My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! Volume 14 Chapter 5

 CHAPTER 5

Man, honestly, it was so gross I couldn't even look at it!

"I'm glad you're awake!"

When he realized it, Celestina's face was right in front of him.

Hanakawa was lying down, and Celestina was sitting next to him, looking down at him from above.

Ryoko, Carol, and Sora were just visible at the edge of his vision. They didn't seem too worried.

"Am I... alive?"

"Yes. You were in an unclear state until just now, but I think it's safe to say you're alive at this point."

"Man, honestly, it was so gross I couldn't even look at it!"

Despite saying that, Carol seemed to have been watching Hanakawa's condition.

Apparently, Hanakawa had been teetering on the brink of life and death, but his consciousness was rapidly returning.

"What happened?"

"Suddenly, the prison area collapsed. It seemed like an attack from the outside, and although I had set up a web as a precaution, it was impossible to detect it beforehand. If we had been hit directly, we would have been wiped out."

Hanakawa sat up.

He could see outside. The wall that should have been there just a moment ago was gone.

He couldn't tell the extent of the damage from here, but it seemed that a significant portion of the pyramid had been blown away since the outside was now completely visible.

The passage had been damaged all over its floor, ceiling, and walls, but the area around Hanakawa and the others remained pristine, as if nothing had happened.

"Why did this happen to me if I didn't get hit by the attack?"

"It's the aftermath of the attack. I quickly hardened my threads into a dome shape to guard us, but I didn't have enough time to set up a proper defense, and a piece of debris, unfortunately, struck you, Hanakawa..."

"A big one was stuck in your head. Your eyeball was popping out and everything."

Carol seemed quite amused. She appeared to be far more interested in this than when Hanakawa first showed up with Sora.

"Please refrain from giving such a detailed report of the damage!"

"Shall we stop explaining further, then?"

"No, not knowing would bother me too!"

"Which one is it..."

Ryoko was exasperated.

"Let me explain briefly. I removed all foreign objects from your body, sewed up the wounds with threads, and performed as much treatment as possible. However, the brain damage was severe, and I couldn't do anything about it. So, I left it up to Hanakawa's auto-heal skill."

"According to my knowledge, healing doesn't work when the head is crushed..."

Although this world has concepts like souls and spirits, the human brain primarily governs thoughts, memories, and intentions. It is fundamentally different from other organs, which can be restored to a standard functional state. Hanakawa had learned during his time as a healer that even if the brain could be repaired to some extent, it was almost impossible for the personality inhabiting it to return to normal.

"Could it be thanks to the Philosopher's Stone? For us, it's only a key to pass through the gate, but perhaps the Philosopher's Stone within the body allows for healing beyond the realm of ordinary magic."

"I see... and since I absorbed Lu-tan's arm, it's not unthinkable that divine power is involved... Huh? Does this mean I might be immortal?"

"Don't get overconfident. This time it worked out because I managed to stabilize your condition, but that might have been all."

"Well, I guess that's true. Even if I were immortal, I wouldn't be planning on doing reckless things."

As they talked, Hanakawa's condition continued to improve.

Hanakawa stood up and looked around again.

He didn't know what had happened, but it was obvious from the outside that an extraordinary level of destruction had taken place.

The destruction extended not only to the pyramid but also to the island itself. The wall had disappeared, and when he went to the edge that had become like a cliff, he could see the sea below. Looking left and right, he saw the sea in turmoil. Most likely, something huge had passed through the island, and everything there had vanished.

"It seems like a miracle that this pyramid is still standing despite the destruction..."

Although Hanakawa had almost died, he consoled himself that he had still been lucky.

"But with this, won't the gate be crushed, and we won't be able to move on?"

"What are you talking about, Hanakawa? We can move forward as much as we want now."

With that, Carol leaped into the empty space.

"Carol-tan!?"

Carol, who seemed like she would fall, flew up into the sky.

Hanakawa cautiously leaned over the edge and looked up. He could see Carol moving to the upper floor.

She was holding a key rope in her hand, so it seemed she had hooked it and moved.

"I was struggling because I couldn't get outside. If I could get out, it would be no problem to go up to the rooftop!"

"I see? But then why didn't we just climb the outside from the beginning?"

"Don't worry about what's already done!"

"Why does Carol start speaking in broken language when she remembers something..."

"It was impossible from the outside. With the current situation... it seems to be okay."

"Did you investigate that with your threads?"

"Yes, they reached the rooftop."

