"Hah, haa..." I barely made my way up the icy stairs, "Almost... there!"
"Don't look down, don't look down..." Cecily still held her hand over Cene's Eyes, "Whatever you do, don't look down..."
"I-It'll be fine!" Othelia whimpered.
"Y-Yeah, j-just watch your step." Eleanor agreed as they resorted to holding hands halfway up the steps.
"Oh come on, guys! It's not that- BAAAH!" Aru suddenly scared everyone as she slipped off.
"Aru!" We all shouted as she lifted herself up with her water pillar.
"Bahahah! Did this height make you forget I can't fall or something!?" She mocked us, "Man, the looks on your faces, dahahaha!"
"You should not frighten them, Allucius." Prylos warned, "They are a rather alarmed group of individuals. Jokes will not register in the same way."
"You're acting like you don't know they'll live through this." She pouted.
"Are you forgetting the foreigner is with us as well?" Prylos pointed out, "Nothing is certain at this point."
"Gee, thanks Issei..." I shivered as I glared at him.
"O-Oi, not my fault!" He shivered back, "God, now I gotta be extra careful. If I knew my existence nullified plot armor, I'd definitely take things more seriously!"
"No you won't, dork." Othelia rolled her Eyes, "If anything, you'd probably consider yourself some sort of godly being for causing such mayhem for everyone."
"You know me so well." He smiled back.
True, I guess it isn't really his fault that he's making everyone's futures uncertain, but then again it's not like anyone but the Gods knew our futures to begin with. I wonder just how he feels about all this really. Would Issei take things more seriously if he had met the Gods earlier? There are just too many questions regarding him, I feel insignificant in comparison...
"We're here!" Aru ran in front of me, almost knocking me off in the process.
"Hey!" I caught myself in time before running after her, "You damned idiot! That's it, you asked for... it."
Looking at the large area in front of us, I was faced with a daunting sight. First off, the entire peak was surrounded by large dark and spiky stones that practically served as walls, and in the center laid a somewhat ominous looking roundtable made of the same material. Around the roundtable laid five chairs, atop which only sat two Gods. To the right was a familiar face, a giant Red orc-like man whose size greatly contrasted the tiny seat he was on. On the left though was another golden man, though his lanky stature made him look way more sophisticated as he menacingly rested his chin on his hands, as if bored of waiting for the others to join already. He gave a sidelong glance before giving a long and tired sigh, getting up to welcome everyone with an unamused expression.
"Welcome, everyone, to the top of Mount Ivrys." He started the entire spiel as if he was forced to say it every time someone came by, "My name is Selzion, God of Knowledge, nice to meet you. As you know, the peak is best known as the meeting place of the Gods, so I must commend you for taking a gander at our decennial rendezvous."
"You're Selzion?" I couldn't help but point at him with furrowed brows, "Ah, sorry, I didn't mean anything by that! It's just-!"
"Sigh, I understand your image of the all-knowing Deity that governs over the scholars of Simpleton might have been shattered, however I must implore you to look past such unnecessary details so that we may optimally continue the conversation."
"Fuck's sake, man! They're humans, and a bunch of numbskulls at that!" Auros slammed the table, cracking it a bit as he stood up loudly, "Don't tell me you're intimidated by these pipsqueaks?"
"Says the guy that got left in the dust by just one man." I mocked him over his wager with Jorgen back during the Carmen castle storming.
"You don't know a thing, asshat!" He whined from across the open room, "That's it! I'll scrunch you up like a used tissue, Ed!"
"Oh nooo~! I'm soooo scared of the weeee Auwos who couldn't even do the one thing he's good at better than a mere human~!" I egged him on further.
"That's enough, Ed." Cecily got in front of me before Auros snapped, "It's been a while, Golden God. How have you been?"
Left blue-balled on his rampaging plan, Auros stood there bewildered for a moment before dejectedly sitting back down all pouty-like. With crossed arms, he averted his Eyes from her as he replied dryly.
"Sup, Cecily..." He then gave me a nasty side-Eye, "You got off easy thanks to her good demeanor, puny insect. Treat her to some food when you get back, otherwise I'll personally serve her your blood as a replacement."
"I doubt she'd be interested." I brushed off his empty(?) threats, "But seriously, I'm glad we got to meet again."
"Hold on, you guys know each other?" Issei pointed back and forth between us with his Eyes wide open, "And more importantly, Cecily just called him the Golden God, right? Why is he the only one called the Golden God when there's literally two guys whose skin is made out of solid gold?"
"Huh, good question." Cecily figured it wouldn't hurt to ask the Gods for an answer, "Why IS that, actually?"
"Sigh, that would be because of our respective jobs." Selzion explained with an exhausted tone, "As the only Gods who set foot in Heaven 2.0, we made our bodies reflect the same occurrence as the other inhabitants, in other words - golden skin."
