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

There was one more streak of light.

And the Holy Land was not the only country under attack.

The first light streak had sprouted vertically from Theomenia, before going horizontal high in the air.

Now Allen's party saw another similar streak coming out of the light bubble surrounding the floating island, and going further south.

"What should we do?"

Cecile wondered what their next step would be.

It was like the light they saw coming out from the altar was sending something to be gathered in the island floating above the center of the Central Continent. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

An easy conclusion was that another country to the south was under attack by Pagan Worshippers.

"We've only seen the island from above, there might be more light streaks we missed. Circle around the island, Merle."

They had only seen the southern edge of the island, so there could be more of them going in other directions.

"Got it."

Merle mobilized Tam-Tam Mode Eagle again, going around to check if there were any other light streaks.

The island was around ten kilometers wide, so the outer circumference was around thirty kilometers.

They made a quick round, and soon were back to the streak going to the south.

"Three? So there are other three countries in that horrible situation?"

Kiel looked disgusted.

They had found three streaks of light in total, going towards the east, west, and south.

The one from Theomenia would have been a fourth one to the north.

(Three more. What should we do? Though we don't even know the actual locations. Is the situation so bad they can't even send distress signals? Or did they get attacked later?)

Only six days had passed since the Holy Land's distress signal had been sent.

The Demon General in Theomenia had been defeated one day ago, and the country had only started recovering today.

The Holy Land had contacted the entire world when they were attacked, so it was hard to think the other three places would ask them for help.

No one would want to ask another country under attack for help, when that country needed that help just as much..

Another possibility was that the cities with the magic equipment necessary to send such a signal had all fallen first, so there was no way to contact others.

Or they could be trying to ask for help, but they were located so far away that the news of their attack had not reached the Holy Land yet.

In the worst case, they had a bad relationship with their neighboring countries, so they did not even consider asking for help.

(Possibilities keep popping up the more I think about it, I should focus on what I can do now.)

Allen reorganized his thoughts and began thinking of the best way to deal with the situation.

The rest of the party began to think of a plan as well, and Allen approached one of the windows in the cockpit.

"Hm? I can't summon it there."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, you saw that temple in the center of the island, right? I figured the guy that planned this whole thing might be inside there, and maybe everything would be resolved if we took them down."

Wanting to check that, Allen had tried to summon an entity outside the window, inside the bubble of light surrounding the island, but it did not work.

He could not summon anything inside there.

'That's probably some type of barrier then. You can't summon inside of barriers after all.'

Allen could summon anywhere he could see, but not inside the light bubble.

The next best thing was to summon Insect A outside the bubble.

"Bee, destroy this light."

'Chitterchitter'

The Insect A summon flew straight at the light, trying to pierce it with the large stinger growing from its rear.

If that hit a person, they would essentially be impaled.

Bzzt Bzzt

"Woah there, watch out!"

The moment the stinger hit the light bubble, a bright flash was emitted from the tip of the sharp stinger.

The recoil sent Insect A flying back, so Merle had to hastily move Tam-Tam out of the way.

Apparently an Insect A summon was not enough to pierce the light.

The next option was to ask Merle to set her sights on the barrier to attempt blowing it up with the Vulcan Cannon, but the result was the same.

"It really is a barrier then. Hmmm, maybe it's that sort of thing that vanishes after all four light streaks go out?"

Merle had used everything she had to attack it, but no matter how many rounds were spent, they all ricocheted off the barrier.

(At least I guess this means our priorities have been decided.)

"Well, let's try splitting into three groups then."

Kiel repeated something they had all heard not too long ago.

Back in the Holy Land, they had to make a choice between going to Theomenia or rescuing Niel where the distress signal was sent, eventually they sent someone to Theomenia while the rest went to Niel.

"Not this time, there's a possibility we'll find a Demon General next to each of the altars."

That had been the case in Theomenia, and it was easy to assume there was a Demon General protecting the altars in every location.

If they split the eight members of the party into three groups, none of them would be strong enough against a Demon General.

With Merus, they were nine.

"I'm not talking about that. The Demon General was only next to the Altar in Theomenia, but we didn't have to fight him right away. Rescuing the people under attack by Pagan Worshippers and monsters should be our main priority."

But this time Kiel would not relent.

"You have a point, but we have no guarantee the Demon Generals won't move."

There was some reason behind Kiel's suggestion.

But they had no proof the Demon Generals would always remain next to the altars, waiting next to the light streaks like the bosses of a Dungeon.

Allen always took the safest route.

"Allen, try trusting us for once. We can just retreat if the Demon Generals do something, and your summons will keep us in contact."

Hearing that, Allen looked around at his friends.

Other than him, everyone was in agreement with Kiel.

They all wanted to split into three, and prioritize rescuing the people from Pagan Worshippers.

The Demon Generals aside, the attacking side were probably just Pagan Worshippers and Giant Type monsters, all below A Rank.

A third of the party was enough to take down an army of those.

Everyone thought that they should rescue anyone they could, and leave fighting the Demon Generals for later.

Even if a stronger foe appeared, Allen could easily go to their rescue, or they could flee with his summons.

"...Yeah, you're right. I'm thinking too much about our own safety. Let's split up. I still need to think about this a bit, so in the meantime put these Aromatic Vegetables, Heaven's Blessings, Gold Beans, and Silver Beans into bags with a hundred of each. Also get Dogora here."

