"Damn, that cloud looks awfully suspicious..." Allucius, recently shortened to Aru, surmised, "Something tells me it's gonna rain soon."
Walking along the Simpleton drylands all by her lonesome, it had been a while since she had gotten a proper conversation with someone. Ever since she saw what was happening between Issei, Eleanor and Othelia, she politely excused herself from their group after wishing them luck. By now, she thought, they should have most definitely made it to Issei's home world.
"Actually no, it's not gonna rain. It's as sunny as can be, idiot!" She shouted loudly with a smile that deteriorated over time, "Damn, have my conversation skills really recessed to this extent? Making stupid jokes to myself because I have no one to tell them to? This is not rejoice behavior in the slightest."
She was never particularly interested in the lone wolf style of traveling. If anything, she would always spend the ten years in between the Meet counting the days before she could see all her fellow Gods again. And even while she did that, she would usually fill that gaping hole in her heart by looking for lower beings to help out. Small animals, lost children, teenage newbie adventurers that just signed up for the ITA and bit off more than they could chew... It all fell into the jurisdiction of her protection, in her Eyes. That being the case, she only ever spent her time in Cardina before the Sun God went missing, however these days she finds herself quite lost in the rest of the world's continents.
"Wait a second!" She stopped dead in her tracks when she felt something in the air, "Sigh, dammit, Olya's trying to revive his friends again..."
This was how she learned of the current state of affairs. Walking around aimlessly as she looked for her missing spouse, she felt something akin to a divine moment of revelation. This was a power unique to the Gods—Omniscience. The power to know anything and everything about the world, safe for a few exceptions. These exceptions can be worked around in most cases though, but the Gods usually never have to deal with something so serious that it requires them to actually try.
"That guy, I get he's bored with his immortality, but couldn't he have found new friends in these past 1000 years?" She complained to herself, "Well, not like I'm one to speak, since I'm looking for Ouroboras myself..."
Whilst mulling over whether to pause her search for her lover yet again or ignore the potential threat in favor of leaving it to the other Gods to do, she had reminisced about that day, the day this whole fiasco started.
"Now that I think about it, Selzion tasked Ouroboras to go kill those guys by himself cause he was too busy working on Heaven 2.0 with Prylos." She sobbed, "I knew I should've gone with dear! If I had just done that, then we could've wiped all three of them before they could even think of trying to fight back! Uuuuurgh, now that fat bastard's causing me problems for the 972nd time..."
Upon making himself the Seventh World Wonder with the wish he had gotten, Olya had in fact tried numerous times before to revive Shaid and Schnell before this. Be it going after the Gods in search of answers, scouring all the libraries of the world for necromancy books, or even joining all sorts of sketchy cults with the slimmest of hopes that they'll somehow give him what he wants, he had tried everything, but nothing worked. The Gods simply ignored these attempts though, since to them it was nothing but a comedy act of a desperate man who had tried to outplay the system failing over and over again.
"Looks like this time though, he might just get his way..." She clicked her tongue before ultimately turning around, "Crap, looks like I'm going to the Archipelago, after all. Ah, but looking at it another way, maybe Ouroboras has actually been hiding there this entire time? Heh, fat chance, but who knows? It's certainly the last place I'd look in."
The Archipelago, a land so disgusting in nature that even its history seems flawed. As the Everdivision occurred back in 0AD, all of the continents had divided into the rough shape of what they are now. Still, they mostly retained their larger size to be habitable, but not the Archipelago. It had hundreds, if not thousands of tinier islands as its land mass, and as such only a single person managed to survive there when it had just become a thing. Though that man's bittersweet tale should be reserved for a later time.
"Aiden, you lived and died there all alone, you had your own personal haven away from the horrors of the world." Aru felt bad for this person, "And yet it didn't even take 200 years for a slut to magically get sent there and start getting trains run on her by her own sons. Eugh, this is why those three idiots should've never gotten their filthy paws on the Book..."
The three idiots she was referring to were obviously Shaid, Schnell and Olya, and thus the "slut" in this scenario is Diamond, the succubus girl sent into Shaid's Lair with the other girls. No matter the incest-riddled beginnings of the Archipelago's history with humans inhabiting it, it should be noted that the people there are still somehow thriving. After Olya had met Diamond in her old age over 50 years later, he had made good on his promise to bring in some unrelated men to the party so the Schnells could continue to reproduce without any complications or deformations down the road. What was once an empty wilderness is now filled with humans.
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"Olya, I'm making a conscious effort to grace you with my presence..." She halfheartedly raised her fist into the air, "At the very least, make it worth my time. Rejoice..."
