapon entirely, the stacks reset and must be built from the beginning.
‘It takes 1,000 days to reach full stack.’
That’s nearly three years, but my circumstances are relatively favorable.
In Dungeon & Stone, shields are counted as weapons.
Crawl’s Demoncrusher and Aegis’s Barrier.
Since I completed my endga weapons early, I won’t have to reset the stack midway.
Simply put, if I build it up steadily starting now, I’ll eventually hit full stack.
‘The problem is... the Labyrinth is closed.’
Since the condition is to kill one monster per day, there’s currently no way to build stacks.
Well, even if the Labyrinth were open, it wouldn’t be easy.
‘Even doing a 100-day expedition... that’s only ten stacks.’
It’s not easy by any stretch.
In fact, except for when I explored the first floor, I’ve never even gone beyond 100 days.
‘But what happens if I kill monsters outside the walls? Would that count too?’
That thought ca to suddenly, but I can’t test it right now.
So I decided to save that question for another ti...
"Fuuuu..."
I turned my head and saw the shaman exhaling a long breath. He was so exhausted that sweat was dripping down his cheeks in beads.
"It’s done, Chieftain. So? Do you like the new power?"
"Yeah."
This Phase 8 engraving took longer than any I’ve received before.
A full three days.
The shaman said that upper-tier engravings take that long by nature, but from my point of view...
‘In the ga, it didn’t take this long.’
If you ask , it's a skill issue.
Well, at least the engraving itself was clean. That’s what matters.
"By the way... Chieftain, there’s sothing you should know."
Just as I was about to get out of this damn tent, now that the engraving was done, he said that.
I forced down an ominous feeling and looked at the shaman.
And then—
"I can’t do the Phase 9 engraving with my power..."
Of course. A bombshell.
"You can’t? But you’re a shaman."
"That’s... I haven’t learned Phase 9 from my master yet."
"You haven’t?"
"It’s not that I wasn’t taught... I [N O V E L I G H T] just don’t have the confidence. From Phase 9 onward, the engraving gets carved deep into the soul—it’s way, way harder!"
A sudden revelation, and a much more serious one than I expected.
"I kind of learned the thod, so technically I could try... but if I fail, Chieftain, your life would be on the line..."
From Phase 9 onward, it’s a life-or-death procedure.
If Phase 9 is already like this, then Phase 10 might be straight-up impossible.
In the small picture, this just ans I can’t get engraved anymore.
But on the larger scale, it’s a crisis for our Barbarian tribe.
It ans the essential technique of Spirit Engraving would be lost permanently.
As chieftain, I can’t ignore this.
"Isn’t there any way?"
"There... kind of is..."
"What? There is?"
Surprisingly, he gave a positive answer right off the bat.
Given how I’ve been running into nothing but dead ends lately, it felt unfamiliar.
Not that I’m complaining.
"What is it? Spit it out."
"My master’s health took a sharp dive after the ‘soul adoption’ ceremony. He used to regain consciousness sotis and teach things, but now he can’t even do that. If we leave him as is, he won’t last much longer."
"Just the key point."
"...We have to restore my master’s health!"
...What?
"My master, the previous shaman, can handle even the highest-tier engravings without issue. He’s the one who engraved the previous chieftain too."
"......."
"If I could learn just a bit more from him, I might be able to perform even the highest-tier engravings myself!"
Hmm... I get what he’s saying.
And sure, having both of our tribe’s shamans healthy would be good.
But is that even realistic?
"How do we restore his health? Didn’t the priest say last ti that he couldn’t be healed?"
"That’s true, but I recently found a thod."
"Then tell . Don’t circle around like a damn human."
"It’s just... it might be tough for you, Chieftain."
"Ugh, I said just tell already."
After I spoke with slight irritation, the young shaman flinched like he’d been slapped and finally opened his mouth carefully.
"...We need a dragon heart."
...Should’ve just never asked.
***
In a way, this is basically a quest.
Technically, it’d be classified as a “race” quest, and its contents would look sothing like this:
[Race Quest]
Objective: Revive the previous shaman.
Condition: Obtain a dragon heart.
Reward: Unlock Phase 9 Spirit Engraving.
Failure Penalty: The previous shaman dies, and the Barbarian tribe permanently loses the ability to perform top-tier Spirit Engravings.
The quest is simple.
Get a dragon heart, get a reward. Fail to get one, suffer a penalty.
The problem is...
‘A dragon heart, huh...’
The difficulty is off the charts.
