The Snow Continent

The next morning I was rushed out of bed by an excited Alice to prepare for the ceremony to hatch the Garuda Girl. Alice inquired if I had done this before. I informed her that yes I had, and that she would need two monsters to awaken the Garuda Girl. On our first adventure, when only Alice and I had been traveling, that had been a problem. This time around there was no shortage of monsters.

The short walk to the Holy Wings Shrine took only a few minutes. Alice had made great time, eager to get to her mother and stop her madness. I was less enthused because I knew so many ways in which it could all go wrong. But I also recognized the necessity. As long as Alice's mother was waging war against humanity, there could be no peace. That sounds quite obvious, of course, but it needed to be said in order to explain why I was willing to take such a huge chance.

"I'm getting kinda excited!" Sonya said eagerly next to me as Alice and Alma Elma held hands and spoke the incantation, just as they had on my first adventure.

The orbs had been carefully arranged on the altar. Everything was in order. Yet when Alice and Alma Elma completed the incantation, nothing happened.

"Did we do it wrong?" Alma Elma asked.

"None of the orbs are fakes, are they?" Sonya asked.

"Maybe the fact that the blue orb didn't come from this world is making the spell fail?" I wondered.

"I don't think that's it," Ilias said, seeming to sniff the air. "Something's wrong with the flow of magic in this area. Alice, do you feel that?"

"Now that you mention it, yes," Alice replied. "It wasn't immediately noticeable, but it seems that there's less mana in the air than there should be. But why? In my experience, there are only a few places where mana is significantly higher or lower than average, and this place should have higher than normal amounts of mana, not lower!"

"The flow of mana has indeed changed," Nero said, appearing out of thin air.

"Wah!" Alice yelled. "I wish you'd stop doing that! I don't like being snuck up on!"

"Nero, do you know what's going on here?" Ilias asked.

"I'm afraid the Great Disaster altered the flow of mana drastically."

"So…. There's no way to awaken the Garuda Girl?" Alice's voice quavered. "There's simply not enough mana? Luka, please do something! Nero, I'm sure you can do something!"

"Even Luka's power relies on mana flows," Nero replied. "It's why his power doesn't work on his home world. Granted, I haven't been there, I got that from his book. But it's the only theory that makes sense. As for me, without sufficient mana there's nothing that I can do either. And if there was sufficient mana…."

"We'd be able to awaken the great bird," Alice said dejectedly. "I'm at a total loss. What do we do now?"

"I'm afraid I don't have a solution to that particular problem," Nero said. "But I can at least tell you what the problem is. It's possible that if you go look into it, that a solution might present itself. At the very least, I have a feeling that you need to know what's going on there."

"Going on where?" Ilias asked. "Don't beat around the bush! Spit it out!"

"From what I've seen," Nero replied. "The Snow Continent is the cause. I've come to think the appearance of this continent greatly distorted the flow of mana."

"Snow Continent?" I asked. "The Great Disaster created a new continent?"

"Yes," Alice confirmed. "It's an icy continent to the west of Sentora. No one's ever explored it. Like Hellgondo, there's a mountain range that makes it impossible to dock. I'd assume we'd need the Garuda Girl to get there as well."

"I'm only just hearing about this?!" Ilias asked, irritated.

"I guess you and Luka are outsiders," Sonya replied. "Since your worlds didn't experience a Great Disaster, you didn't have a Snow Continent. It's not exactly true that it hasn't been explored. Adventurers have found a way to access it. They just haven't returned."

"I guess it's not completely unexplored from our end either," Alice said. "While no monster that I know of has ever set foot there, some high flying monsters have reported that there are villages and ruins sparsely dotting the continent."

"I don't see how any of this helps us!" Ilias spat. "We can get to that continent and look around all we want, it won't help with the disrupted mana flows."

"Luka could obliterate the continent," Nero suggested. "That would restore the flows pretty quickly."

"There are villages there!" Sonya exclaimed.

"Neris and I could go there and evacuate them," Nero suggested lamely. "But maybe destroying people's homes is a bad idea. I just couldn't think of any other suggestion."

"Thoroughly useless when it really counts," Ilias muttered.

"Haven't I been a big help so far?" Nero asked defensively. "You speak so coldly to me when I run into one little problem. I guess I shouldn't expect gratitude, but…."

"I happen to think you've been wonderfully helpful, Nero," Alice said. "Luka, don't you agree?"

