My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! - Volume 9 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 — I Don’t Know What You’re So Desperate For

The moment Euphemia saw the man named Zakuro, her hair stood on end. She could tell from his presence alone that he was far superior to an Origin Blood. She knew instinctively that he was an opponent she couldn’t beat. He was likely telling the truth when he claimed to be a god. If he felt that someone was irritating, they would be erased without a moment’s notice. She couldn’t even hope to fight a person like him. Carol and Ryouko must have also recognized the unusual aura he exuded, as they also went pale when they saw him. The only one who didn’t seem to realize what was going on was Risley.

“Umm...are you an enemy?” Carol asked nervously.

Euphemia couldn’t help but be impressed by her courage. That question confirmed he would not kill them immediately, so they had a little time.

Euphemia had a bad feeling about the situation. Zakuro was definitely a threat, but the enormous monster attempting to destroy the cavern ceiling also made her nervous. She knew nothing about the multiheaded beast, and yet she had felt uneasy from the moment she’d seen it. It was no mere monster. She could sense that it was something sacred and inviolable. Her instincts as an Origin Blood demanded she serve it. It had appeared from underground here, at the birthplace of the Origin Bloods. There was a chance it was related to her lineage in some way.

Again? Euphemia was gripped by despair. Now that I think about it, I’ve just been controlled and passed around all this time...

She was an Origin Blood, the pinnacle of vampirekind. She had never wanted to become one, but she had assumed that at this point she would be able to avoid being controlled by others. Unfortunately, there was always a bigger fish. Even a vampire, who was so far above humans, couldn’t disobey that creature. She understood that. Not because it was some kind of superior being like a god, but because it was the being that had created the Origin Bloods themselves, vampires who would grow their ranks on their own, all for the sake of it ruling over them.

One of the beast’s heads turned to face them. Was it looking at Zakuro or Euphemia? Or perhaps both of them? They didn’t have any time left. She didn’t know when her freedom would be taken from her. What could she do? She needed to do something to protect Risley. Her feelings towards Risley may have only been implanted in her artificially upon becoming an Origin Blood. She had been controlled and manipulated so much, she didn’t know what the real Euphemia looked like anymore. But before she changed yet again, she wanted to protect that small, innocent girl.

Using her telekinesis, she threw Risley towards Carol and Ryouko. Carol would know exactly what to do here. She then lunged at Zakuro. There was no chance she could hurt him. All she hoped to accomplish was to hold his attention, even for an instant.

Carol and Ryouko used the brief window to run. That was good. They needed to get as far away as possible, away from the god and the monster. If they did that, their enemies would have no reason to take an interest in them and wouldn’t pursue them.

Euphemia’s fear was that she would be controlled by someone else and forced to harm Risley. If she could avoid that, nothing else mattered. All she could do was hope that Carol and the others could manage on their own.

Euphemia turned into a black mist. Wrapping herself around Zakuro, she attacked. The countless particles all acted according to her will. Against any other opponent, she would have been able to effortlessly infiltrate and destroy their body from within. But she did not expect it to work on him. This was no more than an attempt to blind him. By surrounding him in a black haze, she would cut off his vision of everything else. She hoped to pull his attention away from Risley as much as possible. To pull his attention towards herself.

But a moment later, she had returned to her ordinary form and was kneeling. She had no idea why.

“I don’t know what you’re so desperate for,” Zakuro sighed. “What are you trying to do?”

Just as she had expected, her attack had done nothing. However, the fact he had taken an interest in her would buy more time. It didn’t seem like her mind had been taken over yet.

Euphemia chose to remain silent. Even if he eventually forced her to speak, the time it would take for Zakuro to make the decision to do so was enough for her. Every second she bought was another second Risley got farther away and closer to escaping.

“I believe I told you I didn’t plan on harming you. Maybe you didn’t understand me? I thought I had figured out your language. Maybe it’s more difficult than I thought.”

“Why are you here?”

