"Shick, where are you!?" A young girl played alone on the island's shore, "Hey, Shick? Stop hiding, it got boring ages... a... go?"

One can only imagine the poor girl had gotten something akin to a heart attack as she saw this titanic Red orc approach the very beach she had been playing on. Though she wanted to scream, and her face was already in that position, no voice could come out to alert the others.

"Be not afraid, child." Aru called out to her calmly, "Rejoice! For you have been visited by two of your creators!"

"A-Ah, okay..." The child softly replied, as if put in a trance, "Shick, where are you?"

She kept playing about as if she saw nothing out of the ordinary, which thankfully kept our party's presence masked for even just a bit more. The Gods had quite a nifty and convenient skill in that regard—Most certainly, any person regardless of age or gender would have screeched as soon as they saw the intimidating figure of the Fighting God, but thanks to this save on Aru's part, even someone as frightful as a young girl had been rendered completely calm.

"Alright, passengers." Auros placed his hand in front of his shoulder to help everyone down, "What can I say? You have reached your destination."

"Man, it took us like three times longer just to sail this distance by boat last night." Lem acknowledged, "We ought to employ your services more often."

"Blurgh, speak for yourself..." Issei, who had spent the better part of his time on this vessel hurling after getting launched in such a flashy way by the Generals and Aru, replied, "Goddammit, isn't Aru supposed to be the most mature out of the Five Gods? What the hell, woman?"

"Even I have my limits." She pouted, "Traveling around with a lovestruck trio in the peak of their affection for one another when I can't even find my own husband would make anyone go mad with jealousy. Just be glad I didn't launch you like this sooner."

"Eep!"

In any case, touchdown. They had all safely made it back to the island, stepping on the burning hot sand with their own two feet. Somehow, it felt like a huge accomplishment in and of itself, but things were far from over.

"Yaaawn~!" Lem stretched himself out like a cat.

"Hey, none of that just yet! We still have much work to do before you can grow tired on us!" Aru reached on her tippy toes to grab his cheek, "Open those Eyes!"

"Uwaaah~" He whimpered, "Man, at least let me take a five minute power nap...! I haven't slept in well over a day straight!"

"And? You were in a coma for over three weeks before that, so you've gotten all the rest your tiny body could ever need." She crossed her arms.

"Eh? It's been that long?" He tilted his head.

"The old man must have really done a number on you." Aaron chuckled.

"Nah, I don't care about that. Or rather, just how am I gonna excuse all these absences from school?" He fretted about something a lot more his age, "I mean, I get University doesn't require you to attend the classes, but you still get 5 extra points at the end of the year if you do. That means I'm gonna have to pull through without it, geez..."

"University?" Pierre tilted his head.

"We got a smarty pants on our hands." Maxwell mocked, "The hell are you doing in a place like that, eh kid?"

"To think I'd actually meet someone in my life who willingly went to school after BasicEd." Even Aaron joined in on the teasing.

And rightfully so, at least in their Eyes. All these Generals had one thing in common, well, among many other things, and that's that they all managed so much without ever having to go to University. After all, it takes a fortune just to attend the classes, then you factor in all the yearly payments you have to make, not to mention you have to pay an extra fee if you fail a class... For normal people, such a thing as University seemed like nothing more than a scam, and poor Lem had fallen for it, hook line and sinker.

"I see even my strongest and most faithful men can disappoint me every once in a while." Jorgen was the one to surprisingly take offense to this, "To pursue greater knowledge than what you already possess should be as sensible as searching for food. Though we as Generals skipped that requirement and went straight for climbing to the top of the food chain through sheer will and brute force, this boy exemplifies what it means to go another path. Make no mistake, he of all people wouldn't have ever attended University if he didn't have a good reason for it."

All Eyes were pointed at him, each and every pair staring like they just saw something incredible. Jorgen, the only man who was against Lem's very existence, had defended him. The defense was sound and logical too, very much concise and to the point. As expected of a leader.

"You hit your head or something, Jorgen?" Aaron chuckled awkwardly, "Where'd that come from?"

"Nah, I couldn't have said it better myself." Lem raised his tone as well, "My dad spent years of his life working his butt off just to pay for my tuition. Unlike most things in my life, I didn't have any ulterior motives with attending it. He simply wanted me to learn as much as possible, to extract me from the bad environment I was in and inject me into a far healthier one."

"Good answer." Jorgen cracked the tiniest smirk he could, "If you had said anything else, I would have sliced you into a million pieces."

"Geez, now who's the edgy one?" Lem turned to Issei with a groan.

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"Well, we made it to the island without getting spotted." Aru explained after they found a spot to hold this secret meeting, "Now what?"

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Eh? Why the hell are you the one asking?" Issei got anxious again, "You guys should know, right?"

"If it was truly just me on this little mission, I'd just encase Olya at the bottom of the ocean." She groaned, "But that would require me to bury the entire island, along with all of its inhabitants, along with it."