I had to think about that one, as Nero's appearances had been a bit of a mixed bag for me. But he had helped in some serious situations, such as our battle with evil Tamamo.

"Okay, let's put our heads together," Nero said, ignoring my pause and non answer. "We can't destroy the Snow Continent. We just want mana to flow without interruption. Maybe once you get there, you can find a way to correct the flow of mana with magic or something."

"That's an awfully long shot," Ilias said.

"If we did manage to get there, would we recognize the problem when we saw it?" Sonya asked.

"Of course we can! It's the fucking continent that's the problem!" Ilias yelled.

"Maybe not," Alice said, starting to get the germ of an idea, if I knew her like I thought I did.

"What do you mean, maybe not!?" Ilias countered. "The continent shouldn't be there! It's blocking the flow of mana in this region! I'm the Goddess of Creation! I know this shit!"

"You've forgotten more than I'll ever know, true," Alice admitted. "But the fact remains that you've forgotten a lot. Destroying or moving the continent isn't realistic, and in any case we don't know that Luka can muster that kind of power as he is now. But what if the blockage isn't the whole continent, but just part of it? Say, a mountain that's specifically blocking a mana vein?"

"Heck, I can cut down a single mountain!" Nero said enthusiastically.

"Who raised you to be so destructive?" Alice asked, knowing the answer. Nero, however not knowing what she knew, decided to clam up.

"That still raises the question of how we get there," I noted. "Can you teleport us there? I'd imagine there's no seal blocking teleportation to that continent."

"Actually, there is," Nero said.

"My mother blocked that continent too!?" Alice asked, becoming increasingly more distraught.

"No, it's not the same seal. This particular seal has been constructed with holy magic."

"Holy magic?!" Ilias exclaimed. "That would mean…."

"It could mean anything," Alice interrupted. "We already know there are some angels around, we've encountered them. Most of them prefer solitude. That's why so many were in Enrika and we've encountered so few anywhere else. Maybe some of the angels found a sanctuary on the Snow Continent."

"I guess that would make sense," Ilias mused. "But I have to admit, now I'm interested in that place. How do adventurers get there? Sonya, do you know?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Sonya admitted.

"There's a tunnel in the mountains," Nero said. "Neris and I have seen it from the air. We also confirmed an exit on the other side. I have no idea how dangerous it is inside, however."

"No matter how dangerous it is, it's all we've got," I said. "I hate having to do another detour, but we have to awaken the Garuda Girl if we're to deal with the heart of the matter."

"Actually," Nero said. "The Monster Lord isn't the true heart of the matter."

"I have to admit that's true," Alice said. "The heart of the matter is chaosization. All that's been happening on this world has been a distraction from that."

"And all we've seen in the Tartarus rifts is the symptoms," Ilias added. "No treatments for the problem have presented themselves. We don't even really know the cause. Just something about this true history."

"I am so sick of this true history!" I exclaimed. "There's no rhyme or reason to what matters and what doesn't!"

"It all matters," Nero said. "Just some things matter more than others. You getting the spirits was absolutely critical. You slowed down chaosization a ton by completing that mission. From what I've read from your book, your own story is close enough to the true history. Just keep on following that path and I'll buy us a lot more time. Years, maybe decades."

"Okay, first, I'm not even sure how we follow that path given how much is different," I countered. "There's no Ilias here to wage war on everyone."

"Ilias did what?" Alice asked.

"I'll explain later. Not to mention the person waiting for me at the castle isn't the Monster Lord that was waiting for me the first time."

"Hold on a sec," Alice said. "Wasn't my counterpart traveling with you? Who was the Monster Lord waiting for you in the castle? Was it my mother?"

"It doesn't really matter which Monster Lord is there," Nero said. "Obviously it works best if you face the same Monster Lord, but you get most of the effect if you face any Monster Lord. The true history can't be followed with complete accuracy, that's impossible, as you've seen. Too much has changed. It's why we can't defeat chaosization entirely."

"But that's what we have to do!" I insisted. "I don't want to just delay doomsday! I'm sure I didn't get sent here to buy time. I got sent here to win! To save everyone!"

"That's the Luka I know," Nero said, giving me a lopsided smile. "So here's the deal. For what it's worth, I agree with you completely. This true history thing is a distraction. You'll notice that Neris and I haven't spent too much time worrying about it. We do have to respect the history enough to not bring about universal destruction, but we see things as you do. We want to save the world, not just delay its doom. That means taking chances. You spoke of the heart of the matter. Well I believe that the Snow Continent is where you'll find it. That Snow Continent is the key to this whole thing."

