Hell Mode: Volume 6, page 13
“Hmm, it wasn’t resurrected this time.”
“Wow! How did you figure that out so quickly?”
“You’re awesome, Allen!”
The party was used to being surprised by Allen’s antics, but being able to come up with a strategy to defeat a boss the very first time they faced it was something else entirely.
“I guess I’m just used to it, though I must admit it’s been a while.”
Back in his past life, Allen had come across quite a few enemies in the games he played that could resurrect their allies. Common practice was to prevent them from using their resurrection magic or skills, but in this case, he was able to use the terrain to create some distance and prevent its use.
“Great! Just one more to go.”
For the time being, the group decided to ignore the treasure chest left where the iron golem once stood and head back to the hallway’s entrance. Tam-Tam was still standing there, restraining the iron golem’s arms.
“You guys sure took your time,” Meruru said.
It still can’t move, huh?
Between Gnome and Tam-Tam, the iron golem was firmly stuck in place. Allen watched on excitedly as the party laid into their motionless enemy.
The text Allen had been waiting some time to see finally appeared on his grimoire. As it did, the spear-wielding iron golem faded away, leaving a Rank S magic stone and a treasure chest in its place.
Allen made his way down the hall and checked on the iron golem they had slain earlier and spotted its Rank S magic stone and treasure chest. Both of the treasure chests were wood, earning the team a total of three mithril golem slates and one ring that boosted stats by 3,000 points. A cube and a treasure chest had also appeared in the room.
While the rest of the party celebrated their first-try victory, Allen was deep in thought.
“What’s wrong, Allen?” Dogora called out to his friend. “Aren’t you excited?”
“I was just thinking about all the XP we gained from that battle. Pretty sure we’ve hit pay dirt here!” Allen lifted his head and shouted, his voice reverberating around the Iron Zone.
The Gamers could tell that something new was about to begin.
Chapter 9: Homecoming and a Coming-of-Age Ceremony
“It’s great to finally be surrounded by some familiar sights. It’s not the most beautiful of places, but it still feels fresh and reinvigorating,” Cecil said from her seat on the back of a Bird B, casting her gaze across the rocky mountains below.
Allen was no fool. He realized that the words from the girl sitting behind him were slightly accusatory, but he chose to ignore that. There was, after all, a reason for it.
Ten days prior, Allen had discovered that killing the pair of golems inhabiting the Iron Zone was a great way of earning XP. If they only killed one of the two, they would earn nearly a billion XP and its companion would then quickly resurrect it. In essence, it was an infinite XP glitch.
Allen was so excited about this fact that he had set a goal for the Gamers to kill a hundred iron golems per day. The first time they attempted it, it had taken fifteen hours to defeat eighty-two iron golems—a feat which required some trial and error with their battle formations, target allocation, and attack methods. Then, using the cube that appeared after defeating both of the iron golems, the team returned to the Floor 5 hall for a break.
As far as Allen was concerned, this was a matter of course in pursuit of his ultimate objective, as it was the most efficient leveling strategy available. The other Gamers did not see it quite the same way, though. While they may have understood what Allen was intending to do, it had taken some time for them to truly appreciate how much Allen enjoyed this kind of robotic repetition. And even when they did come to understand his feelings, spending more than ten hours grinding with him still proved incredibly tedious.
Cecil was the first to give in to her anger and outright demand an answer from Allen. Though she was no stranger to spending a dozen or so hours dungeon crawling—after all, they had done so back in the Academy dungeons as well as in the Rank S dungeon—it verged on insanity for them to spend days on end fighting the same enemy over and over. They had not even gotten to go anywhere else or do any exploring.
In response to Cecil’s outburst, Allen had started taking more breaks, brightened up the dimly lit Floor 5 hall with magic tools, and even built a bath there. Over time, however, more and more of the party members began to want to leave the dungeon and take a proper rest, and eventually, all of them except Allen had expressed a desire to withdraw.
Allen had considered coming to the dungeon alone, but he figured it would be best if his friends also came along for the XP farming. With that, he decided to give up on farming XP for the time being and go home for a break. After returning to their base and resting for the night, they headed out for their hometown in Granvelle, located in the Kingdom of Ratash, the next morning.
We were able to travel here in no time flat thanks to Swell.
A single Bird A sat atop Allen’s shoulder. It looked an awful lot like a swallow, so Allen had decided to name it Swell. Compared to his other Summons, it was quite small and unsuited to combat, but its Abilities held tremendous potential.
* * *
Type: Bird
Rank: A
Name: Swell
HP: 200
MP: 8,000
Attack: 200
Endurance: 200
Agility: 10,000
Intelligence: 10,000
Luck: 9,000
Buffs: Agility 200, Intelligence 200, Grants Flight
Ability: Return to Nest, Build Nest
Awakened Ability: Homing Instinct
* * *
All Rank A Summons had three buffs. Just like the lower-Ranked Summons, two were stat increases while the third could grant something like a resistance or a special skill. In Bird A’s case, it bestowed Flight, which gave Allen the ability to fly around freely in much the same way as Helmios could. His movement speed was determined by his Agility stat.
