Hell Mode: Volume 5, page 23
Extra Skill: Combine (Right Arm)
Skill Levels
Rocket Punch: 6
Drill Punch: 6
Laser Sword: 6
Repair: 6
* * *
When Meruru maxed out her class skill, the last skill she received was Repair. There were two ways to repair damaged golems. One was to replace the slate for that part; golem parts were manifested based on the slates, so if, say, the right arm was destroyed, the pilot could put in a new right arm slate and their golem’s arm would be as good as new. Of course, if they put the old right arm slate back in, the arm that appeared would go back to being the broken one. The second way was the Repair skill. This skill enabled golem pilots to repair their golems by expending MP. However, this process also took time. The only way to instantly repair a part was to swap out the slate.
This time, the Gamers were in no hurry, so Meruru could make do using her skill.
“Hold on, I see a treasure chest!” Dogora, who had moved toward the center of the leaf to change, announced to the party.
“You serious?!” With that, Keel immediately took off.
Allen sighed with apprehension. I keep telling you, it can be a monster. Please stop opening them yourself.
Whenever Keel saw a treasure chest, he simply could not bear not opening it. However, there were monsters in these dungeons that took on the appearance of treasure chests. In fact, the Gamers had encountered them before—specifically, these were Rank A monsters called abyss boxes. Dogora must have been thinking the same thing as Allen, as he promptly opened the chest himself.
“What does this do?” Dogora picked up the ring inside the chest and brought it back to where Allen and the rest were.
Allen put the ring on and opened his grimoire to check his Status. “Nice, we got a good one right off the bat. This gives +3,000 Intelligence.”
Hooray for rings! Very good luck for our very first day. This is a good floor. The Rank S boss here is apparently really dangerous, but I still think this floor is better than Floor 3, at least in terms of loot and XP.
So far, the Gamers had only ever found rings that gave +1,000 buffs. This was their first time obtaining one the next tier up. And since two rings could be equipped on each hand, there was a lot of room for upgrades.
“All right. As discussed before, this ring is going to K—”
“No way am I taking it.” Keel made a big “X” with his arms and, using just his eyes, indicated toward the person behind Allen.
Catching onto what Keel was so afraid of, Allen cleared his throat. “Ahem. This ring is going to Cecil.” He turned around and found Cecil standing right there.
“Aww, are you sure? Thank you!” She grinned brightly as she accepted the ring.
Well, considering our current situation, I suppose it makes more sense giving it to Cecil first to raise her damage output. Hopefully, we’ll eventually find enough rings for everyone. And while we look for those, we’ll also have to keep an eye out for orichalcum on this floor.
And so the No-life Gamers began their foray into Floor 4 while keeping the plethora of goals they had to achieve in the backs of their minds.
Chapter 14: Searching for Orichalcum
“C’mon, lemme tag in already,” Dogora called out impatiently. “I’m the one who asked him.”
“Aww... Okay!” With visible effort, Krena brought herself to relent and stepped back.
Sword Lord Dverg watched their exchange without saying anything, holding a mithril practice greatsword.
They were standing in the yard of the house that Sacred and the No-life Gamers were renting. As expected of a property large enough to house thirty people, the yard was rather spacious. Even after Helmios’s servants finished hanging up the twenty adventurers’ laundry, there was more than enough space to practice.
Allen’s group would stay inside the dungeon for three and a half days before they came out for one and a half days to rest. Dogora used the free time he had to practice swings in the yard. When Krena saw him doing this, she joined him, and the two started having matches every once in a while. This made Allen wonder if his party really needed a rest period, but Keel and Meruru were insistent upon it. Allen himself needed time to create Seeds of Magic, and as a result, they kept their current schedule.
When Dogora headed out to the yard on one of their days off, he found Dverg there, already practicing. Making the most of the opportunity, Dogora asked to practice with him. Dverg agreed without missing a beat. After that, Dogora, Krena, and Dverg took to training together in the yard. When Allen learned of this, he went to thank Dverg, but the man simply replied that it was “not a problem.” Allen wondered just what it was that Dverg saw through his remaining good eye.
Today, as always, the three of them were training hard in the yard with their respective weapons in hand. Allen gazed at them from a table off in the corner, surreptitiously adding “Musclehead Trio” to their profiles in his head.
“Lord Helmios, Lord Allen, Princess Sophie, I’ve brought you tea.”
One of Helmios’s servants brought over a tray of teacups to Allen’s table and began setting them out. Helmios, the one who had asked for the tea, and Sophie were sitting there with Allen.
“Thank you.” Sophie smiled at the servant, who in turn lowered her head courteously and retreated.
Helmios lifted his cup and took a sip, then asked, “So, how’re you guys finding Floor 4?”
“We’re done leveling, so we’re focusing on raising everyone’s skills now,” Allen replied. “Speaking of, there’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“Hm? What’s that?”
The No-life Gamers had already been at Floor 4 for a month now. Their efforts at gathering equipment and items were going smoothly, but they had yet to get their hands on a very important something in particular. Allen was about to ask about it when suddenly...
“Kelpie! No, don’t do that. Please, settle down!”
“Kee, kee.”
