"Brace for impact...!" Sheep yelled, blocking with his arms in a feeble attempt to not get anything in his Eyes.
Now this may not be completely true, given I don't remember my life as a human, but this is probably my very first time crashing through a house's roof. I half expected us to just bounce off and slide down the sides, but the roof was surprisingly thin, causing us to feel the impact of the marble floor before we could even register a single roof tile. Given we didn't feel any pain, just as we were promised not to, the three of us were all too quick to spring back up on our feet and dart our gazes around the forbidden holy room.
"Looks more like a church than a mansion..." Gale noted.
"What church did you go to?" Sheep raised an Eyebrow.
"No, he's right." I inspected the layout with all the rows of benches with the aisle dividing them going towards the altar, "It's a church, Allucian style to be exact. But why would the Meditation God and Knowledge God live in a church that worships the Water Goddess?"
"Maybe Allucius is the landlord?" Gale joked.
"...Wait, did you just say Goddess?" Sheep did a double take.
"Yes?" I nodded with a hint of confusion on my face, "Allucius is female."
"Oh get outta here." Even Gale didn't believe me.
"Is this not common knowledge??" I took a step back, but they already stopped listening in favor of investigating the altar.
Well, I guess I can't blame them too much for their ignorance. They're both from that era, before such info was widely known. Yes sir, Allucius is the only Goddess in the bunch. Makes me wonder if they still think there're only Four Gods.
"Geez, this place really is huge..." Gale looked around.
"Then again, did you see how big those Gods were? Compared to them, Throne and Sab were tiny!" Sheep added.
"Yeah, well their ginormous size is presenting an issue of equal or greater magnitude right now." I glanced up, "How are we gonna reach the altar?"
The altar, something you could even go so far as to call the centerpiece that ties this whole place together. Usually, the altar is supposed to reach somewhere near your abdomen area. Enough for one to gently bow forward to give the Book or picture presented on it a gentle kiss. Any higher and kids wouldn't be able to reach it, but any lower and the elderly would be breaking backs just to squat down enough. It's the perfect height, but given it was made for two giants that easily surpassed 10 meters in height, it still towers over us to the point where even jumping up to reach it was farfetched (no pun intended).
"A pair of seraphim wings would be really nice right now..." Sheep absentmindedly sighed.
"Is there anything we could use to help bridge the distance?" Gale looked for a solution to the problem, "Like ladders or platforms to use as stairs?"
Just then, we heard behind us an ear-piercing screech of the heavy double doors. Slowly, painstakingly, they were being opened from the outside. We were running out of time, and it seems the Gods have already caught on to our little investigative work.
"Crap, what do we do?!" Sheep panicked.
"...Hide!" I ushered them behind the altar just as the Gods angrily hovered inside.
"Alright then, be sure to bring them here when you find the intruders!" Selzion's voice called out to someone from outside, though he changed his tone into a far more bitter one the second the doors closed, "That idiot, does he really think we'd be fooled by his lies?"
"Wait, he wasn't telling the truth?" Selzion raised an Eyebrow.
"...."
"I kid, I kid!" The Meditation God chuckled to quell his friend's anger, "Seriously though, he's a smart one. I'm sure he knows we know that he's lying about them escaping."
Ah, so that's the situation. I was beginning to wonder how Throne managed to hold them off for so long, so I guess that answers my question. He must've told them about how he lost us while we were wrestling in the sky. They're all-knowing, so they saw right through our plan from the start if we are to believe what they said previously, but they still humored him instead of just turning around and catching us immediately. Are they trying to say that we're not a threat to them? Well, when I look at how far we have to climb to reach our objective, I kinda have no other choice but to agree...
"Hm." They silently floated down the aisle as Selzion clicked his tongue, "Argh, the roof..."
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"Oh yeah, Throne must've dropped them." Prylos followed his subordinate's gaze, "Dammit, if I had known they were gonna be like this, we should've just let them in ourselves..."
Yeah, well, too late now, bucko. His voice, unlike Selzion's, always sounds genuine too, which does make me feel bad, but we can't afford to show ourselves now in a naive attempt to ask kindly to see what's on top of the altar. For now, we have to hide like our lives depend on it. Scuttle away into the tightest corner we could find, like bugs. That's our goal for now, at least until they leave again.
"Alright, time to..." Prylos wanted to end things immediately.
"Wait!" Selzion stopped him, however, "That's no good. We should at least give them a fair game."
"Fair in what way, exactly?" Prylos was skeptical, "We're Gods, they're puny angels. What possible handicaps could you give them that'd make us play evenly? We can always just snap our fingers and send them back to their homes."
I... didn't think of that. Is that actually something they can do? Well, I guess they are all-powerful Gods, so I shouldn't be too surprised. Hold on though, it's not like all hope is lost! We just gotta put all our hopes into Selzion's persuasion and suggestion! Come on, man! Use that accumulated Knowledge you're so famous for and give us a fighting chance!
