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

My friends and I ran away from the Blood-Blast-Beetle (a.k.a. Beebe) like rabbits.

Since Beebe had recovered all the damage it had received in the fight, we were unlikely to defeat it even if we lost.

I had defeated many magical beasts who had such healing ability in my previous life by moving around and not getting caught.

However, if a party member were to get caught, the chance of defeating it would drop drastically.

I decided that even if we were to persist and win, it would have been at the expense of someone.

The slower the decision was made, the more the risk everyone was at.

I believed that the party leader had to have the ability to make decisions quickly.

Beebe was highly durable and fast, but we had no problem just running away. We were not going to get sneak attacked by Beebe.

My friends and I were on B-rank Birds who were using their awakening skill [Soar].

And if I wanted to, I could use my summons as decoys to be able to ensure our escape.

I even had time to choose a place and lead it to a place where there were no adventurers nearby.

After some distance, Beebe stopped chasing us, so I also verified how far it would chase us.

I decided to investigate Beebe while collecting Medals by defeating other Floor Bosses.

I wanted to know the search range and how long it had to be left unattended for to respawn about the magical beasts. Since there were no adventurers who were willing to hunt Beebe, it was a good target for such experiments.

Apparently, if the magical beats didn't come in contact with adventurers for an hour or so, they disappear and appear randomly at another location.

In my opinion, the S-class dungeon lived up to its name with something like that even on the 2nd floor.

And it was no wonder to me that half of the adventurers died within a year.

Over the next half day, we hunted the Floor Bosses as best we could and were able to obtain 3 Bronze Medals.

After defeating a Floor Boss, a large Medal fell to the ground along with the magic stone.

For some reason, we were unable to find the Treasure Chests that I had expected to find.

It was hard to imagine that there was not a single Treasure Chest in a 100 km radius.

I concluded that the Treasure Chest had spawned in a position that was difficult to find with E-rank Bird's [Clairvoyance].

[Clairvoyance] couldn't search over obstacles after all.

"Now, let's leave this damned awkward floor and move on to the next one."

"You're still saying that?"

"Of course. I haven't seen anything like this in a long time."

"After a long time, you say..."

Dogora, in dismay, went along with my words.

(We couldn't defeat the Floor Bosses because this floor is like a new map. I will never hunt on this floor again.)

In online games, new dungeons, fields, etc. were sometimes implemented through version upgrades. That often caused a rush of players and the number of players often outnumbered the number of enemies.

I felt the same way on the 2nd floor.

There was a cube-shaped object floating in front of us that was going to take us to the 3rd floor.

"Hello, Abandoned Gamers. This is S201, the Dungeon Management System. Would you like to go to the next floor? Or would you like to go back to the previous floor?"

"Go to the 3rd floor."

"Please give me 3 Bronze Medals to go to the 3rd floor."

"Here."

I gave 3 Bronze Medals to the cube-shaped object.

The Medals had patterns of Chickens and Lizards.

I found out when I got a Bronze Medal that not all Medals were the same. A pattern that looks like a deformed version of a defeated magical beast was carved in the Medal, which was made of bronze.

"I have certainly received 3 Bronze Medals. Let's go to the 3rd floor.'

The moment the cube-shaped object said so, my friends and I were transferred.

(Hmm, this is the 3rd floor? ...Nothing much different...huh? Hmm? The ground is sand. So it's a desert field.)

I looked at the 3rd floor.

My friends too, who had arrived, looked around to see if there were any changes in the empty space where the adventurers were.

Since the ground had changed from soil to sand, we knew that the 3rd floor was a desert.

"For some reason, there seems to be a lot of dwarves on this floor. Let's take a look at the whole place."

"Yes."

Cecile answered me.

Using an E-rank Bird, I saw a square about 1 kilometer long on each side, just like the 2nd floor.

And away from the square, the desert continued, with sand rippling in places.

The terrain looked like a hill dotted here and there with chunks of rock.

(Oh! It's a Golem. There are a lot of them. As usual, they are different from the Golem I was expecting, but is this floor advantageous for Golem Users?)

Compared to the 2nd floor, the 3rd floor had more Golems strutting over the desert.

There were Golems on the 2nd floor as well, but they had little of the mechanic feel I was expecting.

They were not robots at all, but were like puppet dolls.

The Golems had shiny copper sheen and weren't too burly.

They had long hands that almost touched the ground.

They had a head, but it would be buried in the chest area, so their hands grew out of the torso area in a flowing curve from shoulder height.

And although I was told they were 100 meters tall, most of them were only about 10 meters.

There were apparently some 100-meter tall Golems, but they were very rare.

The dwarves controlled the Golems by sitting inside their crystal belly.

