Now that we’ve finally reached Auros’ Throne, we can finally…! Well, we haven’t actually even reached it fully yet. You see, the Golden God’s Throne is actually quite an odd one. It’s more like a giant monument, or a megalith to be more precise, with hundreds of giant one meter tall steps leading to the actual top. Each step is worth its weight in gold, though, quite literally as the entire World Wonder is made up entirely out of solid gold.

“So we’ve basically just reached the first step with this.” Cecily recounted, “Why couldn’t you have just landed at the top?”

“Next time how about you try and jump from a giant mountain and fall thousands of meters through the clouds and we’ll see if you can aim your trajectory any better!”

“…Right, sorry. It’s good that we’ve even made it here as safely as we did.” She felt bad and retracted her statement.

She’s right though. I could’ve just aimed a bit better and we would’ve been at the top from the start, but now we have to slowly scale it while avoiding oncoming bullets from the soldiers below. After they saw my grand spectacle of a swan dive down the cliff, they kind of got agitated that I had lived and are now solely turning their firing attention to us instead of each other.

On one hand this is good, because the number of war casualties has decreased significantly, if not completely stopped altogether, but on the other hand…

“Yikes! Watch out!” I pulled Cecily’s head down as soon as she peeked over the golden steps, “You trying to get your head blown off?!”

“I was just looking out to see if it was safe to advance a step!”

“Well, don’t! We’re in the home stretch now, so don’t go rushing things needlessly! We can literally spend the night here and just continue tomorrow and it’ll still work fine!”

“Wha-?!” She blushed, “I am not spending the night with you, I’m still angry at you for what you did with you-know-who!”

“That’s not what I-! A-And don’t talk about Marina like she’s someone who should not be named!”

“Hey!” A little girl’s voice reprimanded us, “No fighting! Moms and dads don’t fight, they love each othew vewy much!”

Nelly’s words brought us back to our senses, so we quickly apologized and tried to think about things in a calmer fashion. Our goal was there, staring down at us just a hundred or so steps away. Granted, the steps are half our height, but that just means that we have all the cover we need as soon as me make it to the next step. Realistically, we have a pretty good shot at this.

“Hold on, I think I got it!” Cecily snapped her fingers, “Lune, what do those gun things fire off?”

“Uh, small metal balls filled with gunpowder called bullets?” I replied, “Why is that important?”

“I recalled what you said about needing time to replenish your stamina before using your Iro Abilities, and it got me thinking - don’t they need to reload those guns regularly then?”

“Oh…”

Ooh! She means to say that there’s a very small window of time where everyone’s reloading and the gunshots stop completely! That means that if we just figure out the timing behind it, we’ll be climbing up the Throne to the very top in just a fraction of the time we would normally! Not to mention we’d do it safely as well! Utterly genius, Cecily! Gold star for you!

Climbing up one step at a time, we made sure to wait for each time that the gunfire stopped before helping each other up. Cecily and I would take turns holding Nelly, and we’d both feel very uneasy when it was our respective turn. Climbing up is a simple endeavor, even if we had to do it quickly and carefully, but clinging onto the wall of the current step and thus the floor of the next one while holding your child and simultaneously being under a strict time limit really didn’t help.

Basically, one person would climb up alone, then they’d hoist the other person up (who was holding onto Nelly). This system worked wonders thanks to Cecily figuring out the timing of the reload time, but obviously, that didn’t last long.

“Careful, careful… Now!” I yelled as I peeked out, only to get my nose completely blown off, “A-Ah…!”

“Lune!” Cecily screamed out.

“Aah! Dad!” Nelly almost puked out of fear.

Looks like one of the soldiers countered our plan simply by choosing to step out of line, not follow his superior’s orders, and hold his ammo in order to surprise us with the offset timing. No worries though, I thought, Nothing a bit of Heal can’t fix! Crouching back down, I had immediately cast Heal on myself, but due to me overusing my Iro Abilities today, it did nothing.

“Dammit!” I yelled, “Looks like we’re just gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way!”

Ripping off a piece of my shirt to serve as an impromptu bandage, I had wrapped my face up straight down the middle in order to at least hide the wound from Nelly. Certainly, seeing her father without a nose would probably leave her scarred for life, so let’s try and avoid showing her that.

“Come on!” I extended them my hand while still laying down on my back, “Climb up quick, I think I see something that resembles a pair of doors just up ahead!”

Grabbing my hand for better grip, the girls had made proper use of the gunfire temporarily ceasing. Looks like that one soldier was getting chewed out for shooting me in the face. Heh, serves him right…

“Lune!” Cecily cried out, “Y-Your face!”

“Ignore it, I’ll cast Heal later, when I get some rest. Right now let’s at least get inside before they finish us off!”

