Chapter 16 — You Picked a Fight With the Wrong Guy
The five people in the room turned to look at Yogiri at once. In the middle of the arena were the rabbit girl, dressed entirely in white, and the silver-haired, dark skinned woman who had been fighting her. Looking on from the edge of the chamber was a man in a white jacket, a woman in a tidy military uniform, and a young girl wearing a dress.
All of them had stopped what they were doing and were staring at Yogiri in shock, as if his appearance was some sort of inexplicable event.
“How did you get in here?” the man asked, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Yogiri decided to answer the stupid question as directly as possible. “Didn’t you see me just open the door?”
“Ah, is that what happened? I guess I was an idiot. I forgot to take into account how strong the tower itself is. So, basically, you guys totally ignored the door I made and just broke in through one of the walls.” The man had apparently come up with his own explanation already.
Now that he mentioned it, though, Yogiri realized where everyone’s confusion was coming from. The door leading to the room was visibly different from the others they had passed by earlier. Of course, he hadn’t cared, since it had opened just like any other door in the tower once he applied his power. A door’s function was to limit the ways in and out of a room, so it made sense that if you killed it, that function would cease.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter. Like I said, we’re just planning to pass through. It seems like your fight has stopped for a moment, so now is perfect,” Yogiri replied, casually walking forward. Tomochika stuck as close to him as she could.
“Hey, hey, hey. Hold on a second.”
Astonished by the newcomer’s brazen attitude, the man held up a hand and Yogiri complied.
“What? You guys are fighting that one in the cloak, right? So it shouldn’t be a problem if we just go on through. We won’t get in your way. It would probably be more of a nuisance if we stood around and watched you, right?”
“No, I’m going to need you two to stick around. We’re here to collect points, and my apprentices still require quite a few. Between her and the two of you, we should have as much as we need. It’s perfect.”
Yogiri nodded to himself, finally understanding the situation. Since everyone had to come through here on their way out, it made sense to camp out and wait for them. “In that case, fighting us wouldn’t be worthwhile. We only have six points between us.”
“That’s all the more reason for you to fight!” the man cried, as if worried on their behalf. “Are you serious? Hey, how many points do they have?” he asked the magic doll in the stands.
“I can’t simply tell you other people’s points,” the puppet responded.
“You can tell him. I don’t care,” Yogiri said.
“Well, if they give their permission then it’s fine. Number 98 has five po-po-po-po-po-po-po...” The magic doll began to shout in total gibberish. After a few moments, its voice suddenly cut off, and with its mouth and eyes still wide open, it collapsed to the floor.
“There you go. Something seems off, but like she said, I have five points.”
“That didn’t answer anything! Hey, what’s wrong?!” the man shouted at the fallen puppet, but it didn’t respond.
“We were never interested in becoming Knights anyway, we just kind of got wrapped up in all this by accident. So we didn’t pay much attention to the whole collecting points thing in the first place. So...can you just let us go through?” Yogiri asked again.
“Of course, letting you through would be simple. I know this is a trial, but I could force my way through these sealed doors if I wanted to. I could even break straight through the floor. There are plenty of ways to get down to ground level, but this is a game where you’re meant to collect points. Sticking to the rules is part of the fun. I’m not going to let you cheat.”
“What about you?” Yogiri asked the other woman.
“I don’t care what you do. I already have my points, so I have no need to fight you.”
He had thought they might be put off by him interrupting their fight, but it seemed the woman didn’t feel that way at all. She had clearly been at some sort of disadvantage, so maybe she was grateful for the chance to stop and catch her breath.
“Okay, what am I supposed to do, then?” Yogiri muttered, starting to get fed up with the situation.
The fighting in the room was currently on pause, so it would be easy for them to cross over to the other side of the arena. He certainly had no intention of fighting anyone for points. But the man seemed to have no intention of letting them through, either. It was starting to look like they wouldn’t be able to settle this very peacefully.
“To be honest, things have worked out quite well. Now we can do a three-on-three,” the man suggested.
“Even though we have no points?”
“I don’t care about that anymore. Something weird is going on here, but this is a great opportunity regardless. After this, my group can go on ahead.” He urged the two girls beside him forward. “The rabbit over there is Shiro. The bigger one here is Geralda, and the smaller one is Ema. They are all my apprentices. I brought them here as part of their training. If you can beat them, I’ll let you pass, and I’ll even let you become my students as well.”
Geralda, in the military uniform, and Ema, the small girl wearing a dress, stepped forward to stand beside Shiro. At some point, the silver-haired woman had moved to Yogiri’s side, so just as the man had intended, it had turned into a three-versus-three setup.
“I feel like there are some issues with your negotiation skills. What did you just get us into?” Tomochika asked.
“It was kind of unavoidable. He seems like the kind of guy that’s too full of himself to listen to what other people have to say.”
“You should have known that just by looking at him!” she replied before turning to the silver-haired woman to apologize. “Oh, umm, sorry for making things all weird like this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” their new “teammate” replied. “It seems like you two are the ones in the most trouble here, after all. If those girls are as strong as the rabbit, then we have no way of winning. And I don’t quite believe this guy will let us go even if we do win.”