The Return to Nest Ability allowed Allen to teleport to a location created using Build Nest. Allen named the teleportation points after the Ability, calling them “nests,” and it seemed that only one nest could be created per Bird A card. In other words, if he were to get rid of a Bird A, he would need to Summon another one and use Build Nest once more in order to create a new nest.
Bird A’s Awakened Ability, Homing Instinct, allowed Allen to teleport any or all of his friends within one kilometer of him to a Build Nest point he had previously set. He used Homing Instinct to teleport himself and the rest of his party to the nest he had created in Rodin Village in Granvelle, where his family lived.
Allen had used various means of travel since coming to this world, including magical airships which could take several days just to get to their destination. This new Ability that could instantly take him anywhere was a massive boon.
After graduating from the Academy and participating in the war in Rohzenheim, Allen had become acquainted with people from various countries, including none other than the Hero, Helmios. If he wanted to communicate with these people, it could take upward of half a month for a Dragon B or Spirit B to reach them, as his Summons had had no option but to fly from him to their destination. Furthermore, since Summons could only remain Summoned for a single month, he had needed to send multiple of them over the course of each month.
That was no longer the case thanks to Bird A. Now, Allen was able to teleport to any location where he had created a nest. Creating a new Bird A and its nest made getting around the need to replace his Summons once a month trivial.
According to Merus, who had created the Summons, he had prioritized implementing abilities he felt were otherwise lacking in the world, as well as those he thought would simply be nice to have after having watched the way Allen used his Summons. Bird A gave the Flight skill because Allen had longed for it after his fight with Helmios and because of how long it had taken the party to travel during the war in Rohzenheim.
Additionally, Merus had decided to not implement the Analyze skill in Rank A Summons since he deemed it to be useless at Summoning Lvl. 8. Rank S monsters and Demonic Deities still needed to be Analyzed, but it was unlikely that a Rank S monster—and absolutely impossible for a Demonic Deity—could be Analyzed by a Rank A Summon.
In any case, it was all thanks to Bird A’s Homing Instinct that the No-life Gamers were able to instantly travel to Granvelle. Cecil knew as much, yet she was rather annoyed about the whole XP-farming situation in the dungeon and continued to pepper Allen with complaints as they flew together on his Bird B. Allen was still listening to the onslaught of gripes as the group finally arrived at the White Dragon Mountains.
“Whoa, there it is!” Krena cried out from atop the Bird B flying ahead of Allen, excitedly pointing out landmarks. Hefted onto her back where her sword was usually found, Krena was carrying large hunks of meat on the bone, which made it look to Allen as if she was enjoying the break more than anyone else in the party.
“You’re right. Let’s head on down!”
The party made their way down to where the white dragon and the large Dragon B were waiting.
“You’ve grown quite a bit over this past year.”
“You’ve definitely grown up a lot, Haku.”
After dismounting their Bird Bs, the Gamers approached the white dragon. Though still a child, Haku dwarfed each and every one of them.
“Grrrooowl!”
Haku bared its fangs and let out a thunderous roar as Allen and the team approached, probably out of fear of the unfamiliar creatures.
“Master Allen means you no harm!” the Dragon B sitting next to him scolded.
“Hyiiii.”
Aww, it sounds almost like a dog whimpering.
Cecil looked up at Haku with great interest. “Wow, it sure is huge. Are you sure it’s still a hatchling?”
“Whoa, it’s ginormous!”
Thanks to the Dragon B taking care of it, Haku had continued to grow at a fast pace and reached five meters in height in a single year alone. Its diet consisted of animals Dragon B caught for it. However, Allen felt that his Dragon A, with its five heads and higher stats, could provide even better care for the white dragon.
“Orochi, come on out!”
“Roaaagh!”
Haku quickly ducked behind the Dragon B when Orochi appeared.
Allen had come here with the intention of swapping out the Dragon B and having the Dragon A take care of Haku going forward. For the time being, however, he would have both dragons watch over Haku and slowly transition to the Dragon A.
Haku hung back, seemingly intimidated by Dragon A’s presence, as Krena slowly drew near.
“Hey, Haku. Look, I brought some meat. Have a bite.”
She held out the meat she had carried over from Rodin Village.
“Grrrooowl.”
However, Haku seemed unsure of what to make of the dried hunks of meat, as it was used to eating animals freshly slain by the Dragon B. It ever so slowly chomped down on the meat and swallowed it whole, not even bothering to chew.
“You gotta eat up to grow big and strong,” Krena said, beaming as she looked up at Haku.
So this is what they call maternal instinct.
Allen recalled how Krena always got a wistful look in her eye whenever they discussed Haku’s development.
As he continued to watch the interaction between Krena and Haku, Allen shot Merus a question. “Think we can domesticate Haku this way?”
“Hmm, I’m not so sure about that.”
“But there used to be a lot of monsters with their own sense of self.”