The small, light blue dolphin with a white belly in Sophie’s arms started thrashing about as it tried to drink from her cup. This was the juvenile water spirit that she had contracted with. She was keeping Kelpie out now, partly because she had already gotten relatively used to handling Salamander and partly because messing up with Salamander meant Dogora burning his buns. As she generally could only keep one spirit out at a given moment, she had swapped them out.
The name “Kelpie” brought an aquatic horse creature to Allen’s mind, but the kelpies of this world looked different from the monsters in the games that he knew so well. This was fine and all, but every time Allen heard the name “Kelpie,” it also reminded him of “Kenpy,” the nickname that he had assigned his character in his very first MMO. He would never share this with the others, but regardless, chills still danced down his back whenever Sophie called out to her spirit.
“So, what was it that you wanted to ask about?”
“Well, we can’t find any orichalcum.” Like, at all. Were you lying?
Sure, the No-life Gamers had only been on Floor 4 for a month, but they had covered a lot more ground than other adventurers as they were always flying on Bird Bs. Thanks to this, they had already opened what Allen thought was a much higher number of treasure chests than average. However, the party had yet to get their hands on any orichalcum weapons and armor, one of their goals from the start.
“Ohhh. We found ours at the bottom of the ocean.”
“At the bottom? There are treasure chests down there too?”
Allen had sent some Fish Bs down into the sea in case there was anything of note, but they had only found monsters and no chests.
“Ah, that’s...”
According to Helmios’s explanation, treasure could be found in places other than treasure chests on Floor 4. His party had found orichalcum ore inside large clams at the bottom of the sea.
Seriously? We have to look out for things other than chests? And deep in the sea too, no less.
“That’s incredible. How’d you find out? I doubt it was by coincidence.”
Rosetta walked into the yard, grinning proudly. “Oh? You’re interested? I was the one who found it! Aren’t I great?”
“Do you have a skill to detect treasure?” Allen asked her.
“I do, actually. How’d you know? Want me to tell you all about it some time?”
“I’m good, thank you.”
It wouldn’t help us, in any case. Hmm, but that does sound like a skill that a phantom thief would have. It probably lets her know the location of valuable things within a certain radius.
A while later, Allen headed out to the Adventurer’s Guild. As he walked, he brainstormed ways to explore the seafloor. He went alone, as this trip was only for his usual magic stone trading. Despite the massive number of magic stones that he had bought so far, the market price had not budged, going to show just how many adventurers there were and how vast the supply was. Little wonder, considering that this was the city that produced the most magic stones in the country that was trying to control the entire world with magic tools.
When night fell later, the No-life Gamers hit up their usual restaurant for dinner. There were days when some of the party could not attend—they were allowed to spend their day off however they wanted, after all. Tonight, however, they were all present.
When Allen walked into the restaurant, he panned his eyes around the dining room.
Hmm, Admiral Garara isn’t here today. Oh, but Mr. Uru is.
The wolfkin man whom Allen’s group had saved from BB was eating with Sara, a catkin from his party. He looked up and happened to meet Allen’s gaze, prompting the boy to walk over.
“Mr. Uru, it has been a while. How’s your meal?”
“It’s good, it’s good. Your party’s eating here today?”
“Yes, sir. Meruru loves this place. Would you like to join us?”
A while back, Uru had approached Allen to apologize about suddenly bringing Beast Prince Zeu to see him out of the blue. Ever since, the two had taken to exchanging information whenever they met in town. Sometimes they even ate together, like tonight.
Allen was proactively communicating with Uru to get updates on Albahal’s movements as well as on Beast King Zeu’s progress on clearing the dungeon. Uru was a run-of-the-mill adventurer and therefore did not know much about his country’s politics or the power struggles between members of the Albahalan royal family; however, he did have useful information related to Beast Prince Zeu.
“So, His Highness is still on Floor 2,” Allen murmured.
“Well, Beast Crown Prince Beku is making damn sure that he’s not sending our best adventurers. Oh, don’t go spreading this around, okay?”
Allen was still talking with Uru while his companions put in their orders.
“Mr. Uru! C’mon, you know I won’t. So, Beast Prince Zeu is still going to need some time?”
“Basically, yep. How about you? You gonna be on Floor 4 for long?”
Perhaps Uru was also trying to keep tabs on Allen’s progress. Or maybe Beast Prince Zeu had ordered him to get updates on Helmios’s entire group.
“Well, I think we’ll be there for about six months. Speaking of, you also have six months left here, right? Hang in there.”
“Yeah, we do. Still another half a year until we go home!”
Uru had previously explained that Beast Crown Prince Beku had mandated that all beastkin with Talents spend one year at Yanpany for the sake of their country’s prosperity. They were issued hihiirokane and adamantite equipment and told they could keep half of the money they found. However, one must not forget this was a place where half of those going in died within a year. Those who tried to shirk this duty would be charged with treason, so many beastkin were here reluctantly, not because they wanted to.
