Hell Mode: Volume 5, page 31
“Ha ha, that’s generally not possible.”
“Generally?” That’s not a flat-out no.
“She might be able to when she becomes more used to materializing spirits. Also, when she has a lot more MP.”
Allen realized this was similar to how he needed to increase his Intelligence in order to increase the number of Summons that he could Share with. At the same time, he also understood that Rohzen was indirectly telling him it was not yet time for this.
“I see. Thank you for answering my question, Lord Rohzen.”
Keel peered into Allen’s grimoire. “Damn, Sophie, you’re getting a whole ton of XP. So, what’s next? Wind, right?”
Every second that Kelpie was materialized, Sophie was losing MP and therefore earning skill XP. It felt like her class skill had reached Lvl. 3 merely yesterday when today she was already at Lvl. 4. Her skills had also shot from Lvl. 2 to Lvl. 4 in no time at all.
“I see, keeping a spirit materialized gives her skill XP. Sophie, I’ll lend you this MP Recovery Ring. It should enable you to keep one of your spirits out at all times.”
If Sophie was earning skill XP when she had her spirits around, then every moment was a precious opportunity to earn skill XP.
“Thank you, Lord Allen.”
That same day, Sophie managed to contract with Éar, a juvenile air spirit. By then, however, the sun had set, so the party had to put off the last spirit for the next day. They therefore set up camp at a location close to where they had found Éar and spent the night.
On the last day, Sophie rode with Allen once again.
“The last one is earth, then. Did we meet one at the World Tree?”
A large variety of spirits had gathered at the World Tree during the feast, but Allen did not recall seeing a juvenile earth spirit.
“There probably were, but Sophie didn’t manage to make a connection with any, ha ha,” Rohzen replied.
“Lord Rohzen, do you know where we should be going?” Sophie asked.
“Well...all right. This way. It’s quite a distance.” The Spirit God proceeded to lead the party to a location farther south of Castle Lapolka.
Regarding Spirit Users and Spirits
In terms of fighting strength, juvenile spirits are normally between Rank C to B
The more MP a Spirit User has, the more powerful the contracted spirits become
The higher a Spirit User’s Intelligence, the easier they can communicate with their spirits
High Intelligence is required to materialize multiple spirits at once
Grand Spirit Users can easily materialize numerous juvenile spirits at the same time
During the flight, Allen wrote down everything that he had learned about Spirit Users and spirits over the past few days. Apparently Rohzen was willing to answer pretty much anything when it came to spirits. After asking the Spirit God many questions, Allen eventually worked out what he thought was the best way for Sophie to develop her abilities.
Put succinctly, he told her, “It seems that as a Spirit User, you should focus on increasing your MP first instead of forcefully boosting your Intelligence. I suppose this does differentiate your role from Cecil’s going forward.”
For a Spirit User, both MP and Intelligence were important, but even if she became capable of calling out multiple spirits, she could lose MP so fast that even her HP might get drained and she might die. Given that, it seemed much smarter to continue materializing only one at a time but focus on making sure that they understood what Sophie wanted them to do.
“Understood, Lord Allen.” Sophie nodded, then started. “What is that up ahead?”
“That is where your juvenile earth spirit is,” Rohzen replied.
It turned out the Spirit God had been leading them to a crumbling ruin. They landed near the center and looked around. The weathered structures all around indicated that this used to be a city. However, most of the walls had fallen down, and little more than foundation stones were left of the houses, with only a few having a little bit of wall or a solitary pillar.
“This doesn’t look related to the Demon Lord Army’s invasion,” Keel murmured.
“There’s a juvenile earth spirit here?” Meruru started roaming around curiously.
Clatter, clatter.
It did not take long for the dwarf to find signs of movement. “Hey, something’s here!” She indicated toward a boy who was shorter than even herself, the shortest member of the No-life Gamers. The boy was wearing a unique outfit that had a thick waist band and was lifting a piece of rubble as large as his own head, carrying it somewhere.
