After Reaching the Happy Ending, I Was Locked up by the Extremely Possessive Heroines I Had Conquered

Chapter 48: We’re Supposed to Have Escaped the Island

It had probably been about an hour since then.

We had been rocking on the boat for a long time and felt a bit seasick, but we talked about what came next.

“Do you have a plan after we reach the mainland?”

“No. But the Shiomine family did give us some financial help.”

“For real?”

Toa pulled something like a leather wallet from the backpack on the boat.

“This has cash in it. They said this is more than enough for travel expenses for all three of us.”

She handed me the stuffed wallet, and when I checked inside, it held twenty ten-thousand-yen bills.

Handing over this much money so casually was just like one of the three great families.

“This should be enough.”

We had not decided on a specific way to get from Kochi Prefecture to Tokyo, but even if we assumed a bullet train or a plane, the amount was plenty.

The problem was that we did not know how to get to the bullet train station or the airport.

“We got this too.”

Toa held down her hair whipping in the wind and took something else from the backpack. It was…

“A cell phone?!”

It was the one thing I wanted most right now.

With this, we could connect to the internet anytime and look up routes to Tokyo as much as we wanted.

We could also stay in touch with Toa and Mahiru, so it was perfect.

“…Huh?”

Just as my hopes swelled, I noticed it was a flip phone.

This was not a smartphone…

“It is a flip phone.”

It looked familiar, but this was the first time I had seen one in person.

My parents’ generation used these, and apparently everyone had one before smartphones took over.

Did flip phones even have internet?

I thought about that and tried operating it, but since we were out at sea, there was no signal.

Well, but if it could make calls, it probably had internet too. I had no confidence in figuring out how to use it, but having it beat not having it by a mile.

As I flipped it open and closed to see how it worked,

“Big brother, I see land!”

Mahiru pointed ahead.

Out there—beyond the horizon—something like land came into view, and I could make out the faint outline of a town.

“Is that the mainland…”

I could not help but catch my breath.

It felt profound, but at the same time, terrifying.

Stepping into the unknown always took courage.

I clenched my fist and gazed at the harbor drawing closer.

It dwarfed Black Tide Island’s port, with all sorts of big and small ships docked there. Beyond that was a parking lot, and I could even see cars driving on the roads.

“Cars…”

There had been hardly any on the island.

Bikes and motorcycles were the norm, so just seeing cars made it feel like we had entered a whole other world.

“We are almost at the harbor. You two, watch out so the waves do not knock you overboard.”

The old guy at the helm shouted.

I gripped the railing tight and stared straight ahead, enduring the rough waves.

Sea spray burst up and hit my face.

Toa and Mahiru closed their eyes and clung to me to hold on.

I blinked a few times and thought that if we could just land without any issues—

That was the moment I rubbed my eyes and opened them.

“………………………………Huh?”

Up ahead. On the breakwater.

A girl stood there alone, her silver hair flowing in the wind.

She did not seem to care about her swaying hair at all. She just stood tall and stared right at us.

“No no no no, there is no way…”

The sunlight silhouetted her outline.

Her lithe body, her long hair flowing smoothly—everything shaped her…

But that faded in the face of her fierce eyes, which gleamed sharply.

Her gaze was like a lion’s, eyeing prey, waiting patiently as we drew near.

“Um… old guy?”

“What? I am focused here, so unless it is urgent, save it.”

“No, I really need you to handle this right away…”

I looked that way again and, drenched in cold sweat, quietly made a suggestion.

“Can we turn this boat around?”

“Turn around?! Are you messing with me?”

“Big brother?”

“Senpai?”

“No, really, this is bad. If we keep going, it is a straight shot back for sure.”

“What do you mean?”

Toa opened her eyes and tilted her head.

“Look, there is a lion over there…”

To help her get the situation, I pointed at the breakwater.

“A lion? There is no lion anywhere.”

“No way—wait, huh?”

I looked closely again, and the silver-haired lion waiting for prey had vanished.

I scanned around, but she was nowhere.

“Huh, that is weird. She was definitely there…”

“It must be a hallucination from you, big brother. You got locked up too long and started thinking about Satori-san too much.”

“That could be it…”

The nightly dignity destructions might have led to hallucinations.

It was totally possible.

“No one is there, so we keep going.”

“…………Okay.”

Was it really a hallucination?

I wondered, but turning back was not practical, so in the end, all I could do was nod.

After that, the boat reached the harbor without incident. The moment my feet hit solid ground, the tension I had been holding slowly drained away.

“Finally, finally, we escaped the island!”

Saying it out loud brought a lump to my throat.

Looking back, it had been one hardship after another.

Locked up, exposed to surveillance cameras, locked up again.

Pure unreasonableness, one thing after another.

Whenever I closed my eyes, it all came rushing back. Those days had been that intense.

But they ended today.

“All right, let’s go.”

I took a big breath and looked at the two of them.

Mahiru nodded slightly, and Toa smiled happily.

And so, we took our first step on the mainland.

“………………………………Akira, why did you leave the island?”

“Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?