It was a bright day with a beautiful blue sky. Today was another day for many people to go to their work while students walked to their school.
Birds chirped as a wind breeze moved the leaves around the city. Students could be seen walking on the side of the road.
They happily chatted with their friends or just opened their phones to look through social media or videos.
But there was one student looking at his phone with a really serious face. Even his friend beside him looked at him weirdly.
"Rei, why are you already playing that game in the morning already?"
"Shh, shut up, Leo. I need to concentrate."
Both of them were Rei and Leo, close friends who had been together since their high school started.
"Damnit, I still didn't get the new grand character!" Rei said, feeling dejected after seeing the yellow crystal on his phone that indicated he didn't get a single SSR.
"I don't understand why you really love playing that. The way you told me, that game seems like slaving grind instead of having fun," Leo said, shaking his head.
From what Rei told him about that game, it was clearly not a game for fun because you needed hours, even days, to grind in a mode called Guild War and get the upgrade materials.
Leo didn't even understand who played games like that.
"You know there are a lot better games than that, right?" was all he could say while shaking his head, seeing his friend still keep rolling gacha.
The game that Rei was playing was Granblue Fantasy, a game released several years ago that told the story of a captain embarking on an adventure to find Estalucia after receiving a letter from their father—because you could choose your gender, either male or female main character—waiting for them in Estalucia, the legendary home of the Astrals. Where if someone could find that place, their wishes would come true.
Although the story was like that, Rei played the game purely for its gameplay and grind, where he continuously completed raids and events just to earn crystals and weapons.
Afterward, the two of them arrived at their school, and the day continued as usual. When heading home from school, Rei went to the supermarket to buy ingredients to cook for when he got back, as he lived alone and his parents worked abroad, leaving him to cook and do chores by himself.
And his big sister was also at college and living in the dorm there, so he had the house to himself for a while.
He did not really mind living alone since he could take care of himself, but he worried more about his big sister because she could not take care of herself and always needed him for everything.
But there was nothing he could do because the college was pretty far from here, so she had to hold on until the holidays.
"Let's see, probably fried rice with eggs and sausage is enough for tonight."
After cooking and eating, he went to his bedroom to continue playing for a while before realizing he was running out of stamina and meat to do more Guild War runs.
"Nice, maybe with this much score I can become top 100 for this month's Guild War," Rei said, feeling proud as he looked at his billions of points on the Guild War leaderboard.
Stretching his body, he looked toward the clock, and the time already showed 10 p.m., meaning he had been doing this for hours since he finished eating.
"I should take a bath."
And after that was done, he could be seen cleaning his face in front of the mirror.
His face could be said to be pretty handsome for someone his age—jet-black hair and black eyes like normal people—but his facial expressions, especially when he was looking at his phone seriously, could be said to be handsome.
He just did not realize it because he was way too focused on his game, so other girls who saw him like that were actually interested in him.
Leo sometimes even wanted to punch him because he kept being oblivious to others.
After finishing, he then went to bed and opened his phone again to send messages to his parents and sister.
At first he wanted to reread some story in the game, but it was already night, so instead he just read the final part of the What Makes the Sky Blue event.
"Heh heh heh heh! You're really into the rough stuff, Sandy. All about the power play with you,"
someone in the game said to another person named Sandy, or Sandalphon, the archangel created to replace Lucifer in case he died or failed his duties.
"Ain Soph Aur!"
"...!" Suddenly, swords and lasers attacked that person without pause.
"Wow, puberty is just hitting you like a freight train, huh?" the person said with a smile after creating a barrier to block his attack.
"I'll finish this with my next attack, fallen angel," Sandalphon shouted at the fallen angel named Belial—a fallen angel and one of the first primal beasts ever created. Known for his cunning, he was called the "Serpent." He played unfairly and disrespectfully, his mind wandering in immoral ways. The only man he revered was his creator, Lucilius.
"Hey, Sandy? Do you want to know how Lucifer died?" Belial said cunningly. Upon hearing this, Sandalphon suddenly stopped his attack.
"Hehehe. You must be curious. It was in that great hall in Canaan. Bubs ran Lucifer through with his black spear. That was pretty much it for him right there.
But didn't you find it strange? Even if Lucifer was mortally wounded, he should have been able to retaliate. His hands were tied. He was standing in front of an angel's cradle."
"A cradle? Where I was sleeping after the cataclysms," Sandalphon said, shocked as he remembered.
"The only flaw in his perfect defenses... the only time he ever wavered... was cleaning up the mess you made, Sandalphon," Belial said with a smile. Sandalphon started to break down after hearing the truth from Belial.