The Demon Lord was supposedly able to sway all monsters across the globe. However, it did not seem to Allen that the murdergalsh, a powerful monster that had proved more than formidable when Allen first faced off against it, had lost its sense of self, considering the way it liked to play with the humans it killed. The same went for the white dragon he had defeated a year ago. Had the white dragon also lost its sense of self and been driven mad by the Demon Lord’s influence, Krena Village never would have existed in the first place.
“It’d be hard to tame precisely because it has its own sense of self. I suppose you probably could overrule that sense of self and control it if you had a subordination skill like the Demon Lord, though.”
“I see...”
Krena, who had been listening to the exchange between Allen and Merus, looked back with a concerned expression on her face.
＊ ＊ ＊
A short time later, Allen Summoned more Bird Bs and the party went on their way. Allen could use Flight now, but his MP would continuously drain as he flew, so he opted to ride a Bird B with Cecil instead.
“We’re heading to the armored ants’ nest next, right?”
“Right. I was thinking about doing an experiment at the armored ant farm.”
At the foot of the mountain where Haku lived was a nest of armored ants, massive insects that dug labyrinthian tunnels beneath the mountain. Their exoskeletons, though inferior to mithril, were still harder and lighter than steel. In order to make use of their exoskeletons in weaponry, Allen first needed to conduct some experiments on how to efficiently breed them.
The domain of Carnel, which Keel ruled over, had finally gotten its mithril mines operating again. But now that Freyja, the Goddess of Fire, had had her divine vessel stolen, they would need to find a substitute for mithril to outfit their troops—as long as the threat of the Demon Lord Army making a move at any time loomed over their heads.
After planting some Grass A Summons around the armored ant nest, the group got back onto their Bird Bs and made their way to their next location: Rodin Village, which would also serve as something of a break for them.
Since Bird A’s Awakened Ability, Homing Instinct, could only be used once a day, they flew back at a leisurely pace. Upon getting closer to the village, they spied the villagers moving about busily down below. In particular, a large group of villagers had gathered around the home of Rodin, Allen’s father and the village chief.
“The village certainly looks pretty impressive nowadays,” Cecil remarked. She had seen Rodin Village prior to their departure for the Rank S dungeon, but she was surprised at how much it had developed.
“They’ve all come together to help it grow.”
In addition to all the help from Allen’s Summons, Rodin Village had accepted many settlers who helped build the village. It was now so heavily fortified that it could withstand attacks from monsters; Allen’s plan was to keep bolstering it until it was as strong as Castle Lapolka in Rohzenheim.
Krena was also quite impressed at how far it had come. “Wooow! That’s one snazzy village!”
The party landed in the open field in front of the village chief’s house and entered it, where they were immediately struck by a delicious scent wafting down the hall. Krena followed the scent and hurried her way through the building, the rest of the party in tow. In the kitchen, they found Allen’s mother, Theresia, and some assistants bustling about as they cooked.
“Hello, mother.”
“Oh, welcome back, Allen! We’re almost done, so why don’t you go wait in the hall. All the other guests are already there waiting.”
A large group of people was in the reception hall, chatting among themselves. Myulla, Allen’s sister, came running over to the group.
“Hey, Pippi! You look different.” She seemed briefly taken aback by the fact that there was a Bird A on his shoulder rather than the Bird G—dubbed “Pippi” by his family—she was accustomed to. The Bird A took off from Allen’s shoulder and began flying lazy circles around Myulla, twittering the whole time. “Yay! Pippi!”
Myulla could hardly contain herself as the Bird A landed on her shoulder.
“Calm down, Myulla.” Mash, Allen’s younger brother, chided his exuberant little sister.
“Yeeesss, Maaash.”
Judging by the annoyed expression on her face and her tone of voice, it was clear that she did not feel like she was even remotely in the wrong.
To be fair, it was all kind of my fault anyway.
“Hi, Mash.”
“Welcome back, Allen.”
Allen could not help but be impressed at how much the boy before him, who answered in a smart, clipped tone, had grown. Mash was twelve years old now and had taken on the responsibility of caring for their sister.
Rodin, Allen’s father, made his way through the reception hall toward Allen, exchanging greetings as he went.
“Oh, you’re back?”
“Yes. Oh, mother said the food will be ready soon.”
Rodin’s face took on a look of chagrin. “I see. This was all pretty sudden, you know, so I’m afraid I haven’t been able to get all the preparations in order. Let me go get Viscount Granvelle.”
I’m counting on you as the village chief here, father. Everyone was intent on joining in, so we didn’t have a lot of options.
In addition to Krena’s and Dogora’s families, who already lived in Rodin Village, they were also joined by Keel’s sister and servants, as well as Meruru’s parents. Allen had been able to bring them here from Baukis using Bird A’s Homing Instinct.
Meruru came from a commoner family, though her father was a junior officer in the military. And while she was not one to talk much about herself, growing up watching her father defend the nation was her inspiration to join the fight on the front lines in support of the people. She had shared this tidbit with the party when Allen bounced the idea of inviting their parents off everyone.
Allen looked around the room for Meruru and spotted her happily chatting away with her parents. Keel also seemed to be enjoying his time with his sister, whom he had not seen in some time. The two had missed the trip to the White Dragon Mountains in order to spend more time with their families.
