"Bossu!" Issei pretended to talk with someone on the phone, "I need your help! Giorno and the others are inside the Colosseum as we speak!"

"Hm? Who's he talking to?" Sandy asked.

"Doppio, my sweet Doppio..." Freddy followed suit as he pretended to pick up the phone call from Issei, "Remember, this is a test. In order to prove to me that you are worthy, you must secure the Stand Arrow at all costs."

"I feel like they're just goofing off..." I chuckled.

As one could imagine, we're currently standing in front of the fourth World Wonder of our trip around the world. Man, looking at like like that, we've already made it more than halfway. That's kinda crazy, and the only thing crazier than that is this place's sheer size! I thought the Christ the Redeemer statue was huge, but look at this! Again, it's height versus area, so you can't really compare them as easily. They're both huge, but I guess just seeing this giant thing lumped in with all the surrounding Italian architecture adds a sense of scale, so to speak. Still, I have no clue what kind of play these two are enacting.

"Man, I haven't watched Part 5 in ages!" Freddy high fived Issei, "Nice going, nephew! JoJo references are a must when it comes to visiting Rome!"

"And Venice as well." Issei smiled.

"Venezia!"

Laughing together whilst totally leaving the rest of us out of the joke, we felt it kinda wrong to just interrupt their little moment by asking unecessary questions. They're both geeks in that sense, so knowing them it's probably something to do with an anime from their past or something.

"By the way uncle, did Part 8 end already?"

"Part 8? Dude, we're nearing the end of Part 10 now!"

"Eh?"

"Yeah, after Jojolion there's the Jojolands, then..."

"No, not that." Issei was taken aback, "Araki-sensei is STILL drawing Jojos!? How old is that guy!?"

"Old? He somehow looks younger than me, even now." Freddy explained.

"Araki-sensei?" I tilted my head.

"Ah, don't worry about it, Lune." Issei reassured me, "He's just a vampire."

"V-Vampire!? Hold on, you guys said you didn't have any monsters here!"

"He was joking, broski." Freddy cackled, "But apart from creating one of the most popular manga in the world, he's also well-known for his incredibly youthful appearance in spite of his age."

"Oh, I think I've heard of him." Juavez recalled, "I read the latest Part because I heard it had a capoeira practitioner in it. Or was that another series...?"

"Well how does he look like?" Sandy inquired, "Pull up a picture of the guy. You can't expect us non-weeabos to know who you're talking about without seeing an image at least."

"Mn, hold on, just gotta grab a nearby wi-fi signal and... There you go." Freddy showed us.

"Huh!? 1960, but that's...!"

"Yep, and he's still going strong!" Freddy smiled.

"Who cares about that, is this a recent picture!?" Sandy admired his clear skin, "That dude really is a vampire!"

Hm? Wait, something's off. Why are we admiring some young old Japanese guy's picture instead of focusing on our mission? Hello, we're in front of the Colosseum, guys! Let's at least make sure we get the Green light before gawking at this man's incredible genes.

"Hey, Lune's giving me quite the side Eye, so we should probably get going." Issei noticed me signaling him to get a move on.

"Alright, you guys pay for the entrance tickets while I wait here." Juavez volunteered not to pay even for himself.

"How generous of you..." Freddy smirked, "Is what I would say, if today wasn't Free Sunday!"

"Free...?" The group asked.

"Sunday?" I finished off the query with a head tilt.

"Yep, I checked the calendar and sure enough, we got lucky!" He smiled, "Rome has this beautiful little thing where, on the first Sunday of every month, visiting each tourist spot is completely free of charge! Hehe, how's that for planning ahead?"

"But didn't you just say we got lucky?" Issei nitpicked.

"Ignore that! Come on, nephew, we gotta defeat Diavolo!"

"But weren't you Diavolo in the bit just now!?"

Wait, hold up you two! Gah, why're they so excited all of a sudden!? They were never this speedy when it came to touching or even visiting any other World Wonders, yet when it comes to a manga reference, they go crazy? What the hell! But hey, at least we get to see this beautiful palace up clos-

"...se." I groaned as soon as I saw the huge crowd of people and realized, "Ah right, Free Sunday isn't just for us."

"It's for everyone in the world..." Sandy heaved a heavy sigh.

"In other words, amigos, we'll have to try our best so as to not get trampled." Juavez chuckled as he slowly wiggled his way through.

"I really dislike crowds... What if someone pickpockets me in the mess?" Sandy turned to me with an anxious expression.

"Like hell that'd happen." I reassured her, "But if you're that scared, press your hands to your pockets and extend your elbows out to make way while you roam through. It's the best way to avoid just that nightmare situation from happening."

"Whoa, is that really true?" She smiled as she mimicked my instructed stance.

How the hell should I know? I mean, it makes sense that that's the case, since no one can really reach into your pockets if they're covered, but I never tried doing this myself. I never really carried anything of too much worth on me apart from ocassionally bringing my money pouch with me, but no one steals those these days. After all, pickpockets and bandits get the same sentence, but the loot from a successful operation is vastly diffefent. Even an idiot would choose to stop a transport wagon with his buddies in the middle of the woods rather than shove his grubby mitts into some rando's pants in the middle of a crowded city street. Then again, the people of this world all have those phones on them, so I can see the situation differing here.

