Hell Mode: Volume 3, page 13
Everyone else expressed their acknowledgment in their own way and wrapped up their meal. Afterward, Nina saw them off with a distraught expression, so Keel gave her a few reassuring pats on the head. This was fast becoming a ritual for them whenever he headed out to a dungeon.
There were two Rank B dungeons close to the base, each containing a different kind of monster. The one that the No-life Gamers were heading to today was inhabited by beast-type monsters. Their attacks were easier to read and generally did not deal debuffs. This left traps and treasure chests as the only sources of poison. This particular dungeon was often recommended to newly promoted Rank C adventurers as a good one to start off with.
A short walk from the base later, the dungeon reared into view. The adventurers lined up outside looked markedly more powerful than those who had been waiting to get into the Rank C dungeons.
It was said that eighty percent of adventurers were able to take on Rank C dungeons; however, only around twenty percent could handle Rank B. Many had already died and more would continue to die to the innumerable traps and terrifying enemies within. Even when a group reached the deepest level, only those with Talents could even dream of defeating the boss that lay in wait. This here was a wall that truly separated the Talented from the Talentless.
The sight of young students—and only five of them!—approaching the dungeon cut such an unusual sight that one of the staff on duty asked them if they needed any help. Allen answered, “We’re totally fine” as the whole group produced their Rank C adventurer cards and walked on through.
“Welcome to this Rank B dungeon. I am General Dungeon Operating System B304.”
The party found a cube floating in midair when they stepped into one of the rooms, just as in the Rank C dungeons. They asked it to transport them inside.
With his ax propped on his shoulder, Dogora looked around, studying the stones that made up the ceiling, floor, and walls. “This feels the same as one of the Rank C places.”
Allen nodded. “That might be, but there are now traps. Let’s proceed carefully.”
Just in case, everyone started off drinking an Antidote Potion. Each cost a rather steep three silver, but they lasted a full day. As they did so, Allen sent out a Bird E to scout ahead.
The following were general notes that Allen had written down in his grimoire about Rank B dungeons.
Rank B dungeons have 10 to 12 floors
One floor of a Rank B dungeon takes twelve hours to traverse
The upper floors are filled with Rank D monsters, whereas the lower floors are filled with Rank C monsters
The boss on the deepest floor is Rank B
So, this dungeon has twelve floors. On average, people walk five kilometers per hour. If, at that pace, it takes twelve hours to get through one floor, that means 660 hours are needed to reach the eleventh floor. And that’s not including the time it’d take to hunt down all the mimics we come across. Well, that’s plenty of time to test out a bunch of things with my newest Summons.
“All right, I’ve gotten a general grasp of the layout of the place. Come on out, Frans.”
“Kweeeee!”
The group started moving forward without activating Breakthrough. Although there were only Rank D monsters on this floor, they decided not to charge their way through, taking into account the traps that they would have to deal with. Even so, they managed to reach the second floor by noon despite having entered at around eight.
“We didn’t see any treasure chests. I thought they’d be more common,” Cecil grumbled while eating her bread. Even this noble young lady had gotten quite used to eating out in the open after two months doing so.
Allen shrugged. “Well, at the end of the day, our top priority is still reaching the lowest floor. I guess there just aren’t all that many chests lying around.”
After passing through one more floor that afternoon, the party finally spotted what they had been looking out for on the fourth floor.
“Look! A treasure chest!”
Just as Keel was about to charge into a small chamber with a treasure chest in the far end, everyone grabbed him and pulled him back. They had taken precautions against being Poisoned, but there was still a possibility this chest was a mimic.
“Maria, would you mind checking it?”
“Your will is my command!”
The porcelain doll floated toward the chest. Allen’s strategy was to have Spirit C, which could phase through matter as well as converse normally, handle checking for traps in chests. If a chest did turn out to be a trap, they would just pass it by.
Everyone watched the Spirit C with their hearts in their mouths. Keel was on standby, ready to cast Healing Magic—which was also effective on Summons—at a moment’s notice. The more he leveled, the less the party had to rely on Allen’s recovery items.
* * *
Name: Keel
Age: 12
Class: Cleric
Level: 30
HP: 397
MP: 749
Attack: 298
Endurance: 421
Agility: 479
Intelligence: 661
Luck: 603
Skills: Cleric {2}, Healing {2}, Solidity {2}, Sword Mastery {3}
Extra Skill: Drops of God
XP: 26,550/30,000
Skill Levels
Cleric: 2
Healing: 2
Solidity: 2
Skill Experience
Healing: 28/100
Solidity: 15/100
* * *
I’m glad to see his skills are improving steadily. If I remember right, he said he learned Healing by repeatedly praying at a church, right?
When he joined the party, Keel’s Cleric and Healing skills were both only at Lvl. 1. Just like Cecil, it was only once he reached Lvl. 10 that his class skill had gone up. This proved that both Healing and Attack Magic had level caps. One additional thing had come to light: Healing Magic was dependent on the Intelligence stat.