“Oh! So you can talk! I suddenly noticed the Overlord appear, and when I came to see him, there were others present. I thought you might have some relation to what was going on, so I was curious.” He spoke calmly, showing he didn’t view Euphemia as a threat.

“I am here because I have business in a nearby city,” Euphemia finally said. “There is a teleportation device here, so...” She decided that remaining silent wouldn’t help her. If Zakuro decided he couldn’t get any information from her, he may just try to get it from Risley.

“Hmm...it looks like you bear the Overlord’s curse. That bloodline has made cities and set up teleportation devices around here, so I suppose the chances of meeting you were fairly high. But it doesn’t seem our meeting is entirely coincidence.”

Carol’s group reached the surface, passing out of Euphemia’s sphere of awareness. She couldn’t say they were safe yet, but the fact that they had made it that far gave her a small bit of relief.

“So, why did you attack me? I thought I acted a lot more reasonably than most gods out there and took care not to overwhelm you with my natural presence. So could you tell me? It’ll be useful information for next time.”

“Your presence...is still rather overwhelming. I believed we would die just upon meeting you.”

“I see. Normally I keep my presence suppressed a little more, but I had just found the Overlord after all this time. I guess I got a bit caught up with that. How is this?” As he spoke, the intense aura he was giving off suddenly receded. He still had the presence of an incredibly powerful individual, but it was much easier to bear than before. “That said, you aren’t just some battle maniac who attacks anyone who looks strong, are you? I still don’t understand why you attacked me.”

“Shouldn’t reading my mind be easy enough for someone like you?” That was a doubt she had held since he’d first asked a question of them. Someone as powerful as Zakuro should have been able to take any information from them without needing to speak.

“I see. It appears the gods you are used to are much more arrogant and dismissive of other intelligent life forms. Please be at ease. I highly value personal freedom. I won’t do anything so rude as to read your mind against your will.”

Euphemia hesitated. Should she tell him the truth? Or would it be better to avoid talking about the others as much as possible?

“If you don’t want to talk, I won’t force you. There’s nothing I need to learn from you that badly. But what will you do now? You seem to be a devotee of this place.”

Euphemia’s will hadn’t changed at all. However, by staying here, the monster struggling behind Zakuro was clearly starting to influence her. The impulse to serve that creature with all of her being was starting to well up inside her. It was a curse. The curse that transformed a person into a vampire also engraved that command on their soul. Even as an Origin Blood, being a vampire meant she had no hope of defying the monster’s will.

“I am beginning to believe I should obey the creature you called the Overlord...”

“I see. In that case, you can come with me, but what about the others that were with you?”

“We were only traveling together because we had the same destination. Now they are unrelated to me.”

“If you’re fine with that, then okay. What’s your name?”

“I am Euphemia.”

“Now then. The first thing we should do is... Well, you see how the Overlord is acting.”

“That is awfully vague. I understand, though.”

“The part of the Overlord bearing its consciousness must be elsewhere, and he is trying to find it. We should support him.”

“Understood.”

At that moment, a thunderous roar shook the cavern as the ceiling collapsed. The monster had made it through. Ignoring everything around him, he reached up for the hole in the cavern. The falling debris crushed what little remained of the ancient city.

“I suppose we just follow it and do what needs to be done.”

Zakuro seemed to be fine with improvising as they went.

◇ ◇ ◇

Akira was an attendant of the Sage Yoshifumi, but he didn’t do much. Normally, a Sage attendant served by assisting in the management of the Sage’s territory, but Yoshifumi already had his Four Heavenly Kings. Akira had nothing to do with the management of the empire.

Luna managed the capital with her class of Architect. Her abilities allowed her to freely create, modify, and erase objects within the city. She could detect any changes to the buildings she had created, and anything that was in an area she chose to erase would be erased along with it. For that reason, she had taken on a defensive role for the city.

The rest of the empire was run by Abby, who had the class of Game Master. Turning the entire empire into a massive game board, she had made a role-playing game to be played by the adventurers. Her abilities didn’t give her perfect knowledge of everything happening in the empire, but any large-scale events would automatically generate quests, so she could keep an eye on the bigger picture fairly easily. She had used that power to create a loose surveillance network across the empire. If any significant events occurred, she would be aware of them immediately and could send adventurers to go resolve them.

