Instant Death

Volume 4, Chapter 11: You see, that’s why I think it’s around time for an awakening event

Once they passed through the wall that wrapped around the center of hell, they found a forest. Once they had made their way into it, they suddenly arrived at a space full of nothingness.

This was supposed to be the hole that rested in the center of hell.

If you were to look closer, you’d notice that it wasn’t a perfect circle, but instead the inside looked more like some kind of intricate cliff. The size of the hole seemed to be around 20km in diameter and the other side of it seemed covered in a haze which they couldn’t see through.

At that point, the sun had begun to fall so they decided to take a rest. It was difficult to believe hell’s changing weather, but so far things like the sun seemed to be moving at the same pace as the world above. And thus, no matter how much they trusted their own abilities, they decided that the best was to stop advancing during night time, when their visibility was severely restricted.

The sage candidates went back into the woods and built a base there.

A carpenter-class candidate made part of the forest disappear and created a vacant lot where he built a fort.

Just for caution’s sake, they scouted the area and confirmed its safety before declaring the day’s activities were over.

And then it was night.

A dinner party was held at the large dining hall inside the fort.

There were a number of tables inside with lavish meals arranged on top of them. They were prepared by the girls who excelled at cooking, and the ingredients that they used were those that had been brought along with them from the above world.

At the time they had been deported, they had procured large amounts of supplies and stockpiled them at several locations in the underworld.

“I wonder if it’s really okay for us to be in such high spirits…”

Grumbled Tomochika.

“Isn’t it fine?”

Replied Romiko.

“Well, it’s been nothing but child’s play until now, hasn’t it?

Said Shijou Juna. The three of them sat at the same table.

They had reached the end of the sixth layer without much difficulty and would arrive to the seventh level tomorrow. At first, they had been confused by the environment, which they were not accustomed to, but now they had pretty much adapted to it completely.

A relaxed atmosphere could be felt throughout the dining hall.

At the moment there were more girls in the room, possibly making the guys feel a little awkward.

“Shouldn’t we have a lookout or someone guarding outside? I mean, we’re right in the middle of enemy territory, aren’t we?”

“We had been taking turns doing that until we got to the royal capital. However, since then Arima’s power improved and now he can apparently see everything around our perimeter.”

Arima Osamu. He was a gifted boy of the carpenter class.

At first, he could only build a small single shack if he tried his best, however he could now easily build huge structures like the one they were in at the moment.

Also, the carpenter class had the power to know about everything that was going on inside the places they built.

Since there were fences around the fort, the carpenter-class power extended to them. In other words, it was possible for him to look out for enemies over a wide area around their fort.

“Huh? Isn’t that bad? Won’t people hate him like they did with the three eroge aristocrats?”

Tomochika thought that if that guy was able to see everything inside the building where everyone slept, there would be many people who wouldn’t feel comfortable with it.

“Ah, Arima is quite popular so it isn’t really much of an issue. Still, he offered himself to take Akino’s oath. In that sense isn’t his honesty also part of what makes him so well-liked?”

Kana answered. The three eroge aristocrats seemed to reluctantly accept him so it may be different in that way.

“It’s absurd…”

“He’s an honor student aspiring to be an architect, who’s also good looking and a gentleman, they’re all characteristics that make him popular, right? Tomochika, could it be that Arima just isn’t your type?”

“It’s not like I hate him, but…”

When thinking about it, she suddenly realized that she’d never thought of a boy in that way.

“Isn’t it that you prefer guys like Takato?”

“Wh-why are you bringing him up now?”

“Well, you’re always together, isn’t it weird you haven’t felt conscious about it until now?”

“No, it’s not like that, just- wait, he isn’t around, is he?”

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Tomochika looked around for Yogiri and realized he wasn’t in the dining room.

“Oh, you’re right.”

Romiko helped her look around for him. The hall wasn’t large enough to lose track of someone easily, which meant he must’ve slipped out at some point.

“He’s the loner type, so maybe it was a bit hard for him to be around so many people?”

“Isn’t that saying too much?”

Said Tomochika, and while complaining, she started thinking it might actually be true.

＊＊＊＊＊

Yogiri sat at the edge of the clearing in the middle of the forest, staring at the stone fort lit by the moonlight.

It was the fort built for them by the guy who had the carpenter-class abilities.

When he made it, the process looked just as though he was playing a game, erasing parts of the forest and stacking together blocks that appeared one after another, quickly being able to build huge structures.

Lively voices could be heard coming out of the fort.

Everyone was eating, but Yogiri finished early and went out.

――It kind of reminds me a bit to somewhere where I used to live before.

It reminded him of a manor where he resided in the past.

Even though they were underground, it was a place that didn’t feel like the underground at all.

