My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! - Volume 2 - Chapter 15

Chapter 15 — What Makes You Think That Talking Will Work This Time?! 

The room in front of Teodisia was like nothing she had seen on the upper floors of the tower. It was circular, with a diameter of twenty meters, and the floor was covered with dirt. It was the second floor, so the soil must have been brought up there intentionally. There were stairs leading to seats that had been set up around the room, making it look like some sort of arena. The exit was directly across from where she had entered, presumably leading down to the first floor and thus the place where their final scores would be checked, but the door was being blocked by a man with three girls. 

Teodisia doubted her eyes. The man was sitting on a kind of throne, with the girls surrounding and fawning over him. At first, she couldn’t believe the stupidity of the scene before her, but she quickly got over it. 

Looking around for others, she saw a number of people sitting in the stands, but realized upon closer inspection that they were actually dead bodies that had been discarded like garbage. One of the magic dolls that managed the tower was standing among them. The only living beings were the four positioned in front of the exit. 

“If you made it this far, you must be pretty strong. And you’ve probably got a good number of points by now, right?” the man on the throne called out as Teodisia approached. 

Although she felt it was pretty idiotic to be sitting on a throne in the middle of an arena, if he was able to prepare such a scene within the tower, he couldn’t be just another run-of-the-mill participant. The white, fur-lined jacket that he wore was almost painfully bright, without a single speck of dirt on it. Those ordinary, unsullied civilian’s clothes spoke volumes about his inherent strength. 

“Let me guess,” Teodisia replied, “you thought waiting here would be faster?” 

He must have felt that running around the tower collecting points himself was a waste of time. Instead, he had chosen to wait near the end, ambushing those who had already done the hard work. Considering the layout of the room, it seemed like a strategy that the tower wholeheartedly supported. 

“Exactly. I’ve already got all the points I need for myself. I just need a few more for these girls here, but...a woman, huh? I don’t really like killing women...” The guy looked her up and down, as if appraising her. 

Teodisia was a perfectly plain-looking woman. Her skin was pale and she was rather tall but not especially curvy. Given that plus her dirty clothing, she wasn’t particularly impressive to look at. She was well aware that her appearance wasn’t suited to the tastes of most men. 

“Well, it’s not like I’ll be killing you directly, so I guess it’s all right.” He appeared to have no problem bending his own rules. Or maybe he had just decided that she didn’t count as enough of a woman. “I’ll have you fight her. This is Shiro.” 

At the man’s urging, one of the girls who had been wrapped around him timidly stepped forward. She was a beastkin, with red eyes and a pair of long ears sprouting from her soft white hair. She seemed anything but confident as she walked into the arena. Her rabbit-like features and bright white clothing lent her a uniquely monocolored appearance. 

“Um...could you not just fight her for me and then give me the points?” she asked the man behind her. 

“Of course not.” 

“O-Okay, how about you get her close to death, and I just finish her off?” The rabbit girl was trembling, but her words seemed anything but shy. 

“I don’t know. Hey, you, would that be allowed?” the man asked the magic doll in the stands. 

“Well, this is a trial to measure your combat ability. Being able to handle an opponent in direct combat is crucial, but if you only step in to finish someone off, you would not receive any points for it.” 

“Well, there you have it.” The man shrugged and looked back at Teodisia. “So you can relax over there. It looks like it’ll just be one on one.” 

“I still feel somewhat outnumbered,” Teodisia answered. After all, if she defeated the first girl, the next one would attack her immediately. She would have to defeat them all in order to get through. 

“If you can beat this one, I’ll let you pass,” the man said. 

She couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or not, but if they planned on fighting her one at a time, at least she had a chance. And if she found an opening, she could try to kill the other three beforehand as well. 

Teodisia drew a short single-edged sword from her cloak. 

“What’s the rush? Aren’t you going to at least tell us your name?” 

She felt no desire to answer him. There was little point in getting to know someone you were about to kill, and she didn’t feel like sharing her own details either. 

“Come on, at least say something like, ‘Introduce yourself before asking someone else’s name.’ How miserable are you? Well, I’ll introduce myself anyway. I’m Masaki Kazuno. To be frank, I’m not interested in this Divine King or Swordmaster stuff at all.” 

Teodisia focused on Shiro, ignoring Masaki entirely. Perhaps because she was a rabbit beastkin, the girl was still trembling. She looked every bit the amateur. If it was just an act to throw others off their guard, it was certainly impressive. 

“That’s right. It’s going to be hard if you don’t even have a weapon.” 

Masaki threw a longsword to Shiro. The rabbit girl screamed, with an exaggerated dodge to get out of the way of the blade. 

“Hey! Don’t throw things at me like that!” 