With these two at the helm, the empire was reasonably stable. Of course, the country also needed law and bureaucracy, but Akira had no connection to those aspects either. As a Japanese high school student who had suddenly been transported here, he didn’t possess the knowledge or talent to run a nation.

Yoshifumi and Akira had been summoned to this world by a Sage. Yoshifumi had an unusually aggressive personality, so he’d had no issue taking a stand against the world, and Akira had survived just by following him around. If a Sage manifested, those who had been summoned with him or her became their attendants. For the most part, Sages didn’t bring any harm on the attendants—so Akira had survived this long not because he was useful, but because Yoshifumi was following the rules.

Even so, he did have something of a role. He monitored the areas outside of Luna and Abby’s vision. The Sages had an obligation to fight off the Aggressors. For that reason, they had to continuously monitor the regions under their control, and that included the sea and sky.

That being said, Akira generally had very little on his plate. All he had to do was check the alerts given by the surveillance system, and he could spend most of his time relaxing in his room.

“I wonder what that all was about...”

He recalled the events of the other day, lying on his sofa. The surveillance system had detected something in the sky. The sky belonged to the Great Sage, so an automatic response had been initiated. But in the end, Akira didn’t know what had happened. Whatever was detected had fallen into the sea, but the Sky Castle hadn’t told him any more. The fact that it had fallen into the sea was all well and good, but he couldn’t help but be curious.

“Well, whatever. It seems like Yoshifumi didn’t care much either.”

He had reported the event to Yoshifumi just in case. The Sage was the one responsible for managing this territory, so if he decided it wasn’t worth being concerned about, there was nothing Akira could do about it. Low-level servants like the Sage’s attendants didn’t know anything about what happened up in the sky.

Upon coming to this world, those who had been summoned were made more aggressive, and their aversion to death was suppressed. Akira had been similarly affected, but it hadn’t been enough to overcome his innate cowardly nature. By staying under Yoshifumi’s protection, he could survive in this world. He wouldn’t do anything that might risk him getting expelled from Yoshifumi’s presence. Curiosity killed the cat, as they say. It would be better for him not to take an interest in things he didn’t have to.

So today, Akira was again in his room, reading a book. As an attendant, he had any number of ways of killing time. He had the authority to do more or less anything he wanted, but if he went too far, he might earn Yoshifumi’s ire. He likely wouldn’t be killed if that happened, but it was very possible that he would be sent underground to power the generators. Akira’s main priority was to maintain the status quo.

“Too bad we didn’t get control of all of Hanabusa.”

Akira had an interest in the manga published in Hanabusa. Hanabusa was a city that had been under Lain’s control, and it was a reproduction of modern Japan. After her death, Yoshifumi had fought for control over the territory with the Sage Alice, but in the end he had only managed to claim half of it. Akira didn’t know who had made the decision, but a wall had been built splitting the city in two. That had made the city all but impossible to govern, and even now it was in a state of chaos. They weren’t capable of publishing manga at the moment.

“Yoshifumi is normally so aggressive. Why couldn’t he do a bit more—”

As Akira mumbled a question he definitely couldn’t say in Yoshifumi’s hearing, his room suddenly began to shake violently. He had thought it was an earthquake, but a shrill alarm sounded from the device in his pocket. Something had been detected by the surveillance system.

Akira looked at the device. The tremors were coming from a forest near the capital. Something enormous had appeared there. He quickly looked out the window. His room was at the top of the imperial palace, so he had a view of the entire empire from here.

“What?! What is that?!”

A number of enormous heads reached up into the sky... Lion, snake, and ram heads on the ends of incredibly long necks emerged from the forest. Akira gave a shrill cry as the heads turned as one to look at him, causing his legs to all but give out under him. Perhaps the heads were not looking at him in particular, but they were definitely looking towards the capital.

And then the creature began moving towards them.