He lived in a mansion inside a forest guarded by shrines, he thought that the feeling of being surrounded by trees was similar to this. It felt kind of like a miniature garden, the demon here might probably be in a similar situation that the one Yogiri had been in the past.

He sat there absentmindedly, absorbed in his thoughts.

It’s not like he meant anything special by going outside. It’s just that he felt a bit restless in places with many people. Since there wasn’t much to do once he was there, Yogiri took out the handheld game console from his uniform’s pocket.

It was a hunting game in which the goal was to defeat monsters and collect materials.

He had already cleared most of the single player quests and all that was left was to play the higher-level multiplayer ones.

It was possible to clear them on his own and advanced players could probably do it easily. However, Yogiri wasn’t that good at gaming.

――It’s such a bother to do them solo. I just want to go back home more and more everyday.

While absorbed in his thoughts about what other way there could be to go back home, he realized that someone was coming from the fort.

It was David.

He walked unsteadily towards Yogiri.

As he wondered what the other guy could possibly want with him, David passed by without even looking at Yogiri’s way.

“Are you drunk?”

He tried asking but there was no reply. And just like that David entered the forest walking shakily.

Yogiri thought his demeanor seemed weird enough to warrant not leaving him alone, so he chased after David.

While still confused about what was going on, they ended up leaving the forest again.

In front of them laid a precipitous cliff. It was the abyss in the center of hell.

“Heey.”

Yogiri thought the situation wasn’t good at all, and tried to get a hold of David’s shoulders.

However, he gently swept away Yogiri’s hands which made him lose his balance and fall on his butt.

Meanwhile, David, still trembling, made his way towards the cliff.

Yogiri didn’t know what was causing his strange behavior, but it was easy to know what would happen next.

David was still walking, and if he kept going, he would fall off the cliff.

And then, he felt a sign of death. It wasn’t completely certain, but he could still see a hazy, dark fog in front of David.

This didn’t mean that David had a risk of dying, but that if Yogiri went with him, he would put himself in danger.

However, Yogiri still ran straight into his direction. He tried to hold him from the waist and push him into the ground. David couldn’t counter the move and fell straight down.

Yogiri stood up and looked at the other guy’s face.

“Hellooo… It’s no use.”

David’s eyes were hollow.

He wasn’t looking at Yogiri and didn’t seem to be completely conscious.

“It’s times like these when I wish I’d learned how to carry people from Dannoura.”

Carrying unconscious people is quite a difficult task for those who are not used to it.

Even as he kept complaining, Yogiri decided to grab David’s feet and drag him. It may have resulted in David receiving a few burns, but there was no way he could leave him in such a place.

Snap.

As he struggled to drag him, he heard a faint sound, as though something had been crushed.

The dark haze became even darker and the signs of death suddenly increased.

Everything started going downfall from then on, and he barely had any time to react. The bedrock that had been carrying them was starting to crumble into the abyss.

＊＊＊＊＊

Otori Haruto looked out the window of the dining hall.

No one else seemed to notice, but an owl rested on a tree in the garden.

It was the owl he had used and thus, a sign of Haruto’s success.

He could use his skill to know Yogiri’s state, but since his ability was to search through the archives, he couldn’t immediately know what was going on.

“Haruto, did something happen? You seem kind of happy.”

Haruto realized that he was smiling slightly, as told by Otani Yui, who sat opposite from him at the table.

“You think so?”

Everyone else also seemed to enjoy dinner at the hall, which meant it wouldn’t feel too out of place if he were caught having fun there.

It was such a good coincidence it looked to be part of the plan all along.

In the first place, he hadn’t expected to succeed anyway. Working with failure as your premise was the best way to do it after all.

The basics of the plan were simple.

Make Yogiri step into a dangerous area. However, he wasn’t actually involved in this part of the plan, so he didn’t need to put himself in danger beforehand.

Then how did he do it?

This part, too, was quite simple but effective.

So far, the Yogiri that Haruto had observed seemed to be a guy who wasn’t really interested in others, but also wouldn’t leave them alone. If someone he was close to got themselves in danger, he wouldn’t hesitate to help them.

One of the ideas he conceived under that concept was to use David as a decoy.

If he was going for the decoy strategy, there was also the option to go for Dannoura Tomochika, who was Yogiri’s closest friend, however that proved itself difficult. Tomochika seemed to be an outsider, and she had close to no gaps in her defense. It also looked as though Tomochika herself was going after Yogiri in some way. In other words, there was the possibility that the Tomochika approach may not have been so different from doing something to Yogiri himself.

Now, there were other people who he had recently become close to, such as Ninomiya Ryoko and Carol S. Lane. However, it wouldn’t be good to lose them as their fighting prowess was a crucial part to their team.

And there was also the fact that since their classmates had been fortified by the gift of the sage, drugs and curses may not have worked on them.