Celestina had said that she had investigated the outer wall with her threads before entering the pyramid. According to her, there was a wall at a certain height, and they could not go beyond it.

"So, with that said, how do we get up? Will Carol-tan carry me?"

"Leave the transportation to me."

With that, Celestina stepped outside of the pyramid.

At this point, no one would have thought that Celestina would fall. Indeed, Celestina was floating in the air.

She was probably hanging her body with threads or creating footholds.

"If it's just four people, I can transport everyone simultaneously without any problems. Is that alright?"

Hanakawa, Ryoko, and Sora nodded simultaneously. Their bodies gently floated up and were carried outside the pyramid.

Far below, there was a swirling sea, perhaps due to the aftermath of the attack. Feeling a shiver in his lower body, Hanakawa vowed in his heart to only look upwards.

"Ah, I can go by myself, so don't worry about me."

Carol used the grappling rope to smoothly climb the broken pyramid.

Hanakawa and the others began to ascend smoothly at a constant speed.

Without any incidents, they reached the rooftop.

Once they arrived, it was clear that the pyramid was indeed half-destroyed. The rooftop, which must have once been a square, was now half its original size, and there were signs of destruction all around.

There were quite a few people on the rooftop. They were scattered about, perhaps wary of each other. They were adventurers who were challenging Rasboque. It seemed they too had taken advantage of the pyramid's destruction and climbed up from the outside.

"Didn't we hear that there would be another area after clearing the prison area?"

Carol looked around and said.

There was nothing on the rooftop.

The name of this field was Castle in the Sky. If they looked up, they would see a massive cloud, and there was probably a castle there, but they didn't know how to get there.

"The witch mentioned it, didn't she? The Antechamber Area, or the waiting room? Waiting there until all the challengers have gathered... Could this be it?"

"It doesn't look like it, does it? It seems no different from before."

As Sora said, this place was probably still part of the prison area.

"So, what should we do?"

Hanakawa had thought that they just needed to get to the goal of the prison area in the pyramid.

But once they actually arrived, they had no idea what to do next.

"From the looks of it... everyone seems calm. It appears they're waiting, so maybe we have no choice but to do the same?"

Celestina, who said this, also seemed calm.

"That's true. It doesn't seem like there's anything specific we can do."

"Then, I'll be leaving."

"Eh? Celestina-san, where are you going?"

Hanakawa called out to Celestina, who was trying to leave.

"It seems that everyone is split up by party. There hasn't been anything up to this point, but from now on, there might be conflicts between parties. I don't want to harm any of you, who were guests at the hotel, but if it becomes necessary to achieve our goal, I might have to... Even so, I think it's a bit strange to suddenly attack everyone in case something happens, so I thought I would keep my distance for now."

With that said, they couldn't force her to stay, so they had no choice but to watch as Celestina walked away.

"Ah! That's right, Ryoko and Hanakawa and I were a party, weren't we?"

"Then it seems like I should keep my distance as well."

Saying that, Sora also walked away.

"But if those two become our enemies, it feels like they'll be quite troublesome, right?"

"More like, if Celestina-san is our opponent, we have no chance of winning!"

"Even if Sora-tan is our opponent, we have no chance of winning either..."

"Really? I didn't think Akino-San was that strong."

In the demon world located beneath the capital of the Manny Kingdom, Sora seemed to have engaged in close combat as well. Ryoko's assessment was that Sora had enough strength to easily defeat the shallow-level enemies but was still not strong enough to compete with combat-specialized jobs like samurai or ninja.

"Ah, well, actually, you see..."

"Please explain properly."

Hanakawa explained how fans would appear out of nowhere to protect Sora.

"So, Hanakawa is their pawn, and we don't know when he might betray us, right?"

"Ah! If you look at it objectively, that's the only way it seems!"

Hanakawa was wearing a happi coat with "Akino Sora Life" written on the back.

In a hurry, Hanakawa took off the happi coat and threw away the penlight.

"It's too late to just fix your appearance now."

"It's fine. As long as we know there's a possibility of betrayal, there's no problem!"

"I can't definitively say I won't betray... after all, I don't even remember putting on that happi coat..."

Before he knew it, he had become a fan of Sora, and he might take actions without considering his own life for Sora's sake. He couldn't even trust himself in this situation.

"Well, let's just put the confrontation with Akino-San on hold for now."

What were they putting on hold? Just as Hanakawa was about to ask, someone came flying through the air.

"That's the Sage's..."

One of them was Van, who had embedded the Sage's Stone into Hanakawa. The other was a smaller, masked figure standing next to Van.

Raw