"Really? We might be able to complete our quest there? If what I believe about Alice's mother is true, if we resolved chaosization, she'd have no reason to continue on her current path."

"I can't tell you much," Nero admitted. "Both because I don't know that much, and because while the White Rabbit and I aren't allies, we do see eye to eye on this one thing. You all have to see these things with your own eyes. I can't just tell you about them."

"That's a lesson I learned from Tamamo," Alice said. "Experiencing something is far superior to just being told about it. Maybe if we actually see the continent, we'll understand well enough to do something about it."

"Where I come from we have a similar saying," I said. "Tell me, and I forget. Show me, and I remember. Involve me, and I understand. So I guess this is the mission now. We go to the Snow Continent and we find the source of the problem."

"The heart of the matter," Ilias added.

"So where on the continent is this tunnel?" I asked Nero.

"North side," Nero answered. "You should be able to get to it with your ship. Now I really must be going."

"Where exactly do you go to that's more important than…. Aaaannnddd, he's gone," Sonya sighed.

Getting to the island took a lot more time than I would have preferred. I teleported to the MS Fish in order to tell Bonnie and Ashel where we needed to go, but the Fish was a week away from our destination. A week meant the longest downtime since our adventure began, but there was no helping it. Alice, who was very impatient to get to her mother, took the news in stride. In fact, she'd been expecting the MS Fish to be nowhere near the Snow continent and seemed relieved that it wouldn't take even longer to get there. Since I could teleport us to the MS Fish wherever it happened to be, Alice set the castle up in an uninhabited area and we relaxed for the next week. I won't bore you with the details of who I fed and under what circumstances. I've shared enough of those. Suffice to say that it was all monsters I'd been with before. What I will add is that familiarity made them gentler and more amenable to my desires. It was no longer just about feeding for them. There was genuine affection, even love, and they wanted to make it as good for me as it was for them. Alice dealt with her own impatience by eating a couple of loads every two days. For all the variety of monsters pleasuring me in an incredible variety of ways, Alice remained my favorite. She seemed to know it, which made the fact that she had to share me much easier for her to bear. Even Alma Elma couldn't top her in my book. And believe me, Alma Elma seemed to know it as well and tried her hardest, primarily for bragging rights. In other words, as time off goes, I'm sure I had more fun than anyone in the multiverse.

So skip ahead a week(If you really want all the dirty details I can write side stories about them later), and the MS Fish was anchored near the Snow Continent. Sure enough, within sight was a tunnel opening that presumably would get us past the mountains and into the interior. I also presumed lots of very dangerous monsters.

Fortunately, that proved to not be the case. The tunnel was completely deserted and there were no signs of anyone having been there in the recent past. The tunnel was also short. We emerged into daylight in less than an hour, gazing out at the vast snow covered landscape. Needless to say, it was cold. Colder than any cold I'd ever experienced. It was like the South Pole on Earth, not that I'd ever been there. So maybe I'm exaggerating. Being a Florida boy, perhaps I just don't know what real cold is.

Alice, Sonya, Ilias, Promestein, and Alicetroemeria were with me. Since Alice was carrying the castle in her bottomless magic bag, reinforcements were available should we run into serious trouble.

Turns out I got my hopes up a bit too much. Rather than the mountains being one continuous range as on Hellgondo, there were multiple ranges with flat land and valleys in between. We soon encountered another tunnel, this one blocked by an old acquaintance. The White Rabbit. By that point I was no longer surprised to see her. If the answers were to be found on this continent, the White Rabbit could be expected to show up to guide us to them.

"Brrr, it's cold out here!" White Rabbit exclaimed. "It's a good thing I have fluffy fur! Are you jealous of my fluffy fur, Luka?"

"Admittedly, yes," I replied. "But what I'm really interested in is why you're here. I assume it's to guide Alice?"

"Nero already told us that the flow of mana has been impeded by this continent," Alice said. "So I hope you have something more for us than to just repeat what someone more useful already told me."

"Ah, that Nero," White Rabbit chuckled. "his assumption is quite incorrect. It's not the Snow Continent that's blocking the flow of mana, but a presence on this continent."

"That's fantastic news!" Ilias exclaimed. "A presence implies a being causing this. So we just kick her ass and then the mana starts flowing properly again!"