He began giving orders as he said that, and took out stashes of one hundred from his inventory and placed them around the cockpit.

(If they split the load between three members they should be able to carry all of this. They don't have an inventory like me, so I think 200 of each would be the limit for each group. But I need a reserve in case we need more later.)

Since Giamut, Baukis, Rosenheim, and now the Holy Land were all embroiled in war, Allen had been handing out the healing items he had made himself.

To increase his stock, he even made Merus help out with growing them, and he complied with a grumbly face.

There were still plenty of reserves though, so Allen was not too worried.

His current inventory looked like this:

- Gold Bean x 6800

- Silver Bean x 6800

- Heaven's Blessing x 30'000

- Aromatic Vegetable x 15'000

- Mana Seed x 50'000

- Leaf of Life x 1000'000

Magic Stone Inventory:

- S Rank x 6895

- A Rank x 10'000

- B Rank x 2400'000

- C Rank x 1000'000

- D Rank x 70'000

- E Rank x 10'000'000

"Are you going to bring some of the summons from the Holy Land over as well?"

"Good idea. There's a few summons sitting idly around after all."

Allen had 80 slots for active summons, which he began to adjust for this next mission.

- 10 in Northern Giamut Empire

- 20 in Northern Rosenheim

- 15 in Elmaleh the Holy Land (10 of which were about to move to east and west)

- 5 in Rodan's Village and neighboring areas

- 10 Bird A summons for transport

He got rid of the summons in the Holy Land, including the nearly 30 Beast A summons.

He left one Wraith A for communication, and got rid of the rest.

The Insect A summons and the A Rank monsters as minions were more than enough to protect the land.

This way, he could easily send ten summons with each of the three groups.

Once the Insect A summons were turned back into cards, the Queen Bees, Beelings, and all their minion monsters, would all die instantly.

That was the one weak spot in Insect A summons, which otherwise seemed overpowered.

He sent them flying to the east and west of the Confederation.

"Alright, I'll form the Teams now."

He was still planning many things simultaneously, but he had settled on how to form the three groups so he spoke to the groups.

"Ohh, Teams! We'll work in Teams!"

Allen's friends knew the general idea of a Team, which was different to the Party system where they had to register with the Adventurer's Guild, with Allen as their leader.

There were eight people in their party, but sometimes it was best if not all of them went on a mission, and Teams were what they used for those times.

They had all gotten considerably stronger after their Talent Changes.

Allen was aware of that even more after the fight against Lycaoron.

"Yes, Kurena. I'll announce the three Teams and their leaders now."

Teams were smaller units inside a Party, each with their own Team leader.

Everyone would know the overall plan, but then the smaller groups would act almost independently.

Allen felt like Kiel's suggestion was the best one for this situation.

"Alrighttt!"

"First, I'll go with the east Team. It'll be me, Cecile, and Dogora."

"Ohh, and you'll be the leader I guess?"

"Yes, Cecile. I'll be the leader of our Team."

"The south Team, Kiel, Merus, and Kurena."

"Alright, and who's the Team leader?"

Kurena looked at Allen with eyes telling him she wanted to be the Team leader.

They seemed to be even shinier than before.

"Well, I think Merus will be good."

'I disagree. Wouldn't it be better for a human to take that role?'

Merus was back in the cockpit, after giving up on trying to destroy the barrier of light outside. He refused to be the leader.

"I see, you have a point. It'll be Kiel then."

"Ah, okay then. I did suggest we do this after all."

At the same time, all light vanished from Kurena's eyes.

She looked clearly displeased, but other than Merus, Kiel was the only sensible option.

Allen would need to continue nurturing Kurena so she could mature and one day become a good leader.

"Lastly, for the West, Sophie, Formar, and Merle. The Team leader will be Sophie."

"We'll go west?"

Sophie looked slightly nervous.

"Yes, now listen, Sophie and Kiel."

"Yeah?"

"I'll have Tsubame and Okiyo accompany both of you, so you can always ask for my input if you need it. But in every situation try to make choices by yourselves, that's why you're leaders."

The Bird A summon would help them if they needed to escape, and Wraith A offered communication at distance.

But they were individual teams, so the leaders would need to make most choices.

"I see, I'll keep that in mind."

"Understood."

"Sophie, again, you're going to be in charge, so it's up to you to decide how and where to move out there."

"Yessir."

Sophie's answer sounded more confident this time.

(I think this is good enough. This was all about striking the right balance in the end though.)

Allen and Merus could both summon entities, so it made sense for them to be in separate teams, but that left Sophie's Team needing a bit more power.

Sophie could manifest spirits, so Merle who could control Tam-Tam brought them up to level with the others.

Sophie and Merle were the next most powerful members of the party after Allen and Merus, so it was a perfect match.

After that, it was just a matter of balancing the frontline and rear guard power.

In the end, the lineup looked like this.

East: Allen (Leader), Cecile, Dogora

South: Kiel (Leader), Kurena, Merus

West: Sophie (Leader), Formar, Merle

"Well, it'll be a while before we see each other again. Everyone take care."

"""Yessir!!!"""

And so, Allen's party chose to split into three teams to help the people at the end of the light streaks.