After that letdown of a victory, we just sort of walked back to town to find ourselves a place to stay the night. But man, are the prices in Beijing steep. I'm not kidding, look it up if you have the chance, we barely had enough in our wallets put together to rent a single night's stay there. You can bet your sweet ass we made the most of our time there, cause we immediately went to bed and only woke up at around noon.

"Mnn..." Freddy slapped me a few times to wake me up as he himself laid flat on the bed, "Luneski, be a bro and wake everyone up."

"Hear that Issei?" I asked with both Eyes still defiantly closed shut, "Your uncle needs your assistance. Wake me up last though."

"Hell no. Juavi, wake up that absolute snore of a woman and tell her to do it." Issei patted the spot where Juavez was, but hit the empty bed instead, "Hm? Juavi?"

Jolting up into a sitting position, Issei frantically looked around the room, only to not only find him missing, but Sandy as well. This was when he shook both of us wide awake as well.

"Guys, they're gone!" He panicked.

"Ugh, dammit nephew..." Freddy yawned angrily, "They probably just went to get us something to eat, what's wrong with you?"

"No, not that! The keys!" He pointed to the empty bedside table where Freddy left the airbike's keys, "They took the keys, dammit!"

With Eyes wide open in shock by this point, both Freddy and I couldn't believe the twist of the situation. Immediately jumping out of bed to go search for them, we had only found a piece of paper taped to the bathroom's mirror.

"Sorry, we couldn't really wait that long, so we'll be borrowing the airbike for a bit." The finely handwritten letter of notice read, "But we PROMISE we're not stealing it, Nyork! This is just until we get our wishes, then we'll give it back."

Shaking in anger as I read it out loud for him, Freddy could barely hold back from punching a hole straight through the drywall, but he somehow held back. Those idiots, don't they realize we need that thing to get back to Japan?

"Wait, something else is written on the back, Lune." Issei pointed out, "Maybe it's not what we think, so could you read that too?"

"Mhm." I nodded before continuing off on the next page with an ahem, " P.S. I'll try my best to bring it back in tip-top shape, but unlike garota, I make no promises, amigo."

"That damned bitch!" Freddy snapped.

"Well now, looks like this part was written by Juavez, judging from the sharp handwriting and word choice." I deducted calmly.

"Who cares, we're stranded here now!" Issei too looked livid, "Dammit, uncle! I told you never to leave the keys in plain sight around them!"

"I thought we had an agreement, can you blame me!?" He then pinned the blame on me, "Besides, this wouldn't have happened if Luneski didn't suggest that God awful plan of his!"

"Calm down. I really don't feel like wasting this entire chapter bickering, so let's instead start thinking of ways to resolve this." I shook my head.

"Who the hell do you think you are, breaking the fourth...!"

And so, they kept berating me with useless words, shouting hurtful things and overall doing nothing to get us moving in the right direction. I feel like you guys really don't need to hear all that, so for your sakes, I'm gonna omit this part and just skip to just until they finally calmed down.

"So, got all that out of your system?" I asked.

"...Yeah." Freddy nodded whilst gasping for air, "Damn, if they so much as scratch my baby...!"

"Come on, I'll help you fix it if they do." Issei patted him on the back, "But first, we need to figure out how to get back home."

"We can't just buy regular plane tickets to Japan, and that's for a multitude of reasons." I figured, "First off, we have no money for that, and it seems like it'll be tougher for us to sell Materialized items in a country whose language we don't understand. Secondly, Issei and I don't have passports, so we can't even board it even if we had the money."

"Maybe we could bribe the airport to let us through without them?" Issei suggested.

"No, they'll definitely cuff us if we do." Freddy shook his head.

"Oh, why not sneak into the compartment where they keep all the luggage?" I suggested, "All we'd need to do is get me in there unnoticed. Afterwards I can summon you two with Materialize and..."

"Absolutely not!" They both shot the idea down immediately.

"But then what?" I shrugged.

Thinking about it some more in silence, Issei had finally recalled our one last trump card. The one we could use in our time of greatest need.

"I could ask my parents for help." Issei uttered.

"How could they help us? They're rich, but not above the law." Freddy sighed.

"Of course they aren't, but surely they have powerful connections from their respective jobs." Issei reasoned, "I think one of dad's old bosses has a private jet he uses on the regular."

"Really. A private jet?" Freddy facepalmed, "Nephew, if you think we'll fly back to Japan on a private jet, then you must be crazy."

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***

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"I think I remember you saying that just this morning, uncle?" Issei smugly recalled as he leaned back on his first class seat, "Ahh, to think we're so important~! All it took was one phone call from my dad and his friend dropped everything to help us!"

"More like we lucked out that that very work friend already had business in Beijing." I chuckled, "Still, I'll admit this seating is way comfier than both standing on a hoverboard and ruining your asscheeks on the airbike. I could get used to this!"

"Well don't." The work friend in question who sat next to us sighed, "Seriously, when Itsuo-kun called me to explain the situation, I really wanted to decline. It's already too dangerous to be flying this low to avoid getting spotted by radar, you know."

"Oh, chin up, man!" Issei happily patted the worried man on the back, "Have some more faith in your pilot, would ya'?"

"Ah, this jet doesn't actually have a pilot." He revealed.

"...Hm?"

"Yeah, it's on autopilot." The bastard calmly stated, "In other words, it's programmed to fly on its own."

"Self-driving vehicles!?" I jolted, "C-Can it be trusted to steer this thing correctly!?"

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"Don't worry, I've ridden it everywhere and it hasn't failed me once." He smiled, "Though, I never set it to fly this low, so let's hope it works out fine."