"I... killed him," Sandalphon said.
"You heard his last words, Sandalphon,"
someone said loudly, waking up Sandalphon.
"Djeeta... That's right. I made Lucifer a promise. No matter what anyone says... I will keep my promise!" Sandalphon burst out as his six wings leaked more of his powers.
"Tch, I got the order wrong. I should have taken you out first, Singularity," Belial said, preparing to retaliate against them. Instead of attacking Sandalphon, Belial tried to kill the Singularity first.
"Look out, Djeeta! He's coming!" Sandalphon said as Belial started to swing his scythe.
Rei continued reading the story while thinking how much he liked this story event. This was actually the first event he read and the event that made him start playing this game.
"Well, time to sleep. I'll continue reading the story tomorrow," Rei said after seeing the time on his phone as he turned off the light and drifted off to sleep.
But while he was sleeping, his phone that he had put on the table suddenly lit up, continuing the story.
"Probably the chaos is starting to seep in. The skies turning crimson will be quite the sight to see," Belial said as everything began to shake and crumble.
"Give it up already! We're not going to let you turn the sky red!" Vyrn exclaimed to Belial.
"Your blue skies, hm? Why are you so hung up on that? Don't you have any questions or suspicions about how the world works? Logic, causality, and the laws of physics are nothing more than tools of the gods' convenience," Belial said, slowly walking backward to the edge of the island.
When someone looked down beneath the island, they could only see a bright red color from the sky, as if there was no end below.
"There's no reason why the sky has to be blue," Belial said with a smile, falling into nothingness. "Enjoy the grand finale."
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"Huh, where am I?" Rei realized that he was no longer in his bedroom and now stood in a place where there was only darkness around him.
"Is this a dream? I'm sure I fell asleep in my bedroom earlier. Why am I here?"
He looked really confused about what had happened. Even when he tried to walk around the place, he still could not find anything.
The weird part for him was that even though the entire place was dark, he could somehow still see everything around him, so he could see there was nothing.
Not for long, though, because he saw something bright in the corner of his eye. He turned his head toward that direction.
"A light? What is this dream? This is so weird."
Maybe this was what they called a lucid dream, where he could create his own dream, and that light was where his dream started.
"I hope it's not a dream where I just grind forever in a game." With no other choices, he just walked to that light, hoping for a good dream.
But the closer he got to the light, the harder it was for him to see. He used his hands to shield his eyes, but it was still useless because the light became even brighter.
Not long after, his entire body was enveloped by the bright light, making him lose consciousness.
"This time for sure," a woman's voice said. It was the last thing he heard.
In a small floating island called Zinkenstill, home to a forest that yields primal crystals and where the inhabitants are cheerful and friendly even to tourists who come to their island to enjoy the forest.
Even though it is called a small island, Zinkenstill can be called really big and wide for an island. The reason it is small is because there is only one village on that island where everyone lives.
The village is surrounded by dense forest along with a river that becomes everyone's source of water.
In the forest there can be seen a girl walking through the forest, accompanied by her companion, a flying small red dragon.
[IMAGE]
"Are you sure this is where you saw the wolf, Vyrn?" the girl asked her friend.
"Of course I saw one run over here," Vyrn said because he had seen multiple wolves before when he looked around high in the sky.
"We're running out of meat stock, so we really need to get one today."
Both of them went through the forest while looking around, trying to find traces of the wolf, and they saw a few during the walk, like footprints and wolf feathers.
"It seems they ran toward the river. We should hurry, Djeeta," Vyrn said and flew ahead of her.
"Alright, let's go."
After a short while of running, Djeeta and Vyrn finally came out of the forest and arrived at the wide river filled with blue water that everyone used to drink or for everyday stuff.
Because of the primal crystals, no matter how dirty this river became, it always got cleaned and purified, so everyone did not need to worry if something happened to the river.
"Ahh, seems like they already left. I didn't see a single wolf around," Vyrn said after looking around and not seeing a single one.
"We should hurry. They probably still aren't far from here," Djeeta immediately said.
Vyrn agreed with her, and they immediately wanted to go back to the forest and search for more clues about the wolves.
"Wait, stop, stop," but suddenly Vyrn pulled Djeeta's hair, making her stop.
"Ow, ow, ow, stop pulling my hair! It hurts! What is it anyway? Why are you stopping me?" Her hair got pulled the moment she tried to run, making it yank hard from Vyrn.
"Look over there!" Vyrn said, pointing toward their left.
Djeeta looked in the direction where Vyrn pointed, and her eyes widened because she could see someone lying down beside the river, seeming unconscious.
