My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! - Volume 11 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9 — I Guess That Was a Bit Reckless of Me, but You Wouldn’t Die from Something like That, Would You?

In an inner garden of the Himeln royal castle, a twelve-year-old girl, formed from the fusing of the Philosopher’s Stones and named Luu by Yogiri, stood alone, wearing a lovely dress.

She was at a loss as to what she could do now. The queen of Himeln, who had been dragging her around everywhere, had left. Of course, reuniting with Yogiri was her primary objective, but she didn’t know what she could do to accomplish that.

She had learned the makeup of the continent from listening to those around her. From that information, she could think of two ways to escape. One was to gather the resources known as points and pass through the area boundaries. However, she had no way of collecting points herself. Normally, one harvested them from those infected by the Seyla, but there were no infected in this area.

The other option was to be dispatched as part of Himeln’s army. That would also require points based on how far she would be teleported, but the cost would be borne by the kingdom’s stockpiles.

In short, there wasn’t much she could do on her own. Though some of her powers as a goddess had returned to her, she still wasn’t powerful enough to ignore the Protocol governing Belm.

“I guess I have to wait for...Hiruko, wasn’t it?”

Luu didn’t recognize her, but Hiruko was supposedly her daughter and was quite attached to her. Luu didn’t know why she was in this world or what had happened to her in the past, but she did feel some familial connection with Hiruko, so she figured it was okay to trust her.

“Or maybe daddy will come for me?” She had grown fond of referring to Yogiri as her daddy. Of course, there was no blood connection between them, but he had taken care of her when she was an infant, so she felt there was nothing stopping her from calling him that. He didn’t seem all that interested in Luu himself, but he was interested in making use of her power, so it was possible he would come looking for her.

“I guess all I can do is wait.” If she did anything rash, her freedom could end up being restricted, so for now she had to be obedient. Still, standing around in this garden all day would be boring, so she decided to leave the castle.

The area designated as Himeln’s home base was made up of the royal castle and a city surrounding it. The area was a hexagon ten kilometers long on each side, and Luu had full freedom within it.

Leaving the garden behind, she passed through the front gate and headed into the city. Of course there were guards at each critical juncture, but none of them made a move to stop her from coming and going. Luu was considered an L unit in Himeln. The L units were under the direct authority of the royal family, so Luu was treated as royalty herself.

One might consider it strange that someone considered royalty would be allowed to wander the city alone, but her classification as an L unit made that no problem. L units were the country’s greatest military strength, so no one would even consider the possibility that someone who lived in the city would be capable of harming her.

Passing through the castle’s main gate, she looked ahead. The castle was built on land raised above the city, which was composed of densely packed buildings. Most of the structures were made of wood and stone, giving the impression of a rather simplistic culture. The streets were lined with shops and packed with people. While being prosperous was all well and good, the sight made Luu feel uneasy.

“Didn’t they say something about having difficulty finding food?” There were easily thousands of people within her field of view, and the city made up the majority of this area, so it was fairly large in scope.

Luu used her powers as a god to scan the region. The interior was 260 square kilometers. The population was about one million. Supporting this many people would require a considerable amount of food. But due to the infection of the Seyla, there was a limited amount of plant and animal life that could be used. She had heard that this caused fighting to break out over control of the few resources left, but that didn’t seem to be the case here.

Walking down the large staircase in front of her, Luu entered the city. The street was lined with stalls. Feeling hungry, she stepped up to one that was selling meat skewers. Curious about where it had come from, she used her powers to determine what kind of meat it was. Though she was far from omniscient in her current state, she could at least trace its origin.

The meat was human. It had come from an S unit that Elisabelle had created. They had been weak even among the S units and thus useless for the kingdom.

“That’s...huh. Yeah, I don’t like this.” Luu left the stall behind. As a god, she could eat any sort of food she pleased without concern. But with a human like Yogiri being her daddy, she couldn’t help but hesitate at the thought of eating human meat. “But if the queen can make as much food as they need, what’s the point of fighting? Well, if the other countries are going to attack, then they don’t have much choice but to fight.”

Luu continued down the main street. The city was full of energy but still seemed hollow somehow. Normally, one wouldn’t expect Himeln to possess the national power necessary to support a city of this size. Belm was large enough, but it had few natural resources, and the area system made moving around extremely difficult. Their only contact with other nations was through war, and trade with nations outside of Belm was extremely limited. Considering the situation, the apparent prosperity in front of her was hard to believe. With that in mind, the liveliness of the area seemed fake.

“Hmmm. How do I know enough to think this is strange for a human city, though?” Luu only had memories from as far back as meeting Yogiri. She had only become self-aware a few days ago, so it was strange that she could speak at all. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” She knew she wouldn’t find the answer by asking herself, so there was no point in thinking about it.

Continuing down the road, she made it to a large square. She walked inside, taking a seat on the edge of a large fountain dominating its center.

“Now then, I guess the best I can do is gather information.” They had come to this continent to search for a Sage and get their Philosopher’s Stone. They didn’t know where that Sage was, so she decided to see if she could find any clues within Himeln itself. Even if she couldn’t, knowing there were no clues here would still be of help to Yogiri.

“I guess I should ask someone. But who? Picking people on the street seems kind of inefficient. I guess I should ask someone more important.”

The moment Luu stood up, everything around her turned dark. At first she thought a cloud had passed in front of the sun, but it was too dark for that. Curious, she looked up into the sky to see an enormous object floating there.

“Huh?” As she thought to investigate it, it fell. Luu immediately jumped out of the way, flying to the edge of the square. The enormous object crashed into the fountain, destroying the square around it. The impact caved in the ground, opening fissures all around it. The people were crushed, killed by flying chunks of stone pavement, and fell into the holes in the ground.