There are plenty of people who sell drake hearts as “dragon” hearts, but this one wants the real thing.
Actual dragons show up starting from the 9th floor.
They appear as Rift Guardians on the 8th too, but...
Getting to them is hard, and even if we did, our current power level isn’t enough to raid a dragon.
Sure, if we had more ti, we might manage.
‘...And we’d have to use Distortion too.’
Considering the success rate of Distortion, we wouldn’t just need to kill one—we’d need to be able to do it repeatedly and safely.
This quest isn’t sothing you can clear unless you’re strong enough to farm dragons reliably.
And there’s one big problem.
‘Will the previous shaman even live that long?’
Probably not.
‘So much for this being a straightforward problem, for once.’
This is worse than anything I’ve faced recently.
The only chance of success would be if soone else just gave us a dragon heart...
‘...The royal family might have one.’
But the problem is, they’d never give up sothing that valuable for free.
"Haa..."
At this point, for the sake of my sanity, maybe I should just give up on the future of the Barbarian tribe.
‘I’ll deal with this later. It feels urgent, but it’s not like the shaman’s dying today.’
For now, I’ll just hold onto this quest and deal with more imdiate matters first.
As I always say, everything has its priorities.
And right now, the top priority is clearly this:
"Yandel, a letter ca from the royal family."
"Hmm..."
"What’s it say?"
"They’ve scheduled the title confernt ceremony."
Strictly speaking, it’s not just my title.
They’re bundling together my promotion, the appointnt of Duke Kealurnus as Chancellor, and the formal succession of other noble houses—like handing out diplomas at a graduation.
‘What is this, a damn school recital? Why are they cramming it all into one?’
I don’t know the details, but I’m guessing this whole event was arranged under the influence of Astarotta, the King’s proxy.
That guy hated hassle as much as I do.
"Ooooh! So Bjorn’s gonna be a Count now!! Count Yandel! That even sounds cool!!"
"...Not a Count. A Viscount."
"...Eh? What the hell is a Viscount?"
"Ugh..."
There’s no point trying to explain the five-rank noble system to Ainard. She wouldn’t rember it anyway.
"Huh? Bjorn? Where are you going?"
"To sleep. I’m hungry."
The ceremony is one week from today.
I still had so ti, so I focused on internal matters instead of anything flashy.
I t with Shabin Emure, who handles tribal administration, and had so official discussions to check on her ntal state.
Outwardly, she looked fairly recovered.
She said she missed Ragna, her only real friend, but I didn’t ntion anything about Ragna’s situation.
Telling her Ragna’s royal and currently imprisoned in the palace would only stress her more.
"These are sweets from a bakery in Karnohn. Eat while you work."
"Ah... thank you."
And with that, our conversation ended as I handed over the gift I’d gotten with care.
After that, I sat down with Alia to plan our new team structure.
The recent war left gaps in our strength, and new recruits had joined to fill them.
"Incredible. Arua Raven left the army and ca to us..."
"Huh? Isn’t Elwen’s uncle joining more surprising than Raven?"
"Not really. He’s just a regular old guy, isn’t he?"
"...Huh?"
Alia seed more focused on Raven’s return than on Beleg.
I suppose that’s fair—given all that prophecy and betrayal talk, she’s bound to be sensitive about it.
"Still, since we have the sa number of mbers as before, we can operate two teams again."
"Yeah. We’ll need to address the vacant vice-leader position too."
"Vice-leader, huh..."
"You don’t want to do it? If you took over the role and led Team 2, it’d be reassuring in a lot of ways—"
"Denied."
Tch, she really hates the idea of being vice-leader.
‘Honestly, Raven’s personality and experience are perfect for it... but it’s hard to give that to a new recruit.’
It’s a tricky problem.
How do I split the teams? Who goes where?
It might not seem urgent, but this kind of thing should be figured out while there’s ti.
And judging by how things are going, the Labyrinth won’t stay closed much longer—
"Chieftain!! A human ca to the gate asking to et with you!!"
At that mont, one of the barbarian guards stationed at the wall ca running over, shouting.
"They want to et ? Who is it?"
I asked the na imdiately.
That’s how the world works, after all.
You need a certain level of fa before you can just show up unannounced and expect to get an audience.
If this were so no-na explorer, they’d have been kicked out the mont they hit the gate.
Which ans... whoever ca looking for has a na.
"Ilia Adnus! Master of the Explorer’s Guild!"
...An interesting guest has arrived.
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