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"Not a handicap, just a bit of fun." Selzion shook his head as he explained, "You're right, they've already lost no matter how you slice it. A flick of the wrist and they'll be forced to reset without any retained memories of today. But we can at least humor them and make them feel like they're useful."
"Eh? Humor them?" Prylos furrowed his brows, "Since when have you been the merciful type?"
"Merciful? You call dangling the cheese in front of their faces before immediately yanking it from them at the very last second mercy?" Selzion tilted his head, "I would've called it something more along the lines of toying with ants."
He's quite cruel, the Knowledge God. I don't even have to peek around the altar to see the annoyingly smug and sadistic grin on his ugly mug. To top it all off, he didn't exactly give us any concrete help either. He just wants us to try because he knows it won't make a difference.
"Tch, asshole..." I muttered.
"...He's right." Gale sulked, "Even if we did find out what they were trying to hide was, they could just poof our memories back to zero by putting us to sleep."
"No." Sheep shot back, "No, that's not the case at all!"
"Huh?"
"I don't have wings, but are you forgetting that I'm a shopkeeper?" Sheep refuted, "I can keep my memories of today! Gale, Magnes, if you can help me get up there, then we might yet have a chance!"
Oh... Oh! That's right, I totally forgot because he doesn't have wings! While it's true Sheep doesn't have wings, he does still have the power to retain memories between cycles! In other words, neither Gale nor I have to see what's inside necessarily, so long as that knowledge reaches his Eyes or ears! But we gotta act fast. The Gods jokingly poked their fingers through the bars, so we're tasked with chomping them off in retaliation before they retract them!
"From a rough estimate, it seems to be around 5 meters tall." Gale looked up, "We can't move from this spot to find anything to stand on, so we're gonna have to use each other."
"We're making a tower?" Sheep calculated it in his head, "If that's the case, then Magnes won't be able to handle my weight."
"My body would crumple under your stature." I agreed, "Then, I guess I'm gonna have to be the one at the top."
"Gale, hop on." Sheep didn't hesitate to step into position.
"Maggie, listen carefully." Gale glanced down at me from atop him, "The moment you find anything up there, toss it down if you can and/or shout what out what you see."
Of course, once I climb up there'll be no reason to keep quiet because the Gods will have spotted me already. No matter what I find up there, I'll be sure to announce it so Sheep can hear. Sort of like our memory storage. After that, we'll definitely get caught by them, but hopefully it'll be enough for Sheep to work with in the next cycle. Grabbing the edge of the altar, I took a deep breath before pulling myself up and over with all my might.
"...Ah." I looked up defeatedly at the two Gods snickering amongst themselves at me, "Crap."
"Pfft! N-No, go on. What do you see?" Prylos waved the Book we assumed would be on the altar in his hands.
"Seriously, even if we were that naive to leave the Book there, can't you see its size? There's no way you would have been able to flip it open with your body!"
"Magnes! What do you see!?" Gale shouted from down below.
"I-I..."
"Oh, come on, don't cry." Prylos felt bad, "Selz, look what your sadistic prank did to her, she's got no more fight in her anymore."
"Obviously, that was the point." Selzion replied, promptly taking the Book from him, "If we gave her this Book-GAH!"
From the same hole we had made previously on the roof descended two brave seraphim who promised to aid us in our mission. They were so fast, and the inexperienced one's flight pattern was so erratic that they genuinely surprised the Gods beyond what any prior knowledge could deal with. Throne hit the Book from Selzion's hand like a fly would run into a window, except in the scenario it would manage to crack it. It wasn't much, mind you, but just slightly enough to knock the Book to the ground with a random page opened.
"Buzz buzz, idiots!" Sab played his part perfectly as he pestered the Gods, "Imma fly! The annoying Green type that buzzes loudly around you! Ghack!"
"You should've never come back..." Prylos smushed him with his hands without remorse.
"Pry, ignore him!" Selzion yelled, "The Book!"
"Now's your chance! Migu, read it!" Throne shouted as he got squashed as well.
"O-On it!" I quickly peeked over, squinting as I hardly made out the one and only sentence embedded inside it from the altar, "The pro... protagonist's...!"
And scene. Really, when they said they could put us to sleep with the snap of a finger, I didn't think they meant it literally. I didn't get to read anything past that point, Selzion put us all to sleep before that could happen. This is the end for me, I guess. I didn't get to become a seraphim or anything like that, so I guess it's back to square one for me. However, Throne, Sab and Sheep still remember what happened today. I'm sure they'll track me and Gale down again, we'll probably have different names and personalities, but it's not like we're dead or anything. Though I am pissed we didn't manage to win in the end, I do feel pretty at peace with this outcome. The rest, I leave to the ones that remain with their memories intact...