Hell Mode: Volume 11, page 27
“What?! Did too!” Nenebee replied, turning to her notes. “See? I followed this recipe and... Oops!”
“I heard that! You screwed up, didn’t you?! I almost died!”
“S-Sorry! B-But look, the writing’s so messy that I couldn’t read this part that says we apparently need racotte grass! It’s not my fault!”
“You’re the one who wrote that damn recipe! Jeez, I can’t believe you! Oops, my ass! I’m gonna take you off cooking duty! I mean it this time!”
Nenebee looked unusually sad and visibly deflated while Gressa raised her voice with alarm.
“Olbaas! Did you eat the whole thing?!”
Everyone whirled around to gaze at his empty bowl.
“Vomit it back up! C’mon! Hurry!” Yoze said, hastily using his large hands to smack Olbaas’s back.
“A-A-All Cure!” Istahl shouted, his hands trembling as he cast his spell on the dark elf.
Meanwhile, Olbaas felt his heart grow warm at his friends all desperately trying to save him. He shoved his magic bag deep into his pocket.
“I’m fine. I’m fine, guys,” he assured them, and they all looked visibly relieved.
“Really?” Makkaron asked. “Well, you can speak just fine. Did your mouth not go numb like mine did?”
“Are dark elves particularly resistant to poison, perhaps?” Gressa wondered.
“Um, I’m not quite sure,” Olbaas replied.
“Sorry, Olbaas,” Nenebee said. “But why did you do that?”
“Well...” Olbaas began, unsure how to answer before deciding that he should just be honest. “It’s a meal my friends made. I would have felt bad if I didn’t eat it all.”
Nenebee scrunched her face happily. “You’re a good guy. Listen, to make up for it, I’ll cook you something delicious next time!”
“I-I’d love that.”
“You sure you wanna do that?” Makkaron questioned. “You’ll regret it.”
The dark elf swore to take his secret to the grave—that he had poured his portion of the stew into his magic bag and merely pretended to have eaten it all. No one present knew that his little white lie would greatly alter the course of human history.
Side Story 2: Hell Mode Spin-Off—The Heroic Tale of Helmios (Part 5): Saving an Outskirts Village
After Helmios, a boy who grew up in Cortana Village on the outskirts of the Empire of Giamut, had taken part in an Appraisal Ceremony, he had joined others whose Talents would prove helpful in the fight against the Demon Lord Army and headed to Howlden City. There, he had begun attending Talent School.
One day, Viscount Howlden, the lord of the city, had invited Helmios to his manor, and now, the following morning, the boy was back at school. He ate breakfast as usual, then returned to his private room to get changed for class, where he would study with his fellow first-years. While getting dressed, he thought back to what had happened on his way back from Viscount Howlden’s manor, when he ran into a parent and child dressed in shabby clothes. Deemed outlaws and accused of illegally entering Howlden, they had been about to be chased out of the city by a group of vigilantes when Helmios had stepped in. The boy had been heading back to his Talent School dorm, but upon spotting the poor pair, he had stopped the carriage he had been riding in and stood in front of the vigilante group.
The manor’s head butler, Burton, who had been tasked with ensuring Helmios’s safe return, had joined in and shooed the vigilantes away. Once they were gone, the parent and child, who had arrived from an outskirts village, had been allowed to head to the church to receive aid. The church was known for looking after immigrants.
However, judging from the words of the vigilantes and Burton, it was clear that many illegally tried to enter the city, and while Helmios had managed to save the lives of a family yesterday, the problem remained unsolved. Now that he was aware of the issue, he pondered over it, not quite happy with the current state of the city.
The dad said they came here after a goblin attacked their village, Helmios thought. I wonder if that sort of thing is happening to other villages outside the city too. He could not forget the faces of the family crawling atop the dirty mat in front of a tableware store. There had been two daughters, one of whom was younger than him, and her sorrowful face had left a lasting impression.
“Ugh,” Gatsun, a friend of Helmios’s who sat beside him, grumbled. “I haven’t eaten nearly enough. I don’t mind getting that tough bread, but I want at least ten of them.”
