My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! - Volume 2 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7 — I Would Have Died Without These Apology Stones 

He was one who bestowed blessings. Hearing the wishes of ordinary people, he granted exactly what they asked for — it required no special action from him, and mattered not whether the wish was good or evil. He was like a machine, producing blessings in accordance with the number of sacrifices offered. 

He wandered the world of humans, granting all sorts of wishes. And naturally, the humans had fought to control him. Although he wasn’t someone who could be confined to a single place, the mortals inevitably clashed over control of the land that he walked. Even if they had no wishes of their own to be granted, no one was willing to let others have unrestricted access to him. 

As the humans waged endless wars over him, he continued to grant their wishes. It didn’t take long for humanity to be reduced to half of its original population. The survivors finally realized that they were bringing about their own destruction. Seeing the fate that awaited them, they came to terms with their own foolishness and realized that he was something beyond their grasp — something that shouldn’t even be reached for. 

His destruction had been the only answer. Or, at the very least, sealing him somewhere that no human hand could touch. But it would prove to be a remarkably difficult task. He paid no mind to the attacks that they leveled against him, and he offered no counterattack. Nothing could bring him down. 

Then one wise person offered the following piece of advice: “It’s simple. Just wish for it. Wish for him to be destroyed.” 

With no other recourse, those who heard those words treated them like a gift from heaven and immediately made their wish. 

But he — later to be called a Dark God — displayed his own will for the first time in response to that wish. 

“Very well. As compensation, I will take all of the lives of this world.” 

The Dark God bared its fangs. Spreading its miasma of fear and darkness, unleashing its spawn, it began to overrun the world. Uniting in desperation, humanity took up arms to fight against their seemingly inevitable destruction — but ordinary humans couldn’t hope to stand up to the creature’s spawn. They were once again on the verge of annihilation. 

That was when the Great Sage first appeared. 

Rick was explaining these details of the thousand-year-old battle to Lynel while Yogiri and Tomochika were speaking softly a short distance away, but they could still overhear his story. 

“When did you even kill it?” Tomochika whispered. 

“Right after we entered the barrier, I guess? Around the time we first learned about the evil aura covering this place.” 

“Can’t you make sure that you’re killing the right people?!” 

“It was a reflex.” 

“Well, either way, according to their story, killing it doesn’t seem like a big deal.” It felt odd to be angry with him about it, so Tomochika tried to console him instead. 

“I don’t know. It sounds like humanity was just getting what it deserved. Was the Dark God actually that bad?” 

“I mean, if you put it like that...” 

Yogiri figured it was humanity’s own fault for thoughtlessly abusing the creature’s power. “I was just trying to deal with the source of the dark aura here. It ended up killing the monster, but listening to Rick’s story, I’m not sure that killing it off that way was the right choice.” 

“I’m sorry. It’s not surprising that you’d feel bad about it.” 

“I don’t know how to explain it. It feels like I killed an animal from a species on the verge of extinction, or destroyed an ugly statue and then found out it was culturally significant.” Yogiri seemed to be feeling the weight of the Dark God’s history, which was, after all, over a thousand years old, and there were entire organizations dedicated to watching over this legendary being. It hardly felt appropriate for someone who merely happened to be there by chance to step in and put an end to it all. 

Finally, Yogiri shrugged. “Well, there’s no point in overthinking it. If we don’t say anything, they’ll never know anyway.” 

“Wow, talk about a quick recovery!” 

“In the end, it technically did try to hurt me.” 

The barrier had probably been put up by the Divine King, so it would continue to exist even after the Dark God’s death. No one would know about its passing for quite some time. Obviously, it was pointless to seal the beast away now that it was dead, but revealing that fact would throw off the balance between the many groups that were based around its existence. 

Yogiri sorted through his feelings and moved on. “All right, let’s get to the bottom of this tower. If we can talk to the Swordmaster properly, we can get on with our trip to the capital.” 

At some point, the roof had almost entirely emptied of people. The only ones left were their own small group and Lynel’s friend, Frederica. Even the doll that had given them their instructions had disappeared at some point. 

Finally seeming to snap out of her stupor, Frederica walked over to join them. 

“You have more of those stones, right?” she said sharply to Lynel, holding out one of her hands. “Give me one!” 

“Uhh, why?” Lynel asked, recoiling a little. Tomochika didn’t think they looked much like friends at all. 

“I want to regenerate my magical energy. And you can use those to give yourself a boost, right? I’m going to try firing off another blast, even faster this time.” 

“Uh, I think I explained this before, but these are bound to me specifically. Other people can’t use them...” 

“What?! Then why did you even come here?!” 

“I didn’t really want to in the first place —” 

“God, you’re useless! Fine, whatever!” With an angry huff, she left them behind and stalked into the tower. Yogiri’s company was now alone on the roof. 

“Should, uhh, should we get going too?” Lynel suggested, still rattled by his encounter with Frederica. 

Given the numerous entrances to the tower that were scattered about the rooftop, picking one seemed like part of the trial in and of itself. 

“All right, let’s take this one.” Yogiri picked a door at random, actively avoiding the one that Frederica had chosen. There were no objections. 

Lynel screamed as a spear shot out from the wall, punching straight through his stomach. He had triggered a trap, proving once again just how awful his luck was. 