“That is Korpokkur, a juvenile earth spirit,” Rohzen confirmed. For some reason, his voice was tinged with sadness.
“Sophie, go on and contract with it,” Allen said.
Sophie nodded, dispelled Éar’s materialization, then approached the earth spirit.
“Um, hello. Are you Korpokkur?”
However, the spirit did not respond in any way. It continued walking with its piece of rock. When it reached the only standing wall in a nearby house, it pushed its rock against it, grunting softly.
“Hng, hng. If I do this...like this...”
As Allen and the rest watched on, Sophie knelt down next to him, bringing her eye level to Korpokkur’s. “What are you doing?”
“I’m fixing the town. Because everyone’s gone somewhere.”
“I see. This big city, all by yourself?”
“Mhm.”
Korpokkur’s facial expression did not change, but this only made Sophie sadder. With a lump in her throat, she asked, “Can I help somehow?”
“You would? Then please make up and be friends with the dark elves who left.”
The party finally realized that this used to be a dark elf city. Perhaps this spirit had once contracted with someone who had lived here but was expelled from the continent as a result of the war between the elves and dark elves. Even worse, maybe his host had died in the fighting.
Either way, it would have happened more than a thousand, no, two thousand years ago. Korpokkur had probably been trying to rebuild this town all by himself ever since then. However, no matter how many stones he carried with his small hands, the city continued crumbling with the passage of time. It was way past the point where it could be restored.
Sophie blinked her tears away. “I am someone who will lead the elves.”
“Mhm,” Korpokkur replied, still pushing his rock.
“And I dream that one day, we will be walking along with the dark elves.”
Hearing this, the earth spirit lifted his face and looked at Sophie for the first time. “Really? Thank you. It’s a promise.” He held out a hand.
His facial expression remained unchanged still, but Sophie thought his aura had gotten a little bit brighter. He gave her a hand.
“As the princess of the elves, I swear to fulfill my promise with you, Korpokkur.”
When Sophie touched Korpokkur’s tiny hand, the pair was enveloped in light and the contract was established.
Finally, Sophie had successfully contracted with four juvenile spirits and was ready to challenge the Rank S dungeon. On this day, she gained a strong motivation besides clearing the Tower of Tribulation.
Afterword
Thank you for purchasing this book! I am Hamuo, the author.
Hell Mode now has five volumes out. This was made possible thanks to everyone who picked up a copy and enjoyed reading it. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
If you’ve been reading all the books so far, you’ll know that this volume is the first one where we didn’t manage to feature a full arc. I managed to do so for the frontier village arc, the manservant arc, the Academy arc, and the Rohzenheim war arc, but it was just not possible this time. I’m truly sorry. I got a bit too passionate about dungeon crawling.
The upside to splitting the arc into two volumes is that I got the space to write a few more side stories than usual. It became an opportunity for me to flesh out the world a bit more with events that I didn’t get to include when writing the Rank S dungeon arc for the web novel version.
This is the afterword, so I suppose it’s time to share something about the production process of the book itself. The truth is, when I was writing the second arc, I was considering ending the entire series by the fifth arc. However, Allen’s adventures continued growing in scale. As of now, March 2022, we have five volumes out, but the story’s only just beginning. I have every intention of continuing it beyond volume ten.
When volume six comes out, you’ll get to read how this attempt by Allen and his friends to clear the Rank S dungeon shakes out. And if you continue following the series, you’ll find out the full scale of their grand adventure and how their story eventually ends.
This is about all I have to say about this volume and its side stories. Now, this is the part where I give out tidbits about my time growing up to meet my word count. I hope you stay with me.
In the afterword for volume four, I talked about how my family ended up building a house and settling down. That house was in the countryside and, although not too big, had a garden.
