Defeated in the second round of the last stage of the Last Boss Quest, then summoned by Sora Akino’s ability after Yogiri had been victorious and left, Hanakawa was left alone. While Yogiri had gone on to the third round, he hadn’t been part of Hanakawa’s group and had left him behind.
Hanakawa was at a total loss. If Carol and Ryouko had been around, he would have felt more confident, but he was standing alone in the city park.
“So...what am I supposed to do now? I suppose the ideal would be to reunite with Carol and Ryouko, but...”
Even looking around for them would be a challenge. There were likely still parties searching for opponents to advance themselves to the third round. For now, he decided to hide behind one of the trees in the park. It probably would do little to protect him, but it was at least better than standing out in the open.
After hiding for a while, an announcement played in the air above him.
Last Boss Quest, Final Stage, Round Two: Finished!
“Finished?! I had already assumed I would not be winning at this point, but does this mean I no longer have to worry about fighting?”
Hanakawa timidly poked his head out from behind the tree. There were no signs of the area having changed, nor of anyone appearing to attack him.
“Hm? But then, what am I to do now?”
In the worst case, the losers would be rounded up and executed, but it didn’t seem anything like that was happening. However, “nothing happening” was in and of itself going to prove to be a problem.
“Am I going to be left in this place forever?!”
That thought drew Hanakawa out of his hiding place. Wandering around the city, he found no one. At first, he was relieved at the lack of enemies, but the complete loneliness was now starting to make him feel uneasy.
“I suppose the vast majority of the losers were killed? Survivors like me are likely a rare case.” There was a good chance Van hadn’t made any considerations for people like him. “Ugh...being abandoned on an uninhabited island like this is too much.”
Hanakawa continued plodding around the city. He checked inside a few buildings, but naturally, they were all empty. While they were furnished to some degree, they showed no sign of having been lived in. They seemed to have been arranged perfectly for show, meaning this area had likely been prepared as a mere backdrop for the game.
“If this is an island in the sky, I suppose jumping off it is an option. Hopefully there is water below us...though I have heard that falling from such a height into water is similar to hitting concrete. But wait, my level as a Monk should provide some resilience, should it not? Together with my regenerative abilities, I imagine I should be able to manage.”
If he could make it back to the beach, he could go through the gate and reach the starting town. But as he set out to search for the edge of the island, he heard a noise in the distance.
“Hm? Is this perhaps the sound of footsteps? Hello! Is someone there?!”
Perhaps they were an enemy, but for now, Hanakawa’s desire to see another person had won out.
“Y-Yes! I’m here!” A man emerged from the shadow of a building. He was tall and thin, looking somehow a little pathetic, and Hanakawa thought he looked a bit familiar. He was likely one of the many people he had seen on top of the pyramid.
“My name is Daimon Hanakawa. Might I ask yours?”
“Ah, yes. I’m Lynel. I lost in round two and was left here...” It seemed he had met a similar fate to Hanakawa’s. “So, what are we supposed to do now?”
“I have been pondering the same question myself. I have a bit of a hunch, at the very least.”
“And what would that be?” Lynel asked.
“If we leap off the side of the island, perhaps we will be able to make it back to the city. That is all I have.”
“I see. I was so confused I hadn’t thought much about it, but that sounds reasonable to me. Let’s go give it a try.”
With that, the two began searching for the edge of the island together. Leaving the castle town, passing through the fields and forests, they made it to their destination. Looking down, they could see nothing but white, as if the island floated inside a giant cumulonimbus cloud.
“Is it actually safe for us to jump off here?” Lynel asked.
“Now that I see it for myself, I am starting to lose confidence. Out of curiosity, do you have some method to survive the fall?”
“Yeah, I’ve got these star crystals,” he said, pulling out some rainbow stones from his pocket. “They can be used to heal me or boost my stats for a short time. Besides that, I guess their only use is to roll the gacha.”
“Ha ha, a gacha, huh? What are the chances you might win an aircraft?”
“I’ve never gotten anything that nice from it before,” he replied.
As they considered their options, a line cut through the world. It had been sliced in two and started coming apart, but there was no way for the two of them to know that. They did understand, however, that something unbelievable was happening—the first of many such events.
In short order, they appeared in the Crystal Plains. The Seyla attacking them suddenly stopped moving, a huge number of star forts appeared in the sky above them, and then they suddenly all fell to the ground. The pair could do nothing but watch, stupefied, as the ridiculous happenings continued. The earth shook as the massive structures struck the ground, but luckily none of them had fallen near the two of them.
“Hey. My name is Kouryu. You’re Hanakawa, right?”
After they had been staring dumbly for a while, a boy calling himself Kouryu appeared beside them.
“Yes, that would be me,” Hanakawa replied, curious.
“I know this is a bit sudden, but Takatou has gone home.”
“How did that happen?!”
“He defeated the Great Sage. That got me what I needed to send him back, so I had him go right away. Now I’m going around checking if anyone else wants to go home.”
“I would much prefer to stay here!” Hanakawa replied instantly. With the Great Sage gone and the Sages no longer ruling over the world, he felt it would turn into a much safer place. He had already planned on staying if he could avoid that danger to any extent, so knowing the Sages were gone was just a bonus.
“If you change your mind later, it’ll be too late. You okay with that?” Kouryu asked.
“Of course! There is nothing interesting waiting for me back home!”
“Um, is it possible you could send me back?” Lynel asked. “I was reborn in this world, but I originally came from a different one.”
Hanakawa had figured it was something like that, considering he knew what a gacha was.
“You were reincarnated here, huh? That’s a bit different...but for now I’ll put you in the group. It’s up to the god of that world what happens to you when you get there, though. All right, that’s all for now.”
Kouryu and Lynel disappeared, leaving Hanakawa on his own.
“W-Well, I am far different than I was before...” Hanakawa was now a high-level Monk and still possessed Friendship Counter. He figured he’d find some way to make it work.