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

Chapter 212: Under the Tree

In the end, Cecile’s Extra Skill [Small Meteorite] and Helmios’ Extra Skill [Phoenix Sword] crushed Demon General Razel’s heart.

(Hmm, I still don’t see any logs of Demon General Razel being defeated.)

I was checking my Grimoire to see if Demon General Razel was still alive.

I didn’t get a message saying “You have defeated a Demon General.” till then.

Demon General Razel fell quite far away from the temple, and I was certain that he hit the ground. There was no sign of him coming back to the temple or attacking us again with magic from a distance.

(Did he take too much damage and run away? No way. We can’t let him run.)

Demon General Razel didn’t seem like someone that would abandon the World Tree and run away to me.

“What should I do? I’m going to go to where Demon General Razel is. Dogora, wake up or I’ll leave you here, okay?”

“…”

“Dogora? What, you want to sleep?”

Dogora, lying on the ground with his eyes closed, said nothing. It was as if he was dead.

“Hey! Is Dogora safe?”

While I was talking to Dogora, Kurena came running up to me. Dogora didn’t move as all of us rushed towards him.

“Kiel, did you not succeed?”

“No, no, Kurena. I succeeded this time. Spirit King’s Blessing helped me a lot.”

(We can’t experiment with his Extra Skill, but does his success rate increase with [Intelligence]? In percentage terms, I’d say 100 percent at about 10,000 [Intelligence].)

I learnt something new about Kiel’s Extra Skill [God Drop] in that fight.

We knew that the Extra Skill [God Drop] had the effect of reviving the dead.

But the probability was not 100 percent, and it was not constant.

It wasn’t something we could experiment with much, but it immediately hit me that there were resurrection spells in my previous life’s game that had a variable probability depending on the user’s [Intelligence].

Extra Skill [God Drop]

(Maybe the reason Kiel succeeded the second time was because the Spirit King’s Blessing raised Kiel’s [Intelligence]? I’m going to look for a Ring in the S-class dungeon to raise Kiel’s [Intelligence] to 10,000.)

I recorded the results of the analysis and future tasks in my Grimoire.

“Thank you. Thank you, Spirit King, for saving us.”

“It’s okay. It was nothing. Haha.”

If it were a normal Great Spirit, they would have already been released from [Great Spirit Manifestation] and would no longer be there, but for some reason, Spirit King Rosen climbed on Sophie’s shoulders and showed no signs of returning.

“Hey, Allen, why are you so calm? Dogora won’t wake up.”

“No, Dogora is perfectly healthy. I don’t know why he isn’t waking up.”

“”Huh?””

With that, my friends looked at Dogora again. The reason why I was previously talking to Dogora was that he was perfectly fine in my Grimoire.

“You told them ‘even I could use Extra Skill’.”

Dogora whispered with his eyes closed.

“Yeah?”

“I heard you say that. That even someone like me could use Extra Skill.”

(Hmm? Did I say that…?)

I then remembered saying something similar while trying to encourage Kurena to use her skills while her Extra Skill was active.

Apparently, Dogora was sulking.

He had already been successfully revived then and seemed to be conscious.

“Well, I mean. Sorry.”

Then Dogora opened his eyes and stood up.

“‘Dogora!””

Everyone rushed to Dogora and made him squirm. It was probably the real reason why he didn’t wake up, I thought, looking at his embarrassed potato face.

“So, what happened to the Demon General after all?”

“He isn’t dead yet. Let’s go and check on him. Oh, Formar is here.”

From the ceiling of the temple, which was severely broken in the battle with Demon General Razel, came Formar riding on B-rank Bird’s back.

“Lady Sofiarone, are you all right?”

“Well, Demon General Razel hasn’t been killed yet! Let’s go and finish the job.”

“”Oh!””

My friends, Helmios and I got on the backs of B-rank Birds and headed towards Demon General Razel.

(This is terrible.)

I looked at the cityscape.

“Hey, Cecile, isn’t this terrible?”

“Huh!? Are you trying to blame me now? YOU told me to do it!”

I tried to blame it on Cecile, but it didn’t work.

“Guruchii…”

Cecile, riding behind me, choked him.

Cecile’s [Small Meteorite] and the magic ball of Demon General Razel had combined to create a tremendous force. The whole area around Fortenia was roundly depressed, and one third of Fortenia was gone as if it had been scraped away. Even in places that hadn’t collapsed, the impact of the [Small Meteorite] and magic ball had caused buildings to collapse, and the situation was dire.