“That’s right,” the man said in response to her conjecture. “Shiro is the weakest of the three. She’s pretty tough, but new to fighting. Ema, however, is an expert swordsman, and Geralda is proficient with magic. Honestly, I’m not especially concerned about whether or not I’ll even have to let you pass. Aside from Shiro, these girls are seasoned apprentices that I have personally trained. If they fight in earnest, this will be over in an instant.”
“What do you mean, ‘aside from Shiro’?! I’m strong too!”
“First of all, would you hurry up and put your arm back on? Obviously, you have no talent whatsoever with a sword, so go ahead and fight without it this time.”
“Master, what did you mean just now? It sounds like you intend for us to not fight at full strength,” Geralda, the uniformed woman asked.
“I’m not ordering you to hold back or anything, but if you go all out, there won’t even be ashes left when you’re done. Read the situation and fight accordingly. Oh, and the cloaked woman actually looks pretty good now that she’s ditched her disguise, so you can leave her alive. Plus that other girl looks Japanese. It’s been a while since I’ve had a Japanese beauty, so we’ll keep her too.”
“Master, your bad side is starting to show,” Ema complained. “Anyway, you’re saying we should only kill the boy? Personally, I kind of like him.”
“Good-looking guys have to die. That’s how I’ve always done things.”
“Understood. But I should warn you that keeping the girls unharmed will probably be impossible,” warned Geralda.
“What, are you jealous or something? Well, as long as they’re alive, we’ll manage, so I’ll leave it to you.”
Having finished the discussion, the man crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall. He was fully confident in his party’s success, content to kick back and watch things unfold.
“What should we do?” Tomochika asked, bewildered by the sudden change in the situation.
“The same thing we’ve been doing this whole time, I guess?”
If the man had told his girls not to kill them, they may have been able to end things in some other way. But the moment they began to radiate killing intent, Yogiri had only one way to respond.
“Die.”
The three women fell to their knees before simultaneously collapsing forward.
“So, we can go now, right? That’s what you promised.”
Not understanding what she had just witnessed, the silver-haired woman was still on guard. She stared at their fallen enemies intently, waiting to see what they had up their sleeves. Meanwhile, the man was gaping at them too, his jaw just about on the floor. It must have been an entirely unexpected, unbelievable outcome for him. He looked as if his mind had simply gone blank.
Yogiri casually began walking forward. Tomochika pushed down her growing frustration that these people kept throwing themselves at Yogiri in spite of his best efforts to keep from killing anyone, and followed close behind him once again. When they reached the exit, Yogiri kicked the door open without a problem. Yanked out of his stupor by the sound of the door giving way, the man, who had been leaning against the wall in shock, finally managed to move.
A pitch-black shadow rapidly washed over the entire chamber. It was the first time in a while that Yogiri had seen such a clear, pure form of killing intent.
“Liar,” he said with annoyance as he released his power at the man.
? ?
Geralda had originally tracked down Masaki with the intention of killing him. After Masaki had defeated a Demon Lord, he had taken up residence in its castle and had come to be seen as a Demon Lord himself.
Truthfully, he had just been bored. He figured if he waited, some idiot Hero who thought it was their job to kill Demon Lords would come along and fight him. And eventually, Geralda had shown up. After he had easily defeated her, and she had learned that he wasn’t a Demon Lord after all, her admiration for his abilities led her to ask to be taken on as his apprentice.
Masaki had liked the sound of that. Fighting things himself meant an easy, obvious win, and that got old fast. But training students to fight in his stead sounded interesting.
It had ended up being a good way to stave off boredom, so he began to take on more students. He traveled the world, searching for those with natural talent. The first one he had found was Ema. Although still young, her skills had exceeded Geralda’s. But being too strong was also boring in its own way, so he decided to train someone who was rather weak as well. He had looked for the weakest-looking woman from the weakest possible race, the rabbit people, and had ended up with Shiro.
It turned out to be an excellent way to pass the time. The three women each had their own distinct personalities, so they responded to his instruction differently, and he had begun to take great pleasure in watching them grow.
Yet those three were now lying motionless on the floor. It had taken Masaki a moment to understand what that meant. At first, he thought they were just messing around. He had told them not to go all out, and figured they were simply taking it to some sort of absurd extreme. But as he silently chided them, he realized that they weren’t moving at all. So, using his artificial eye, he checked their conditions.
All three of them were dead. It had all happened so fast, he couldn’t understand how it had even occurred. But hearing the sound of the door behind him being kicked open, he had returned to his senses.
These three strangers had done something. He couldn’t think of any other explanation. With the boy who had killed his students right in front of him, he went blind with rage.
And then time stopped.
It was a state that Masaki called Command Mode. It wasn’t like he could move around freely while time was stopped, but it allowed him to think of his next move at his own pace.
“Monad! Explain the situation!”