Which left David as the perfect candidate to be used as bait. He seemed to be close to Yogiri and appeared to be a royal but not as strong as a sage candidate. Also, it was clear that David wasn’t looking to do anything to Yogiri either.

He gave David the drugs he had obtained in the royal city, made him delirious, and suggested to him that he should head to the cliff.

The cliffs had been cracked in advance in order to make them easier to collapse.

This would be Yogiri’s weakness, to be forced into another area without him knowing. For example, if once he passed through a certain point an arrow flied towards him, or a giant rock fell his way then it wouldn’t work because he would realize it was a trap, since there was the possibility someone could be killed.

But what if the cliff were to collapse and fall? In that case, he would be the one falling, so he wouldn’t be able to stop it because no one would be directly trying to kill anyone else. In the first place, Yogiri had been forcefully brought to this world and couldn’t avoid it either.

That said, it was only a matter of luck for his plan to be successful.

A dinner party would be held and Yogiri would naturally want to be by himself.

That way he could also handle David easily.

Yogiri would notice David going towards the cliff.

Then David would head for the cracked surface.

Yogiri would try to stop David from falling.

And the cracked cliff would collapse under their combined weight.

Even so, nothing could be said for sure. Just a little change in the success of events would break the chain and throw his plans in disarray.

But that was still okay by him. If he was certain he would succeed, it could increase the likelihood that Yogiri noticed him.

He did something which he wasn’t certain would work and left the rest to fate.

There was no murder there, they were just a series of accidents which would end up in a sudden death.

That was Haruto’s strategy.

“Well, everything’s been going just fine until now. We haven’t had any hard time yet, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, right? Tomorrow should be fine as well.”

“We won’t know until we reach the seventh level. However, if we work together, I think we will manage somehow. ”

“It’s kind of a problem that everything is going so well and without any issues, isn’t it?”

The voice echoed clearly in the hustle and bustle of the dinner party.

I was a fascinating sound that grabbed everyone’s attention and appealed to a certain instinct, which made them think that whatever that person said shouldn’t be ignored.

Suddenly, a woman in a white dress stood in the middle of the dining hall.

It was the sage Shion.

Most people hadn’t expected to see her here since the last time they did was when they met her on the bus.

The noise in the room subsided and everyone’s eyes focused on Shion.

“Do you need something? I don’t get it, since as you just mentioned, everything’s been going fine until now.”

Haruto wondered if she had come to check on his plan to end Yogiri. Since so far it seemed to have been a success, it wasn’t a strange timing for her to appear.

“Oh, that’s fine, just go ahead with it. This time I’m here for something else. As I said, I think this is a little too easy for a trial. If it keeps going this way, then it seems there is a high possibility that a sage won’t be born even if you can defeat the demon.”

“Wa-wait a minute! What are you talking about!? Weren’t we going to become sages just by accomplishing a great feat!?”

Shouted Yazaki.

“There’s no way that would be the case now, right? Becoming a sage happens by awakening to that power and acquiring the ability through the process of trying extremely hard to accomplish a certain feat. However, you don’t seem to have had any particular difficulties so far, and it’ll be a problem if you keep at it like that.

You see, that’s why I think it’s around time for an awakening event.

Something like being overwhelmed by an unavoidable enemy or having a close friend die will make you exert power beyond your own limits.”

An ominous, unpleasant feeling started spreading through the crowd. Everyone had just been having a fun time until now and that seemed to be about to abruptly change.

“That’s why I wonder if I should make you all kill each other. It’s about time you got used to your own powers, right? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to put them to good use and kill each other until only one of you is left?”

No one managed to speak as everyone froze where they stood.

＊＊＊＊＊

Shion’s shocking proposal astounded all of the classmates.

But there was one of them, who might’ve as well thought Shion’s words were irrelevant.

It was Ninomiya Ryoko.

She wasn’t even looking at Shion, but instead stared at the smartphone, which vibrated in her hands.

Its screen flickered violently, as if giving flagrant warnings that something was happening.

“…wait a minute…why is the second gate…?”

She uttered, her face looking as though the world was coming to an end.

＊＊＊＊＊

The cliff collapsed and Yogiri fell with David right into the abyss.

He was left to his own abandon and there was nowhere he could grab onto.

After that, he just kept falling due to gravity.

Haruto had been right.

Takato Yogiri’s abilities only included the power to detect killing intent and the ability to kill immediately, however, physically, he was still nothing but a normal human being. If he fell from a certain height, he would die just like anybody else.

However, anyone who knew Takato Yogiri wouldn’t have helped but think that:

There was no way he wouldn’t have thought something like this would happen.

There was no way he wouldn’t have tried something like this before.

There was no way something like this would end him.

And, that if Takato Yogiri were to die from it, then that meant the world would’ve already been saved a long time ago.