How to remove folder name from URL path without interfering homepage?

Here’s a complex problem I am facing right now on my project is that I want to remove the folder name from the URL from

http://www.example.com/pages/contact-us.html

to

http://www.example.com/contact-us.html

Hence removing the /pages/ in this case –

This is my file structure- File Structure

Now to access the files we have to access the pages then contact-us first so to remove this I have used this .htaccess code below –

Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$

RewriteRule (.*) $1.php [L]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}s/+pages/([^s]+) [NC]

RewriteRule ^ %1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteRule (?!^pages/)^(.*)$ /pages/$1 [L,NC]

When I use this the URLs can be accessed without using /pages/ but the homepage doesn’t appear