"Defeat? It's not that kind of thing. But you'll see for yourself."

"Let's just get this over with so we can revive the divine bird," Alice muttered.

"Oh, you think this is just some busywork, keeping you from your main quest?" White Rabbit laughed. "I get why you think confronting your mother is important, but what she's doing is because of the problem, not the cause of the problem. The core of the problem is right here."

"I'd ask what we're going to find, but I assume you won't tell us anyway," Promestein said.

"I can't just tell you, silly angel. You have to observe it for yourself."

"Or you could simply tell us," Promestein countered. "Science would never have advanced if every scientist had to observe everything with their own eyes, duplicating the work of others. I assure you, if you explain it accurately, I can begin work on a solution using the information you provide. The way you are doing this is very illogical, and wasting precious time."

"If I was guiding you, I might agree. But I'm guiding the Monster Lord. And the reason I'm guiding her doesn't lend itself to the scientific method. All will become clear soon enough."

"While I understand that I have to see the problem with my own eyes to truly comprehend it," Alice said. "There has never been a need for you to be so flippant and mysterious about it."

"You're probably right about that," White Rabbit admitted. "I was playful because it's my nature. Also, it got you to chase me because you found it annoying. But the answers are very close now. I'm going to guide you seriously from here on. No more games. But first I have to ask. Are you truly prepared? If you turn back now, you can live a normal life, at least until the end comes. You've done a pretty good job of reducing chaosization by following the most important aspects of the true history. The world might survive another thirty years, depending on the actions of some other people running around this world whom you've met. You can still go have a good life somewhere."

"My home is my castle," Alice retorted. "And in case you didn't notice, there's a war of annihilation going on, started by my mother. But if anyone else wants to turn back, I understand."

"This party is too interesting to leave just yet," Alicetroemeria replied.

"I'm with you to the end," I said.

"I just have to know!" Promestein said excitedly.

"I haven't come this far to abandon my friends now!" Sonya declared.

"Ah, fuck it," Ilias shrugged. "I probably shouldn't give a rat girl's ass, seeing as how no one is hunting me as I originally feared. I'm risking my life on this quest when I could be enjoying all that the mortal world has to offer for the next thirty years. Hell, maybe you guys will save all of existence while I sit on the sidelines. But I've learned something important on this quest."

"The value of friendship?" I said hopefully.

"The value of living! I'd always wondered what the purpose of my existence was. I thought it was to be a goddess, because that's what people seemed to expect of me. I thought I was seeking fellowship. But what really matters is eating great food, getting laid, and making every day matter! I wasted so many millions of years not tasting, not feeling, not understanding what motivated the surface dwellers! Now I get it! The purpose of life is pleasure seeking!"

"Wow, Ilias," Alice breathed. "You seriously need to find a balance. While your discouragement of pleasure seeking was idiotic, doing a complete one eighty and deciding that seeking pleasure is the only thing that matters in life is equally idiotic. How in all your long existence have you not found out what the true pleasures in life are? Those were always within your reach: friendship, love, satisfaction in accomplishment…"

"Gaining knowledge," Promestein added.

"Being remembered fondly," I added, even though being a legend back on my old world was mortifying. Still, I had left a great legacy and was proud of it.

"I mean, food is pretty great," Alice admitted. "And I can understand how this being new to you can make it all so overwhelming. But you obviously have a lot left to learn about what it means to LIVE."

"I think we all do," Sonya said. "That's where the White Rabbit has a good point. Ilias always knew about all these things, but she didn't understand them until she experienced them herself. But Ilias, you've only scratched the surface of what life is about. Admittedly, I'm only nineteen. I've barely lived! I haven't experienced the joy and satisfaction of being a wife, or a mother! I've never even had a real boyfriend! Right now, my primary identity is adventurer and aspiring priestess. I guess if we save the world, I get to be a legend, don't I? I'll go down in history with Heinrich. I wonder what that will be like? Don't you want to find out, Ilias? Find out what it means for everyone to think you're amazing?"

"That I've already experienced," Ilias replied. "I've received adulation for millennia."

"But has it ever felt real?" I asked. "You played the role of a goddess, but you were worshipped because people had to worship you."

"Believe me, I know what it's like for people to pay their respects to you because it's an obligation," Alice said. "because they fear you, or want something from you. That's not the same as true loyalty."

