Hell Mode: Volume 3, page 6
“Yay!” Cecil cheered after killing her very first monster.
“Thanks,” Allen told her. “You’re doing great.”
Just like Krena and Dogora, Allen now spoke more casually with Cecil. She had gotten used to it by this point and had not brought it up since that first day.
Half of the slime had been blown away by Cecil’s spell. The remaining half gave off some smoke, then disappeared altogether, leaving behind only a small magic stone. This was just as the Guild staff had said—dungeon monsters only dropped magic stones, no materials. To save the time and effort of picking the magic stones up, Allen assigned a Bird G with the task.
I’ve gotta stock up on Rank E magic stones too, for making Leaves of Life.
The party had agreed to let Allen manage their magic stones. As for his current stock, he had 2,746 Rank E stones; 6,953 Rank D; 9,157 Rank C; and 4 Rank B. Although he used to have over twenty thousand Rank D ones at one point, he had spent the majority of them making Crops of Magic. Since many of the Rank D Summons were quite useful, he held on to the remaining stones as insurance.
At the moment, Allen had two hundred gold on hand. Two more quests from the Adventurer’s Guild to gather twenty thousand Rank D magic stones and he would be pretty much penniless. It would be a while before he had a stable source of money flowing in, and no matter how many Rank E magic stones he gathered, they would never count as Rank D stones.
And so Allen had turned his attention to his Rank C magic stones.
The Value of Each Rank of Magic Stone
Rank E magic stone: almost worthless
Rank D magic stone: 1 silver
Rank C magic stone: 10 silver
Rank B magic stone: 1 gold
Rank A magic stone: 10 gold
The monetary value of magic stones increased tenfold with each successive rank. This was in proportion to their energy output, with a higher-ranked stone providing ten times more energy than the previous rank. While monsters were often much more than ten times stronger than monsters one rank below them, the price of magic stones was apparently tied to how much energy they could provide when powering magic tools.
Currently, Allen owned more than nine thousand Rank C magic stones. He was planning on selling them in batches of one thousand each to fund his Rank D magic stone gathering. Although he would undoubtedly need Rank C magic stones in the future, his top priority at the moment was leveling Summoning up.
With a few breaks in between, the No-life Gamers finally reached the cube at the other end of the floor before the end of day.
“There it is!” Cecil cried out happily. “Now we can go to the next floor!” Despite having taken ten hours to reach this point, her exhaustion had cleared away after each level up, meaning she was still feeling quite energetic. Due to being in Normal Mode, she had been leveling up quite quickly only fighting Rank E monsters.
“I am Floor Operating System C328-01. Do you wish to exit the dungeon? Or do you wish to go to the next floor?”
“Would we be able to return if we go to the next floor?” Allen asked.
“Floor Operating System C328-02 is on the next floor. It can take you out of the dungeon. Furthermore, should you choose not to continue on to the next floor, you will not be able to start from Floor 2 the next time you enter this dungeon.”
Ah, so it basically saves our progress and lets us start where we left off. That’s helpful.
“Please send us to the next level, then.”
“Understood.”
The appearance of the room changed instantaneously. Apparently this was now the second floor.
“Welcome. I am Floor Operating System C328-02. Do you plan on staying in the dungeon? Or do you wish to exit?”
“Please return us— Ah, hold on.”
Allen took out a stick of firewood from Storage and threw it to the floor. Then he Summoned a Bird G and ordered it to stand by in the room.
“What’re you doing, Allen?” Dogora asked curiously.
“Experiment,” Allen replied simply.
Dogora still looked confused. He studied the firewood as if trying to glean its significance.
Allen turned to the cube. “Okay, please return us outside.”
“Understood.”
Immediately, Allen and his friends found themselves in another room with a door behind them. No floating cube was in sight.
“So this is the designated exit room.”
“S-So it seems,” Cecil replied, somewhat on her guard after all the back-to-back teleportations.
The group walked down a corridor, then stepped outside to find themselves on the opposite side of the dungeon building from the entrance.
So ended the No-life Gamers’ very first day in a dungeon.
＊ ＊ ＊
Some time had passed since the No-life Gamers began heading to the dungeons regularly. During this time, Allen had made several major discoveries. One of them had been tied to the firewood that he had left behind on the first day.
When he first heard the cube say that the dungeon they were sent to was based on who was in their party and where they had entered from, and that other adventurers would be unable to follow or rescue them, Allen’s first thought was that he could use his Summons freely without worrying about strangers seeing. As he continued going through the dungeon, however, another possibility had occurred to him.
What triggered this thought was the small size of Room 205. Twenty people could fit inside if they really squished, but the real estate agent had mentioned adventurer parties of up to fifty people. This led Allen to deduce that it was possible for such parties to enter the room in smaller groups and regroup again inside a dungeon. This implied that when a party “logged back into” the dungeon, it was the exact same instance as before.
In order to test this hypothesis, Allen had left behind a stick of firewood and a Summon. Lo and behold, on the second day when he returned to the dungeon, both were waiting exactly where he had left them. In other words, the dungeon was generating an infinite number of dimensions for different adventurer parties and different rooms.