In the time it took all of the above to go through Allen’s mind, Maria had finally reached the chest. Allen Shared her view to examine it closely. It indeed appeared to be a common wooden chest, but it could still be rigged or a mimic. If it was rigged, they would pass it by; if it was safe, they would open it. But what if it was a mimic?
Maria placed her hands on the wooden chest.
“GAAAWWWRRRRRRR!” The treasure chest’s mouth suddenly burst open, revealing countless rows of jagged teeth.
“It’s a mimic!” Allen shouted.
“AHHHH! D-DIE! PSYCHOKINESIS!” Maria screamed in surprise at suddenly finding herself under attack. She generated gray volleyball-sized energy spheres from her hands and started throwing them at the mimic with incredible velocity.
“G-Gaaawrrr?!”
“DIE! DIE! DIE!”
Every time Psychokinesis landed, the monster went flying. Even when it slammed against the wall, Spirit C continued raining down attacks without mercy. It did not take long for the mimic to stop moving. It had died.
I see, I see. When Strengthened, Maria can kill a Rank B monster using slightly less than half of her MP.
“Hold on a... What?! Mimics are Rank B monsters, right?!” Dogora exclaimed.
As Spirit C’s MP gauge would fill back up after six hours, the group now knew for certain they could easily kill two mimics within each six-hour period.
“Yay! A spear appeared!”
When the mimic disappeared, it left behind a Rank B magic stone and a mithril spear. Apparently, it really was true that mimics would sometimes drop items. Krena clambered down from her Bird C to pick up both. This single weapon would probably sell for around fifty gold.
The No-life Gamers then continued making their way deeper into the Rank B dungeon.
＊ ＊ ＊
With a gasp, Allen abruptly woke up. He was lying on the stone pavement. He looked around and found his companions peering at him.
“Are you back with us? You sure you don’t want to drink a Rousing Potion?”
Oh, did a trap get me with the Sleep debuff? I’ve been waiting for this!
They were currently in a small room on the sixth floor. Allen was the only one in the party who, for the sake of his experiments, had not drunk any of a potion that granted Sleep immunity.
“Did you use Garnish on me, Maria?”
“Yes, Master.”
“How long did it take me to wake up?”
“Fewer than ten heartbeats, Master.”
So only a few seconds. And I’m not groggy at all; I’m wide awake. Which means I can get back into battle immediately.
“What happened, Allen?” Krena asked anxiously.
“Nothing, everything’s great,” Allen replied. “I want to do a bit more testing using this trap. Is that okay with you guys?”
“Ah, testing? Okay,” Cecil nodded.
“Okay, take your time.” Dogora picked up his ax. “Krena, train with me?”
“Sure!”
Everyone accepted Allen’s request with an accustomed air. These experiments were a common occurrence when down in the dungeons with Allen. Although getting to the end of the dungeon was a priority, his ability to properly analyze all the possible threats they encountered had proved crucial to their survival many times. Plus, there was still a lot that he had yet to learn about his Rank C Summons and the Awakening skill.
So, knowing that Allen’s experiment sessions could run as long as several hours, Dogora immediately asked Krena to spar with him. Although he had yet to figure out how to use his skill, he believed that if he repeatedly swung his ax at her while trying to form the correct mental image—basically having Krena do what Dverg had done for her—he would eventually get the knack of it. The two of them managed to find one or two hours for this training every day on top of their daily dungeon runs after school.
This time, Allen was studying the Sleep debuff. Or rather, he was using the Sleep debuff to study the effects of Grass C’s Ability, Garnish. After obtaining items to recover HP and MP from earlier Summons, he figured that this one was supposed to dispel debuffs. There were plenty of traps in this Rank B dungeon, but all of them had been either arrows or poison so far—for these the party simply went with a brute-force approach with the help of items. Allen could not test either of those kinds, as he could die if anything went wrong, so he had been waiting for a Sleep trap all this time.
This one’s also really cleverly disguised.
As the other four spread out inside the room, Allen headed back out to examine the trap in the middle of the corridor. The trap looked completely indistinguishable from the surrounding stone pavement. According to Maria, when it was stepped on, it would depress and trigger the release of some white smoke. Allen purposely stepped on the trap once more. Sure enough, it released a cloud of smoke.
Okay, it’s the same style as the Poison traps. The range is five meters from the trap itself, and the cloud dissipates after a few seconds. Hmm, I don’t feel sleepy at all. Is this due to Garnish? If so, then Garnish works differently from commercial Rousing Potions.
Effect of Commercial Rousing Potions
Wakes up someone who’s asleep
If drunk in advance, can protect the drinker from the Sleep debuff for one day
Effect can only trigger once
Costs 3 silver
In contrast, the effect of Garnish did not wear off even after it had worked once. Allen activated the trap a third time, but nothing happened to him. Just as he was scratching his face, trying to think of other things to confirm, he realized that he had a little bit of dried blood close to his mouth.
Huh? I got hurt? When— Oh wait, before I blacked out...
An important fact came back to Allen: he had been on the move when he had fallen asleep. And a Bird C could run at fifty kilometers per hour even without using its Ability.
Did I fall off of Fran when I lost consciousness?
