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

“Huh?”

I woke up on the cobblestones. When I looked around, I saw my friends watching intently at me.

“He’s up. He should have taken the Wide-Eye Potion after all.”

(Oh, I fell asleep because of the Sleep trap. I’ve been waiting for this.)

I realized what happened to me. We were in a small room on the sixth floor of a B-class dungeon. The dungeon was very large and long, so even though I said a small room, it was about the size of a 25 meter pool.

Everyone around me looked worried. The reason why everyone was worried was because I was the only one who hadn’t taken precaution against Sleep.

“Maria, did you use the [Condiments]?”

“Yes, ~Death!”

“How long did it take me to wake up?”

“It didn’t take more than ten seconds!”

(10 seconds is pretty quick. It’s easy to get back into the fight right away.)

“Allen, what’s wrong?”

Kurena peeked at me worriedly.

“No, I’m fine. I just need to run some experiments on this trap, if that’s okay?”

“Experiments. I get it.”

“Oh, Experiments, huh? Okay, Kurena. I need a little help with my training.”

“Yeah, I got it!”

Cecile agreed, as saying, “Another experiment, huh.” I have done a lot of experimenting in the dungeon, and there were a lot of things I didn’t know about C-rank summons and <Awakening>. I want to clear up any unanswered questions as soon as possible.

The dungeon raid is sometimes interrupted in this way. My friends also think that my <Summon> skill is not well understood. And they know that I have no Instructor or manual, so they don’t stop me.

These experiments are important, because in a dangerous situation, knowing what causes what can make the difference between making it through or not.

I am the kind of person who will go to great lengths to find out what he wants to know.

This time, I was experimenting Sleep.

My experiment can last for several hours, so Dogora asked Kurena to practice in such a situation. Dogora, who is still unable to use his skills, believes that if he swings his axe with skills in mind, like the training between Master Swordsman Doberg and Kurena, he can activate his skills one day.

Kurena is helping him with that practice.

Dogora trains in this almost every day. After we return from the Academy, we enter the dungeon, but even then, he finds an hour or two for his practice.

Traps start appearing from B-class dungeons. They can be Arrows or Poison. We don’t have a scout in our party, so we’re a party that gets trapped a lot. It’s our muscle memory to heal Arrow wounds with healing potions.

Grass species have always been consumables. E-rank [Grass of Life] restores health, D-rank [Mana Fruit] restores mana, so I assumed that C-rank [Condiments] restore status conditions. However, I haven’t been able to verify this since we’ve only fallen for Poison traps and Arrow traps. If I’m wrong and I accidentally die from the poison, I won’t even know about it. I kept waiting for the Sleep trap to appear.

I asked the four of them to go to the corner of the small room, and stared at the trap in the center.

(I can’t even tell there is a trap here.)

It looked completely the same as any other cobblestone. According to Maria, if I step on these cobblestones, they will dent and white smoke will come out.

“When I fall asleep again, use the [Condiments].”

“Yes, ~Death.”

Then I stepped on the cobblestone trap. White smoke came out from  the cobblestone.

It was the same as the Poison trap. The range is about five meters from the trap cobblestone. The smoke should wear off in a few seconds.

The smoke was gone, but my consciousness was still clear. The white smoke didn’t have any effect on me.

(Is it the effect of [Condiments]? It doesn’t make me sleepy. The effect is different from Wide-Eye Potion.)

Effects Wide-Eye Potion

Drinking can wake you up from Sleep.If taken in advance, the effect lasts for a day.Only effective once.The price is three Silver coins.

It seems that [Condiments] are not one-time use. I tried activating the trap again, but nothing happened.

As I scratched my face, wondering if I was missing something, I felt a strange sensation on my face, and as I scratched it, a reddish-black substance peeled off. I noticed that there was a scab around my mouth.

(What? When did I get hurt?)

Then I remembered something important. I fell asleep because of the trap while I was riding Fran, who can run at 50 kilometers per hour even without using any skill.

(Did I fall asleep and fall down from Fran?)

“Maria, what happened to Fran because of the smoke?”

“Everyone’s asleep.”

Maria told me what happened. While we were moving as a group, Fran stepped into the trap and fell asleep. All of them were safe because they had taken a Wide-Eye potion beforehand, but I, who had fallen asleep, was injured because of the fall.

I heard what happened and pulled out Grimoire to check our status. All of us, including me, had not lost any health and were unharmed.

“Maria, did Kiel heal us?”

“Yes, ~Death.”

Apparently, Kiel healed everyone.

(I see. I have more things to examine with this green pepper.)

I started to bring out my summons stepping on the traps.

It was to see which summons would and would not fall asleep. I was about to make an inadvertent mistake. I thought that my summons were immune to Sleep because Maria wasn’t affected by the white smoke.

I took my time to go over everything.

Then I found out that the effect of sleep, which is a status condition, differed depending on the species, not just the rank.

How effective Sleep is:

100% Insect100% Beast100% Bird0% Grass0% Stone100% Fish0% Spirit

(I see, living beings are almost 100% effective, and non-living beings are not. Grass is living beings, but they are plants, so they don’t sleep.)

It’s unified and easy to understand.

I summarize the results of the experiment of the [Condiments] so far:

Release sleepIt also works on summonsNot one-time use

What I could not verify:

Is it also effective against Poison?Duration of effect

(The fact that it has a duration means it’s better to drink it beforehand. I mean, if the summons went to sleep, everyone would be in danger.)

I was just about to say to my friends, “All done, let’s go then,” since I was done with my experiments…

“Ooooooohh!!!! Here it comes…!!!!”

Dogora let out a yell.

“You did it! You did it! Dogora!”

“Dogora, can you use your skills now?”

“Hmm.”

The potato-faced Dogora has a big smile on his face. A little later than Kurena, Dogora also seemed to be able to activate his skills.

I checked the Grimoire to see how much mana he consumed.

(Oh! It’s true that Dogora’s skill experience has increased.)

[Name] Dogora

[Age] 12

[Talent] Axe Knight

[Level] 35

[Strength] 772

[Mana] 416

[Attack] 1016

[Endurance] 670

[Agility] 424

[Intelligence] 282

[Luck] 458

[Skills] Axe Knight <1>, Full-Body <1>, Axemanship <4>

[Extra] Resolute

[Experience] 59,630/70,000

Skill level

[Axe Knight] 1

[Full-Body] 1

Skill Experience

[Full-Body] 2/10

“Hmm? Allen. Have you finished your experiments?”

“Yeah. Thanks for waiting.”

“Right, well, let’s keep on going! I don’t want to forget what this feels like!”

Dogora carried his axe and straddled Fran first. He urges her to continue into the dungeon as quickly as possible. He wanted to use his skills against a magical beast as soon as possible.