I swung open the heavy doors of the Abode, their inertia carrying them after they've built up enough speed. As usual, the sight that greeted us was that of a church-like interior, fitted with rows upon rows of benches all aligned to face the altar at the center. Atop the altar sat a lectern, though it was so high up that we couldn't see whether or not that large Book the Gods tried to hide away from us was on it or not.

"Elegy!" I hollered, "Hats, get your butts over here!"

The shout was met with silence, though that wouldn't fool us, "Elegy, it's okay!" Sheep elaborated, "The Gods aren't with us right now!"

"We know you're in here, we heard you thrashing about just a moment ago from outside!" Energy groaned loudly, "No use hiding now."

Honestly, with how deathly silent it got all of a sudden, I was almost about to just give up and assume they somehow left, but the loud thud of something toppling over cleared our suspicions.

"Gah! S-Sorry...!" Hats' youthful voice apologized profusely.

"Sst!" Elegy shushed him.

Dude, we know you're there...

"Sigh... Are we seriously doing this?" Sheep cracked his wings, "One day I'd like to have someone go with the easy way. Way less of a hassle than the hard way."

I blinked, and before me Sheep already rounded up both of them. As they thrashed around inside his winged embrace, confused and angry over getting caught so easily yet still trying not to step on Vastoria in the meantime, Sheep barfed them out onto the hard marble flooring.

With a strong grunt, Elegy looked up at us, "Hm? Oh, you were actually telling the truth."

"I told you the Gods weren't with them!" Hats protested, "But you wouldn't listen-"

"Don't say that, kid." Elegy shut him up with but a finger, "Our mission was to hide away from the Gods, and Migu even told us to avoid the rest of their group as well. It was only natural to assume that she was "playing a trick on us" by luring us into a false sense of security. It would have been the perfect double-cross against the Gods."

"Too many crosses for my brain to comprehend..." Hats' Eyes swirled, "But wait, where even are the Gods?"

"Digging a hole." I smirked, showing off the walkie-talkie with their voice shouting profanities from the other side.

"Gah! I'm sick and tired of doing all the work, man!" Pry finally snapped at his colleague.

"H-Hey, have you gone mad!?" Selz couldn't believe it, "Did you just try to swing that pickaxe at me!? I'll have you know I'm no rock!"

"But you're somehow as dense as one!" Pry kept going off on him, "Moron, what part of "spreading the work evenly" didn't you understand!? I'm busting my back over here trying to find the Wildcard and you've barely even swung the pickaxe once!"

"I'm saving my strength!"

"For what!? You gonna tackle him to the ground? You!?"

Yeah, they're having a blast over there. But more important was these two's reactions to the device in my hands. Hats and Elegy were on high alert the moment they heard the Gods' voices, but Energy was quick to clear up any possible misunderstandings.

"This device allows us to talk to them, Sab and Nerys no matter where they are." He elaborated, "It is technology from Migu's era. Pretty nifty, isn't it?"

"Well, even for my era, it's a bit outdated..." I corrected him, "See, most people now use phones, which-"

"Incredible!" Elegy snatched the talkie rudely from my hand, "So we can hear them through this speaker, right!? Oh wow, and this button, it's to open up the microphone, no!?"

"Eh? How come you know so much already?" Sheep cocked his wings.

"Hm?" He shrugged, "It's just common sense, I think. What else would the button be used for?"

Elegy's way too multi-talented... Is this the power of a Wildcard? Is he just an all-trick pony? A gifted individual who just knows every skill that there is? Somehow, that really pisses me off. Like, seriously, leave some trades for the rest of us, jack!

"Hey, you mind if I take this apart?" Elegy said as the battery case popped out, "Oof. My bad."

"Don't worry, I have my own." I took it out of Sheep's storage.

"Oh cool!" A large grin formed on his head as he immediately continued tinkering with it, "Then I can figure out just how it works without fear of ruining it!"

"Ahem." Hats interrupted him, "So if the Gods aren't here, where exactly are they?"

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"Don't worry, they're not anywhere near this place." Sheep reassured them, "They're all the way in district G, after all."

Hearing this, the two fellas couldn't help but petrify in shock at these words. Judging by those reactions, it seems something doesn't quite sit right with them either.

"How is that not super close?" Elegy's Eyes shrunk back in fear.

"Eh? You kidding?" Energy chuckled, "That's a whole 3 districts away, fool." He continued, "You guys are in D."

"Fueh!?" Hats panicked, "What do you mean? We never crossed any borders, so how come we're in district D!" He then whispered at Elegy while counting with his fingers, "That's this many districts away, right?"

"No, you got four fingers extended." Elegy calmly knocked one finger down, "You're getting better at counting though, good job."

Good job, my ass! What the Hell do they mean they never crossed the border—they can't say that and expect us to believe them after we found them all the way out here, dammit! Ah, not to undermine Hats' achievement, I'm glad Elegy's teaching him some basic stuff like counting and vocabulary.