Yogiri could sense the danger from the traps and thus avoid them easily enough himself. And most had already been triggered by those who had gone ahead of them, but Lynel had managed to step on one of the few that hadn’t been activated beforehand. Their group was just inside the entrance to the tower and hadn’t even had a chance to get their bearings before it was triggered. 

“Lynel, are you okay?!” Tomochika rushed over to him in a panic as Rick calmly drew his blade, cutting off the part of the spear that was jutting out from the wall. 

With the spear handle broken and no longer holding him up, Lynel collapsed to the floor, struggling through the pain to reach for his pocket. A moment later, his body began to glow, and he once again stood back up as if nothing had happened. The spear through his stomach had been pushed out and was now lying on the ground. Just like before, even his clothes had been repaired. 

“Man, without these Apology Stones, I’d be dead right now,” Lynel noted, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He seemed remarkably relaxed considering what had just transpired. 

“If you act so casual about it, I’m going to stop worrying about you when you get hurt!” Tomochika said, a bit flustered. If Lynel could simply use the Apology Stones to save himself in every situation, there seemed to be little cause for concern regardless of what happened. 

“That was still dangerous, though. I can’t use the Apology Stones if I can’t touch them with my hands.” 

“Then why aren’t you always holding on to one, just in case?” 

“Oh, that’s a good idea! I can’t believe I never thought of that!” As Lynel spoke, he reached into his pocket and took out one of the stones. “Hmm, this still seems a bit dangerous. Oh, I know, can I get one of you to wrap something around my hand? It’s me, after all, so I’d probably just drop it the moment it actually mattered.” 

“That’s so true...” Tomochika quickly tied a piece of cord around Lynel’s hand, tight enough that it wouldn’t be possible for him to drop the stone. 

“You called them star crystals, right? I don’t know much about them. What are they actually capable of? They appear to be something of a lifeline for you, so it might be useful for us to understand what they do,” Rick suggested. 

“Ah, that’s a good idea too! Just calling them star crystals doesn’t really tell you anything about them, does it?” At Rick’s encouragement, he began to explain. “There are three ways to use the star crystals. One is a total restoration. Regardless of the injury, it will fully heal you and restore your magical energy. The second method is Boosting. All of your abilities are temporarily boosted by a significant amount. That’s what I used to help me resist the effects of this place.” 

“You said it was temporary, right?” Tomochika cut in, suddenly curious. “How long does it last?” 

“About thirty minutes, I think...uh-oh.” 

Yogiri realized at the same time that Lynel did — it had been about thirty minutes since he’d last used the stones for a boost. Although Yogiri had killed the source of the evil aura, the toxic smog that covered the region was probably left over from the battle over a thousand years ago. It had yet to dissipate. 

“Err, finally, you can just use them to roll on the gacha. You can get items from it, or summon allies...anyway, I’ll give it a spin!” 

“Why right now?” 

Reaching into his pocket with his unbound hand, Lynel took out three star crystals. After shining for a moment, they disappeared and something dropped to the floor at his feet. 

“Um...is that some sort of really special brush?” 

“No, it’s just a normal one. A brush that lasts for one year.” It seemed that his luck had failed him again. “B-But I still need something to get me out of this situation!” 

“This guy’s luck is really something else. I get the feeling the star crystals aren’t going to be that useful,” Tomochika quipped as Lynel began pulling more of them from his pockets. By the time he had acquired an item worth keeping, he was down to only three crystals left. 

“Thank goodness I eventually got something helpful! It looks like this ring will protect me from status effects.” 

Now that Lynel was calmer, Yogiri took a look around the inside of the tower. The walls and floor were built with gray stone. It must have been one of the battle zones that the Magic Puppet had mentioned. The corridor before them ran in a straight line, then turned where it met the edge of the tower. 

“Well, obviously we need to get to the bottom, but how do we get points?” Yogiri asked thoughtfully. 

“If it is as straightforward as I imagine, we may just need to fight others along the way and take their points as a reward. But I really can’t say for sure.” 

“Hmm. I guess there’s nothing we can do now but go on. Lynel, please be careful,” Tomochika warned, putting particular emphasis on those last words. 

As they had little choice in the matter, they proceeded into the depths of the tower. The path soon turned white, indicating that they had reached a safe zone. A wooden chest sat in the middle of the room. 

“I wonder what this is?” 

“Lynel, make sure you stay away from it!” 

“I’ll check it out,” Yogiri offered, approaching the chest himself. It appeared to be empty save for a single piece of paper stuck to it, with the words “one point” written on it. 

“I guess there was one point inside but it looks like someone already took it.” 

“Is this how you’re supposed to get them?” 

“That means we’re at a huge disadvantage, having entered the tower last...” 

“It would be pretty hard to get a hundred points like this — hold on a second.” 

Seeing that the chest wasn’t sitting quite level, Yogiri pushed it to the side, revealing a square metal plate about ten centimeters across. The number one was written on it in the local language, and it gave off a dull glow. When he picked up the metal plate, the glow faded. 

“So...does this mean I just got a point?” 

Feeling like he had been transported into some sort of video game, Yogiri was starting to warm up to this whole trial business.