“You’re probably referring to that moment when the world changed, right?”

“Yeah.” Gaius closed his eyes, replaying the scene when the world devolved into being coloured by just black and white in his mind. The boy still didn’t know what to make of it, aside from a gut feeling telling him that the world had been changed. He didn’t know how, or why, but somehow the food had tasted better after that event happened.

After a small period of deliberation, Nexus spoke. “To be honest, I’ve no idea what happened either. Nothing of such scale and magnitude has happened before throughout my life.”

“Magnitude?”

“Yes,” replied Nexus. “The change encompassed the entirety of the Five Lands, and the Wildlands too. In fact, the Never-ending Ocean was probably covered in this phenomenon.”

“The Never-ending Ocean?” Gaius asked, curious.

Nexus hummed for a moment, clearly deliberating on something. “It’s the seemingly-endless body of water that both divides and surrounds the Five Lands and the Wildlands. The true Never-ending Ocean, however, is beyond the Map of Stars. Lady Jessica didn’t know about it.”

“And you didn’t see fit to tell her.”

The sculpture sat up on the bed. “Well, it was tens of thousands of kilometres away from even the Wildlands. She’s too delicate to go there.”

Gaius levelled a suspicious look at the wooden sculpture, and then cursed in his heart for the umpteenth time at its expressionless face. It was incredibly hard trying to glean any non-verbal information from Nexus, with the only exception being if the artificial intelligence wanted to display its emotions in the first place.

After another three seconds of intense scrutiny, the boy gave up and returned to the original topic. “Alright, so what guesses do you have regarding this change?”

The wooden sculpture adopted a pose similar to The Thinker, and then began to enunciate its words slowly. “Before the destruction of the Divine Ladder…the Human God held sway over Orb itself. But enough events had occurred to loosen his control over the world.”

Nexus froze for a moment, prompting Gaius to say, “Go on.”

After a few more seconds, the artificial intelligence continued to speak. “What you just felt earlier can be one of probably two possibilities. It is not an exhaustive list.”

Gaius frowned at the incredibly cautious sculpture, but something within the boy told him not to interrupt the seeming monologue it was holding right not. Minutes passed in silence, but neither of the two had moved an inch.

“The first possibility is that another god had wrested a significant amount of control over Orb from Anren. The process of doing so would have destabilised the world, which could very well manifest in that bizarre phenomenon you saw earlier,” said Nexus.

The artificial intelligence’s words were incredibly hard to follow at this point. Each syllable uttered was succeeded by a long pause, and Gaius had the feeling that Nexus was attempting to prevent its utterances from being recognised as words…like people avoiding a profanity filter.

His hand shook as that realisation struck him. It had somewhat slipped his mind, as Nexus was an obliging and helpful assistant, but its words were actually subject to being censored. Gaius could still remember the sculpture demonstrating it to him once.

Gulping silently, the boy waited in patience again.

“Second. The Human God had…loosened his control over the world’s fate. Perhaps, he didn’t have enough power to continue doing so.” The sculpture shuddered, and its posture collapsed almost afterwards, sending Nexus sprawling onto the bed.

“The main thing in common is that the Human God’s control over Orb is weakened, right?” Gaius asked, as he placed the wooden sculpture back into a sitting position.

Nexus didn’t reply, but its silence had given the boy a good enough answer. The problem now lay in what this event meant for Gaius himself. For starters, the boy didn’t even know whether the ultimate outcome would be something helpful to him and his goals, given that his target was a Demigod too. If Gaius had felt the change, it was almost a given that both Paragons and Demigods alike must have felt something too.

Gaius stuffed the motionless sculpture into his tunic — it was likely that Nexus probably suffered some damage by revealing its thoughts to him by whatever entity that was restricting it — and left the room. The boy wanted to get some more food into his body, before whatever fear and terror boiling in his stomach got to him.

The receptionist did a double take as Gaius plonked himself into a chair.

“Milord, my apologies for not noticing your return.” She bowed nervously.

If you did, I don’t think you’ll still be a receptionist. The boy replied in his head, before gesturing at her to straighten her back. “It’s okay. No one can notice me if I don’t want them to.”

“As expected of milord…” The receptionist shook herself, before returning to a air of professionalism. “What would you have for lunch?”

Gaius reached out for the menu, and scanned through the items available for lunch. Most of them seemed rather appealing, but the boy couldn’t make a choice as a result. “What’s your recommendation, May?”

The receptionist squeaked, and the boy finally understood why her reactions felt so familiar. She was behaving like his fan, although for the life of him, Gaius couldn’t remember doing anything to turn himself into her idol. The boy had the hunch that if his autograph might be the recipient of being placed into a wooden frame and dusted every day.

After regaining her composure, she said, “I recommend the black pepper chicken chop. With onion rings and sausages as sides.”

“Oh?” Gaius couldn’t help but find these words very familiar to his ears, and then said, “Let’s go with that then.”

She bowed, taking the menu with her as she left. The boy sniffed at the air, and found the aroma of lunchtime dishes chasing away whatever fear he had for the time being. The most primal urges of life were reassuring to him — the ability to eat, to smile and to interact even in the face of immense danger, and before long, he found himself calm again.

A memory burst into his head as he calmed down, changing the environment around him into one that was of shadow. In front of him was a trembling boy. His features were unclear, but Gaius could recall that this particular disciple had been overcome by the prospects of danger and responsibility. He was the inheritor of some nation, apparently.

The him then reached out a hand and patted the boy’s head. His past self bent down and spoke. Gaius could hear the words he spoke to the boy then, and he couldn’t help but smile when they entered his ears.

“You cannot control everything, kid. You can control yourself and even your environment to a degree, but you can’t stop a frozen turkey from falling out of a cargo plane and bashing your brains to pieces.”

The boy in his vision couldn’t help but laugh, and the Gaius then patted his head again. The fragmented memory ended soon after, and Gaius was back in the Merry Cats, a smile on his face.

Just in time too, as May came bearing his lunch.