Since starting at the Talent School, all the kids had gotten was bland soup with vegetable scraps and a tiny loaf of hard, overbaked bread. Still, we’re more fortunate than that unlucky family on that dirty mat.
“You agree with me, don’t you, Helmios?” Gatsun asked, snapping Helmios out of his thoughts.
“Huh? Yeah, I guess so.”
“Wait, you were called to that noble’s manor yesterday, weren’t you? Just before lunch. Did you eat anything over there?”
“Yeah, I had lunch.”
“I knew it! I’m sure you had a delicious feast with all the best dishes we can think of! Ugh, you’re so lucky. You could’ve brought some of it home for us.”
Helmios almost mentioned the basket of gifts he had tried to bring with him, but he nipped that idea in the bud. He had given the basket to that family instead.
“Sorry.”
Despite apologizing, Helmios did not regret his actions. He believed that he had made the right choice in giving them that basket of food. Still, he did feel bad about having tried to bring food back for his friend only to have given it to someone else.
“What’s wrong?” Gatsun asked, looking worried. “Did something happen yesterday? Wanna talk about it?”
Helmios gasped. Whenever he was worried about something, Gatsun always looked concerned. Dorothy, the daughter of a clergyman in Cortana Village and someone who had grown up with Helmios, also looked alarmed, and Ena, the daughter of a serf, gazed sorrowfully at him as well. The young boy quickly tried to cheer everyone up. Right, if someone’s in trouble, someone has to help them.
“Well, see, I’m actually a bit worried about stuff outside the city,” Helmios divulged.
“Outside the city? You mean you wanna leave?” Gatsun asked.
“Yeah. When I finish today’s lessons, I’m thinking about heading out of the city for a bit. Gatsun, if you don’t mind, would you tag along? I don’t feel confident heading out by myself.”
“Sure, of course. But gimme your bread for breakfast tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Dude, I’m kidding! But I am curious about the world outside this city. I couldn’t get a good look when we came here on the carriage.”
Just then, their roommates, Marco and Eric, opened the door to their room. Marco was eleven, and Eric was ten, making them twice as old as Helmios and Gatsun.
“Oh, you guys are back already,” Marco said. He turned and looked up at the tall Eric, who stood beside him, and winked. “Eric, can I give it to them?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Eric replied. “Gatsun, you’re always hungry, aren’t you?”
“Um, yeah,” Gatsun answered with a nod.
Marco and Eric strode right in, pulled a burlap sack from underneath their beds, and showed the contents to Helmios and Gatsun.
“What the... Garo potatoes?!” Gatsun cried, his eyes wide.
The two older boys quickly signaled to Gatsun to keep his voice down, then they took out two potatoes, one for each younger boy.
“You’re hungry, yeah? Go on, eat it,” Marco said.
“Thank you! Woo-hoo! Garo potatoes!” Gatsun crowed as he practically snatched it out of Marco’s hand and chomped down voraciously.
Eric grinned. “That tiny bit of breakfast isn’t enough for any of us, so every now and then, we sneak in some food.”
“But how did you get these?” Helmios asked as he took the one Eric offered him. “Did you buy them from the market?”
“Eric and I help deserted villages with their harvests. We get some stuff from them as thanks,” Marco answered while munching on his own potato.
“Wait, deserted?”
“You know how the number of adventurers has gone way down lately? Well, that means when a monster attacks a village, all the residents flee and leave their homes behind. There are quite a few people who secretly use those abandoned plots of land to grow crops, and they need guards and help with harvesting. Sometimes they ask for assistance from people with Talents, like us.”
No adventurers... Is it because they’re all off fighting the Demon Lord Army? Forty years had passed since Giamut and the Demon Lord Army had gone to war in the northern region of the Central Continent. Gradually, warriors with Talents had been lost to the battles, and Helmios and other kids with Talents were being raised to be the next generation of warriors. High expectations had been foisted upon them.
“Can I eat a ton of potatoes if I go there?” Gatsun asked. “I wanna go!”