Looking out in front of us, we had noticed a giant door that was at least five times the size of any normal door. I had a hunch about this before, but maybe this “Throne” is actually a “Home”. Thinking about it logically, sure the entire structure has a stairway like shape that appears to lead to a giant throne at the end of it, but then there’d be no reason for this seemingly random door. Not to mention, after the layer with the doors, the steps above it have all increased to the height of about 5 meters or something like that. It seems like they resemble a story of a house more than anything else…

***

Slowly budging open the doors (which were surprisingly easy to open), we were greeted with a completely white room with only a couple of black objects that serve as proper contrast. It was, how do I describe it… modern? I don’t really know what that means, but that’s just the word that comes to mind when I look at this room.

“This place is… Auros’ Place, perhaps?” Cecily questioned, “For a muscle-brained brute like him, I’m honestly doubting if this is solely his living quarters. Not to mention the obvious – why would he be spending his time alone in that cave of his if he can just live here?”

“Error: Too many queries. Please speak clearly so that I may assist you.” A lady’s voice could be heard in the room.

“Who are you?” I yelled out.

“I am the Automated System of Selzion slash Auros, abbreviated as ASSA, and I exist to assist him and any other guests entering his and Selzion’s abode.”

“Show yourself, ASSA!”

“Apologies, but I do not possess a physical body. I was programmed as a mere voice with the sole purpose to answer any and all queries you may have about the abode.”

How odd… And what exactly does she mean by programmed as a mere voice? Did the Gods steal her body away from her and trap her in this place? That’s way too cruel for Auros to do, but I’ve never met Selzion before, so I don’t know if that’s truly the case or not.

“Alright then, ASSA.” Cecily nonchalantly asked, “What is this place?”

“This place is one of the Six World Wonders – Auros’ Throne. It was constructed by Auros himself, but soon after the God of Knowledge, Selzion, had unexpectedly began using the abode as his own place to rest occasionally. This angered Auros for a great many eons.” She explained with a monotone voice, “Also, don’t tell anyone I told you this, but it seems the reason Auros was so mad about this wasn’t because Selzion just started crashing here, but rather because Auros had so easily gotten used to his company.”

What is this, a bunch of frat boys sharing a dorm room? Come on, I’m not here to hear about the everyday gossip of the Gods, I’m here to find out how to get to the top!

“Can you tell us how to get out of here?” I asked with a nasally tone.

If you recall, my nose got blown off by a well-aimed bullet fired off by a rogue soldier down below. This in turn made me have a huge gaping hole in the middle of my face, but I’m inclined to believe that it is still somehow salvageable if I concentrate hard enough to reattach the nose which I’m keeping tucked safely in my pockets for now.

“You may leave the abode by passing through the very same doors you’ve entered through.”

“Are you getting smart with me?” My nasally voice was only accentuated with my anger.

Nelly tried so desperately to not laugh at my voice, since her mother was giving her the “Now’s not the time” look. Really though, I would’ve preferred if she had laughed, I dislike serious situations, and would much rather joke about them instead.

“Listen, we need to get to the top of Auros’ Throne. How do we go about doing that?” I repeated my question, only this time more precisely.

“Climbing up these stairs, you will make it to the pool room. At the other side of the room is a door leading to the main hall, from which you will climb another set of stairs leading up to the second main hall, from which you will climb another set of stairs leading up to the third main hall, from which…”

“Okay, ASSA, we get it.” I joked, “You ever heard of And so on?”

“Noted. Added “And so on” to the database of proper replies to the question “How do we go about reaching the top of Auros’ Throne?”. Thank you for your input.”

Looks like she didn’t get the joke. She’s way too serious and uptight, I don’t like it. Like, if she had a body, she’d be a plain old long black haired lady wearing glasses and always holding a clipboard or something. Now, you may think that sounds hot and all, except this woman feels like she’d constantly be buzzed from overdrinking coffee and staying up late all night, not to mention she seems to always have this snarky, tired and done with life sort of tone to her replies. Truly, a vicious office lady.

“Thank you, kind bodyless lady!” Nelly waved at… something. “Hope you get youw body back soon!”

“Error! ASSA has never had a body in her life, mistake in Line 4, Column 42!”

Right… Let’s just leave her be for now. I’m getting an uncanny feeling from her. That being said, we had made our way to the pool, where I had gotten a pretty wicked idea.

“Hey Cecily, wanna hop in for a bit?” I suggested, “This feels like the perfect place to relax, doesn’t it?”

“Pfft, you wish!” She chuckled, “If we entered the water right now, I’m afraid you’d get water in your brain because of that gaping hole in the middle of your face.”

“I-I can cast Heal if that’s the issue!” I weakly pleaded my case, “It might take a bit for it to recharge, but I’m young! I’m sure I can force it with enough willpower!”

Staring at me with her eyebrows raised high in surprise, she blushed a bit at my desperation to swim with her, obviously realizing my ulterior motives. Damn you, rogue soldier! You better hope I don’t find out who you are, otherwise you’re done! This must be the worst way to cock-block someone in history!