"Hey, now that I think about it..." I said as we all sat together to eat in the buffet room, "We're almost done with this whole trip."

"It took you this long to realize?" Olya smacked his lips as he ate, "Bud, we've just got Auros' Throne and Mount Ivrys to take care of and we're done."

"But will it really work, though?" The doctor seemed skeptical, "I understand everything is going according to plan right now, but what if Shaid still somehow doesn't wake up alright? What if he becomes a flesh eating undead? Or he wakes up with no memories?"

"Have you been digging through my light novels?" Olya looked pissed, "Because I specifically remember at least a couple series that have those exact premises."

"Never mind that!" I continued on with my train of thought, "Whether or not the doctor was reading your books or not pales in comparison to the fact we accidentally saved the best for last!"

"What makes you say that?" The doctor and Olya tilted their heads.

"Uhh, hello? We're going to two places where the Gods are said to reside!" I raised my hands in the air excitedly, "Auros' Throne is a throne made out of solid gold where the literal God of Fighting is! Not to mention right after that we have Mount Ivrys, the meeting place of the Gods! Don't you get it? We might get to meet a God if the legends are true, how is that not exciting enough for you guys!?"

"Meh, not really." Olya shrugged, "Besides, the only God I know for a fact exists is the Sun God. The other Gods still haven't exactly shown themselves nor have they helped us on our journey yet, unlike him, so I'll remain skeptical until I see one with my own Eyes."

"The Sun God?" The doctor then turned to Olya, "In any case, I'm sorry but I'm gonna have to disappoint you here, Douglas. Despite it being named after him, Auros has never yet been spotted sitting atop his throne, and even though it's known as the meeting place of the Gods, that meeting atop Mount Ivrys is only said to be held every ten years on an unknown date."

"In other words, the chances of us actually meeting anyone at either place is basically zero." Olya gave me a smug smirk, "Sorry to burst your bubble, bud, but I'm pretty sure we're just gonna touch those locations and go back without even staying for a minute. No more whacky adventures left for this World tour, I'm afraid."

Tch! Damn, I guess when they put it like that, I can't really argue with facts... But still, I just can't understand not getting hyped for this type of thing! I mean sure, the chances of us actually meeting a God are pretty slim, but that doesn't mean it's impossible, right? I mean, for all we know, the day we depart for Mount Ivrys could turn out to be the day of the meet!

"Alright, did you finish your meal?" Olya asked as he put his plate down, "Let's go, Sulfury awaits."

"Did you bring bug spray?" The doctor asked as we were just about ready to leave, "I heard that jungle is filled with all sorts of insects, so you best watch out."

"Oh, please!" I brushed him off, "Like a few tiny bugs are gonna stand a chance against these muscles!"

Having said that, I can now attest to the fact that I was completely, severely wrong on that statement. For one thing, the very moment we stepped through the portal, we immediately realized we were placed not on top of the giant solid gold throne, but rather beside it, down where all the bushes and vines were. I shit you not, the moment I turned my head down to stop gawking at its sheer size, my vision became flooded from all the giant blood suckling mosquitoes around. For whatever reason, they seemed to have completely ignored Olya and instead only kept swarming me until I was left completely sucked dry, and not in the good way.

"You good, bud?" Olya slapped the final mosquito off my shoulder with a smirk, "Looks like that bug spray would've come in handy by now."

"Ugh, how come they didn't attack you?!" I whined.

"Blood is stored in the muscles primarily, so bugs tend to go after more lean or built people." He patted his stomach proudly, "So I've never had a problem with them in my life. Their tendrils can't pierce through my layers of fat, feel me?"

"Stop glorifying being fat, jackass..." I swatted away even more mosquitoes as I began running through the shrubbery towards the golden throne, "Just, ugh, follow me, okay!?"

"Mhm, whatever you say." He nonchalantly followed behind, without a single care in the World.

Making it to the base of the throne, we were horrified to realize that, much like how it was for the Cognisphere, just touching the base of Auros' Throne wasn't enough for the Green light to show up, which meant we actually had to find a way to climb to the top somehow. Sad part was, the steps leading up to it were about 2 meters tall each, meaning the climb up was gonna be hell. Shit, if I'm gonna be honest, even I died by the time we reached the top, so I can only imagine how Olya must've felt. First thing I did once we reached the final step though was take a leak off the edge though, and the second thing was throw a match I had stashed away in my pockets, leading to a huge forest fire that most probably burned the local ecosystem down below.

"Dude, why the hell did you do that!?" Olya looked terrified, "W-What would Ouroboras think!? Or Prylos for that matter!? I didn't take you to be a casual anarchist!"

"Olya, chill..." I wrapped my arm around his neck as I pointed yonder, "Just think about all the mosquitoes I just killed with this one simple move. Since we didn't have any bug spray, I had to improvise, feel me? Besides, this place is a bog if ever I've seen one, so there's plenty of water to revive the greenery after a few months."

"You... must've really hated those mosquitoes for you to be think of burning the entire place down..." Olya gulped.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Next time they might think twice before sucking all my blood out." I scratched the bug bites with a newfound happiness in life, "Ahh, sweet revenge..."