“No way. The deserted villages are pretty far from here,” Marco explained. “I don’t think we can drag kids like you all that way.”
“Awww, no fair! C’mon, take me! Please? I wanna eat more garos! More!”
While Helmios understood their reasoning, Gatsun threw a tantrum like the child that he was, hoping for more food. Marco only nodded wearily—an act of resignation.
“You know, people usually want to stay here because of the monsters prowling the area,” he explained. “But I guess it’s worth asking. I’ll talk to the teachers and see if it’s okay for you guys to leave the city so long as we’re tagging along.”
“Thanks, man!” Gatsun shouted. “Woo-hoo! Yesss!”
But his celebration did not last long. The bell rang, signaling that there were five minutes until class started, and the four boys hastily rushed out of their room. After their lessons, Helmios, Gatsun, Dorothy, and Ena left the Talent School and headed for the south gates to visit the town closest to Howlden City. They followed the same path that Helmios had taken to visit Viscount Howlden’s manor the day before, but upon reaching the market, they found themselves at a fork in the road—one headed north, while the other went west. The west path, which led to the gates, was full of people and cargo carriages despite the late hour, and even children like Helmios and his friends could barely squeeze through.
When the four finally reached the gates, they spotted the outer walls, which protected the city, beyond the crowd and the warehouses that lined the street. Even the lowest wall towered an impressive ten meters tall, and several watchtowers dotted each one, with bow-wielding soldiers patrolling the area. Helmios and the other kids had not seen this when they had been brought to the Talent School, for it had already been nighttime when they had reached the city.
“That wall looks thick. Is there something that can put a hole in it?” Dorothy asked. She was referring to the story about the day prior, which Helmios had told her.
“I’m not sure,” Helmios replied. “But apparently there’s a small path people can sneak in through, and that’s the route they use. If you’ve got the proper permits, you can get into the city no problem, but hardly anyone has them.”
Helmios glanced at the sealed letter he had been fidgeting with. It was a temporary pass that Principal Muhato had issued during lunch. Helmios wished to see outside the city, and the principal had hesitated for a moment before finally writing down the names of the four children, Gatsun and the two girls included. He had also given them each a uniform. Helmios wondered if perhaps there was some sort of rule that all students at the Talent School had to wear the same outfit if they were to leave the city limits.
The kids had also been told that if anything were to occur out there, they were to prioritize only their safety and rush back to the city gates as quickly as they could. They had even been given weapons to defend themselves with—Dorothy had received a staff and Ena a wand, both weapons small enough for five-year-olds. Unfortunately, because there were no swords meant for children, Helmios and Gatsun had been given shortswords that adults used, but even those blades were still so large that they dragged along the ground if the boys hung them at their waists. Thus, they instead chose to sling them across their backs.
No one seemed concerned about children being fully armed, making Helmios realize just how different Howlden City was from Cortana Village. When the kids approached the gates, both the entrance and exit were swarming with people, and it was getting more crowded than ever.
“Look at all these people...” Ena murmured in a quivering voice.
Dorothy, who walked in front of her, whirled around with concern. “If you’re scared, we can go back. We don’t have to go with them if we don’t want to. I don’t want to push you out of your comfort zone either.”
“No, I’m okay. I’ll go.”
“Got it. Then I’ve gotta go too.”
The city gates were divided into three sizes: large, medium, and small. The large gate was for huge carriages and those with large cargo to enter through, the small gate was for people going in and out on foot, and the medium gate was for everything in between, cargo and people included. Naturally, the most crowded gate leading out of the city was the medium-sized one, with many carriages surrounded by armed guards, likely because they would be traveling at night, when monsters were most likely to come out. And so, the line for this gate was longer than the rest.
“Ugh, this is taking forever...” Gatsun grumbled after a minute of standing in line. “Why won’t people move?”
“You don’t need to be so loud, do you? You’re embarrassing us,” Dorothy scolded before suddenly raising her voice. “Hey! Don’t unsheathe your sword here!”
