"Then, my Lord, now that you have regained your strength, we believe it is time for us to depart to-"

"Simpleton, yes." I dusted my hands off of the crumbs.

"Dammit!" A strong gust of wind blew my hair everywhere, "Are you angry with us, Ouroboras?! Have you come to despise us!?"

"Did he send you to me because he thought I could save the world or something?" I asked, "He is just as much my God as he is yours, so I do not want to say this, but that seems rather irresponsible of him to do—I already have a task, so I cannot help you here."

"Oh come on, what difference does it make!?" They roared, "It already took you a few days just for the ship to make it to Cardina, so just go to the Archipelago and make up an excuse that the captain got lost or something!"

"You want me to lie to Nelly?" I frowned, "Besides, I am uninterested in your affairs, no matter how much you threaten me with them. My job is to protect her, not the world."

"What kind of logic is that!? She needs a world to exist in, y'know?" The voices finally gave in partially, "Okay, will it help change your mind if we give away what that bastard's planning?"

"That bastard, whoever he is..." I ignored the person they spoke badly of, "Sure, then. Please enlighten me on the matter."

"Finally! But first, a bit of history." The voices seemed thrilled to tell their story, "One thing you must know about this world, since you seem to have forgotten, is that it is essentially created from two books—One of Fortune, and one of Misfortune."

"How creative."

"Hey, we're the one's talking here!" The gust of wind blew strongly into my face, "Ahem, as we said—The world is created by essentially 'programming' it into the book, binary digit by binary digit. This is done to ensure a nearly infinitessimal amount of boolean checks can instruct the world on how everything will work with pinpoint accuracy."

"Hm, sounds overly complex and made up, which I am sure it is because it is all coming from my head." I pointed to my noggin, "Still, I must say I am impressed by my imagination. To craft such a compelling notion of the world's existence..."

"You didn't...! Or, well, I guess you did." They thought about it some more, "Look, point is, that's how the world works—Everything hails from those two Books."

"And how do you know this, then?" I questioned.

"Sigh, because yo... Ouroboras, the Sun God told us." They corrected themselves, "Of all the Five Gods and their corresponding religions and scriptures, only the Sun God's allowed his believers full transparency when it came to the Gods' affairs. Unlike with other Gods, who say us humans as merely ants to squish or toy with as they please, he saw us as a monolithic pillar of support."

"I see."

"Whenever we had issues we couldn't deal with, we would pray to him for answers." The voice said with a warm emotion, "But the same worked vice versa. He too would ask us for help without shame, and we would do our best to resolve the issue together."

"A democratic God. How funny." I smiled.

"Don't bring politics into religion, it never goes well." They warned, "In any case, the Books had gotten lost when Auros had tried having a bit too much fun with his lust."

"The Golden God?"

"Cheh, no way, they still call him that!?" The voices snickered.

"Yes, why is it funny?"

"N-Nah, it's just... Pfft!" They all burst out laughing, giving me tinnitus, "That's a nickname the other Gods gave him when they caught him getting stroked by a mechanical hand in his Golden Throne, butt naked and covered in butter! The sight was so horrid that even our Lord Ouroboras shuddered when he was regaling us with the anecdote!"

That's... quite the perverse anecdote indeed. Auros, I met him once before even. That orc like guy, was he really seen in such a vulnerable and ugly state? Yuck, I can see why the Sun God would shudder... But still, this is all never-before-heard information. I should make sure to remember it well, even if it might all be the result of my schizophrenic episode.

"Again, we are going off track. About the Books..." The voices wanted to tell me the story as soon as possible, "Since the Books of Fortune and Misfortune are used to write in everything that has happened and will happen respectively, he tried writing in a new thing to hump on that fateful day."

"Which fits nicely with the previous tale." I added.

"He messed up the code somewhere, and wrote in that the Books be scattered to somewhere nigh irretrievable." The voices pressed on, "That being the case, irretrievable doesn't mean unfindable, as they were quickly taken by curious adventurers and made their way across the world just like that."

"If such strong tools fell into the wrong hands, it could indeed be Universe shattering." I noted.

"But that never happened. No one thought to write in the individual Books, and only used their secondary power of reading the past and future from it." The voices explained, "Except for one person almost a thousand years ago."

Almost a thousand years? That is 365,000 days minus whatever "almost" means—Yes, we are talking about a period relatively close to the Ever Division. Now my attention has been thoroughly piqued! Who is this man, this one person in the sea of humans throughout history who thought to "Change the rules"?!

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"A bald fatass." The voices grumbled.

"Huh?"

"That's what the Sun God described him as." They repeated, "A balding, perverted, useless fatass shut-in who threw away his life served on a silver platter just to go material gathering for some crappy fiction he wanted to write."

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"Well, that was not what I was expecting at all!" I exhaled disappointedly.