Mnnn, now I'm worried again...! Seriously, who the hell puts this much faith into a robot's skill? It's a machine, dammit! Wait, but if it's something like ASSA in the Golden Throne, then maybe we'll be safe after all? Even still, I really dislike the idea of not having a pilot on standby just in case something happens...

"Wah!!" I screamed as the plane shook violently, "What was that!?"

"Just some turbulence, calm down." Issei reassured me, "Don't you remember? Planes do that when they reach a high enough altitude."

"But nephew..." Freddy said something eerily frightening, "We're flying low down to avoid radar detection, remember?"

"Shit, goddammit...!" The owner of the plane rushed to the cockpit in a panic, "I knew this was a mistake! Please don't be anything serious...!"

Oh damn, this isn't happening, is it? No, it can't be, right? It's just a bit of surprise turbulence or something like that. Maybe we hit a bird that was passing by and that caused the slight bump. You never know, right?

"H-How's it coming along, captain-?" I asked sheepishly.

"We're fucked!" He yelled back as he strapped on a parachute backpack, "I can't die now, I got way too much to live for!"

"Wait, what the hell is going on!?" Issei shouted.

"The autopilot messed up, we've been going at a 0,1 degree decline this whole time!" He shouted, "It was super small, so it went unnoticed, but that added up over time, and now we're too low for me to bring it back up!"

"What the fuck!? So we're gonna jump off into the ocean now!?" Freddy asked.

"I don't give a shit about what you guys are gonna do, but I have just one parachute, and it literally has my name written on it!" He then opened the door and waved us off right as he jumped off, "Text me if you make it!"

"You asshole!" We shouted all kinds of slurs at him as he flipped us the bird falling down.

Wait, this is it? So close to the end, and we're gonn die? No, everything was going fine until just this morning...! When did it all go awry? Was it when Juavez and Sandy took the airbike? Or when we put our lives in this shit stain's hands? No, I need to do something while I still can!

"Where the hell are you going!?" Freddy screamed at me.

"To the cockpit!" I shot back, "I don't know if I'll be able to do it, but I'm gonna try steering the plane back up!"

"You idiot! Didn't you hear what that guy said!? It's impossible!" Issei shouted, "Rather, just Materialize a parachute for us!"

"And what the hell will that do!? We'll fall into the ocean below and die anyways!" I refuted, "This is the way, come on!"

"...Nephew, whatever we do, it's better than sitting around doing nothing!" Freddy got up to follow me, "Come on, we've survived worse!"

"Tch, I swear, if we manage to keep this thing above sea level, we're keeping it for ourselves!" Issei smirked.

That's the spirit! Fortune favors the bold, and in times like these, boldness is our only saving grace! Thank the Gods Freddy was so quick to gain the courage to follow me, cause the moment I saw all these complicated control panels, my head started to spin.

"How's it looking?" I asked.

"Not good, I can try lifting us up, but the angle is just too impossible given the airflow." He shook his head, "Guys, we absolutely can't let our wishes go to waste. If need be, I'll use mine to teleport us to safety."

"No! We're getting out of this without wasting any wishes!" I assured him, "Otherwise this entire trip is wasted! We can make it, just tell us what to do!"

"Lune..." Issei nodded, "Let's put our knowledge to good use then!"

Pressing and flicking the buttons and switches Freddy had instructed us to, we had made quick work of our side of the tasks as he manned the steering. The main issue was killing off the autopilot AI, since it was constantly fighting for the controls and trying to get us to nosedive, but we somehow managed to disable it. What was actually less than a minute felt like an entire lifetime, but we somehow did it. Now came the final part, all we needed to do was lift the airplane up, and...!

"Shit! Shit shit shit!" Freddy slammed the controls with all his might, yelling and crying as he did all he could think of to no avail, "It's no use, we're too late!"

"We're gonna die?" Issei asked.

"It's worse than that, nephew!" Freddy looked at him with abject horror, "More like we're already dead."

But no, I still need to see Cecily and the kids! Right, I have my Iro Abilities! It might be a stretch, but if I used up all my Focus on Going Solipsistic, I could Materialize a...

"I Wish Lune is sent back to his world at the very moment I left!" Issei shouted before turning to me with a melancholic expression, "Goodbye, friend. Don't worry about us and live a happy life."

"Huh?" I felt my body start to fade out of existence, "Dammit, you gave up too quickly Issei! Ugh, I can't...! Not yet!"

"One more thing." Issei gave me a tearful look, one I'll never forget for as long as I live, "Please, if nothing else, take care of Othelia and Eleanor for me. Tell them... I'm sorry."

After that, pitch black. Darkness. Not even the raw emotions I had felt in that moment could be considered real anymore. Lune Grimheart was no longer of this world. That being the case, just as abruptly as this pitch black darkness and numbing silence came to be, so too did the colors of life come back. In layman's terms, it happened in the blink of an Eye - Just like when I had swapped worlds for the first time, I had opened my Eyes to find myself in Meil's basement again, with everyone who had been there to send us off gathered like it had only been a second since we left.

"Grim! What the hell was that!?" Ed immediately berated me, "You interrupted the ritual, come on! Ugh, they're gonna have to start over, I guess."

"Papa, oh my Gods, this is so embarrassing..." Nelly hid her face in shame, "Sorry Meil, I'll make him pay for the damages!"

"No worries, just as long as everyone is safe." Meil nodded.

"Issei...?" Othelia and Eleanor looked around before turning to me with faces that yearned for answers, "Where the hell is Issei?"

"Huh, Lune?" Meil asked.

"Papa, are you... crying?"

"Issei..." I fell to the floor, the tears dripping down my cheeks until they got heavy enough to hit the ground beneath me, "Issei, Freddy they! T-They saved me! They're... They're...!"