"I think it's good enough," Alicetroemeria said. "Earning my subjects' affections is hard. Forcing them to show me respect by being strong is easier. Besides, I worked hard to be strong. Why shouldn't I enjoy the fruits of all that labor?"

"Obviously some of our morally questionable friends need more time," I observed. "So it's up to all of us to see that they get more time. White Rabbit, please continue."

"If you are indeed ready, then follow me," the White Rabbit said, looking quite serious about the whole thing. "To the place it all began…."

She them mysteriously vanished into the entrance of the next tunnel.

"I guess we follow," I said.

"As usual," Sonya added.

There had been no trouble in the first tunnel, but we ran into trouble in the second tunnel the second we stepped into it. White Rabbit was gone, apparently unseen by the three angels guarding the tunnel entrance.

"Intruders?!" one of the pretty little angels exclaimed. "How did you get past the barrier?!"

"Don't you recognize your goddess?!" Ilias exclaimed in turn.

"Impersonating Ilias, how sinful!" another angel said. "Face your judgment, fallen angel!"

"I'm the one who passes judgment around here!" Ilias said, blasting them with holy magic before any of us could even get ready for battle.

"Ohhh…." The angels moaned as they lay on the ground, incapacitated.

"What are angels doing here?!" Ilias wondered. "And I have had it up to here with angels not recognizing me in this form!"

"We saw that some angels had survived the disappearance of Heaven by being on the surface when it happened," Sonya mused. "Maybe a village like Enrika is on the other side of this tunnel?"

"My gut tells me that's not it," Ilias said. "The angels in Enrika were thoroughly…. Humanized. These three had the fire of judgment in their eyes. As if they never spent much time on the surface."

"Let's keep moving," I said. "White Rabbit said the answer is ahead of us, so let's go find our answers."

We continued on. White Rabbit was nowhere to be found, so I had to assume she'd show herself when we needed guidance. As flighty as she was, she wasn't the type to just hang out and chat for no purpose. Something else was bugging me, however. Ilias seemed rather upset. I even saw a tear in her eye.

"Ilias, what's wrong?" I asked, moving to walk by her side.

"It's just that I've been wanting my angels to come to my rescue ever since I got here," Ilias sniffled. "But no one's coming, Luka! I'm not even the real goddess of this world, nor can I pass myself off as her in this stupid little form! The angels here all attack me on sight! I literally created them to love me!"

"You have us," I reminded her. "I'll protect you. I'll save you. Not because you ordered me to, but because I chose to. You're worth saving, Ilias."

"You really mean that?" Ilias sobbed.

"He does, because he's an idiot," Alice said, joining us. "But maybe he's right. You're not so bad all the time."

Alice put her arm around Ilias and squeezed her affectionately as they walked.

"I pledged my loyalty to you before I ever met you," Sonya said. "It's kinda weird for me because meeting you was a bit underwhelming. You have faults, and you can be… petty and weird sometimes. And vulgar. And perverted…."

"I hope you're going somewhere good with this," Ilias grumbled.

"But I've also gotten to know you as a person," Sonya continued. "Knowing your faults, your weaknesses, your fears, it's made me love you so much more than I did when you were just words in a book and paintings on a wall, or a statue figure. Maybe this was all meant to be. Maybe you had to walk the surface as a mortal to be able to truly understand what this world needed from you. I think you'll be a much better goddess as a result."

"And most importantly, Ilias, you have friends now," I said. "Real friends, not friends you created, or people who fear you, or want something from you. We know who you are, we know your imperfections, and we like you anyway. That's what it means to be a friend."

"Is that the purpose of life?" Ilias sniffed. "To have friends? Oh, look at me crying! It's this body! It makes me so immature."

"I don't think that's it," Alice said. "Life can be… a lot to take. And it's not so simple as seeking pleasures, or power, or even having friends. Even grown people cry sometimes when it gets to be too much. But you pick yourself back up, you find your purpose, and you find out what makes you happy in life. Seek pleasure, have good friends, do good things, fulfill your responsibilities. That and so much more is what living life is all about. There's no one answer. Just think of this time as your infancy. You're discovering the world, trying to figure yourself and the world out."

"Even if I get my power back, I think I'm going to want to keep some of my limitations," Ilias resolved. "Maybe knowing everything gets in the way of true knowledge and understanding. Maybe I need to be limited to grow."

"Not a terrible idea, but for now we need you at your best," Alice said. "So if we come across a way to restore you to your full goddessness, we're taking it."

