And here it is, the final chapter for this book!
Quick note / slight spoiler for this one: anything said like "hello" is halkagenian, and "hello" is Japanese. Enjoy!
Epilogue
A few hours after the crash, Tlopfest slowly opened up his eyes. Feeling the headache that came with an incomplete revival, Tlopfest groaned and sat up, only to feel something fall off of his chest. With a start, Louise woke up and, upon seeing Tlopfest awake, quickly embraced the pigman.
"Thank the founder you're awake!" Louise said, breaking her steel facade some.
Patting her head, Tlopfest smiled seeing that she was alright. "Glad to see you're ok still Louise. Although speaking of…" He looked around, seeing just trees around them. "I don't suppose you know where we may have ended up?"
Snapping out of her grateful emotions, Louise cleared her throat and stood back before Tlopfest. "No. I do not recognize anything around here from home."
Sighing, Tlopfest got up and gestured to Louise. "Well, wherever we ended up, we're not gonna find out just sitting here." Saying that, the duo started to leave their crash site. Emerging from the trees, they saw what appeared to be a small fountain with benches and a walkway around it. They also saw what appeared to be a strangely dressed man hobbling out of the park with a large stick in his hands. The man was wearing a skin-tight suit with what appeared to be some sort of utility belt and a white helmet, although his suit looked like it had seen better days.
"...wonder what happened to him." Tlopfest muttered. Seeing as there were no other people around, Tlopfest decided to follow him, Louise following behind.
"Just what are we doing, Familiar?" Louise whispered loudly.
"First off…quieter, please." Tlopfest responded, getting a slight huff of annoyance from Louise. "And secondly…I have no better plan to figure out where we are other than tailing this guy." Seeing him turn around the corner, Tlopfest hurried to catch up. Louise, although annoyed, did not want to be separated from her familiar in this strange land if she could help it. So, she quickly ran up to him as well.
After a few blocks of tailing the strangely dressed man, the duo found themselves staring at him suddenly collapsing onto his knees under a streetlamp, although Tlopfest hadn't seen one quite like that before. "I know we're not in Minecraftia, but still, the light itself is certainly a lot smaller than what I've seen." Shifting his view to the individual, it almost seemed like he was muttering to himself and…crying?
"Familiar, this will not work. We should just go talk to someone else." Louise said.
"Even so, do you see anyone else around?" Tlopfest rebuked, shifting his hand around to indicate the vacant streets. "As I said, this is our-hey, someone else is talking to him now." Looking back at the kneeling man, the duo saw a much taller individual with what almost appeared to be armor made of bones. They couldn't quite make his face out however due to the poor lighting. Said man pointed to his right and started to say something, much to their original target's delight. Although after he had said his piece, he almost seemed to just….disappear.
"Come on, maybe he'll lead us somewhere we can get some real answers. If that other..bone-clad man said anything good at least." Tlopfest said, starting to follow their original strange man.
"Tlopfest…" Louise started, reaching out to him to pull him back. Yet, she also saw their lack of choices and went with him, albeit still regretfully. Their mystery man eventually turned another corner down the alleyway, and by the time the two caught up to him he almost seemed to be doing some ridiculous dance of short steps and shuffling to the side.
"Um…maybe the other guy just gave bad advice?" Tlopfest said to a miffed Louise. Regardless, the two saw him go down a set of stairs and, not wanting to lose him, they quickly followed, trying to stay quiet still. Reaching the stairs, they saw him go into a set of doors that had a symbol on it. Said symbol seemed to be a large staff with two two trails around it - one leading to a star, and the other to a ringed circle.
"Tlopfest…do you know that this is?" Louise asked.
"Not entirely…although the star and ringed circle remind me of some space symbols from back home…although they're more square than circular typically." Tlopfest replied. Poking his head in, Tlopfest saw what appeared to be some sort of secret lab with their mystery man talking to a woman with brunette hair, a pink top, purple pencil skirt, and white lab coat on top of all of that.
*Kiraraian-san, what problems do you have?" the woman said, although Tlopfest couldn't understand what she was saying.
"I've been damaged more than this rocket suit can take. My body is about to break… I need rocket parts to fix it." the strange man replied.