"Yeesh, don't do that." Lem worried, "Then, I guess we should think of what to do when we do find him."

"Simple, full on offense." Jorgen shrugged, "After all, it is the best defense."

"He's immortal." Issei, Lem, Aru and Auros reminded him in unison.

"An immortal enemy." Aaron thought, "Do we even have to fight him?"

Hey, there's an idea. Of course, it was just a needless rhetoric for Aaron to ask, but what they didn't know was that that's the exact question Aru wanted them to pose. Certainly, if they had a head on collision, then running away wouldn't do them much good. If they happened to be put in a spot where they had no other choice, then they'd fight him. But if possible, Aru would like for them to separate any hostages or civilians from his vicinity, like Nelly or Meil.

"After that, he's getting sealed." Auros smirked, "Geheh, I like this plan! Means we can beat him to a pulp at least once!"

"Yeah, but only after we made sure the coast is clear." Aru warned, "Urk! Gahhh!"

"Whoa, you good?" Issei went to inspect her.

"Shit, we messed around for too long." Auros felt the tinging pain in his head as well, "Everyone, hop on my shoulders again. We have to hurry."

"Wait, what's wrong?" Lem asked.

"No time to explain!" Aru pointed yonder, "We gotta hurry...! Hit it, Auros!"

"You got it." He nodded, lunging forward at remarkable speeds without a single care for stealth.

"Hey! A little quieter, please!?" Maxwell demanded, "What if someone hears us?"

"You still don't get it, twerp?" Auros kept his gaze fixed on a single spot in the distance as he steamrolled through the jungle greenery, "We failed."

"Failed?" Jorgen raised an Eyebrow.

"The time for stealth has passed." Aru kept tightly clenching her head as she spoke ominously, "They say it's always better to prevent something from happening than to try and fix it."

"And looks like we couldn't prevent that old bastard from reviving his damned friend." Auros clicked his tongue, "Dammit, how'd he do it!? Tell me, Olyahim!"

His thunderous roar would have made anyone go on high alert, not only on this island, but the next two as well. The Gods failed, so they no longer cared for stuff like stealth or preventing a catastrophe.

"Wait, hold it! You guys said the world would end if Schnell got revived, though!" Pierre looked around, "But so far, nothing's happened."

"The world is ending though." Aru muttered, "Olya's goal... It was to return everything to how it originally was supposed to be before he came along and ruined everything."

"Eh? So isn't that good?" Issei asked, "He's responsible, at least."

"Yeah, except he failed to realize that he was always supposed to "mess things up". By attempting to fix his mistakes, he is essentially making a mistake." Auros shook his head, "The idiot's only making things worse!"

The concept of messing up the Universe Cycle was still a bit confusing for most of the people here, safe from the two Gods. In any case, they just needed to know the bare minimum—Olyahim had finally succeeded in his thousand year plan to revive his friends. The Gods, beings of a higher caliber who never once were faced with such a scenario as this, were finally left in a world that had been irreparably damaged. No amount of their tampering now could fix the current Universe Cycle, which essentially means this one doesn't count.

"Olyahim!!!" Auros shouted at the top of his lungs as he saw the old man, "You're so dead for this!!"

In front of them stood a couple of faces, some more familiar than others. In fact, next to Olyahim stood Meil and Nelly, with the girl that had pursued Lem and Issei on the boat during their escape in close proximity. Though the center of attention was someone else. A muscular man with Brown hair and striking Green Eyes. Him and Olya high fived each other before rushing in opposite directions. It seemed those two planned to divide the Gods and try to take them out separately... But Lem only cared about one thing at that moment.

"Nelly! Get the hell away from there!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, "It's not safe here!"

Before she could say anything though, before she could even react for that matter, Meil had grabbed her wrist and whisked her away just like that. The tanned White haired girl also followed closely behind as the trio ran into the bushes to escape the Fighting God's path of carnage.

"I'm leaving it up to you!" Lem immediately tried to jump off and run after them, but was quickly stopped.

"Oh no, you don't!" Aru grabbed him and pulled him back up, "We need your Iro Ability for this! They're capable of surviving by themselves, and we won't get another chance to fight Olya and Schnell separately like this ever again!"

"Right, our goal now is to kill Schnell as soon as possible." Auros explained, "They'll deal with Olya."

"Grr...! But, they'll die!" Lem fumed.

"Nah, they'll be fine." The two Gods winked, "After all, the entire reason why we didn't go up that damned Tree was to not let them be alone for this fight."

The Tree, Issei and Lem thought to themselves. Right, Lune and company were on that Tree, but the Gods didn't come for them. They claimed they had another role to fulfill in the story, so was this it? Did the Gods calculate their arrival and knew they would be there to help Nelly and Meil in the fight against Olya?

"No, there's no way I'm not gonna worry!" Lem still opted to jump down, "If I'm not there for her now, then what was even the point of all those amassed brownie points!?"