"I really love you guys," Ilias said, wiping away a tear. "I don't deserve any of you. But I hope you'll all keep guiding me, even after this is all over."

"I'm sure you're going to give me splitting headaches on a daily basis, but yes, I'll be here for you," Alice said, pulling Ilias to her again and petting her hair.

Promestein seemed bored by us and was collecting samples as we proceeded through the tunnel. Alicetroemeria was watching us with interest, however. Was any of this getting through to her? She was unreadable.

We made it out of the tunnel with no further encounters. The cold was really starting to get to Sonya and me, the two weak humans of the group. Ilias warmed us with her light, but it wasn't strong enough to keep us warm for a full day's journey. We would have to make camp and build a fire if we didn't find a village soon.

We did find a village, inhabited solely by polar bear girls. They didn't react with hostility to us at all. In fact, they were particularly friendly towards Ilias, much to her surprise.

"Angels attack me, monsters befriend me?!" Ilias exclaimed. "What kind of fucked up world is this!?"

"I think the polar bears and the angels just get along," Sonya observed.

"So cold…." One of the polar bear girls said, shivering. All of the polar bear girls were wearing huge fur coats in addition to their natural fur.

"Fascinating," Promestein said. "This continent is so cold that even the species that should thrive here find it uncomfortable. Angels would be okay, since angels are impervious to temperature extremes."

"Wanna snuggle?" the polar bear girl asked Promestein. "We have a cabin that's warm. We provide cuddle service free of charge."

"I do miss my little helper bear," Promestein said. "Sure, I'd love to snuggle with you."

Promestein wasn't alone. Each of us got a bed and a cuddle partner. The nights were long on the Snow Continent, even though the latitude should have made the days and nights the same as on Sentora. There was indeed strange magic at work on the Snow Continent. We spent the next twelve hours sleeping and keeping warm next to a polar bear girl.

We resumed our journey the next morning, now aware that the days were only about six hours long. Since that was about all the Sonya and I could take, we would have to make do with that. There were more tunnels, more climbing, and more long walks through driving snow. It was pretty miserable. It took us the whole six hours, but we finally made it out of yet another tunnel, where we saw a sign that looked as if it had recently been planted in the snow. It read, "Congratulations, you made it!"

"Is the White Rabbit making fun of us?" Ilias wondered.

"No, she's just confirming in her inimitable way that we're on the right track," I said.

We left the tunnel and gazed out at a vast plain, covered in snow. Ilias gasped in shock.

"It's all covered in show, but this looks like….!" Ilias exclaimed. "There's a village over there, only a mile away by the looks of it. We need to go there and confirm my suspicions."

It was beginning to get dark, but the small town promised an oasis, a place to get warm. Sonya and I endured for just a bit longer as we trudged another mile through the deep snow. When we reached the village, it already felt a little warmer. Not warm, mind you. The ground was still frozen. But it seemed to at least be above zero, which was practically a heat wave by comparison to the outside of the village.

"There are only angels here!" Ilias breathed. "There's no mistaking it now. I know what this is."

"Mind sharing?" Alice asked.

"I'd heard some rumors about this place in various towns I asked around in," Ilias replied. "People had believed that this place rose from the sea. It was the opposite. This place fell from the heavens."

"Isn't heaven on a different plane of existence?" I asked. "How would Heaven "fall" to the surface?"

"It's on a different plane, a subdimension, but it's still above the surface. Or would be if it shared the same plane. The Great Disaster must have forced Heaven into the same plane as the rest of the world, which caused it to crash into the ocean. Forming this new continent."

"Wait, this is Heaven!?" Sonya exclaimed. "So it didn't disappear?"

"I had assumed it did, that the Great Disaster had made Heaven unreachable from the surface. The place where one would go to enter Heaven, the Navel of the World, was gone, replaced by a Tartarus rift. But apparently Heaven simply materialized in this dimension and since the laws of physics here won't just allow a whole world to float up in the sky, it fell."

"Incredible," Promestein breathed. "I would have predicted that Heaven would have simply been destroyed by chaos. Somehow it got shunted into this dimension instead, completely intact by the looks of it."

"It is as you say, lost angels," a passing angel soldier said to Promestein and Ilias. "It is good to see that you have made it home, friends."

"I am Il-"

Promestein placed her hand over Ilias' mouth. Ilias started to retort in her usual profane manner, but realized the wisdom of simply being an anonymous angel. Claiming to be the goddess would only invite retribution and get us run out of the village.