Still floating in the air, Luu was unharmed, but most others had suffered fatal injuries. The object looked like a soft white ball. Comparing it to what she could remember, it almost looked like an enormous maggot. Countless foot-like appendages lined the bottom. Considering its size, it didn’t seem likely it would be capable of moving around with feet that small, but the wriggling appendages gave a powerful impression. Large, transparent wings were attached to the top of the object. It didn’t seem like they were substantial enough to let the thing fly, but they also gave an impression of strength.

It was hard to call the thing anything other than a monster, so Luu immediately assumed it was an enemy attack. According to the rules of this continent, no one should be able to attack the area unless they controlled the areas bordering it, but it appeared there was some way to break those rules. Though she had been taken off guard at first, she collected herself and investigated the creature. It was the queen of Himeln, Elisabelle.

“What?”

“Oh, Luu. I didn’t know you were here.” Luu turned to the source of the voice. At the head of the massive maggot she could now see Elisabelle—or at least, her upper body. She looked tiny in comparison to the rest of the creature, so it was easy to miss her at first glance. Everything below her waist had disappeared into the giant maggot. Luu didn’t know if she was fused to it or just buried inside, but thanks to her powers as a god, she could tell that the entire creature was Elisabelle herself. “I guess that was a bit reckless of me, but you wouldn’t die from something like that, would you?”

“Umm, what is this?”

“This is just in case. We have come across an enemy, so I thought to make preparations.” Countless tentacles stretched out from her maggot-like body. They reached out and wrapped around the people in the city nearby.

The air was filled with screams. Many people had died, but there were still plenty of survivors. The tentacles grabbed everyone, living and dead, and pulled them into the main body. Within moments, everyone had been absorbed.

This was Elisabelle’s Unbirthing skill. Those she had given birth to and their descendants could be absorbed and stored as energy.

“See you later,” she said as her body began to squirm, crawling across the city.

As Luu had first thought, the feet were only for decoration, as they were now being crushed between her body and the ground.

Elisabelle left the city square behind, making her way down the main street. Every person she passed was captured and absorbed, causing her body to grow even larger. There were some it seemed she was ignoring, but those were likely people who hadn’t been born from her. Eventually, she grew too large to fit in the main street, and she began destroying the buildings around her as she continued onward. She didn’t appear to mind the damage she was doing.

“I guess this isn’t a good time to start asking questions.”

Luu looked at the castle she had been about to return to. A good half of it had been destroyed. Apparently, Elisabelle had been pretty large when she had jumped from there. She must have absorbed the people from the castle already, so there was little point in Luu heading there now.

With no other options, Luu headed in the opposite direction of the queen. Finding a park that had yet to be destroyed, she took a seat on a bench and dropped her head with a sigh.

“Now what am I supposed to do?”

“Found you.”

Luu raised her head. A girl in a white dress was standing in front of her. It was her. To be precise, it was exactly what Luu would have expected to look like at sixteen years old.

“Uhh...you’re me, right?”

“Yes,” the girl replied bluntly.

“You came to me?! I didn’t even get a chance to go looking for you!”

“I guess that’s how it looks from your perspective.”

“How?”

Without answering, the girl stretched out her hand. It seemed she didn’t think there was any need to talk further. Once she joined with another part of herself, their memories would merge and she would learn everything she wanted to know.

That should have been exactly what Luu wanted. She had come to this continent to regain her powers, and this would effectively accomplish that goal. But still, she hesitated.

“What will happen to me if we fuse? It looks to me like you have more pieces than I do.” If she was able to come and go through the area boundaries, this version of herself must have been stronger than Luu. If they fused now, she would expect the other girl to retain control of their body.

“Are you worried about losing yourself? That is okay. If you want, we can reconstruct ourselves with you as the base.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“There’s nothing to be okay with. We’re both me. On top of that, your present self is only an illusion anyway. We are still missing a critical piece of ourselves.”

Luu had recognized that the moment she’d seen this girl. Although between the two of them, they had almost all of Luu’s parts, the part of her that held her memories and will, her soul, was still missing.

“Then let’s do that for now.” They couldn’t stay separate forever and would have to fuse eventually, so Luu resolved herself and took the girl’s hand. The boundary between their hands disappeared, and the girl’s memories flowed into her.

She had awoken in a place she didn’t recognize, in front of a boy she had little interest in, so she had immediately left. She then sensed a part of herself nearby and so had gone to find Luu. That was all she had experienced so far.

As she thought about the girl’s experience, their fusion completed. Luu’s mental state didn’t feel like it had changed all that much. She had grown again, looking to be about twenty years old. Her appearance alone had returned her to her prime. Neither of their clothes would fit her new body, so they had ripped apart.

Standing around naked was unpleasant, so she created some clothes for herself, using the design of the ones she had received from Tomochika as a base. She hadn’t been particularly fond of the luxurious dress Elisabelle had given her, and the simple dress her other self had been wearing felt too plain. The clothes Tomochika had given her were perfect, so she recreated them in a more appropriate size for her new body.

“So...this place isn’t actually a continent.”

Now, she could get a grasp on the nature of Belm. Through illusions and teleportation magic, countless small islands had been made to seem like a single piece of land. She didn’t know why someone would go through the trouble, but she didn’t care much. Now that she had obtained the power and knowledge she needed to escape, she could leave whenever she wished.

“Okay...I guess I should start by finding Hiruko.” She considered going to find Yogiri immediately, but she didn’t want to face the cold reception she’d probably receive there. If Hiruko was with her, things would probably go smoother. Searching for Hiruko’s presence, she teleported to the other god’s side.