Hell Mode: Volume 4, page 30
What did he mean by “switch over”?
The flying squirrel that had been hovering in midair this whole time suddenly went limp and froze up. The next moment, a very different voice—an androgynous one that went directly to the cores of everyone listening—spoke up.
“I am Elmea, the God of Creation. Hero Helmios, you have done well in your fight to protect my people. I thank you, truly.”
“Wha— Lord Elmea?!” Keel gasped.
So Elmea basically took over Rohzen’s body?!
While everyone else was still dumbstruck, Helmios alone managed to converse normally with Elmea.
“Of course, I was only doing what I had to.”
“Helmios, you have more than earned your right to a promotion after the countless tribulations that you have undergone. Continue protecting my people as Hero King.”
The God of Spirit’s hand pointed at Helmios, then a warm light enveloped him. When the light faded, he reappeared looking exactly the same. However, his class had, sure enough, changed into Hero King.
“Looks like your new class is Hero King. Ha ha.”
As soon as Helmios’s promotion was complete, the God of Spirits’ voice returned to normal. The God of Creation had apparently left.
I see, so the class above the five-star “Hero” is the six-star “Hero King.” And the God of Creation has the power to promote someone to a six-star class.
Of course, Allen made a note in his grimoire about the class change facilitated by the God of Creation.
“I’m now...a Hero King...” Helmios murmured, staring at his hands.
“What’s on your mind, Helmios?” Allen asked.
“I was just recalling what you said to me before. You were right. There really was something beyond despair.”
Ah, from the tournament at the Academy.
While Allen’s group had been receiving their new classes and rejoicing with each other, Helmios had looked on with a distant gaze, appreciating the fact of this new way of getting stronger. And now, he himself had a new class, having been born anew as a Hero King.
Allen nodded. “That’s right. I’m sure there’s still plenty out there to enjoy and look forward to. That’s why you have to keep on searching. If you don’t, then you will never surpass despair.”
“Plenty to enjoy... That definitely sounds like something you’d say.” Helmios chuckled.
Honestly, the Hero getting a power up is a huge help. Now I can leave the Central Continent to him without worry.
Allen expected Helmios to continue doing what he was doing regardless of his class change. As for himself, Allen planned on first paying Ratash a visit, then immediately heading to Baukis to enter the Rank S dungeon. His short-term goals for the immediate future were to secure full sets of equipment for his companions and to help them max out their levels and skills again.
We should regroup with Meruru and discuss our plans going forward. I wonder how she’s doing. Baukis was attacked by a million monsters, right? I’m sure she’s made a huge name for herself by now zooming around the battlefield in a cool golem.
“Your Majesty, do you know how things went with Baukis?” Allen asked.
“There is no cause for concern,” she replied. “A while ago, I received contact from the Baukisian emperor that they have gained the upper hand in their war against the Demon Lord Army thanks to our elven elixirs.”
“I am glad to hear it.” Allen breathed a small sigh of relief.
“However,” the queen added, now looking somewhat troubled, “he did ask me for more elixirs.”
Oh? Is Baukis getting greedy? That’s convenient for us. I think we just got our ticket into the country.
Allen’s companions noticed the look on his face. It was the face he made whenever he had a devious idea.
“Please tell the emperor that if he wants more elixirs, there are conditions he must accept.”
“Hm? V-Very well. I shall pass it on. Are you sure you will not be staying here in Rohzenheim a while longer, Lord Allen? If possible, we want to host a celebration in your and your companions’ honor for saving us and leading us to victory.”
“Your Majesty, I am sorry, but the war with the Demon Lord Army is not yet over, and there is much to be done. Our plan is to return to the Central Continent tomorrow.”
We gotta leave before they find out how badly we trashed Fortenia.
The queen expressed her disappointment but did not press any further.
Thus, the war against millions of monsters, the demons, and the Demonic Deity commanding them ended as a resounding victory for Rohzenheim. With one adventure over, the No-life Gamers now turned their attention toward the Rank S dungeon located within the Empire of Baukis.
Side Story 1: Rehzel’s Past
This is a story that happened one thousand years ago on the Southeast Continent.
On this continent was a large variety of biomes and climates, ranging from muggy swamps to dense forests to sprawling plains. On its eastern edge lay a giant, expansive desert, and in the middle of the desert grew a massive, solitary tree. Greenery bloomed in abundance around this tree, and it was all protected by a towering wall.
Inside the wall lived the dark elves, tilling their fields and nurturing the greenery. This place was known to some as the Village of the Dark Elves. Beside the giant tree in the center of the village—which was less than half the height of the World Tree—stood the wooden residence of those who ruled this place. A little over a dozen elves were currently gathered in one of the rooms of this building.
One dark elf sat on a raised pedestal in the far back of the hall. His heavily wrinkled face and sparse silver hair made it obvious he was very advanced in years. Curled up between his crossed legs lay a weasel with black fur, sleeping peacefully. This man was the king of the dark elves.
Other dark elves around the same age sat before him, ranting with great agitation.
“Your Majesty, please show us the letter!” one of the Elders said.
“V-Very well. Here.”