Timidly, she retrieved the sword from where it was sticking into the ground. Holding a weapon didn’t seem to boost her confidence, and even the way she was holding it made her look like more of a danger to herself than anyone else. 

“Why is it so heavy?! Do I really need it? I feel like I’d be better off without it.” 

“Becoming a Knight means becoming one of the Swordmaster’s subordinates. So show that you can at least look like a swordsman.” 

Teodisia ignored Shiro’s pathetic attempt at taking a combat stance. Masaki stood up, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms as the other girls continued to fawn over him. He maintained the appearance of a casual observer, but the chair he’d been sitting on had disappeared. And she knew that he had not been holding the sword he’d thrown until the moment he threw it. 

“You...are you working with the Sages?” That was her first guess, given he seemed to have a highly unusual power. There were plenty of strong people in the world, but many of them got their abilities from the Sages, who were quite happy to dole out their powers to anyone and everyone around them. 

“I’ve got nothing to do with the Sages or the Swordmasters. I just got too strong, so I ran out of things to do. I came here ’cause it looked fun.” 

If he was an enemy of the Swordmasters, there was no need to fight him. If she let him go, it might even help her reach her goal, but it looked like things weren’t going to be that easy. First, she would have to defeat the rabbit girl. 

Teodisia steeled herself. A one-on-one fight in an arena that offered no place to hide. There weren’t many tactics that one could employ here. The first to strike would likely win. 

She swung her blade in an arc that couldn’t possibly have reached her target. Even so, the move cut apart the arena, the shockwave created by her blade carving a straight line through the dirt floor towards her opponent. Unable to respond in time, Shiro took the blow head-on. 

“Owwww! What was that for?! Give me a warning if you’re going to attack!” 

Somehow, the rabbit girl was totally unharmed. Although she had taken the hit straight on and been sent flying, she climbed back to her feet, rubbing her forehead like it had been nothing more than a hard tap. 

Teodisia hadn’t been going easy on her, nor had she let her guard down. Her intent had been to settle the match with a single blow, but she had failed to so much as scratch her opponent. It looked like brute force wasn’t going to work. 

“Shiro, you get it now, right?” Masaki called out. “Her attacks aren’t anything to be afraid of. There’s no need to be so scared.” 

“Oh, you mean, I might actually be able to win?” 

“Of course you can win. Don’t you remember how many stats bonus seeds I gave you?” 

“Okay, then, here I go!” 

Shiro closed the gap between them, rushing forward on unstable footing. As she raised the sword above her head, Teodisia struck her horizontally. Once again, the beastkin was unharmed. Her clothes had been sliced through but her body remained intact. 

Ignoring Teodisia’s attack, Shiro brought her sword down. It was a swing that clearly came from a novice and the blade wasn’t even straight. Additionally, no magic at all was used in the swing, so it didn’t present the slightest threat. Even so, Teodisia dodged much farther back than was necessary. With barely any resistance, the sword cut into the ground, burying itself deep. 

“Hey! Stop dodging!” 

The strength of her blow was incredible. Teodisia’s own attacks were useless, and if she took one hit from the girl, it would be over. This was going to be a hell of an uphill battle. 

At Mokomoko’s warning that someone was already inside, Yogiri and Tomochika cracked the door open to take a peek. There were five people in the chamber, two of whom were currently fighting. One was a woman with black hair and dirty clothes, who gave the impression of an experienced warrior. She was dancing around the room at a bewildering speed, launching repeated precision attacks. The other was a girl with flowing white hair and long, rabbit-like ears. She was practically naked, swinging her sword around unsteadily. 

“This is the first time I’ve seen two people actually fighting each other with swords since we got here,” Tomochika remarked. Their opponents thus far had all favored rather eccentric gear, so it was a refreshing sight, in a way. 

However, something other than the fight itself had caught Yogiri’s attention. 

“She’s a bunny girl! Look, she even has a fluffy round tail.” 

The rabbit girl’s clothes were in tatters. Her backside was basically entirely visible, with its white, bunny-like puff of a tail in full view. 

“That’s what caught your attention?! Can you please stop staring?” 

The rabbit was swinging her enormous sword around recklessly. It seemed too heavy for her, as every time she swung it, her whole body was taken along for the ride. 

Naturally, such haphazard attacks had no chance of landing, so the cloaked woman was freely moving into her blindspots before unleashing her own blows. Even Yogiri could easily notice the difference in their abilities. 

But the strangest part was that even with such an obvious skill gap between them, the fight showed no sign of ending. No matter how many times she was struck, the rabbit girl seemed to take no damage at all, so she was simply ignoring the attacks as she hopped around. The woman in the cloak, who possessed actual skill, seemed to be struggling far more. 