There were a lot of beastmen on the 2nd floor.

I pondered why it was.

Perhaps the 2nd floor, consisting of forests and grasslands, was advantageous for the beastmen, who were quicker and allowed them to earn money faster.

A floor composed of forests and grasslands where Floor Bosses could be found and defeated quickly.

So there were many beastmen on the 2nd floor.

Perhaps the beastmen had some ability or something that allowed them to find many Treasure Chests that we could not find.

(Come to think of it, I didn't see that beastman Ur again. Well, I don't plan to go to the 2nd floor in the future, so maybe I won't see him again.)

I didn't meet the party of beastmen that we had rescued yesterday.

He talked about thanking us, but I didn't particularly want to urge them to do so, and there was no use of any thank you that I would get from adventurers who used the 2nd floor as their primary place of activity. Nor did I expect to hear any information about the dungeon from them that I couldn't find.

I didn't even know how many Bronze Medals, which cost 100 Gold coins each, could they give us in exchange for their gratitude.

I didn't think we were ever going to meet again, as we had no intention of seeking them out ourselves to get a thank-you.

"I see. Is this what Admiral Galara was talking about?"

I noticed something as I watched the Golems strolling through the desert.

"What's wrong? Allen."

"Oh, Cecile. Apparently, dwarves have an advantage in this desert."

"What do you mean?"

I had noticed something, so I gathered to share information.

There were many parties on the 3rd floor consisting of only Golem users.

However there were also some parties with beastmen, humans and dwarves.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Merle. This desert apparently has a magical beast in the sand that is attacking us. It looks like the Golems get attacked first, and they protect the party."

A scorpion-like magical beast attacked a Golem advancing through the desert from the sand.

While the Golem had its hard armor that blocked the attack, the party's friends moved to surround it and the battle began.

I predicted it was so because the Golem was sturdy and resistant to surprise attacks.

Some of the parties had beastmen on the Golem's high shoulders, scouting the area from a higher vantage point.

Climbing onto the Golem's shoulders would protect them from danger, killing two birds with one stone.

Admiral Galara must have been aware of the situation on the 3rd floor when he said that on the 2nd floor.

Dwarf Golem Users were very useful on the 3rd floor.

"We'll have to work hard to find at least 5 stone slabs."

"Mm-hmm!"

(I won't say it out loud because of Merle, but the Baukis Empire is a rip-off. Like 3,000 Gold coins for one Iron slab?)

In order to use the Magic Board to produce a Golem, stone slabs had to be fitted into the Magic Board.

There were 10 dents in a Magic Board into which stone slabs could be fitted.

To produce a Golem, one needed 5 basic stone slabs called 'Basic Stone Slabs'.

These 5 stone slabs (head, body, right hand, left hand, and foot), when fitted with the Magic Board, the most minimum version of Golem were completed. It was not enough just to collect five, but it was necessary to collect those exact five, one for each part of the body.

The temple would buy back any unwanted slab at 100 Gold coins for any part if it was Bronze-rank and 300 Gold coins for Iron-rank.

But the temple didn't only buy the unwanted slabs, they also sold them.

However, to buy a Basic Stone Slab of a Golem, whether Bronze or Iron, one had to pay 10 times the selling price for each.

One Bronze Basic Stone Slab for 1000 Gold coins whereas the Iron ones went for 3000 Gold coins.

If someone wanted to buy all Basic Stone Slabs for an Iron Golem, they needed 15,000 Gold coins.

It would require twice of what I had. I couldn't afford it.

"Oh! There's something great out there!"

"What? Where?"

I raised my voice, so Merle and everyone else reacted.

"There's a Golem gliding on the sand."

""Oh!""

(Is this the effect of a Special Slab?)

I recalled what Merle had told me about the possibilities of a Golem.

Golems had considerable utility outside of combat.

I had just seen a Golem gliding over the sand through the E-rank Bird.

The lower half of the Golem's body was like a boat, and it moved easily over the sand.

I could also see some adventurers on top of the Golem.

That was the effect of a Special Slab.

Some of the stone slabs that could be fitted into the dents of the Magic Board could change the function and shape of the Golem.

Merle told me that there were also stone tablets for special purposes that allowed a Golem to advance through the sea or fly in the sky.

(At all costs, we need to find a Special Stone Slab that transforms the Golem into a house.)

I had one particular one that I wanted.

Some of the stone slabs allowed the Golem to become a house.

I had heard that it was as solid as a fortress and people could even sleep inside.

"Now, this is exciting. Let's hear the conditions for going to the next floor, and maybe even collect some stone slabs."

At a single word from Allen, his friends moved on to their next action.