"Urk, good job, Hats..." I swallowed my anger to keep his spirits up.

"Nice going, man!" Sheep praised him as well.

"You are doing well, keep it up." Energy nodded too.

The situation was lowkey in a pretty messed up state, but at least the kid was happy. Somehow, in that moment, we all silently and unanimously agreed that his smile made it all worth it.

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***

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"First of all, I think we should sort a few things out before we get too far ahead of ourselves." Elegy began the discussion.

I replied, "Agreed."

"To begin with, maybe we should start from you guys first." Sheep suggested, "Just why in the world would you choose the Gods' Abode as your hiding spot?"

"Ah, about that..." Elegy scratched his cheek with a nervous chuckle, "I think I should still keep that card hidden for now. You never know when the Gods might be listening in."

Oh right, I forgot that they can still read minds. But if they're humans, then doesn't that mean they have to physically be looking at us in order for that to happen? Meh, they seem to know more about it than I do, so maybe they found a way to bypass that.

"Okay...?" Energy sort of understood the reasoning behind that, "In that case, can you at least tell us if you went anywhere else before settling on here?"

"Nope, we went straight here." Hats shook his head, "Elegy immediately broke off from the rest of the group the moment you and Migu left to go back to your side. It was so scary, I didn't know who to go with...!"

"Hehe, sorry for scaring you, kid!" Elegy reached up to pat his head, "But I'm glad you came along for the ride! It would've been a chore and a half without you by my side."

So that's the case, he ran here from the very start. But still, this doesn't explain how he ended up all the way in district D. We need to dig deeper.

"And you're positive you never crossed a border?" I inquired.

"Nope."

"Not even once?"

"Nuh uh. All within the confines of district G." Elegy shook his head, "Actually, are 'you' sure you're outside of district G? Maybe you imagined it."

"We didn't." Sheep answered, "Actually, we checked every district from Z to here."

"Wow, you were thorough..." He chuckled before a moment of realization struck him, "Everyone, leave the Abode, now!"

"Eh?" We jolted, "What's with you all of a sudden!?"

"Leave, come on, get out get out get out...!" He ushered us through the front doors.

With the speed and force he was pushing us out of the house, you'd expect the doors to burst open, but that didn't happen. They were large, fifteen meter tall doors made of a hard material, so obviously they were too heavy for basically a bunch of ants to swing open. Regardless, he did slowly but surely pry them open, sending us out into the yard, but this time something felt off.

"We... weren't here before." I looked around in confusion.

"Where are all the houses surrounding us...?" Energy as well glanced around.

That's when Sheep flew up to get a better view, "The answer's obvious." He descended down to us, "We're no longer in district D."

So that's the case, after all. Teleportation of some kind, the kind that activated the moment we entered the Abode. Then, was this a trap of some kind? No, it doesn't seem to have some kind of danger to it. After all, this is nothing but fast travel.

"Re-enter the Abode." Elegy informed us.

"Eh? No way, we-!"

"Just get in!"

He pushed us inside for approximately a second before shoving us back out. As if magic, we found ourselves surrounded by crowded streets and Heavenly Houses of all shapes and sizes neatly conforming to their yards' boundaries.

"What the...?"

"Alright, let's go back to that empty place now." Elegy shoved us back in a second time.

"W-Wait...?!"

Again, we were surrounded by citylife after we stepped out of the Abode, but this time the houses were different. A third time and the people wore different clothes, and the attempt after that finally brought us back to the empty place we first came across.

"So it's true." Elegy nodded, proudly explaining to us this phenomenon, "We're constantly being sent from one district to the next in cycles. This must be the Gods' answer to blessing every district with a Gods' Abode of their own."

"You got all that from that?" Sheep asked.

"It's just common sense." He grinned, "Why else would the place be teleporting?"

Okay, better check off "detective" as well off his bingo card as well then, geez! Elegy... honestly, is there even a point to him having us tag along at this point? Why doesn't he just solve everything and fix Vastoria up all by himself? He seems more than capable.

"Migu, are you mad for some reason?" He egged me on, be it purposefully or not, "Why the long face?"

"She finally realized she isn't necessary for this whole mission to work." Energy jeered.

"I'll throw this bag with you in it down a ditch and bury it." I threatened.

"You're getting buried with me in that case."

Our bickering and death threats aside, the other three seemed very interested in the empty location we were currently in. Let's say that there are as many districts as there are letters in the alphabet. If that's the case, and we visited everything from Z to D, then that only leaves us with three other options where we could be. If we look at it like that, and then couple it with Sheep's previous explanation about how Heaven 2.0 is laid out, then there's gotta be really only one right answer.

"This has to be it. There's no other possibility." Sheep could hardly contain his excitement.

"Has to be what?" Hats tilted his head, "What is this place?"

"District A." My Eyes glinted at the visage splayed out in front of me, "The Center of Heaven."