"Irene is my name," Ilias said.

"What a strange name for an angel," the soldier replied. "It sounds more like a human name. Did you adopt it living among the humans?"

"That's exactly what happened," Promestein said. "You'll have to forgive her, she's suffered severe brain trauma. She remembers very little."

"Corn…" Ilias said randomly. The angel soldier nodded in understanding.

"Irene it is then," the angel said solemnly. "Are you familiar with what has transpired here?"

"We've never been here, actually," Promestein said. "Could you bring us up to date?"

"In that case, you should see Ranael, the mayor of this town."

"Ranael?!" I exclaimed, involuntarily feeling my power rise. Ilias put her hand on my shoulder to calm me.

"Ranael is the leader here?" Ilias asked. "Okay, we'll go see her. Thank you."

"Luka, have you ever had an encounter with Ranael that ended well?" Alice asked.

"I've never had an encounter with Ranael that lasted more than a few seconds," I answered.

"Ranael would do anything for me without question," Ilias said. "The evil deeds she did were in my name. Her death at your hands falls on my head. But here she's free of my influence. She's just doing her duty for the angels that are still alive here. She shouldn't be a problem."

Ranael's house was supposed to be on the northeast side of town. All around us angels were working, some repairing small houses, others farming. There were also some shops.

"Why are the angels here working so hard?" Ilias asked a passing angel.

"Like you, we lost most of our divinity shortly after we fell to the surface," the angel replied. "We need food and we can't simply make anything we want with magic. We're not humans, but we're not what we were either. We are something in between. At least we can still keep ourselves fairly warm."

"So the angels have to eat, just like me," Ilias thought aloud. "Tell me, where is the best place to eat here?"

"The sweets shop, near Ranael's house," the angel said helpfully. "We angels don't eat meat and our bodies don't seem to need nutrition the same way truly mortal bodies do. We simply have to appease our hunger with calories. So we all just eat cake, cookies, and candy all day."

"Wow, this is heaven!" Sonya exclaimed.

"Maybe we should stay here awhile," Alice agreed.

"I'll be sure to buy a lot of treats for the rest of our journey," I said, because I knew that was the next question.

The sweets shop was quite a revelation. Angels didn't eat in Heaven, so they hadn't developed any particular culture around eating. There were no table manners. So inside the sweets shop was the rather adorable scene of beautiful angel girls stuffing their faces full of chocolate, to the point where there was as much chocolate on their faces as in their mouths.

"No wonder the humans fell into sin so easily!" an angel who appeared to be pretty high ranking said to Ilias as we sat down next to her. "The pleasures of this world are so tempting, even to such as we! I feel so sinful eating this cake! It's a good thing it can't make us fat."

I had a vision in my mind of a village full of obese angels rolling around in the snow. It explained why Ilias never gained weight on our journey despite her prodigious appetite. Alice was also usually fine as long as she was active. When I'd been gone for thirty years in a different timeline, Alice had become quite chubby in my absence. The second time around that hadn't been a problem, because I'd kept us active. We needed our strength on this arduous quest, so I'd never denied Alice or Ilias anything they'd needed for energy.

"This cake is heavenly!" Sonya agreed as she bit into it. Sonya had wanted a fork, but the angels didn't know what a fork was. They ate everything with their hands.

"It's our invention," an angel at the counter informed her. "We call it angel food cake!"

I had to agree it was tasty, and not messy, which was another nice advantage. Angels didn't believe in napkins either, preferring to lick their food off of their fingers and face where possible. Other angels helped them out by licking the remainder off of them, causing loud giggles. Ilias dropped some heavily chocolated cake down into her cleavage, totally by accident I was sure.

"Oh, clumsy me!" Ilias exclaimed.

"Don't worry, friend, I've got you!" a particularly lovely blonde angel said, burying her face between Ilias' breasts and licking away. Ilias sighed in satisfaction. Alice rolled her eyes. With Alice's tongue, there was no spot on her body that she couldn't reach herself if needed. I decided to be very careful how I ate to avoid a similar fate. But if I had the chance I had every intention of coming back to this shop and getting absolutely smeared with pastries of every sort. Preferably when the shop was very busy.

