Hellmode ~A Hardcore Gamer Becomes Peerless in Another World with Retro Game Settings~

Chapter 281: Leader (1)

chapter 281: leader (1)

it was a month after my friends and i defeated the mithril golem.

for the past month, my friends and i hunted iron golems.

thanks to that, sophie capped her skill levels and changed her talent for the last time.

hunting iron golems was a great way to earn skill experience since we were always in i combat.

valuable items and equipment that were not available on the 4th floor could be obtained from the gold and silver chests that the iron golems dropped.

90% of the treasure chests that the iron golems dropped were wooden chests.

the silver chest seemed to have about a 10% drop rate, but the gold chest's drop rate was about 0.001 or 1 in 1000.

still, we had managed to find 3 gold chests in one month.

we found a lump of orichalcum in 1 gold chest and made a big deal out of it.

if the odds were that low, it was near-miracle luck that we found orichalcum on the 4th floor.

we decided to leave it with master craftsman habarak, just like the lump of orichalcum from before.

master habarak had promised us to make weapons and armor for us with the highest priority if we were able to get fire goddess freya's divine artifact back.

"here are your magic stones."

i completed the transaction and received the a-rank magic stones as usual.

(you can never have too many magic stones.)

i thought about the magic stones i had in my .

in fact, i had enough magic stones if i just wanted to increase my to level 9.

i needed to earn 40 billion skill experience to level up to level 9. i could use and make some b-rank magic stones and turn those stones to [blessing of heaven]s.

i had to make 10 times the amount of [blessing of heaven]s i had made to get to level 8 and that would easily take over a year if i were to do it in parallel with increasing my level, but it was just a matter of time.

but what i lacked was exactly that, time. since fire goddess freya's divine artifact had been stolen, the world had been on a time limit.

but i had other summons that consumed more magic stones.

each gold and silver bean consumed 5 a-rank magic stones.

i wanted to have at least 10,000 [blessing of heaven] in my as a backup.

after all, i could stock as many magic stones as i wanted.

but thanks to , i had to change my top priority from magic stones to experience.

i had been collecting and storing magic stones ever since i was able to summon e-rank summons, but for the first time i felt like leveling up was more important than magic stones.

it was like i had to change myself from having magic stone-centric thoughts.

what you need will change as you grow and your environment changes.

when i was a serf, money was precious.

until the age of 15, magic stones were precious.

but what i needed then was experience, both in terms of no growth limit and 100 times the experience required.

my skill was still sealed.

merus had told me that as long as i had a sealed skill, 's level couldn't increase.

when he told me that, i remembered that cecile's magic was set up that way as well.

although it had to do with [intelligence] in a way, there was a level cap on the magic she could learn as a mage.

i was surprised that a summoner was restricted in the same way.

since i understood that, i prioritized gaining experience more than anything else.

is there a demon general somewhere?

has a demon general been spotted near the dungeon?

these were my thoughts.

great demon general kyubel had told me that some demon generals might attack me when we had met, but i didn't think they were going to attack me at all.

"what are you going to do now? it's today, isn't it?"

cecile pulled me out of my thoughts about magic stones back to reality.

"oh, it's today. we need sake and meat. so, let's go shopping."

cecile asked me what my plans were for the rest of the day.

i had important things to do that day and i had to go shopping.

my friends and i went shopping and got a massive piece of meat with a bone that was only seen in manga, and 3 barrels of the finest sake available.

"are three enough?"

kiel asked, looking at me, kurena and dogora carrying the sake barrels.

helmios' party in the back, listening to the conversation, also looks worried.

(right. this is the duty of a leader.)

'my guess is that it's several times stronger or at the very least stronger than the golems we defeated to get the medals. it'll be at least that much."

"what? it can't be that strong! it's impossible"

"that's why i'm asking you."

when i said that the dungeon boss was probably several times stronger than the golem in the 5th floor, rosetta, the thief, said that it was impossible.

"well, the dungeon boss is probably that strong. otherwise, our allen here would have already challenged it."

helmios already understood the situation.

"i'm sorry, but i need you to tell me what this is all about so i can understand."

prince zew also wanted to conquer the dungeon.

but he mainly operated in the 2nd to 4th floors.

the number of strength of the beastmen differed with each batch as the beastmen only stayed in the s-class dungeon for 1 year. so, according to that he operated on different floors based on the beastmen's strength.

he had never reached the 5th floor, and had never defeated an s-rank magical beast.

so he didn't know how strong the golems on the 5th floor were as he had never fought one.

so he was not quite sure what was going on.

i explained to him that there were golems in the 5th floor who were stronger than the s-rank floor bosses of the 2nd to 4th floor.

i further explained that we expected the dungeon boss to be several times stronger than them.

"yeah. probably something like that."

helmios nodded and agreed with me.

"how is that possible?"

"only one party can enter the rooms, including the one with the golem. you could say that's how each difficulty level is set."

i explained to them what 4 party, 50 people really meant.

parties usually consisted of 20 to 30 people.

so, if we only counted the number of people then 4 parties would have about 100 people.

and the dungeon boss was designed to fight against 4 parties at once.

"is it possible to defeat such a thing? what kind of a trial has his majesty the beast king imposed on me?"

prince zew finally understood how difficult it was to conquer the s-class dungeon attack.

"it's possible if we team up."

i said it was possible if we teamed up.

"hmmm... by the way, allen, what are the odds we will succeed if we participate?"

helmios didn't answer immediately.

(is this what a leader is to a hero?)

"if sacred joins us, we will have a 50% chance of succeeding."

""!""

"hey! it's that strong!?"

rosetta, the thief, was surprised.

my target was helmios, the world's most powerful hero and his party.

and even if he joined up with my party, who had a track record of getting to the dungeon boss all by themselves, i said that we only had a 50% chance of winning.

"yeah. maybe that's about it."

"but that's assuming we win. if it's too tough, we can just retreat. if everyone can withdraw safely, there will be no problem. if it's too tough and we retreat, we won't force you to fight again."

retreating was something i was good at. i could use my summons as decoy very well.

"all right. we will participate."

"thank you."

"well, to tell you the truth, i've been told by the emperor to get along and all that with you."

(you're being blunt. well, that's what i thought. he hasn't been going back to the giamut empire all that often.)

helmios stayed in the base the whole time.

the reason was me.

it must have been to ask a favor of some kind, or he was told to establish a relationship.

after i gave him the gold and silver beans, he may have been strongly encouraged to further improve our relationship.

that was how allen convinced helmios to fight against the dungeon boss with him.