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It had been a few days since she decided on this move. The travel funds Issei and the girls had lent her had already long been spent, so she could only afford to keep going by foot. It's been a good month since she last slept, ate or drank anything, but it really didn't hinder her at all, since she IS a Goddess. The other Gods could never bring themselves not to Materialize some spending money for themselves, except maybe Prylos, but she just didn't want to. Aru never quite liked the idea of creating currency out of thin air, as it felt too convenient and unfair. A belief the Grimhearts don't at all agree with, since Lune almost always does it. Not with actual shils or coins, mind you, but rather with valuable items that could be pawned off or sold.
"You." She rolled her Eyes as she noticed an aloof man staring directly at her back, "What do you want?"
"Clearance." He replied.
"Ah, I see. The rejoice, I've got some words of wisdom for you." She thought of something on the fly, "Uhh, life is like climbing a mountain range. There isn't a single "peak", and you've got a ton of people all hiking up their own path, at times converging down the same one only to split off because their individual peaks aren't the same one."
"That is pretty okayish wisdom for a little girl, but I did not say clarity, I said clearance." The man pointed to the door of the building she was standing at, "You are blocking the path to the exit."
"...Oh." She moved aside awkwardly.
"If I may ask, where are your parents?" He looked around, "This restaurant is a long trek away from any town, so I must wonder if you are alone."
"What if I am?" She thought to scare the man a bit, "I ran away from home, I'm a little girl all alone! Muahahaha!"
"I see." He stood in front of her, "In that case, come with me."
"Whoa, didn't think I'd actually run into a pervert out here." She smirked, "You know, it's not really a smart move to go for me. I may look like this, but I can drown you even on these hot summer drylands."
Ignoring her warnings as he stepped ever closer to her, she had started to get a tad worried and almost checked his background with Omniscience. Still, she doesn't like to use her divine search engine on useless things like this. As is commonly said, the more you know, the more you won't want to know, and the Gods know this all too well. Thus, all of the Gods try their best to use Omniscience sparingly, and to forget it as quickly as possible once they're satisfied. All of them but the Knowledge God, who never forgets or discards a single fact.
"Hey, where are you taking me?" She asked with a bored look on her face as she followed closely behind with both hands in her pockets, "If my assumptions are correct, you really should change your ways. Find a girl your own age, y'know?"
"Yes, one sandwich to go, please." The man ignored her still as he ordered food from the counter, "Ah, and milk too. Yes, I know I already ate, it's for her."
"Huh? Trying to bribe me with food?" She got a tad confused, "Is this how modern day freaks prey on little kids? I would have preferred money, if I'm being honest."
"Here you are." He smiled, "I noticed your stomach rumbling the entire time while me and my friend were eating at our table, so this should feed you for now."
"...Ah, I get it." She shrugged as she sat down at a nearby table to start chowing down, "You're not into kids, you're just a good person who thinks I'm homeless."
"Was I mistaken?" He tilted his head, "For a child of your age to own a house already..."
"No, I'm a wandering bum, don't worry." She waved off his assumption, "Thanks for the food. Sit down with me, let's chat a bit."
This man seems interesting, was her first thought. People treat wandering bums quite harshly in this world from her experience, but he was rather impartial and didn't at all hesitate to feed her with the most satiating items on the menu. What's more, he said he noticed her stomach grumbling earlier from across the room, that takes an incredible amount of perception to accomplish. He had earned her praise.
"I was just leaving, so I cannot sit with you." He shook his head, "My friend is in the bathroom, and I was just waiting for him when I saw you standing outside the window, drooling at this establishment's food."
"I was?" She felt a tad embarrassed at that one, "Still, sit down with me while your friend is in there. Where are you guys headed to?"
"A faraway place." He didn't wish to state the name, "Nowhere we have business being it, that is."
"Is that so?" She smirked, "Welp, I guess we all have our secrets. Is there a particular reason why you're going there, guy?"
"...Yes."
It seems he's quite tight lipped on the topic of travel. No matter what she tried to ask him, he would just dodge it completely by either giving a vague reply, or a short one he didn't want to follow up on. Her first instinct was that him and his friend are on the run, or maybe they're deserters from the ITA. There are such situations as well, and sadly they're not that rare either. In any case, she decided switching topics was necessary.
"You got a girlfriend?" She leaned on her elbows with a grin.
"No, I do not." He looked confused by the sudden topical change, "Why ask that now?"
"Because." She shrugged, "You remind me of my husband."