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"So in Heaven, everyone has golden skin?" I asked, "But neither of you two's bodies are completely golden, though? Like, the Knowledge God's skin is only golden around the arms and to the shoulders as far as I can tell, and Prylos' is sort of like a breastplate, only it covers his legs as well."
"That knowledge is best left for later." Selzion explained, "At the very least, it is not in this book series."
"Hm?"
"Anyways!" Aru shouted to change the subject, "What kinda host are you, Selz? Your guests' feet are about to fall off and you're still making them stand at the entrance? For shame!"
"I'm not your boss, sit wherever you like." He shrugged.
"B-But you're my God..." Othelia confusedly took a seat at one of the miniature stones Auros had set up for us as seats of our own.
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***
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"So, still no sign of Ouroboras?" Auros turned to Aru.
"Tch, not yet..." She clicked her tongue, "But I'm not deterred! That guy may have said he wanted to stop being a God, but you can't run away from your duties that easily! I'll track him down by the next meeting, you can count on that!"
"If I remember correctly, that would be the Sun God, no?" I asked her outright, "What's the story behind him, exactly, if you don't mind me asking."
"You didn't tell them?" The other Gods looked a bit peeved at that.
"They didn't ask until now! Geez, don't put the blame on me..." She groaned before explaining in a hurry, "Basically, he got bored or tired or something of being a God, so he thought he could reincarnate as a human being and live a normal life as a sort of vacation."
"And you thought Ed was that human?" Cecily snickered.
"Hey! Not that I'd want that, but it still hurts when you laugh about it in front of me!" I shouted, "Well, as you can clearly see, I'm not, because I have no recollection of ever meeting you in my past life or anything."
"See, that's the thing." Aru sighed, "Neither would the human in question."
"Huh?" We furrowed our brows.
"Yeah, whoever he is now, his memories of his time as Ouroboras have basically been sealed away from his human reincarnation. Since he's human now, until he dies as such and his soul is freed from the shackles of a mortal's body, he will not know of his godly self either. That's why I want to track him down."
"Hold on, so you're planning on killing this person the moment you're certain he's the Sun God?" Eleanor tilted her head.
"Hold on, you were planning on killing me if you thought I was the Sun God!?" I rephrased her question with a lot more distress added to it, "Not cool, definitely certainly not cool!"
"But seriously, imagine if Ouroboras chose to be Ed of all people." Auros snickered from his seat, "Heheh, then again, it'd definitely work. Of all the people in the world, I definitely wouldn't suspect his useless ass."
"Certainly, to handicap yourself to such a degree so as to remove any suspicion, what a play..." Selzion began praising the God who didn't do the thing he was being praised for.
"Oh shut up, both of you!" Aru was the one to surprisingly stick up for me, "It's disgusting to even joke about my dear Ouroboras being this imbecile!"
"Wow, thanks for the assist..." I groaned, "But wait, if it's not me, then surely you guys had someone else in mind, right?"
Hearing this question, the Gods sort of gave empty stares before awkwardly shrugging. Prylos and Auros, who were sitting next to each other on the right hand side, had turned to look at Aru for answers, but once everyone noticed she wasn't gonna say anything, instead only pouting with crossed arms, Selzion filled us in on her behalf.
"We don't really care." He said in short, "Allucius is the only one hellbent on finding that guy. Everyone else is supportive of his little vacation since we know he'll be back in less than a century, but she's just being impatient as always."
"Well, excuse me for trying to revive a dead God!" She whined, "And not only is he a dead God, but he's also your guys' friend, and my lover!"
"He never agreed to being your lover." They all revealed in unison, "And exactly because he's our friend do we wish to give him the peace and quiet he deserves. There's a reason he's considered the leader of the bunch, and that's because he's always the peacemaker between us, the big brother, the one who got things done."
"The one who got things done?" Issei asked, "So is he more like Erwin or Levi?"
"How the hell should we know who those people are?" Aru rolled her Eyes, "But to answer your question, he's indeed the one keeping us all leashed. Hehe, leashed..."
"Don't drool in your fantasies, Allucius." Prylos wiped her mouth with his toga, "What did I tell you about improper table manners. Besides, children are present, we mustn't let them know prematurely about such sinful fetishes."
"Feteeesh~" Cene parroted the word as he giggled on, only stopping to ask his mother what the word meant, "Is that wike a smawt wowd fow fish?"
"N-No, forget that word. It's filthy." She tried to dodge the question with all her might as the conversation continued.
"Well, I can understand it, kind of." Issei commented, "You guys are basically saying he's tired of taking care of such a rowdy bunch all the time, so he dipped before he started ripping his hair out, is that it?"
"..." They looked on with their eyebrows raised way up high, "That's... Yeah, kinda."
Same, Ouroboras, same...