Without hesitation, she rushed toward that person to help.
"Hey, are you okay? Can you hear me?" She first checked his pulse for a moment, and after feeling there was life, she felt relief that this person was not dead.
Because this person was unconscious and faced down, all she could see was just his silver hair from there.
"Quick, turn him over. We need to check for wounds. Maybe that wolf we chased attacked him," Vyrn said, reminding her.
"Oh, right." So Djeeta followed Vyrn's advice and immediately turned this man's body over.
But the moment she did that, she did not expect to see a person like this.
The moment his face came into view, Djeeta's breath caught.
His silver hair fell soft and smooth across the grass, framing a face that was handsome in a clean, simple way—sharp jaw, straight nose, and skin so fair it almost glowed under the sun.
At first glance, he looked strong yet calm, the kind of face that made her, a girl who had never seen many boys her age in the village, feel her cheeks warm without knowing why.
"No, no, what am I thinking?" Djeeta shook her head a few times, trying to remove the weird thought that appeared in her head.
"Stop playing around, Djeeta. Check on him already," Vyrn said, seeing her like that.
"I know, I know. Let me calm down for a moment."
Djeeta took a deep breath a few times, trying to calm herself down. But while doing that, the man started moving and making a sound.
"Uhhh, my head hurts. What the hell was that light anyway?" Slowly opening his eyes, at first Rei thought he would see the usual ceiling of his bedroom, but it turned out to be a girl he had never seen before.
"Look, he's awake," Vyrn said.
"Huh?" Looking to the side, he could see a small red flying creature that seemed familiar.
"Wait a minute!" His eyes opened wide, and he immediately stood up from there.
"Kyaa!" Because of that, Djeeta fell backward with how sudden Rei's movements were.
Rei looked at Djeeta and Vyrn over and over again as his mind raced, trying to figure out what had happened and why he was seeing both main characters from Granblue Fantasy.
"Djeeta, are you alright? Oyy, what are you doing pushing someone like that even though we're just trying to help you!" Vyrn scolded him after seeing how he accidentally pushed Djeeta when he tried to stand up.
Hearing that, Rei snapped out of his thoughts and looked at Djeeta, who had fallen in front of him. So without hesitation, he helped her stand up by picking her up casually.
"I'm sorry, let me help you," he said while helping her up by holding her waist.
"No problem, no problem. I'm just surprised seeing you suddenly stand up like that," Djeeta hurriedly said, feeling embarrassed being touched by the waist like that.
A few moments later, they finally calmed down, with Djeeta and Vyrn asking why Rei was even unconscious there.
But all Rei answered was that he did not even know why he was here, and he also told them that he suddenly appeared here while sleeping in his bedroom.
At first, Djeeta and Vyrn thought maybe he got caught in a magic spell, but there was no trace of mana on him, so that idea was denied.
But the more he explained what happened to him in detail, the more Djeeta and Vyrn started to realize something.
"Are you from another dimension?" Djeeta asked.
"Another dimension!? You mean this man is like the people in your father's message?" Vyrn said, clearly surprised and not expecting to see someone like him here.
"Yeah, that's right. I am probably from another dimension because I never saw a place like this."
Well, he could not really tell them that they were just characters from a gacha game, so he just said he was from another dimension because in Granblue Fantasy there were often a lot of people getting transported here.
"I see, but unfortunately there is nothing we can do to help you return to your dimension," Djeeta said, as people transported here rarely could return back except if there was a primal beast with that kind of power to send them home.
"I know..." And Rei clearly understood that because he had already read a lot of stories in Granblue Fantasy about collaboration characters that could not return home.
"Hey, hey, don't be sad like that. Oh right, how about you follow us to our village?" Vyrn said, trying to lift the mood.
"That's right. Our village is a beautiful place, and the people there are kind. I'm sure you're going to be welcomed there," Djeeta also said.
Seeing them trying to cheer him up like that made him smile. "Thank you. By the way, my name is Rei."
"My name is Djeeta."
"I'm Vyrn."
They introduced themselves to each other and planned to return to the village, postponing the wolf hunt for now.
"Can I drink the water in that river? I'm so thirsty," but before they returned, Rei suddenly asked while pointing toward the river.
"Of course, go on, have a drink," Djeeta answered him.
Hearing that, he immediately went to the river and crouched down to pick up some water with both of his palms.
"Huh?" But he suddenly saw something that he did not expect at all.
Because in the reflection of the water, there was the reflection of a person that was not him but another character from Granblue Fantasy.
Lucilius, the Astral who stole Lucifer's body and wanted to destroy the sky realm and rebuild it without the Omnipotent's intervention.