Nothing Plus Nothing Means. . .

The 2nd volume of The Weakest Contestant of all Space and Time actually backtracks to before the tournament began, to show how one of the other contestants was chosen. The god of the '95,732nd Swords and Magic Spacetime' selected the time of sentry that greets you at the entrance to JRPG villages with a set number of phrases and information. The scarecrow kept losing, until it encountered Yoshizawa. So now it's one of several trying to hunt down Yoshizawa and his bizarre quartet of allies.

This is, I think to continue to emphasize the cruel and arbitrary nature of the gods. They tell the contestants like the scarecrow to hunt down and kill Yoshizawa, but when the scarecrow takes heart in its creator expressing confidence in it and actually devises a clever plan, the gods are bored and displeased. They want hilarious failures. When the scarecrow's god intervenes to give them what they want, well. . .

(Artist KRSG spends the page prior and the first panel of this page showing the inhabitants of that spacetime going about their lives. Then a panel all in black, and then this. All those lives gone, because the gods got annoyed one of their own interfered in their arbitrary rules.)

In the meantime, Yoshizawa's finding his confidence from the end of the first volume misplaced, as the scarecrow isn't the only one pursuing them that's getting creative. A battle in a desert shifts to a temple long buried and forgotten, but Yoshizawa can't come up with good strategies, and can't get anyone to go along with the ones he does come up with. Which makes a certain amount of sense. He's too indecisive and unmotivated to be particularly charismatic.

Writer Masato Hisa takes this chance to pair Yoshizawa off with "Tofu Brat", who is some minor yokai/mythological figure who likes to make passive-aggressive comments and is obsessed with maintaining his specific appearance and accessories, even at the cost of his life. The two of them barely interacted in the first volume, and Tofu Brat mostly got on Yoshizawa's nerves with snide comments, so this gives the reader a better sense of the character, and the ways in which he can be useful or accomplish things.

The five of them end the volume reunited and free of the temple (which appears dedicated to the former god running the tournament). More critically, they still haven't killed any of their pursuers. This is serving the dual role of giving those characters more time to become disenchanted with their gods, who root for them to fail and them mock them for it, while also letting them grown and learn. That's not all to the good, as Yoshizawa had a rematch with a hardened and vengeful Oinky, but if they can exceed the roles their creators try to enforce on them then, who knows what can happen?

Unfortunately, this came out last year, and as far as I know, there hasn't been another volume since, nor has one been solicited. So who knows when we'll see what Hisa and KRSG have planned for all this.