"Tally-ho, as they say." I invited her to follow me into the crowded passageway.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Lally-ho!?" Issei could be heard shouting from the other side of the crowd.

"Baby stand!?" Freddy added.

What the hell are these idiots babbling about? Quit it, men your age are way too old to be spouting such embarrassing things.

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

***

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

"Wow, this is epic!" Issei remarked as he basked in all the splendors of the abandoned yet preserved fighting arena, "So this is where the gladiators fought? You could fit a couple thousand spectators in the stands alone!"

"Yep, the amphitheater is one of the largest in the world." Freddy remarked.

"And? Where did Julius Ceasar sit?" Issei looked around excitedly, "I wanna sit down and shout "SHIIIZAAAA!" to make a Part 2 reference as well."

"Despite most movie's depictions of the two historic figures, Ceaser died way before the Colosseum was built." Juavez noted.

"Eh?"

"Dude, that's like, elementary level history class." Sandy smirked at him, "You didn't know that?"

"How could I?!" Issei blushed bright Red as he refuted, "Every bit of media portrayed the glorious image of him sitting on a throne in here! God, now you're gonna tell me he never ate Ceaser salad either."

"......."

"I was joking, you idiots..."

Yet again, I'm left completely out of the loop. Is this how Issei always felt back when he was in my world? This feeling of alienation and not knowing anything your friends are talking about... It's like I skipped all the pretext of a book and am suddenly thrown into the sequel. In other words, I'm completely lost, but at least they're getting along.

"Yo, screw Ceasar." Freddy furrowed his brows at me and Issei, "Rather, did you see a certain light appear on the way here?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sandy asked, "There weren't any lights in..."

"No, I saw nothing." Issei interrupted her.

"Me neither." I shook my head, "Let's just explore the place a bit more, in that case."

"Wait, I'm confused, what are you looking for?" Juavez seemed interested to help out.

"Nothing!" The three of us shut his plan down in unison as we all bolted to touch as much of the Colosseum's surface as possible.

Damn, no matter how you slice it, we're in trouble! Yet again, the same issue arises with these bigger World Wonders, in that we don't know what part of it exactly counts towards our total. What do we need to touch in order to see the Green light pop up? There's also the fact our vision is severely obstructed due to the massive crowd in here. What if we already activated the light, but didn't see it from the other people squishing and pushing us around? Tch, I guess it's better to be safe than sorry, so for the next period of our Colosseum visit, we'll be running along, touching every single spot that stands out!

"And so..." Issei finally stopped after about half an hour of straight running, "I give up."

"Yeah, haah... We probably..." Freddy heaved, "Already... touched it..."

"Touched what?" Sandy followed close behind, "What the hell are you guys looking for? Don't tell me you're jealous of all the geocache treasure I found recently!"

"You? Lune's been giving you his share this entire time!" Issei shot back, "And that's not it, idiot!"

"Hey now, who cares about that." Juavez calmed everyone down, "Rather, we're all a team, right? Please don't go leaving me and garota out of it."

"That's..." I looked away, "Not gonna be possible. We have something we have to do on this trip, and we can't tell you, sadly."

"Well, why not?" Sandy pouted.

"Garota." Juavez stopped her, "Let them be. No use prying them for answers when they're the ones who gracefully let us come along with them without even paying."

"...It's still unfair that they get to be secretive." She furrowed her brows, "I wanted to join them on their trip to spice up my own little personal excursion, and what I've found and seen so far was really valuable, but I don't wanna travel with people I don't trust."

"...We're leaving." Freddy decided after a brief and awkward pause, "Nephew, Luneski. If it turns out we 'missed a spot', we can always come back here, since we'll know this is the missing piece."

"Hey, stop talking in riddles-!" Sandy got increasingly fussy.

"Yeah, gotcha." Issei and I nodded, "Let's go to the next World Wonder."

Walking out of the crowded Colosseum, I noticed my heartrate was extremely high. I guess running that much for that long worked up quite a sweat, plus when you take into account the difficulty of breathing in such a crowded area, you get a really winded Lune and co. I ended up leaning on a nearby extrusion from the ground.

"Lune!" Freddy ran up to me before touching the block as well, "H-Here! It's...!?"

"What the...?" Juavez noticed it too, "That Green light...?"

The Green light finally procced, but why here, outside of the Colosseum? Is it a delayed reaction? But no, it happened when Freddy touched this extrusion too, so that means... The Colosseum wasn't the World Wonder, but this?

"What is this?" I removed my hand away from it before trying to read the plaque underneath.

"The Colossus of Nero, what of it?" Sandy rolled her Eyes with crossed arms as she said, "Ugh, don't tell me you've never heard of that either? There used to be a giant statue in front of the Colosseum, but this is the only part of it left standing. Seriously, I'm getting more and more frustrated with you by the second..."

"Nero... Haha!" Issei pointed his finger high into the sky, "From JoJo's to DMC, what a coincidence! Hell yeah, we did it!"

Did we though? Sure, we got the fourth Wonder light to appear, but at what cost? Sandy seemed to have been looking away at the time it showed up, but our Brazilian friend is looking at us with a gaze of absolute suspicion. He definitely saw it, and we need to figure out how to go about explaining it. Damn, why'd I advocate for him to join us again?