“Oh! It’s been a while since you’ve called me out!”
Monad was the second thing that Masaki had created with his powers: a tool used for analysis. It wasn’t like it was omniscient, but with access to a tremendous amount of information pertaining to this world, it was capable of producing the optimal solution to any situation.
However, Masaki had never before come across any serious trouble, even while fighting blindly and without help, so he rarely ever used his creation.
“Forget the greetings! Tell me what’s going on!”
“Hmm...ah, my condolences. Your students have died. The one responsible is that boy, Yogiri Takatou. He’s Japanese, just like you. It looks like he was summoned here by the Sages.”
“He wasn’t reincarnated by a goddess?”
“No. The administrative power that you stole from the goddess won’t work on him.”
“Who the hell is he?! What did he do?!”
Monad looked through the records of everything that Yogiri had said since he’d come to this world, eventually finding something of note. “I have no idea who he is. According to his own explanation, he has an Instant Death ability of some kind.”
“Like hell! You think I’d make a mistake like that?! We took every precaution — they were completely immune to Instant Death magic!”
“If you say so.”
“Goddammit! Whatever! It’s a pain in the ass, but I can always get more students. For now, I’m just going to have to kill this guy.” He didn’t know how the kid’s ability worked, but once he had decided on his next course of action while in Command Mode, whatever he chose to do would happen at once when time started moving again. Masaki was as capable of causing “instant death” as the next person.
“Hey, hey, hey. You said they could pass if they won, right? That’s awfully petty of you.”
“Wait a second. What’s gotten into you? Something seems wrong.” Monad had always been pretty rough in the way that it talked, but it had never spoken out of turn before.
“Seems like you’ve misunderstood something. You didn’t create my personality. You wanted omniscience, and as a preexisting intelligence that’s as close to omniscient as one can be, I was simply roped in and bound to the object you designed. I figure this is the last conversation we’ll have, so I decided to let loose a bit.”
“What are you talking about?!”
“You picked a fight with the wrong guy. And you could have been so happy if you’d just used your powers to enjoy living!”
“What the hell are you saying?! In a second, he’s going to be completely incinerated and it will all be over! I could even erase this whole tower if I chose to!”
“Ahahahahaha! There won’t be a next second! Never again! It’s already over! Yogiri Takatou has unleashed his ability! Nothing you do will make it in time! If you don’t believe me, test it out yourself. Do whatever you like!”
“Th-Then I need some sort of defense! That’s why you’re here, right?! You can predict the future so that I can bend and twist it to my benefit!”
“Whether you can see the future or not, there’s nothing you can do about it now, so what does it matter? Ah! There is one thing!”
“Tell me!”
“Just stay like this! You probably can’t keep it up forever, but from your perspective, you could probably last in Command Mode for about three years!”
Despair began to creep into his mind. Slowly but surely, Masaki was starting to understand the situation.
“No way...wait! Why do I have to die?!”
“Everyone dies eventually, right?”
“But I’m supposed to be different! I even killed a god! I took its power! That makes me a god! I’m supposed to be immortal! There’s no way I can die here and now!”
“If that god was supposed to be immortal, how did you kill it in the first place? Did you ever think of that? Let me say this as clearly as I can: Yogiri Takatou is a being that surpasses human understanding. There is nothing that someone like you can do. If he uses his power, it doesn’t matter who or what his target is...death is the only outcome. But who cares? You don’t have to believe what I’m saying. Hurry up and pick a command. Don’t worry, his way of killing is surprisingly gentle!”
As absurd as it sounded, Masaki couldn’t ignore what Monad was telling him. He had always believed himself to be a perfect being. And the tool that he had created was telling him he was going to die. If he denied that declaration, it would be the same as denying his own perfection — a fatal blow to his self-image.
Masaki was in anguish. He had as much time as he needed, but it didn’t take long before he lost the ability to think clearly at all.
? ?
The man fell to the ground with a thud. Yogiri must have used his power, but Tomochika didn’t bother to ask why. If Yogiri had killed him, it meant the man had intended to harm them.
“Wait, doesn’t he look different somehow? It’s like his face has changed.” Tomochika cocked her head to the side as she looked down at the guy’s unmoving form. She felt like he had looked a little cooler before, but he suddenly looked rather old.
“No idea. I don’t remember what his face looked like in the first place.” Yogiri wasn’t interested in the details. Without even looking back, he proceeded onwards.
“P-Please, wait!” The silver-haired woman ran up beside them and pointed at the bodies. “Are you the one who did this?”
“Yeah.”
“Then, please! I know it’s incredibly presumptuous, but would you be willing to help me?” she pleaded, bowing her head deeply.
“Huh? Uhh...?” Yogiri just wanted to go on ahead, but now he hesitated. He seemed to have a weak spot for people begging him for help. He turned to look at Tomochika with a troubled expression.
“Hey, don’t look at me. I suppose there’s no harm in hearing her out, though.”
She was all for getting out of the tower as quickly as possible, but she didn’t want the guilt of ignoring someone’s request any more than he did.
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