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

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 <Inventory>.

In fact, I had enough magic stones if I just wanted to increase my <Summon> to Level 9.

I needed to earn 40 billion Skill Experience to level up <Summon> to Level 9. I could use <Equivalent Exchange> 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<Summon> 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 <Inventory> as a backup.

After all, I could stock as many magic stones as I wanted.

But thanks to <Equivalent Exchange>, 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 <Kingship> skill was still sealed.

Merus had told me that as long as I had a sealed skill, <Summon>'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.

"Hmmm, they might not be. Well, liquor stores are open at night. And it's still daytime."

I replied that we could always buy more if there wasn't enough and returned to base.

The dining room was quite spacious, with room for 30 people, but there was a lot of furniture in the way, so we put everything away in the corner except for the furniture we needed to sit on.

Part of the sofa had been taken out in the garden.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

Rosetta, the Thief, asked what we were doing.

I hadn't said anything to Helmios' party yet.

Silently, she stares at what my friends and I were doing.

"..."

Admiral Galara, who had been sitting deep on the sofa drinking, was glaring at us.

"Oh, Prince Zew will be here in a few minutes. I'll explain everything to him and you guys at once."

When I looked at my magical tool, I found out that it was nearly time.

The sofas that took up space had been carried to the garden, except for the one Admiral Galara was sitting on and one other one.

"Prince Zew has arrived."

He had come right on time.

The servant let Prince Zew through.

"Hmm? What is this?"

The Prince Zew, accompanied by two beastmen, Ur and Sara, also muttered as soon as he entered.

"Welcome. You're early. Please take a seat, Prince Zew."

(Take your time.)

I said and led Prince Zew to his seat.

"What's going on? You insisted so much, so I came. ..."

I had called Royalty of a country without telling him what I wanted.

It was not possible in the world of Royalty and Nobility, but Prince Zew understood that I knew the culture but still decided to not tell him the reason.

''Today, I want to announce that we will be challenging the Dungeon Boss. I have invited you for that purpose, Prince Zew."

"Oh, wow! You're finally challenging it!"

Prince Zew, who had just sat down deep like Royalty, stood up excitedly.

Prince Zew knew about my friends and my dungeon raids.

Ur had asked me about the status and I had answered him. Prince Zew also came to the base for food and drinks from time to time.

Prince Zew knew that we had been making progress, but was wondering when we would challenge the Dungeon boss.

"Tch. What the hell. I was wondering what was going to happen with all the hype, but that's what you're saying."

Admiral Galara, who had already been drinking during the day, swore.

"I know. It's going to be a tough fight, but good luck, Allen."

Helmios congratulated us and drank from his wooden mug.

"So, I have a favor to ask of you, Mr. Helmios. I want 'Sacred' to participate in the fight."

I asked Helmios, the leader of party 'Sacred' to participate in the fight against the Dungeon Boss.

"What? You want me to join your party and fight with you?"

"No, actually, upto 50 people in 4 parties can fight against the Dungeon Boss at the same time."

"What? What do you mean?"

I explained what had happened on the 5th Floor.

I had told Helmios about the 5th Floor to some extent, but I hadn't told him that multiple parties could take on the Dungeon Boss together.

I was also silently telling Prince Zew about the conditions of fighting the Dungeon Boss.

"..."

Admiral Galara continued to glare at me.

"So, you want us to join?"

"Yes. You only need to participate in the fight against the Dungeon Boss. Defeating the Dungeon Boss will give us three normal rewards and one special reward for the first time. We only need the first special reward."

My friends and I had already prepared a set of Medals for Helmios' party which we had earned by defeating Golems who were as strong as Demon General Razel when he was serious.

I emphasized that the cooperation request was only for the fight against the Dungeon Boss.

"By the way, how strong do you think the Dungeon Boss is?"

Helmios had already lost his smile when he asked me that question.

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.