When the Elder saw the handwritten letter for himself, his eyes flew wide open. “My king! You must not agree to this! We must not restore diplomatic relations!” His voice quivered with rage as he crumpled the piece of paper in his hands.
This was the dark elven Elder Council. Unlike the matriarchal elves, the dark elves’ society was patriarchal. The king listened to the Elders repeatedly shouting to not agree to the terms of the letter with a conflicted look on his face.
The day before, an elven emissary had crossed the sea and arrived at the Village of the Dark Elves, asking to see their king. The guards had refused to even let him into the village, so he passed them the message he bore—a proposal to restore diplomatic relations between the elves and dark elves penned by the elven queen herself.
In order to understand why the dark elven Elders were so vehemently against this suggestion, one had to know the history between the two races. After the appearance of the Priestess of Prayer several thousand years prior, the dark elves had begun to suffer defeat after defeat in their war against the elves. Then, two thousand years ago, the war culminated with the dark elves getting captured down to the very last man—fewer than ten thousand of them remained by this time—and being forced to choose between peaceful surrender or exile from the Northeast Continent.
As one, the dark elves chose exile. And so they traveled by boat to the Southeast Continent. Refusing to associate with the other societies already settled on the continent at the time, they instead carved out an existence for themselves here in this desert using Spirit Magic.
“They did nothing for us and left us to rot for a thousand years!”
“They’re trying to spy on us to gauge our strength! No, they’ve been spying on us this whole time!”
“Letting the envoy into the village is absolutely unthinkable!”
“They’re trying to create pretext to attack us! Your Majesty, you must reject this!”
After listening to the Elders for a while, the king asked, “So you are all of one mind to turn their offer down?”
“Yes,” one of the Elders replied without missing a beat. “Every line of it. No compromises!”
The letter from the elven queen had suggested rebuilding diplomatic relations by mutually setting up embassies and periodically sending each other delegates. In addition to politics, she had also suggested reopening economic ties by establishing trade routes. It was the Elders’ vehement opinion, however, that they should turn down both the political and economical overtures—in short, the entire proposal.
“The reason they’re approaching us with this is surely because they see us recovering our strength and are afraid!” one Elder asserted with all the others crying, “Hear, hear!” in agreement.
Members of the dark elf race tended to be rather aggressive and warlike. And the more familiar an individual was with their past, the deeper their hatred of the elves. Over the past one thousand years, they had brought their population back to over a hundred thousand, all while nursing this animosity inside their hearts. Just like the elves, dark elves also had low fertility rates, so it was through much effort that they had managed to increase their population to its current numbers, and the elves surely felt threatened by this.
It was not as if the Elders’ reaction to the elven queen’s sudden offer to rebuild relations was entirely unfounded. In contrast with the dark elves’ propensity for war, the elves were skilled in political maneuvering. Gaining a window into the current situation of the recovering dark elves actually was one of the reasons behind the queen’s message.
“Why haven’t you said anything this whole time, Rehzel?! You agree with us, do you not?!” an Elder asked, turning around.
There was a man present at the meeting who did not share everyone else’s ash-gray hair and dark skin. He did have dark skin, yes, but his hair was silver and his eyes gold. The most conspicuous difference was that, while the Elders all looked at least seventy years old by human standards with some looking closer to a hundred, this man alone looked like a strapping forty-year-old.
This man, Rehzel, was a high dark elf, just like the king of this village.
“Personally, I’m for accepting this offer and reestablishing relations, on one condition: that they create a facility for us dark elves to meet the end of our lives under the World Tree. I’m sure the elves are prepared to do some negotiating.”
“A condition?! You used to be so completely insistent on total war! Having a child has made you soft, weak!”
The Elder who spoke was so incensed that he threw the crumpled letter in his hand at Rehzel’s feet. He and the others redirected their anger from the king to this man, furious with him all the more since they had expected him to be a staunch proponent of their side.
“Eep! F-Father, I’m scared...” The dark elf boy at Rehzel’s side gasped and clung to him, frightened by the throwing of the letter.
Without looking at either the letter or his son, Rehzel said in a chiding tone, “Don’t be scared, Olbaas. You have already turned fifteen this year. You must consider what is best for the village.”
The age of maturity for a high dark elf was fifty, but Rehzel brought Olbaas with him to these Elder Councils regardless.
“Y-Yes, father.” Despite the fact that he was still quivering, Olbaas shored up his courage. The boy did not have permission to speak, but he continued watching the proceedings with a serious face.
＊ ＊ ＊
Half a day passed. The sun was about to sink into the horizon, but the Elders were still locked in hot debate. They had already reached a consensus that they would be turning down the proposal in its entirety and were now discussing their approach to dealing with the elves going forward.
Rehzel, who had been sitting cross-legged, felt a weight on his lap. “Olbaas?” He looked down to see his feet being used as a pillow by his sleeping son, who was also hugging the black weasel like a body pillow.
“Zz...zz...”
The sight brought a smile to Rehzel’s lips, but he quickly straightened his face as he was still in an important meeting. He slowly reached out to shake Olbaas’s shoulders to wake him, but his hand never reached the boy.