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

***

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

"Well, I had my fill of revenge." I cleaned my hands after going number one on the vile mosquitoes with a water canister, "Now for the main course - We gotta figure out what part of this place is the actual World Wonder!"

"Hey, were you paying attention during the climb up?" Olya asked anxiously, "What if the same thing happened here that happened in the Library of a Thousand Passages? What if we triggered it without noticing?"

"Then it's good, right?" I raised an eyebrow with a shrug, "Means we checked it off the list and everythin's fine. But hey, just in case, let's go look around a bit more. There's somethin' over there I wanna check out."

"So you saw it too?" Olya looked at the ominous giant door at the top step we were on, "That door, it's so seamless we could've completely missed it without noticing. Something epic has gotta be inside there."

"Maybe the Golden God is inside?" I reasoned, "I mean, it's not impossible. Maybe that's like, his crib or something like that."

"Ehh? No way." Olya knocked on the seamless door before it opened on its own, hiding inside the door frame, "Whoa, sick."

"Please state your name and business." A lady's voice echoed through the White room inside.

"Huh!?" I jolted, "S-Schnell Douglas, ma'am! I just wanna see the place!"

"You dolt!" Olya hit me, "Don't go giving yourself away so easily without first feeling things out!"

"And you, the plus-sized person standing next to Schnell Douglas?" The lady's voice inquired about Olya soon after.

"Hm, plus-sized?" He raised an eyebrow before clearing his throat, "Ahem! I will not state my name and business until you do so yourself! Ha, how's that!"

"Very well, apologies for the inconvenience." The lady's monotone voice rung out, "I am the Automated System of Selzion slash Auros - ASSA for short."

"Oh, so Selzion is here as well, then..." Olya thought to himself, "Right, Assa, pretty name. Tell me then, ASSA, why don't you show yourself?"

"I do not possess a physical body." She explained, "I am a mere defense system created by the God of Knowledge to protect his and the Fighting God's home from intruders. Do you understand now?"

"Oh, I see." He looked pretty disappointed to hear that, "Then I guess we should tell you that we come in peace. That being said, I'm Olyahim, but you may call me Olya."

"Understood, Olyahim." She monotonously replied.

"No, Olya." He corrected her, "Without the him at the end."

"Pronouns corrected, apologies for misgendering you, Olya." She replied, making me bust my ass laughing as he got even more heated.

"No, you stupid robot chick!" He started stomping about, "I'm Olyahim, a man! But my nickname is Olya!"

"WHO THE HELL IS YELLING OUT THERE?!" A scary, ogre-like voice rang out in the room we were in, scaring us stiff, "Geez, I swear to me, it better not be Selzio-"

"Yo." We held our breaths as we greeted the Red orc standing on the other side of the room.

"...Yo." He hesitantly replied, "This... I can explain."

"You don't have to." We shook our heads, "When men see a fellow man standing in the same room buck naked and covered in oil, we don't ask for details. It's the bro code."

"Bro code...? S-Stop, seriously!" He looked embarrassed as all hell, "Listen, I wasn't doing anything, seriously! This is for a-a... a divine ritual, understand!?"

"Divine ritual?" Olya winced, "Eugh, don't tell me you're one of the Gods!?"

"Shut up, mortal!" He began raging, "And what the hell are you even doing up here!? Want me to kill you!?"

"We just wanna get to the top." I tried my best to look anywhere but at his oiled up cheeks, "Then we'll get out of your hair, honest."

"Hmph, up those stairs then, go on." He shooed us off, "Dammit ASSA, I told you to warn me when someone comes by..."

"Apologies for interrupting your private time, Master." Assa didn't at all sound apologetic with her robotic pitch, "They said they weren't hostile."

"That doesn't mean they can just barge in!" He yelled as we ran out of there.

Geez, well, that was... something. From his tone and the location, I can almost certainly assume that guy was Auros, which only adds to my confusion. Why the hell was he...? No, I don't wanna know. It's the bro code, don't ask. Though I'm surprised he let us up here so easily. Maybe he respected how we didn't ask around about his... situation too much? Who knows, no one knows, and no one cares, frankly. At the very top of the staircase there, we were met with a similar door to the one below. Touching it to open it by the sides, I was met with a bright Green light emanating from it.

"Huh? This counts as the World Wonder?" Olya went to touch it as well, only for the light to show up for him too, "Well damn. I guess we're done here, then."

"Hey now, don't go pressing that recall device just yet." I thought of an awesome idea as I opened the door to see a beautiful view of the entire continent, "What do you say? Up for a bit of skydiving?"

"S-Skydiving!? What the hell is up with you all of a sudden!?" He jolted, "Hell no, we are NOT jumping off of here, the fall would definitely kill us, bud!"

"It would, wouldn't it?" I grabbed his wrist as I jumped off for the both of us, "So just press the button right before we hit the ground!"

"Aaagh!" He cried out, "Whyyyyy!?!?"

Hahaha, now THIS is something to remember this place by! I really didn't want the only things I knew about Sulfury to be getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and to see Auros buck naked and oiled up, so this is the perfect substitute! Now, let's enjoy one final sight of this beautifully murky continent before pressing the button! In three, two, one... Bap!