"How can you be sure it's the center?" Elegy's head tilted curiously.

"Ah, it's just a theory." Sheep awkwardly chuckled, "It's probably not the case..."

"It IS the center!" I pouted at his lack of self-confidence, "Sheep's explanation made way too much sense for it to not be the case! Without a doubt in my mind, district A is the Center of Heaven! Hmph!"

Sheep was by this point jolting and flapping his wings abashedly all over the place, trying to get me to pipe down. Energy was looking around us to try and find some sort of building or person in the vicinity, and Elegy was still left without a proper explanation.

"So if this is the center..." Elegy earnestly rubbed his chin, "Then Heaven 2.0 must be divided up into rings, right?"

"...Gah, stop guessing everything correctly!" I stomped my foot on the ground, "You're making us look bad!"

"But that can't be the case, though?" He continued his train of thought anyway, "Because then the districts would enlarge as we got closer to the Shrine, but they were all the same. No, but you guys are on the right track. Hmm... Maybe, and I know this is gonna sound farfetched, but maybe the plane of existence "twists and contorts" at the center so as to maintain the illusion of every district being the same size."

"..."

"What?"

"Actually, that's what I suggested." Sheep bashfully raised his wing.

"Oh wow, you got that before me?" Elegy praised him, "You guys are super smart!"

Speak for yourself, dumbass! Excuse you, but who is "we"?! I can understand Sheep being smart, 'cause that's the kind of vibe I got from him in the first place. Yeah, he's supposed to be the smart and responsible one, so how come you're overstepping his lane as well!? Dammit, you can't just do what everything's good at with ease, you know!?

"Ah, but it's still odd how this place is so darned empty." Elegy glanced around a bit again, "You'd expect to find something grand and important here, but nah. Just clouds as far as the Eye can see. Almost like the path between Z district and the Shrine, even."

"The sky is pink." Energy corrected him, "It's not like that anywhere else."

"Come again?" We all looked down at him.

The sky is... pink? No, it's so obviously not. It's as Blue as it is anywhere else in Heaven, so what's he on about? Maybe Energy is the Colorblind one, and not Nerys... Though she's not Colorblind either.

"The sky doesn't look any different to me." Sheep also found differences with the regular sky.

"Are your Eyes okay?" Energy replied, "It's the same Color as Vastoria's dress."

"Wow, that strong of a pink?" I furrowed my brows, "But still, it doesn't matter if you're the only one that can see it that way."

"No, I believe him." Elegy piped up.

Oh great! This guy again! What next, is he also gonna steal away Energy's unique "pink sky" vision as well? We just can't catch a break!

"Hey, don't look at me like that, Migu." He chuckled before elaborating, "I see the sky as Blue too, but Energy's earlier comment got me thinking."

"The one where I asked if your Eyes worked?" Energy also looked lost.

"It's an otherwise redundant question because the Gods told us that every part of our bodies is flawless." Elegy explained, "But maybe their version of "flawless" includes not allowing us to see the truth."

Deep, but we don't need a poet right now. Thankfully, he's not THAT multi-talented. Honestly, where is he even going with this?

"Have you ever wondered if the world you saw was actually how it was?" Elegy asked.

"Oh, I have!" Sheep flapped his wings jovially, "It's like that, right? We've all been taught that grass is Green, but what I see and interpret as Green might not be what everyone else does, like for people with Colorblindness."

"It's a simple analogy, but yeah—that's a good way to put it." Elegy continued, "There is no way to know what the "true world" around us looks like, as we all have our own Eyes to guide us through it. Well, everyone but Energy."

Oh. Oooh! I think I'm starting to get it! Since Energy doesn't use his Eyes to see, but rather his brain radar, it means he sees the world "as it is"! In other words, there really is something hidden from us in this place, and thanks to him, we now know this for a fact!

"Nice job, Energy!" I patted the bag I was carrying him in, "It's thanks to you that we've solved yet another piece of the puzzle."

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Eh? I really did nothing." He sounded confused, "Really, in comparison to Elegy's detective skills, I..."

"Shut. Mouth." I peered into his bag with a very dark smile, "He couldn't have deduced squat had it not been for you pointing it out in the first place."

"That's right, anyone could've figured this out." Elegy remained humble, "I just so happened to be the first to speak up, that's it."

Gah! Stop being nice, it's making me sound bad just for wanting to praise Energy! Bastard, I didn't hate you before, but now you're really getting on my nerves! No one man can be this useful of an asset! Ah, but looking back, he really was like this from the very start...

"Alright then, genius, what exactly does that mean for us?" I jeered.

"Migu, seriously...?" Energy seemed baffled by my attitude.

"I still don't know what the sky being pink means for us, but we'll need Energy's help again to figure it out." Elegy flashed us a confident thumbs up, "Isn't this exciting? We're messing with the Gods again without them breathing down our necks!"

I think I now see why the Gods hate him so much. He really wastes no time in getting on their nerves. Hell, if I was one of the Five Gods, I'd hate him too.