“I’m terribly sorry, Lord Rehzel! I’ll put Young Master Olbaas to bed right now!”
One of the servants in the room noticed Olbaas’s state and picked him up, taking him further and further from Rehzel’s reach.
“Ah...”
In the end, the meeting concluded that day without the Elders having come up with a concrete plan for how to proceed with the elves.
＊ ＊ ＊
After the meeting was finally adjourned, Rehzel returned to his room. He sensed someone’s presence in one of the corners despite the room appearing empty.
“Kyubel.”
“Oh, well done! You’ve found me, I guess. Hee hee! Oh come on, don’t glare at me so.”
“Hmph.”
A man wearing a clown’s mask and costume suddenly slid out of the darkness. This was Kyubel, the one who would become a Greater Demonic Deity and assume command over the entire Demon Lord Army a thousand years later.
“Hee hee, looks like you still have your guard up against me. So then, how’d the Council meeting go? Did they come up with a plan? You asked for a day.”
Kyubel’s overly dramatic gestures and frivolous attitude cut a sharp contrast with Rehzel’s wary shrewdness.
“Of course they didn’t,” the first dark elf scoffed bitterly. “In the end, we don’t have that many options, weak as we are.”
There was still a massive gap in strength between the elves and dark elves. Even if the Elders continued their discussion, Rehzel highly doubted they would ever reach a proper plan of action.
“My, that sounds tough.”
“The king and Elders have all grown too old. What can they even do now at their age?”
Rehzel had stayed for the entirety of the meeting, but he was convinced that all the time the Elders were spending was for nothing.
“That’s worrying, all right. So, what’ll you do? Are you gonna turn me down? Aww, being turned down hurts.”
“I am not turning you down. You will be giving me power, yes?”
“Of course! If you come with me, you’ll gain so much power you won’t even! UMPH! Power! Yeah!”
“Very well. Give me that power. I will erase the elves and— Never mind.”
“C’mon, you gonna leave me hanging?”
Rehzel was about to say, “show Olbaas the World Tree,” but he swallowed those words back. He did not fully trust the clown before him, not with the way he was acting. Rehzel did not see the need to tell him about his son.
“Well, shall we go? You’re done with this village, right?”
“I suppose I am.” For a split second, Olbaas’s face came to mind unbidden.
“Huh? Don’t you need to say goodbye to family and friends? Didn’t you have a son?” Kyubel asked him, almost as if he could read Rehzel’s thoughts.
“No need. Let’s go.”
The urge to see his sleeping son one final time flitted across Rehzel’s mind, but he banished it with a shake of his head. He was afraid that if he did, his resolve would crumble.
And so Rehzel left the Village of the Dark Elves behind.
＊ ＊ ＊
Rehzel followed Kyubel through the desert, trudging his way through the sand by the light of the stars.
“How far are we walking?” he grumbled.
“Well, you know what? I think this should be good.” Kyubel turned around to face the other man, then dug out a ball from his pockets. It was black, so dark in color that one could tell it was black even at night.
“That’s what’s going to change me into a Demonic Deity?” Rehzel asked doubtfully.
“You bet! It’s a very valuable Demonic Deity Stone. There are only a few of them!”
Despite saying that they were valuable, Kyubel started tossing the Demonic Deity Stone like it was a beanbag.
“Well, what’re you going to do with it? Whatever it is, hurry it up.” Rehzel was starting to get annoyed with the intentionally misdirecting way Kyubel spoke and acted.
“Well, I’ll do...this”
Stab.
“What are you... ARRRGGGHHH!”
Still smiling, Kyubel jabbed his hand into Rehzel’s chest, physically depositing the Stone inside. Blood gushed out like a fountain and the high dark elf fell to the ground. Right away, his body began changing dramatically, swelling up so significantly he burst out of his clothes.
“Hmm, your heart split into three. That’s interesting. Quite rare, I do say!” Kyubel muttered to himself as he observed what was happening with the placidity of a researcher conducting an experiment.
“A-AAAHHH! GUAAAHHH!”
Rehzel, naturally, heard none of what Kyubel was saying. He was busy growing a horn and two more pairs of arms as his legs turned reptilian. The eyes in his increasingly evil-looking face no longer shone with the light of intelligence. The things he held to be important in his heart seemed to be breaking down one by one, almost as if his very heart was molding itself to the alterations to his body.
“Hee hee, so you’ve thrown away everything! You’ll now be working for my plan. Time is running out. Our long-awaited Demon Lord will be born soon.”
Kyubel danced jauntily as he continued watching Rehzel’s agonizing transformation into a Demonic Deity.
Side Story 2: Banquet of the Spirits
The No-life Gamers were still in Fortenia after having defeated Rehzel. Since their Talent changes were wrapped up, Allen had thought they would have already set off for the Empire of Baukis by now, where they would have regrouped with Meruru and dived straight into the Rank S dungeon. However, the elves—especially the queen—insisted on hosting a banquet in their honor for saving Rohzenheim when it had been literally one day away from being completely wiped out. They were so serious about it that they decided to hold the banquet underneath the World Tree, a choice location normally reserved for festivities dedicated to the gods.