This was when my father took up a hobby—he started a two-by-one-meter field in the garden. He grew vegetables such as cucumbers and eggplants, and he was really into it. Honestly, there was no way his stuff could compare with the produce sold in the supermarket; I remember his oversize vegetables being served at our dinner table. When I commented on them, however, he never got angry. Or at least, I don’t remember him getting angry.
Something else that happened back then was that, during my school days, I got a hamster from a friend. He said his had birthed too many babies, and he was looking for people to take them in, so I said yes.
The astute among you might think, “So this is where Hamuo got his name from!” I won’t say it’s entirely unrelated, but honestly, I just picked “Hamuo” as a pen name pretty much on a whim.
I’ve loved animals even since I was young, but the mood at my house always seemed like pets weren’t welcome. So I decided to secretly raise the hamster in my room on the second floor. I thought that I could get away with it as long as I didn’t get found out, but I got found out in two weeks.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to get rid of it. Instead, my parents gave me permission to raise it, and so I began taking care of it with proper supervision. I put in what looked like shavings into a big plastic cage and installed a running wheel and a wooden nest. I remember this being one of the funnest times in my childhood.
When the shavings got dirty, I threw them away in a corner of my father’s field, thinking it could become fertilizer.
Several months after I began keeping the hamster, when spring was turning into summer, something green bloomed in the field. Turns out a few leftover sunflower seeds that I had fed my hamster had taken root and were growing. When summer was in full swing, the entire field became filled with sunflowers. I remember being impressed with how much vitality sunflowers had.
Even so, my father did not get angry, and our house garden was decorated by sunflowers for a while.
That’s about it for this story of how I spent my childhood in the home that my father built.
It appears I have reached the prescribed word count. Hell Mode is being published not only as a light novel but also as a manga serialization that’s doing quite well—volume three is being released in the same month as this book. I hope you enjoy the story in a different way with the wonderful depictions of exciting action and interesting expressions.
Let’s meet again in the next volume!
Bonus Short Stories
The Spirits’ Expression of Gratitude
The No-life Gamers had the day off, meaning Sacred, who were matching their schedule, did as well. On such days, the atmosphere around the dinner table was more relaxed than usual.
Three of Sophie’s contracted spirits were currently gathered at one corner of the table. As they were not materialized at the moment, no one could see them or hear them.
“Kee, kee.” Kelpie, the dolphin-like juvenile water spirit sounded down. Yesterday, it had used up all of Sophie’s MP once again in the Rank S dungeon.
“C’mon, you don’t have to be so down. You just lost control, right?” This half-naked boy with spiky hair and a rough manner of speech was Éar, Sophie’s juvenile air spirit. Despite his appearance as a mischievous three-year-old, he was doing his best to cheer Kelpie up.
“Controlling the amount of MP is hard.” Korpokkur, a juvenile earth spirit who looked like a three-year-old boy wearing an exotic outfit, was calmly trying to convince Kelpie to stop blaming itself.
Éar adopted a thoughtful pose and looked up at Salamander, the juvenile fire spirit in Sophie’s lap with the appearance of a red Japanese giant salamander. “Hmm, looks like Salamander and Kelpie are having a harder time than us two.”
Unlike Éar and Korpokkur, who had grasped how to control the amount of MP they took from Sophie rather quickly, Salamander and Kelpie were still struggling.
“Lord Rohzen said it’s a matter of affinity,” Korpokkur replied. “He said spirits that look like beasts are more powerful but have to work harder with control.”
“If he says so...” Éar made a noncommittal face. “Either way, I do feel bad we’re causing Sophie so much trouble. Do you think we can thank her somehow?”
“Kee?”
“Like, a gift, you mean?”
“Yeah, something that’d make her happy. Since she chose to contract us and bring us out to see the world and all.”
These four spirits had lived for centuries to millennia, but they had never had the opportunity to leave Rohzenheim. Consequently, Éar was considering giving Sophie something to express their gratitude for her showing them the rest of the world.
“You have a point.”
“Kee!” Kelpie added.