I’d heard that these dungeons existed from before the appearance of the Demon Lord. I wonder who’s managing them?
The General Dungeon Operating System had also given them two pointers:
When entering from a different room, even if going to the same floor, it still counts as going to a different dimension.
When a dimension is left unvisited for one month, it automatically disappears. No record or articles remain.
When he heard this, Allen decided to drop by before school and hopped inside to dispatch Summoner Squads. Groups of five Summons were left inside Floor 1 and Floor 2 and ordered to gather magic stones. This method was safe, inconspicuous, and was unlikely to cause anyone trouble.
The encounter rate inside a dungeon was higher than it had been in the wilderness outside Granvelle City. The squad on Floor 2 was securing around four hundred magic stones a day. Once this method was proven effective, Allen had multiple squads roaming about inside his party’s dungeon at all times.
On the No-life Gamers’ fifth time through the Rank C dungeon, they reached the sixth floor. Unlike on the previous floors, which had all had a corridor stretching out from the FOS cube room, here the group found a giant pair of double doors before them immediately upon being teleported.
“Hey, there’re some doors in the back over there,” Cecil pointed out.
“Oh yeah, you’re right,” Allen replied.
By now, the two were used to speaking casually with each other. Thanks to living together at their base, they were now much more in tune with what the other was thinking.
“Which means this is the last floor, right?”
“I think so. I mean, we were told that Rank C dungeons have a maximum of six floors. We can probably assume those doors open to a chamber with a boss inside.”
As the group had only just finished passing through Floor 5, it was very likely already evening outside. Although they had originally planned on returning straight after visiting this floor, since they were here already, they had decided to kill the boss first before heading back.
The heavyset doors inlaid with elaborate relief carvings promised a truly terrifying enemy beyond. When Allen touched one door, both opened automatically with an intimidating rumble. Inside was a massive, circular room roughly two hundred meters across. In the middle of the open area stood a goblin king and ten goblins lying in wait. They were surrounded by a magic circle at their feet that floated slightly above the stone-paved floor. The goblins were completely frozen, not moving even a muscle.
Are they supposed to start moving once we get within a certain distance? Allen thought before observing out loud, “I see. So the bosses of a Rank C dungeon are one Rank C monster and ten Rank D monsters.”
Everyone else nodded. As it turned out, the only Rank C monster they had encountered in this Rank C dungeon was the boss right before their eyes. Thus, in all likelihood, only the dungeon boss would be Rank B inside a Rank B dungeon.
Before the battle began, Cecil suddenly called out. “Hey, Allen?”
“Yeah?”
“I think it’s best that we know just how powerful your ability is.”
“What?”
“Can you kill these monsters with your Summons for us to see?”
Both Krena and Dogora agreed with Cecil’s request.
“Yeah! Allen’s Summons!”
“That sounds good to me. Now that you mention it, I’ve never seen his Summons fight.”
The party had been mainly relying on Cecil’s magic to kill the monsters they encountered all this time. After she had reached Lvl. 10, the cap on her skill level had been removed, and her Fire Magic skill was now Lvl. 2. Because she could earn Skill XP again, and since long-distance attacks were much more efficient than close-quarters combat, she had been tasked with doing most of the killing.
Unfortunately, Krena and Dogora were having trouble activating their skills. The way they put it was that they felt like they were getting it but it was always just barely out of reach. Consequently, they had yet to earn any Skill XP. It was proving more difficult than originally expected.
Cecil does have a point... There’s been no need for my Summons so far because this is a Rank C dungeon, but once we move on to a Rank B or Rank A one, I’m definitely gonna have to call out my Summons. Revealing them here is a good idea.
Unlike Cecil, Krena and Dogora had only seen Allen Summon little birds and mice so far. It would make things easier for them if they understood the Summons’ usefulness sooner rather than later.
Now, behold the power of my Summons after reaching Strengthening Lvl. 6!
* * *
Name: Allen
Age: 12
Class: Summoner
Level: 42
HP: 1,065 + 180
MP: 1,660 + 600
Attack: 584
Endurance: 584 + 180
Agility: 1,091 + 36
Intelligence: 1,670 + 636
Luck: 1,091
Skills: Summoning {5}, Creation {5}, Synthesis {5}, Strengthening {6}, Expansion {4}, Storage, Sharing, Deletion, Sword Mastery {3}, Throwing {3}
XP: 3,016,226/60,000,000
Skill Levels
Summoning: 5
Creation: 5
Synthesis: 5
Strengthening: 6
Skill Experience
Creation: 3,636,038/10,000,000
Synthesis: 3,635,015/10,000,000
Strengthening: 1,220/100,000,000
Creatable Summons
Insect: D, E, F, G, H
Beast: D, E, F, G, H
Bird: D, E, F, G
Grass: D, E, F
Stone: D, E
Fish: D
Holder
Insect:
Beast: D x 14
Bird: G x 3, E x 3
Grass:
Stone:
Fish: D x 30
* * *
Last month, Allen had finally reached Strengthening Lvl. 6, which gave Summons +500 in their two relevant stats. After that, he moved on to leveling up Creation and Synthesis. He had taken thirty-five thousand Rank D magic stones—a combination of both those originally in his possession and those he obtained through the Adventurer’s Guild—and converted all of them into Crops of Magic. Each one gave 1,000 MP and cost five Rank D magic stones to make. That worked out to 200 MP per magic stone. Thirty-five thousand Rank D magic stones therefore equated to seven million Skill XP.