"That's really bad." Standing up, the woman started to go further into the lab. "Then, follow me. And bring your friends along too."
"Friends?" The man suddenly turned towards the door, only now noticing Tlopfest and Louise.
"Ah…crud." Tlopfest and Louise froze, with the pigman's eye turning a mixture of red and violet in his state of panic. Walking towards them, the stranger started talking to them.
"I don't believe I have seen aliens quite like you before. Who are you?" the man asked. Yet still, Tlopfest and Louise could not understand a word he said.
"Uh…hi?" Tlopfest awkwardly said, waving his hand to them. Louise reached for her wand, yet Tlopfest's hand grabbed hers to stop her from doing something drastic.
"Do you not understand us?" The woman, hearing the pigman say something not in Japanese, started to walk towards them.
"Uh…we, uh….d-don't mean any harm…" Tlopfest shakily said. He could probably smack the two of them with his pan to get away, but he wanted to avoid a confrontation if he could help it. In his shaking, Tlopfest's goggles slipped off of his head and partly over his eyes.
"Maybe they come from somewhere that is not under Devilukean law?" the man asked. As he said it, however, Tlopfest picked up on some of the words said thanks to his goggles.
"I have really got to remember what all I have on me…" Tlopfest thought, remembering that his goggles had a built-in translator that he got mostly working back at the Academy. Pulling his goggles down all the way and securing the mic and earbud, Tlopfest cleared his throat and tried to talk back to them.
"Uh, hi. Sorry, I had forgotten about this." Tlopfest said, his goggles translating to broken Japanese.
"Oh, so you do speak Japanese." the woman said, somewhat surprised.
"Japanese? Ah, so this is what the language is. Sorry, no, I don't actually speak it - my goggles have a translator function on them. Anyhow, uh, I don't suppose you could tell us where we are? My friend and I just crashed a couple of hours ago and we don't know where we are." Tlopfest responded.
"I see. Well, you are in Sainan, Japan, on Planet Earth. Where do you come from? And might I know your name?" The woman said.
Clearing his throat, the other man redirected the attention to himself. "Doctor, if I may.."
"Oh, of course. Right this way you three." The doctor waved them deeper into the lab. The man followed, with Tlopfest and Louise following a bit further behind.
"Tlopfest, what did you just say to them?!" Louise shout-wispered to Tlopfest.
"I told them most of our situation." Tlopfest said, speaking Halkagenian again. "She didn't freak out at my appearance, so I figured we may be able to get something out of her. Also, we seem to have landed in Japan, the same place that plane of ours came from."
"And why must you use their…language?"
"...because they don't speak Halagenian? Louise, we're on another planet for Nether's sake. Heck, we could be in a different dimension for all we know. Not everyone everywhere speaks Hakagenian."
As Tlopfest finished speaking, the doctor opened up a door and showed the three the rest of the facility.
"Wh-why is there such a system here on Earth?!" the man said.
"What, can we not have it?" the doctor responded.
"No..with this, I am saved!"
"What about you two?" The doctor turned towards the pigman and noble. "Are you two alright after that crash?"
"I believe so." Tlopfest responded. "I took the brunt of the damage, but I should be back to normal here soon enough. That aside though, might I inquire your name, doctor?"
"Ah, of course. I am Doctor Mikado. And you two are…?"
"I'm Tlopfest, and this is Louise."
"Don't just say my name like that, familiar!" Louise punched Tlopfest for another heart out of anger.
"Alright, sheesh, don't have to get so hostile." Tlopfest said, rubbing his arm to the doctor's amusement. "Sorry, my friend wanted me to give her full name, which is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière."
"I see. So, why are you two on Earth? More importantly, where are you from?"
"Heh, well, that's a long story, doctor…"
And with that, Book 1 is finally complete! Thank you so much to everyone who gave this story a chance, especially if you stuck around to this point. But where one story ends, another begins. If you're still interested in Tlopfest's adventures, be sure to follow my profile! I still plan on continuing this series, so keep an eye out for the next book! There will probably also be an announcement here too.
Once again, thanks for giving this story a chance, and I hope you enjoyed. See you in the next volume!
P.S. If you couldn't figure it out, Tlopfest and Louise ended up in the To-Love Ru universe.