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

Kiel, his sister Nina, and the servants who served the Carnell family came to live at the base. When Kiel said that we were going to live together, the older servants, who were about 15 years old, responded with something like, “Are you serious?”

The next day, I ended up helping them move and buy this and that daily necessities like beds and utensils.

After checking the ages and other details, I decided on the monthly salary for the six servants, which would cost three Gold coins and forty Silver coins.

15-year-old manservant, 1 Gold coin

15-year-old maid, 1 Gold coin

A ten-year-old manservant, 50 Silver coins

A 10-year-old maid, 50 Silver coins

One male and one female, 8 years old, each 20 Silver coins

I paid them as I saw fit, but that was probably less than the norm, considering that there was a per capita tax of three Gold coins for those over 15 and one Gold coin for those under 15.

In that area, since we would be going to B-class and A-class dungeons from now on, I think I should let Kiel, the next head of the Carnell family who makes a lot of money, manage it.

Now that Kiel, a Talented Priest, was living in the base, everything seemed to be going well, but that didn’t mean there were no problems.

I noticed a big contradiction in Kiel’s story that I heard on the day of the welcome party.

That was the action Viscount Carnell took against Kiel. Nobles who find out that their child is Talented in the Appraisal Ceremony know that they can have two options from there.

The first type is to beg for their child and to see if that child can be exempted from their duty. The Granvelle family fell into this category. In order to exempt his daughter from the Noble’s duty, he hastened the mining of Mithril ore.

The second type were delighted and pleased with their child’s talent. In fact, it seems that Nobles have always been more likely to be this way. The reason for this is that there is a great deal of preferential treatment for Nobles who have fulfilled their duties. If they serve in the Royal Castle, they are promised a key position. If they’re a Noble with a fief, they get a tax break.

For example, there is a Noble family that has always produced a General. The child born to such a Noble family was slender and delicate. If he continued like this, he would never be a General.

However, the boy had a Talent as a Swordsman. If he went to the Academy and served in the battlefield for the next three years, he would come back a changed man. And the privilege of fulfilling his duty awaits him.

This is the story of the Hamilton family. That’s why Rifol’s father was happy that he had a Talent and happily sent him to the Academy.

To Nobles, whose first priority is the prosperity of their Family, they would be happy if their children had Talent.

Kiel seemed to be neither of those types. He was kept away from his home, and I thought the Viscount hid Kiel from the Royal Family, but he was treated very coldly.

And who was the Royal Messenger that went to meet Kiel?

I don’t think the Royal Messengers have any credibility. If Kiel fulfills his duties for five years, I will have to look into this matter in the future, including whether or not the revival of the Carnell Family is really promised.

Today, I’m in the 3rd floor reference room of the Adventurer’s Guild, doing research that has nothing to do with Kiel.

The research was about a B-class dungeon. Mainly I needed to know about traps.

When we went to apply for my C-rank adventurer’s card the other day, the Adventurer’s Guild staff told me that I should check it out. Apparently, in this Academy City, adventurers who have been C-rank for less than a year die the most.

It happened because adventurers could now enter the B-class dungeons, but couldn’t keep up with the differences between them and C-class dungeons.

Currently, Cecile, Dogora, Kiel and I are going through the materials.

“Wow, I’ll come…”

Kurena was going to cry.

“No, remember what you wrote there.”

“Ugh… terrible…”

Kurena had another assignment. She was reviewing for a written test in Liberal Arts that is due next month. I organized the content of the class in the Grimoire for her. 

Kurena was looking at the contents of the Grimoire that I spent the last two months organizing and preparing for next month’s test. Even if she failed the test, the Academy would manage, but she would rather not fail.

The Demon King’s Army is not a pack of magical beasts, but they seem to have a chain of command and wisdom. The situation changes from moment to moment, so those who do not have a certain level of intelligence will not be able to understand the instructions of their superiors. With that in mind, the Academy was putting a lot of effort into general education, especially in the first year.

We started looking early in the morning and had lunch at a restaurant near the Adventurer’s Guild.

And it’s past three.

The five of us sat together and shared what we found out.

“The summoning traps are troublesome. A dozen C-rank magical beasts can come out of nowhere and surround us.”