“Even if she’s naked, she’s still just a rabbit, so I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.” 

“Come on, she’s a human except for the ears and tail, right?!” 

“You think so? I don’t mean to be discriminatory or anything, but once they’ve got animal parts, they stop being human. Or at the very least, they stop being attractive.” 

“But she’s still got boobs, doesn’t she? Look how big they are!” 

“Having boobs doesn’t mean much. I mean, they’re fine on their own, but once attached to a rabbit, they kind of lose their appeal.” 

“Are you serious? Just look at her, she’s nice-looking, isn’t she?!” 

“Sure, but sticking random animal parts on her still ruins it.” 

“I guess you had a pretty weak reaction to that cat girl we saw a while back, too.” 

Putting the boy’s tastes aside for now, what do you plan on doing here? Mokomoko seemed to be getting impatient. 

“This has nothing to do with us. All we want to do is go past, right?” 

“That’s true, but we can’t really get through the room while they’re duking it out like this, can we? And you’re not just going to kill them, right?” 

The rabbit girl was still swinging her sword wildly, while the cloaked woman was dancing around, striking back with her own shorter blade. If that had been all there was to the fight, they could have snuck around the edges of the arena, but occasionally, the combatant’s clashes would unleash shockwaves throughout the room. There were no safe places to hide, making it seem like reaching the other door safely could be dangerous. 

“Why would I kill someone for standing in my way? We can just wait a bit.” 

While Yogiri wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who threatened them, they had no way of knowing yet whether these people were actually their enemies. Of course they were in the way, but he had no interest in killing those who weren’t planning to harm them. 

It doesn’t look like they’ll end this any time soon. The woman with the cloak is rather impressive, but her attacks aren’t having any effect, even though she’s been aiming at the rabbit girl’s vitals and her blows have been landing. Even hitting her straight in the eyes isn’t doing anything! Oh, and even getting her between the legs did nothing. 

The cloaked woman slid between the rabbit girl’s legs, driving her sword upward as she passed beneath her. She seemed to be looking for a spot where her attacks would get through. But even that vulnerable place wasn’t so much as scratched. 

As the cloaked woman opened up some distance between the beastkin and herself, the man at the back of the room called out to her. “Would you take this seriously already? It will never end at this rate. You’re not using that much power on your disguise, are you?” 

“Well, if you’ve already figured it out, then there’s no point in keeping it hidden.” 

In an instant, the atmosphere surrounding her changed. While she had seemed plenty terrifying before, Yogiri could feel her intensity suddenly jump up several levels. And it wasn’t only her personal vibe that changed, but her appearance, too. Her black hair turned silver and her pale skin darkened. 

“To think you were hiding that you were a half-demon,” the man chuckled. 

Without a word, the woman swung her sword even harder than before. The rabbit girl screamed as her right arm dropped to the floor. 

“Masaki! It hurts! It really hurts!” Despite her cries, the beastkin didn’t seem extremely bothered by what should have been a critical injury. 

“Now that I’ve shown my true form, it’s only a matter of time. I’ll have to push through before that time runs out!” 

As if to try and finish things all at once, the woman swung her sword with even more strength. Darkness enveloped the blade, more than doubling the weapon’s size. She sliced the hazy weapon through the air again, releasing all of the power that it held as she did. The shockwave from the blade became a shadow, tearing across the floor. 

Such an attack would easily slice the rabbit girl in two — or so Yogiri had thought. But it didn’t happen. Instead, the rabbit girl vanished, leaving nothing but her sword behind. 

It was hard to say whether her reaction had been a trained response or just a coincidence, but the cloaked woman barely managed to block the beastkin’s punch with the side of her blade. Although it sent her staggering back several steps, she had managed to avoid taking the blow directly. 

Yet in that instant, the two of them had traded places. After having lost an arm and abandoning her sword, the rabbit girl began to move faster than the eye could follow. 

“Looks like it’s still going to go on for a while,” Tomochika grumbled. 

“It does. At this point, maybe we should try to talk our way through.” 

He wouldn’t simply kill the strangers, but standing around doing nothing wasn’t going to get them anywhere either. 

“And what makes you think that talking will work this time?” 

Ignoring Tomochika’s retort, Yogiri opened the door the rest of the way and stepped inside. “Excuse me, do you mind if we pass through?” he asked, raising his voice so that everyone in the room could hear him. 

Tomochika grabbed him from behind, trying to shake some sense into him. “Takatou, could you try to read the atmosphere a bit?! There’s no way they’ll let you pass! They’re literally in a life-or-death struggle over there!” 

Abruptly, everyone inside the room froze, their eyes moving to glare at the intruders.