“Oh, there he is!”

Demon General Razel was lying in the center of a hole/crater.

We got down from B-rank Birds and approached him.

“…”

Demon General Razel was looking up at the sky in silence.

Demon General Razel’s body has lost all of his remaining arms due to Cecile’s Extra Skill [Small Meteorite] and his own magic, and Helmios’ Orichalcum sword was still stuck in his left chest.

Everyone could see that he was dying.

“Demon General Razel.”

“You are here. Just let me be for a while, please?”

Demon General Razel, looking up at the sky, begged me to stop.

I said, “I see.” And put my sword back in its sheath.

“Hey, Allen!”

“It’s okay. He can’t save himself anymore. His body has already started to disintegrate.”

“What?”

When I said that, Cecile took a good look at the entire body of Demon General Razel.

Smoke was rising from every part of his body as if something was smoldering, and I felt like he was about to burn up.

Just like the Demon Glaster and Yagov, he was burning to ashes after being killed, leaving no corpse or magic stone behind.

(Still, is there a reason to look up to the sky?)

“It’s a wonderful Tree. I wanted to show it to my people from remote places…”

Demon General Razel was looking at the World Tree with the last of his strength, as if to burn it into his eyes.

“Demon General Razel. Was this the outcome you wanted?”

I couldn’t help but ask.

Unable to make the World Tree belong to the Dark Elves, he himself was on the verge of decay and ashes.

From all appearances, the result was not satisfactory, but the expression on his face as he gazed at the World Tree seemed somehow relieved.

“I am dying in the Promised Land… it isn’t so bad. But when I think of my people whose dreams remain unfulfilled…”

The disintegration of his body progressed rapidly.

“Descendant of the Prayer Maiden! Remember, even after my death, there will be a second, third… until we succeed. Yes, we will keep coming for what we have always wanted. To live and die under the World Tree…”

After saying that much, Demon General Razel disappeared into ashes.

“You have defeated 1 Demon General. Your Level has increased to 76. Your [Strength] has increased by 50, [Mana] by 80, [Attack] by 28, [Endurance] by 28, [Agility] by 52, [Intelligence] by 80 and [Luck] by 52.”

(I leveled up? I still needed a lot of experience. I mean, there’s no indication of how much experience I gained. Is it possible that defeating one Demon General increases your Level by one?)

The experience values that were always shown weren’t there that time. I concluded that regardless of the required experience value, defeating a Demon General would raise my Level by 1.

While Helmios was retrieving his Orichalcum Sword, I recorded what I had learned from that battle with Demon General Razel in my Grimoire.

“Maybe there really is. This thing is called the Gate of Extra.”

(Everyone has a Gate of Extra, and there’s a way to open it. We just need to find it.)

“What? What did you say, Allen?”

“Oh, Kurena. I just thought that maybe there really is such a thing as a Gate of Extra, and if you could get through it, you could go into Extra Mode.”

“Eew! And have six hands?”

Kurena replied, wringing her hands.

(I’m sure the Spirit King knows about this.)

Just when I was about to ask Spirit King who was riding on Sophie’s shoulders about it…

“…”

The Spirit King’s face, which had been gentle until then, suddenly turned stern and he began to glare at midair.

Then, his whole body began to glow all at once.

“”Nah!””

The light coming off of Spirit King became bigger and bigger, and he then left Sophie’s shoulders.

When he reached the ground, his appearance had changed to that of a quadrupedal beast.

(Oh? Is he a Spirit God now? He looks somewhat like a lion.)

It seemed to me that the Spirit King, who had been suppressing his transformation, suddenly became a Spirit God there.

“Haha. It’s in poor taste to be sneaking around. Why don’t you come out?”

The Spirit God Rosen spoke to the air.

We all looked around and then back at Spirit God Rosen in turn, as if to say, “What’s going on?”

“Oh, scary, scary. I just came to take a peek…”

A voice came from nowhere in reply.

“”Huh?””

Then someone dressed like a clown or a clown came out of nowhere.

He was wearing a mask, and I didn’t know why, but I didn’t feel that he was a human.

“Why is the Demon Great General Kyubel here?”

Helmios shouted to the one dressed like a clown.