Once we had eaten our fill of sweet goodies and Ilias had been thoroughly cleaned up by her fellow angels(she had multiple cases of the dropsies), we made our way to Ranael's house, which was nearby. Probably because Ranael liked the convenience of the sweets shop so near her home. Rank had its privileges. Ranael herself was actually quite beautiful. I'd only seen her twice, both times for mere seconds before I'd destroyed her utterly. In my mind, she was a monster. Although I knew that people didn't change much between universes, it was still wrong to hold someone responsible for the actions of their counterparts on other worlds. I forced my power back down and decided to give Ranael a chance.

"What have we here, visitors from the outside world?" Ranael asked. "We don't get visitors often. Most fail to survive the harsh climate."

"Ranael, are you governing the angels?" Ilias asked.

"Oh my, a little angel who looks just like Ilias," Ranael said, thinking Ilias to be the most adorable thing she'd ever seen. "No, I'm only acting as a proxy for the head angel. She does not involve herself in such trifles as governing this town. But I can answer any questions you might have. I have no interest in keeping secrets."

"Do you remember when Heaven fell?" Ilias asked.

"Remember? I could never forget it! Thirty years ago, the Goddess Ilias disappeared from sight. A mysterious phenomenon attacked the Heavenly Ilias Temple, turning it otherworldly. At the same time, Heaven tilted and crashed into the world below. Flung into the lower world, we trembled with fear. We had no choice but to go on living in a world full of violence and depravity."

Ranael must have heard my snort. I knew how much of that violence and depravity she was capable of. She chose to ignore me.

"Our reconstruction efforts have borne fruit in the last thirty years," Ranael went on. "We believe that Ilias will come back to us one day."

"Who is this head angel?" Ilias asked.

"Eden, of course," Ranael replied. "She was the greatest of those of us who remained."

"Eden?!" I exclaimed. "Where can we find Eden?"

"Eden is in the Snow Shrine. You can find it southeast of this village. What possible business could you have with the Seraph? For the past thirty years, she has secluded herself in the shrine, praying night and day for Ilias' return."

"Do you know anything about the flow of mana being disrupted?" Alice asked.

"The flow of mana is being disrupted?" Ranael asked. "I know of no such disruption. But if you have seen it elsewhere I can guess at the source. It would be the Ilias Temple."

"The one in Iliasville?" Sonya asked.

"I am not referring to the Ilias temple you know. I am referring to the one in Heaven. Ilias spent much of her time there."

"I never knew about this," I said, looking questioningly at Ilias.

"We'll discuss that later," Ilias whispered.

"Then we have to go to the temple," Alice declared.

"That would prove difficult," Ranael said. "A barrier has been placed around the temple to prevent the otherworldliness from spreading."

"Well then we need whoever put the barrier up to take it down!" Ilias responded. "That's our answer! We need to see what's there!"

"Then you will first have to go to the Snow Shrine and see Eden. Eden placed the barrier around the temple and maintains it, using nearly all of her power to do so."

"Then we have our mission!" Ilias declared. "Thank you, Renael."

As we left Ranael's house to find a place to stay for the night, Alice took me aside.

"Please tell me that you have the kind of relationship with Eden that'll get her to take down that barrier," Alice said.

"I have no relationship with THIS Eden," I replied. "But if you're referring to this world's Eden maybe having dreams or impressions of me… Then maybe. Worst case, I'm sure the barrier can't keep me out."

"No good," Alice said, shaking her head. "The White Rabbit was clear that I have to see the answer for myself. If you see it and tell me about it, that's not good enough. We may have to beat Eden up to get her to do what we want."

"That's a Seraph you're talking about!" I whispered.

"Isn't her power degraded, though, between the fall of Heaven and maintaining the barrier?" Alice asked.

"True, but…. Yeah, if it comes to that I guess we have no choice. I've never fought Eden before. I hope I never have to."

Weak or not, Eden was one of the last people I wanted to fight, not because I was afraid of her, but because I desperately didn't want to hurt her. The Eden I knew was a gentle soul except on the rare occasions when she drew that flaming sword of hers. That flaming sword was another reason I really didn't want to fight Eden.

Since the Snow Continent had almost no visitors, there was no inn. But the angels were so trusting and curious about us that we had no problem finding a place to stay for the long Snow Continent night. Fortunately, the Snow Continent wasn't big, and there were no mountain ranges to cross. We expected to arrive at the Snow Shrine well before nightfall the next day. Settling in for a long night, sharing a bed with Alicetroemeria(don't ask!), I slept surprisingly well.