"Neither did he. Heh, guy actually thought he'd make it big." They mocked the plus-sized person, "In any case, he apparently found the Book of Fortune during his party's travails, and used it to essentially wreak havoc on the world's natural order."

"And I imagine that did not sit well with the Gods?" I raised an Eyebrow.

"Heh, see? You're a natural, bud! Honestly, it's like Ouroboras is back already!" They sounded thrilled, "Yeah, they didn't like it, so they killed all his friends and almost killed him too. But in his last moments, he barely managed to find a way to make himself immortal. Ouroboras, the God tasked with dealing with this situation, was forced to leave him be."

"So the man continued to use the Book?" I asked.

"No, for the Book was filled." They added, "No more space to write in it anymore. This was precisely because of an overflow in the memory caused due to the impossibility of calculating an immortal's lifetime. We're sure you don't understand what we mean by this, though."

"The Book had as many pages as the writer's life did, so it essentially zeroed out once he wrote himself to be immortal." I figured, "Is that correct?"

"...Oh yeah, we forgot you're him." They sounded stunned, "Then, you'll grasp the next part better—His friends died during the attack, and he was left to forever roam the lands in search of a way to bring them back... By any means necessary."

"I imagine he is going to do just that in Schnell's Archipelago?" I deduced, "So why is that place so special?"

"It is not, in actuality he just wants to be away from the world." They explained, "He is the founder of Schnell's Archipelago."

"Schnell Douglas?!"

So the Grandmaster Adventurer still lives on even to this day? I have heard plenty of his tales throughout life, mostly from Lune, but I never did believe any of them to be 100% factual. So, is this the situation? Will this man truly cause the end of the world if I do not put a stop to him?

"No, Schnell was his friend and traveling companion who got killed by the Sun God." Some horizontal alternating gusts of wind indicated they were shaking their heads, "This bastard spent a hundred years searching for the Book of Misfortune, for he couldn't write in its other half. And now, he's found it."

"So he plans to revive his friends with the Book that tells of the future." I thought, "I cannot fathom what exactly that has anything to do with the end of the universe, though?"

"Everything!" They shouted, "It has everything to do with it! If it was Shaid, it'd be fine, but Schnell was sent to Hell, never to return!"

"Hell?"

"Hell is an unstable environment due to it getting sealed away by the Meditation and Knowledge Gods." They kept explaining, "It exists, yes, but it cannot be accessed nor escaped from. To this day, only one person was ever sent there, and that very person was the one hailed as the Grandmaster Adventurer."

"So sending someone back from Hell could cause a rift in the Universe?" I looked at the shapeless voice, "Truly, modern medicine really does wonders if just taking your pills makes you stop talking like this."

"You're not crazy, this is real!" The voices got angry all over again, "We understand how it might SOUND crazy, but it's not! Really!"

"I have never had delusions persist for this long, much less be this strong..." I pondered, "There still exists a possibility that I have been taking too many pills instead of too little, so I have built up a tolerance to them. Further research should clear up any issues..."

"Okay, we're just gonna keep going with the story since we're near the end anyways." The voices sighed in unison, "Right now, the Book of Fortune is swimming nicely with the fishies at the bottom of the ocean, so we don't have to worry about it ever getting out of there. But Misfortune is in that bastard's hands, and he will, unknowingly or not, use it to destroy this world."

"So you wish for me to ignore my duties as Nelly's caretaker and simply travel over to the island to put a stop to it?" I furrowed my brows, "Fine, I will do it."

"Gasp, you will!?" They all seemed cheery, "Thank you, thank you! Praise Ouroboras!"

"But first, let me just go back to notify Nelly and tell her to stay at Lee's while I am gone." I added, "I dislike her staying with Lemmy again after what they almost did in Cardina, but maybe with Lee's supervision they might not have the courage to try anything again."

"Oh come on! We were this close!" They switched back to being fussy again, "Why, what part of our entire story did you not understand!? You don't have time!"

"Because I have a duty to fulfill—And that duty is to keep her safe and secure." I explained, "Besides, would it not be smarter to ask for help on the way? I have powerful allies who will aid me greatly in the strife."

"No! It wouldn't be smarter, dipshit!" They cussed, "Because you'll lose your chance to make a move by the time you round up all your buddies! Gah, look what you did, you made me cuss in front of our God! Well, it wasn't my fault he was being kind of a prick! Stop insulting him!"

"It appears your individual voices are in discord." I noted as a third calmer voice replied.

"That's what happens when you've got millions of people all packed tightly into one pseudo wind-being. That being said, please reconsider your decision—Getting allies will make you stronger, but it will also give that bastard time to prepare. Think very carefully about this, my Lord."

"I am Meil Deram, the Raaman who prides himself on his knowledge." I nodded, "And this... This is not even an option—I am going to make sure Nelly is safe first and foremost."