“Maria, what happened to all the Frans when the smoke triggered?”
“They all fell dead asleep.”
According to Maria, since all of the Bird Cs had been running together, all of them had fallen victim to the trap at the same time. As the other No-life Gamers had all drunk Rousing Potions in addition to the Antidotes beforehand, they had been able to leap off their mounts in the nick of time and were thus uninjured. He himself, however, had collapsed with his mount and gotten scratched up in the process.
Allen checked his grimoire—everyone’s HP stat, including his own, was full.
“Keel healed me?”
“Yes, Master.”
I see. He must have used Healing Magic on all the Frans and me. Oh boy, that was a close one. Both times just now, I saw Maria get enveloped in the smoke and remain unaffected, so I unconsciously assumed that all my Summons are resistant to Sleep.
Allen called out various Summons and had them step on the trap one by one in order to confirm which ones were and were not affected by it. As a result, he learned that their resistance was based on their type, regardless of rank.
Effectiveness of Sleep
Insect-type: 100%
Beast-type: 100%
Bird-type: 100%
Grass-type: 0%
Stone-type: 0%
Fish-type: 100%
Spirit-type: 0%
I see. So the trap is basically guaranteed to work on living creatures, but is ineffective on the nonliving ones. Grass-types are alive, but because they’re plants, they don’t sleep, I guess?
The pattern was clear and easy to understand. The next logical thing to do was to see whether Garnish worked on the Summons.
Findings on Garnish
Can dispel the Sleep debuff
Works on Summons too
Effect is sustained
Requires Further Testing
Does it dispel the Poison debuff?
How long does the effect last?
Since it lasts, it makes sense to consume one beforehand. Still, it looks like I put everyone in danger, not having thought about the possibility of the Frans falling asleep too.
Having just finished his tests, Allen was about to turn around and say, “Thanks for waiting. I’m done now. Let’s go,” when Dogora suddenly roared at the top of his lungs.
“HECK YEEEEAAAAHHHHHH!!! I DID IT! WOO-HOOOOOO!”
“Yay! You did it, Dogora!” Krena cheered.
Immediately catching on, Allen asked, “You managed to activate your skill?”
“You bet! I did it! I used my skill!”
A smile spread across Dogora’s bumpkin face, reaching from ear to ear. He had figured out how to use his skill only a little later than Krena.
Allen checked his grimoire. Oh! He really did earn Skill XP!
* * *
Name: Dogora
Age: 12
Class: Ax User
Level: 35
HP: 772
MP: 416
Attack: 1,016
Endurance: 670
Agility: 424
Intelligence: 282
Luck: 458
Skills: War Ax {1}, Full Might {1}, Ax Mastery {4}
Extra Skill: Heart and Soul
XP: 59,630/70,000
Skill Levels
War Ax: 1
Full Might: 1
Skill Experience
Full Might: 2/10
* * *
“Hm? You done with your tests, Allen?” Dogora had been so occupied with his training that he had only just noticed that Allen had packed away everything he had taken out to do his tests with.
“Yep, all good. Thanks for waiting, guys.”
“Nice. Let’s keep going, then! I want to use my skill a few more times so I make sure to remember how it feels!” Dogora promptly hoisted his ax and hopped onto his Bird C’s back.
After Allen said, “Sounds good,” the party once again resumed pushing forward through the dungeon.
＊ ＊ ＊
Today was a day off.
“Pochi, good boy! Who’s a good boy? You’re a good boy!”
“Arf! Arf!”
Allen was petting a Beast F, which was waving its tail enthusiastically. Unlike its usual giant and threatening appearance, it was tiny and fluffy like a chihuahua. From up on top of a cupboard, a Beast E watched with a judgmental look on its face, as if asking, “What’s so fun about that?” Just like Beast F, it was no longer the huge saber-toothed cat it normally was, but was now more like a cool and haughty house cat. It had fully occupied the empty space above the cupboard and was busy grooming its fur. The appearances of these two Summons were due to their Awakened Abilities: Loyal Dog and Borrowed Cat, respectively. The former turned Beast F into a small, affectionate dog, and the latter turned Beast E into a cat that just lounged around. The effect would last for one month.
At first glance, these two Awakened Abilities seemed quite pointless. However, that was not the case. Despite their new appearances, the two Summons retained their Strengthened stats, possessing more than five hundred HP and Attack. They made for perfectly camouflaged guards and perfect objects of affection for the servants.
Allen was still in the middle of going through all the Summons’ Awakened Skills. Their effects and durations were all so different that the more he discovered, the more he realized how much care and effort had been put into the Awakening skill.
“All right, ready to go?”
“Heck yeah! Let’s go!”
Ever since he figured out how to use his own skill, Dogora had been extremely enthusiastic about going to the dungeons—he was practically champing at the bit. Allen was just glad that his friend had learned the joy of seeing his own progress.
This day would be the first time the party was going to challenge the boss of a Rank B dungeon. As always, they entered the dungeon building and asked GDOS to send them down to the deepest floor. The next moment, they found themselves in front of giant, heavily ornamented double doors. When they opened those doors, the circular space beyond came into view.