When he realized what the situation was like, Beast Prince Zeu had gathered all the beastkin into an organization and did what he could to make it safer for them to enter the dungeon. Allen could hear the gratitude in Uru’s voice when he spoke of Beast Prince Zeu. Of course, Zeu was not purely helping his countrymen out of the goodness of his heart. The current Beast King had declared that he would yield his throne to whichever of his children cleared the Rank S dungeon first. This was what prompted Zeu to come to Yanpany, but he could not overlook the harsh conditions that he found his people facing and therefore ended up taking action.
Uru lamented about the fact that because the clearing of the dungeon was tied to the succession of the throne, Beast Crown Prince Beku was preventing the best fighters of Albahal from coming to Yanpany.
When I speak to Mr. Uru, I get the feeling that he doesn’t completely hate all humans. Though maybe that’s just because I saved his life once.
Allen had heard that the beastkin resented and hated the Central Continent and the humans who lived there for the persecution that they had received in the past. However, he did not feel this hostility from Uru.
When he was at the Academy, he was taught that beastkin, just like elves and dwarves, were equally “people.” The Academy treated all the other races as equals to humans and its curriculum did not particularly discriminate against them.
“I’ve always wondered, why are you here at this death trap, Allen? It’s not like your king gave you an order, right?”
“Of course not. I’m here because I want the reward for clearing the dungeon.”
“You serious? Is that even a thing?”
“Apparently Mr. Helmios heard it directly from Dygragni, so I’m pretty sure it is.”
Back during his Academy days, the Hero had supposedly asked the priests tending to Dygragni here for an opportunity to speak with the Dungeon Master in person. His request was granted, and Dygragni had told him that, just like all other dungeons, the Rank S dungeon also held a reward for those who cleared it.
It was this reward that Allen was after. He had high expectations for it, in light of the fact that this dungeon had lumps of orichalcum just sitting around waiting to be picked up.
“Damn, you really mean it. Even Admiral Garara hasn’t made it to Floor 5, y’know?”
“So I’ve heard. However”—Allen grinned with total confidence—“there’s no dungeon that my party has ever failed to clear.”
＊ ＊ ＊
The No-life Gamers arrived at Floor 4 of the Rank S dungeon.
“Now, then. Today’s goal is to find us some orichalcum!” Allen declared.
“And we’re supposed to look inside the clams that Lord Helmios described, yes?” Cecil asked for confirmation’s sake.
Allen nodded, then the entire party mounted their Bird Bs and took to the sky. Because they had done this so many times now, the other adventurers were no longer surprised whenever it happened, now thinking nothing more of it beyond “Strange abilities some people have.”
The plan was to get Krena and Dogora some orichalcum weapons first. As they were major damage dealers, upgrading their weapons should make it easier for the party to kill whatever they encountered, floor bosses included. So the party was going to focus on gathering orichalcum until everyone had upgraded weapons, then return to hunting the monsters and treasure chests on top of the lotus pads.
Without ado, Allen Summoned fifty Fish Bs in the water and sent the Archelons scattering in all directions.
Do your best, Genbus. If you find a big clam, destroy it and check inside for orichalcum.
During his time here in Yanpany, Allen had learned a few things about the dungeon. First, according to Uru, this dungeon was expanding by the day. This included Floor 1, meaning that the city on Floor 1 was also growing. This was the reason that all the buildings were arranged in concentric rings centered around the Temple of Yanpany. Second, this dungeon was not static. The leaf that Salamander had burned through the other time had either healed or been replaced. The Gamers therefore had no qualms about breaking clams, knowing that they would be back to normal the next day.
“Now that I know, I see so many places that I want to check out,” Allen murmured.
“Are you going to?” Cecil was sitting behind Allen, sharing the same Bird B as him.
“Nah, we’ll concentrate on looking for clams with orichalcum today.”
The water was so clear that it was possible to see the seafloor from the surface, but it actually went all the way down to around a hundred meters. According to Helmios, it was the Tridacna clams—more commonly known as just “giant clams”—that held treasure. Besides these clams, however, the seafloor was also dotted with what looked like crab holes and sunken ships. These points of interest likely held items too, but Allen hardened his heart and resolved to only look for the clams.
Half a day passed, during which time the Fish Bs destroyed hundreds, if not thousands, of giant clams. However, not one of them revealed the golden glow of the metal of the gods. Even now, the Summons were out searching, swimming swiftly past all the monsters in the water.
I guess orichalcum isn’t common enough to be found in a day or two. Maybe I should change up how I do things.
“We’re not having much luck. You think I should ask Ms. Rosetta for help?” Allen asked.
Cecil, however, did not answer. She was clearly quite unenthusiastic about being in the older woman’s favor.
Allen suddenly sat up. “Hold on.”
“What happened?”
“Just found a super big clam.”
One of the Fish Bs that Allen was Shared with had discovered a clam several meters across and tried biting down on it. Fish B’s bite was powerful enough to pulverize any random rock lying around or kill Rank B monsters in one snap. Consequently, the attack had made short work of all the other clams so far. This one, however, did not break.
Oh? Is this it? Everyone, gather up.
Determining that this unique and seemingly indestructible clam was a winner, Allen called back all the Fish Bs as he and his party made their way over.
“Down there?” Cecil asked when the party stopped right above where the indestructible clam lay.