Korpokkur and Kelpie both liked Éar’s idea.
“Now, what would make Sophie happy...” Unfortunately, Éar was not familiar with Sophie’s likes and dislikes, as she mainly only stayed at the dungeon or at home.
The other two also racked their brains, but nothing came to mind.
“Oh, looks like they’re getting ready to go somewhere.” Korpokkur realized many in the dining room were making preparations for heading out.
Apparently Meruru was going to head downtown with a few members of Sacred, including Rosetta. They were very likely going to come home extremely drunk. Keel was going to drop by the church, while Helmios was going to bring the rest of his companions to the Adventurer’s Guild. Dogora and Krena would be training with Dverg in the yard as usual.
After everyone with a destination in mind stood up and left the room, Allen and the remaining No-life Gamers climbed the stairs to the second floor of the house.
Éar made an exasperated noise. “C’mon, Sophie isn’t going out? She’s going to help with that weird work again?”
As it turned out, Sophie was going to use her precious day off to help Allen create more recovery items. The way Allen saw it, he could never have too many Blessings of Heaven or Seeds of Magic, so he spent every spare moment he had making them. Cecil and Sophie often accompanied him on their days off. Of course, that meant Volmaar would too, just so he could stay around and make sure Sophie did not overwork herself.
The three spirits infiltrated Allen’s room without a second thought. Just as Éar had suspected, Allen, Cecil, Sophie, and Volmaar were indeed busy creating Blessings of Heaven.
“So they’ll be here the whole day.” Korpokkur looked downcast. “How can we find out what Sophie wants?”
“Kee...? Kee, kee!” Suddenly, Kelpie seemed to have an epiphany and started talking with Salamander, who was snuggled in Sophie’s lap.
“Au?” The fire spirit listened intently, then barked “Au, au!” in acknowledgment and slowly clambered down to where Allen’s group was working. Everyone watched as it crawled forward...and suddenly gobbled up one of the freshly made Blessings of Heaven.
“Wa— What’re you doing?!” Cecil exclaimed.
Sophie gasped. “Salamander!”
Both of them found themselves at a loss for words as the fire spirit swallowed more Blessings as if they were delicious snacks.
“Salamander, you shouldn’t do that!” Sophie said scoldingly and tried to pick her spirit up, but it started vigorously flailing around.
Seeing her troubled expression, Allen suggested, “Sophie, maybe Salamander is bored staying put the whole day. How about taking it out for a walk and getting some fresh air?” He did not seem angry at all about the Blessings of Heaven that got eaten.
“I...might take you up on the offer,” Sophie sounded very sorry.
“Good! That went well!” Éar cried, clenching his fists. “Good job, Salamander!”
And so Sophie excused herself and headed out to town with Salamander in her arms. Out of concern for her, Volmaar followed.
“Au, au!” The fire spirit energetically turned its body.
“You want me to go this way, Salamander?” Sophie made sure she was holding Salamander gently yet firmly as she started walking in the direction it was indicating.
The three other spirits followed close behind, floating in midair and waiting to see how things unfolded. Eventually, the group reached the largest market in the Tower of Tribulation.
“Au, au!” Salamander leaned forward eagerly when Sophie walked by a greengrocer’s stall.
“Salamander, no,” Sophie chided, holding him back. “You can’t eat that.”
“Looks like she’s not very interested in food after all,” Éar observed. “She doesn’t eat all that much at home either.”
“Elves don’t eat a lot,” Korpokkur confirmed.
“Kee, kee.”
Sophie did not seem all that interested at the butcher’s either. A short while later, she came upon a corner stall selling antiques such as pots.
“Au, au!”
“Salamander, no. You’ll break it.”
Because the fire spirit started flailing again in front of a pot made of dirt, Sophie had to admonish it once more. Behind her, the other spirits noted with disappointment that nothing here caught her interest and proceeded to tell Salamander the next place to direct her toward.