“Gimme a sec,” Allen said before setting his grimoire flipping busily Creating, Synthesizing, and Strengthening.
“What’s going on?!” Dogora asked, taken aback.
“It looks so cool!” Krena cheered.
Allen approached the boss with Dogora and Krena close behind and Cecil at the very back. Once he crossed the fifty-meter mark, the monsters began moving.
“Teddys, kill the monsters. Brons, protect us.”
Eight Beast Ds materialized in a circle around the monsters and promptly began making short work of them using Crush. In fact, the Summons were so powerful, they managed to kill both the goblins and the goblin king with a single attack each.
Krena’s and Dogora’s eyes were bugging out as they watched the fight.
“See?! Allen is amazing, isn’t he?!” Cecil crowed, acting proud for some reason.
“So amazing! It was over in the blink of an eye!” Krena cried.
Seeing the magic stones fall to the ground, Allen nodded. “All right, all done. Wait, huh?”
The moment the floor boss died, a new magic circle appeared up ahead. Allen braced himself for another monster, but it was a treasure chest that appeared instead. Oh right, the cube said that the rewards dropped by boss monsters are guaranteed to be safe.
As the party leader, Allen walked forward and opened the chest. The other three crowded around to peer over his shoulders. The lid opened up to reveal a steel sword inside.
“I guess this is our reward for killing the dungeon boss,” Allen murmured. “If I remember correctly, the boss only appears once per day, right?”
“That’s what we were told,” Cecil replied.
In other words, each adventurer party could challenge the bosses of all the dungeons they had cleared once every day. In this way, the No-life Gamers completed their very first run of their very first Rank C dungeon.
Chapter 4: School Assignment and Pickup Groups
After clearing their first Rank C dungeon, the No-life Gamers returned to the Adventurer’s Guild to get promoted to Rank D. Now that they could directly reach the furthest level of a dungeon, they agreed to make a daily task out of it. They could finish up the dungeon quickly enough to do it even on school days.
The boss on the deepest floor of a dungeon would respawn at the stroke of midnight. The first one they defeated dropped a steel sword that sold for two gold. With all four of the children living together, their expenses were nothing to scoff at. They were not living extravagantly, but they did eat out for all three meals—Krena in particular had a rather huge appetite—plus they had their tuition. Allen claimed all of the magic stones they picked up from the dungeons, so the boss rewards would go toward the group’s livelihood. They were quite random: sometimes a weapon, armor, or even potions, but always sellable for one or two gold.
Once the party cleared their second Rank C dungeon, they would visit that one daily as well—adding it to their quota, so to say. There were three Rank C dungeons within walking distance of their house, as well as two Bs and one A, coming to a total of six.
Everyone agreed with the daily quota and money distribution, but Cecil did have one request: to hire someone to do the chores. Their house was large enough for twenty people. At the moment, the four of them were splitting the housework. However, the more dungeons they cleared and added to their daily quota, the more unsustainable this arrangement would become.
This was also something that Allen had considered. After all, a housekeeper would not cost more than three gold a month. In the end, they decided to bring it up again once they had a few more dungeons under their belts.
＊ ＊ ＊
It was now early May, and a new week of school was beginning. Although their seats were not assigned, the students in Allen’s class had more or less settled into sitting with their clusters of friends. Allen had chosen a seat next to the window so he could look outside while converting the latest batch of ten thousand Rank D magic stones from the Guild into two thousand Crops of Magic. He was able to Create and Synthesize inside the classroom with no one being any the wiser, but turning Grass D Summons into Crops of Magic required actual soil. Therefore, he had selected a patch of dirt out of the way and, while pretending to be casually gazing outside, busied himself with raising his Skill Levels. Bird Gs then picked up the completed Crops with their beaks and deposited them inside the grimoire’s Storage.
Of course, Allen was capable of listening to the lesson at the same time.
“Good morning, Allen.”
“Good morning, Rifol.”
When Allen reached his seat, the student in front of him, a slender boy named Rifol, greeted him. Rifol came from the family of a count; although he himself looked slender and delicate, his father was actually a general. Allen had purposely approached him as a source of information about the battlefield; Rifol had approached Allen in turn, most likely as a way to build a rapport with Sword Lord Krena. Allen had no problem with forming relationships based on mutual self-interest.
“Have you heard the news yet, Allen?”
“What news?”
“Sword Lord Dverg is coming to teach at the Academy next month. And the Hero’s coming with him.”
Oh, nice! Lessons with Dverg! And the Hero’s coming again, huh? It hasn’t even been two months since I saw him last at the entrance exam. Does he have nothing better to do? Nah, that can’t be.