Gatsun was bored out of his mind and had put his hand on the hilt of the sword on his back. He surely knew better than to draw his weapon within the crowd, but he could not help but shift around restlessly. Even back in Cortana Village, he had had a reputation for acting out when he had time on his hands, and Dorothy could not help but worry. We need to at least get out of the city to— Huh? Is something going on? Helmios wondered. He furrowed his brow and turned to the smallest gate, meant for people on foot, and heard bickering.
“How in the world is this not a valid permit?!” a man shouted. “Four people, twelve gold coins! We should be good!”
“Sure, if you came here last year,” the sentry checking his papers replied. “Our policies changed this April—five gold coins per person. Plus, your pass is dated for last year. You’ll need eight gold coins to renew it.”
“Oh, come on! Twelve gold coins is a ton of money as it is, and you freaking want more?! What the hell?!”
The angry man looked to be around the same age as Lucas, Helmios’s father, and had heavy luggage on his back. Beside him were a woman around the same age as him and two children—a girl about the same age as Helmios, and a boy who was presumably her older brother.
“If you don’t wanna pay, don’t,” the sentry, wearing a metallic breastplate and helmet and holding a spear, replied. “I don’t care whether you can enter the city or not.”
The angry man had no choice but to reluctantly give in. He grumbled as he brought a bag out from his pocket.
“Hey, that’s a magic bag, isn’t it?” the sentry suddenly asked. “That’s a nice item you’ve got. You must be a merchant.”
“I am. Where’s this city’s Merchant’s Guild? This permit is good for three months, so I’ve gotta find work before that.”
“If you’ve got a Talent, you should’ve just said so. The Merchant’s Guild is across from the Adventurer’s Guild. Welcome to Howlden City.”
The sentry’s voice had immediately turned more friendly and welcoming, completely unlike the surly remark he had made earlier. His back was turned toward Helmios, but the boy could practically see his wide, beaming smile.
“Thank you,” the merchant said. “Okay, let’s go. I’d like to turn a few documents in to the guild today, but we should find a place to stay first.”
The man walked ahead with a young child wrapped around his leg.
“Daddy, I’m tired,” the child whined.
“Oh, all right. C’mon, I’ll carry you.”
The man bent down and scooped up his child, and Dorothy spoke from behind Helmios, bringing the boy back to his senses.
“Helmios, the line’s moving,” she pointed out. “Snap out of it.”
He walked forward, and the sentry checking permits glared dubiously at the four children.
“Those outfits... Are you guys from the Talent School?” the sentry asked.
“Yes, sir,” Helmios said. “Here is our permit.”
He handed the permit to the sentry, who looked it over.
“From the principal himself... God may have bestowed you kids with Talents, but it’s a bit eyebrow-raising to think that you young ones are going to wander outside the walls without an adult. I can’t stop you, but don’t stray too far from the city, all right? We’ve spotted goblins and orcs wandering around the city recently. If anything happens, rush back here and call for help. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir. Um, do you know where the outskirts village is?”
The sentry flashed a suspicious glare. “Why do you ask?”
He’s acting just like Principal Muhato. I guess no one wants us to go there, although I’m not sure why.
“The principal told us not to go, but if we don’t know where it is, how would we know if we’re heading there or not?” Helmios answered. “I’d like to know its location so we can avoid going there.”
“You’ve got a point. Then once you’re through the gates, don’t head east. And you better come back before it gets dark out. It’ll be dangerous for you kids after nightfall.”
“Okay.”
Helmios thanked the sentry, and he and his friends passed through the gate. They proceeded straight down the path, but once the sentry was out of view, they turned, leaving the path. After going east a short way, the kids went back north until they reached the city walls, where they again began heading east.
Howlden was a square city around five kilometers in any direction, and along the main road were three gates—north, west, and south—that served as entry and exit points. Only the east side did not have a gate, as it was blocked by a large river that flowed from the north before taking a sharp turn east. Because of that abrupt turn, the river often overflowed and flooded the region, thus Howlden City had chosen not to have any openings in that direction.