Dogora told us what he found.

The summoning traps in B-class dungeons tended to summon C-rank magical beasts, and the number of magical beasts summoned at a time was random, ranging from 5 to 30.

“Not only summoning, but also poison, sleep, arrows, and a lot of other traps. I still haven’t learned the Antidote spell. Are we not going to hire scouts?”

-Poison

-Sleep

-Arrows

Kiel also joined in the conversation for some reason.

“Can’t we recruit anyone else?”

I’ve told everyone that I won’t be hiring trap-disarming or any Thief-type Talents. Even if we get a Thief to join us, we can’t take them into the battle against the Demon King’s army.

I believe that a Thief can’t fight a Demon King. And I don’t want a party limited to this Academy City.

I can use summons that have various useful specialties such as scouting. And since there seem to be medicines that prevent poison and sleep, I’m thinking of buying some of those at the Apothecary to deal with them. C-rank Grass’s special skill, [Condiments], may be able to solve this problem.

I have told Kiel about the Demon Lord. He seemed to be skeptical about it. That may be a natural reaction since there was not enough evidence to prove it. I told him that he would learn about it in the History of the Demon King in future.

Kiel hasn’t yet learned any magic spells that removes debuffs such as poisoning, but if he learns them in the future, he will be able to deal with poisonous traps and poisonous magical beasts.

“Looks like there are some magical beasts that use poison too. There are also Death Spiders. And there’s a B-class magical beast, Mimic, that mimics a treasure chest.”

I also told them what I had found out. The number of magical beasts that use status conditions are increasing, and the magical beasts that appear in each dungeon are different. B-class dungeons were characterized by insects and undead spirits. We’ll have to deal with poison and paralysis in an insect-type dungeon and physical attacks would be useless against undead spirits.

 Many adventurers fall victim to the B-rank magical beast Mimic that mimics treasure chests. B-rank magical beasts are a menace, and some of them can even lock you in a small room with them.

“Hmm, can’t we just avoid all the Mimics?”

“Oh, apparently defeating a Mimic drops valuable items.”

“Oh! Then we’d better beat it!”

Kiel seemed to agree that we should prioritize beating them.

The goal of entering a dungeon is to earn money, find valuable equipments, and Magic Recovery Ring. Mimics are said to drop items from time to time, but the quality of the items varies from one to another, and there are records of weapons that cost over 100 Gold coins dropping. If we hunt them aggressively, we might find some amazing items.

“I wonder what dungeons really are. Apparently they are more than a thousand years old.”

Cecile muttered, looking at an old document.

(Hmm? Cecile was the only one who misunderstood the meaning of “research”.)

Since when I was Kenichi in my previous life, I rarely looked into the game’s lore, story, or background. Even if the lore was an epic story of good and evil, all I had to do was level up and get stronger. Even when I went to attack a new boss, I never read the description of why the boss was there.

I also believe that many gamers are like that.

{TLN: I am like that for the majority of the time.}

Cecile told us about her research. Apparently there were dungeons all over the world, both in the Kingdom and the Empire. There were many theories about them, such as that they were made to take in adventurers, or that there was a God who controlled the dungeons, but none of them have been proven.

“It’s just that I looked through the archives but I can’t find anything older than about a thousand years ago.”

It seems that every record of dungeons ends at around 1000 years ago.

“Ho…”

Kurena took the document from Cecile and started reading it.

“Oh, by the way, did you finish reading the Grimoire, Kurena?”

“Haa…”

With a stretched out voice, Kurena hid her face and continued reading without replying.

“Now, Kurena, you can go back to your base…”

That was when it happened. Kurena started running towards the exit at a great speed. However, I caught Kurena who was trying to run away.

“Hei!!!”

She sounded as if her life was over. The rest of the group, except for me, stared at Kurena with sympathy, but they didn’t do anything to help.

Kurena was growing 100 times faster than me. However, both of us had an A in [Agility]. I was faster than her as I still had quite a few levels on her due to my time as Cecile’s manservant.

(Well, now that we’ve done our research, it’s time to conquer a B-class dungeon.)

While catching Kurena, Allen set his sight on a B-class dungeon.