----------------------------------------

***

----------------------------------------

Thus, we began trudging through the empty, vast expanse laid out before us. The only sense of orientation we had to work with was the mansion behind us, whose size thankfully made it difficult to lose. To decide the direction we were headed to, we used the front doors as a benchmark. That was our "north", and everything else was based off of that.

"Hold that internal exposition." Elegy suddenly yelled, "We never decided that this was north."

"Hm?" The other two raised a figurative Eyebrow in unison, "Who are you talking to?"

"Did you just read my mind!?" I yelped.

"Chill, it's nothing like that." He brushed me off, "I'm just reading the parts of the chapter without the quotation marks."

Are we even talking about the same thing here? What chapter, what quotation marks? Elegy, you're scaring me, dude...

"In any case, don't worry about it." He saw us staring worriedly at him so he changed the subject, "Rather, I think the direction we're headed to is east."

"Huh? Why does it matter? I mean, we already have the house to go off of." Energy asked.

"The house isn't always gonna be like that." He refuted, "We might have to go out pretty far before Energy notices another discrepancy, so we should try to avoid losing our way. Setting common directions is a good way to do that."

That we can agree on. After all, it's the entire reason I arbitrarily chose the front of the house to be north. But what's wrong with that?

"In that case, east? Really?" Even Sheep was skeptical.

"Take a look at our shadows." Elegy pointed with his finger, a smug smirk forming on his face, "If we can see, there is light. If there is light, there are shadows. And if there are shadows, they will always point in the opposite direction of the light source."

Oh, now that he mentioned it, I never really took a good look at where our shadows were. After all, what would I gain from doing that? Hmm, let's see... If I'm facing the direction we've been walking this whole time, the shadow is... right below me. Ah, no it's just barely behind me?

"Gah, it's tough to make out with how faint the shadow is!" I tried stomping at it in frustration.

"So there is a light source...!" Sheep was astonished, "It's extremely high up, but it does exist. And from the looks of it, it's right above us."

"Possibly noon, though time has no meaning in Heaven 2.0, so its position might not even matter." Elegy nodded.

"Again, what does it even matter if there is no "visible" Sun in the sky?" I frowned.

"The sky that we evidently can't see properly?" Elegy turned to the bag carrying Elegy, "Yeah, I think it's time to refer to the expert here."

Energy was astounded to hear all this info hitting him all of a sudden, but he wasn't one to waste time on the uptake. Immediately, he got to work, asking me to lift him above my head as far as I could to hopefully get him a clearer picture. My arm got tired after an entire minute of holding him, but it was worth it.

"This is an incredible find." Energy confirmed, "Yes, there does seem to exist a "Sun" of sorts in Heaven. Though, it's so far out that even I can barely make out its silhouette."

"We knew that much already." I gave an annoyed sneer, "Which way is it moving?"

"It's not." He answered, "The light source in the sky is not moving. Even from this distance, I can feel it."

"So we can assume that the entirety of Heaven is revolving around this light." Elegy muttered, "Usually, directions are defined with magnetic poles, but since we don't have that luxury currently, we'll have to "invent" the directions of Heaven. Absolute directions that don't have any connection to our currently facing direction."

"Alright, you've painted your points vividly." I rolled my Eyes, "But you still haven't exactly gotten to the part where you explain why you think we're moving east."

"...It just feels right to call the center of the map "eastward", I dunno." He simply shrugged.

"Use your brain, dammit!" I shouted his ears off, "Look at the house behind us from a top down view! The front entrance is northward!"

"But that also depends on if you're entering or exiting." Sheep chimed in.

"You shut your damn-!!!"

"Guys, guys!" Energy stopped things before they got too heated, "If we can't pinpoint the exact direction we're facing, then why not just name them ourselves?"

"Ah." We blinked, "Good point..."

We were so caught up in which idea was right that we never stopped to realize the obvious—this entire topic is stupid and divisive as is and it can just be solved by not giving anyone what they want. Just a hard reset where we can start from the ground up to make something together, instead of picking sides.

"Then, I dub the direction behind us...!" Elegy pointed at the mansion, "Marinara!"

"Ooh, like the sauce!" I excitedly added onto that, "Then, the direction we're headed to should be Vasta, named after the cutest girl of all time!"

"Naming the direction after your lover? How childish." Energy mentally rolled his Eyes, "The direction to our left is Tin."

"And you're naming yours after a can..." Sheep gave him a deadpanned smirk, "In that case, I guess I should choose the final one, huh? Oh God, now I'm kinda feeling the pressure to think of something..."

"It's not that hard." I figured.

"Maybe for you guys!" He fussed, "Sigh, I think I'll skip this one, after all..."

Hm? Actually, that sounded kind of right just now. I know it was unintentional on his part, but it might actually be the best name out of all of these.

"Skip it is!" Elegy, Sheep and I smiled in unison, "And with that, we've got our cardinal directions! Marinara, Vasta, Tin and Skip!"