Chapter 488 - Day Off
Zero woke up early to his regular routine of qi gong and meditation. It was finally his well-deserved day off and the doctor was eager. Initially, he had so many things in mind that he told himself he wanted to do when he had some free time. However, as Zero walked through the village, he discovered that there really wasn’t a lot that needed his attention. Almost everything was automated and Zero didn’t need to lift a finger if he didn’t want to.
Feeling slightly lost, he ambled over to New Moon Village and walked around. Things were also making good progress here without him and Zero wondered if the villagers wouldn’t like it if Zero took some initiative to help build something. Hence, he left without a word. The sun still hasn’t risen and Zero was already bored.
Who would have thought that it was so difficult to be idle?
Going back to his room, Zero flopped face-first onto his bed and paused. Was this how he was going to be spending his long-awaited day off? Simply lying in bed and doing nothing? That felt so anti-climatic! Zero thought that day-offs were meant to be rejoiced. It was meant to be a reward for trying very hard but not doing anything simply felt wrong to him now.
Tossing over the other way, Zero whipped his i-communicator out and started scrolling through the various applications. He didn’t exactly feel like reading on his day-off because he did plenty of that recently while he was stuck recovering in the pool with several other clones. Instead, Zero looked through his contact list. There were quite a lot of people registered on his i-communicator and Zero decided to go through the list one by one.
As if walking down the memory lane, Zero smiled at each name, remembering when was the first time he met these people on his contact list. For instance, he first met Baal by accident in the void and only saw his meditation pal in vessel when he was brought to the Spring of Vitality forcefully in his comatose state.
Zero moved down the name list and saw Enma’s name. It was a real shame King Yama was constantly busy and also a known workaholic.
"I wonder what En does on his day offs..." Zero mused and sent the busy Lord of the Purgatory a text.
The reply wasn’t instant but it was rather quick.
Enma: Work.
The doctor couldn’t help but laugh at the expected response. Indeed, he couldn’t picture Enma kicking up and relaxing by a pool sipping on juice at all. If anything, Enma might feel stressed if he didn’t have something to do.
Going through the list one by one, Zero sent everyone casual text messages just to know how they were doing. Interestingly enough, not everyone was busy. For instance, Poseidon wasn’t busy ruling his domain like Zero thought he would be. Instead, he was busy chasing away Minerva’s suitors. It hasn’t been all that long since Athena was given a second chance at life as Poseidon and Medusa’s daughter. Where did the suitors come from?
When Zero checked in on Freya to talk about the temple that the giants were building to honour her in Magnus Hilda, he was surprised to learn that the Goddess of Beauty and War was monitoring them like a hawk.
Freya: They got my nose wrong! Can you tell Dorgon to make it slimmer and sharper? Also, the length of my curls is not even at the back.
Zero mentally applauded the Goddess of Beauty for being so sharp with the details. He wrote her complaints down into a letter to send it to Magnus Hilda for Dorgon and his team to take action. Other than that, Freya promised Zero that she will go down once the temple is completed. Zero’s clone will do a ’summoning ritual’ for formality’s sake and Freya will send her avatar down to Earth to bless it and speak to the giants. All Zero really had to do was send Freya a text message when it was time for her to make her grand entrance but the giants didn’t need to know about that or the deal they made about prayers and offering profit sharing.
It was noon by the time Zero finished chatting with his contacts. He was currently waiting for some of the busier people on his contact list to reply while he helped Zoe prepare lunch.
Lunch was a quick and fun affair because the available villagers wanted to have a meal with their leader before Zero left for another long adventure again. Zero assured them that he would still be around in a sense this time because he was leaving his clones behind but Cleo insisted that it wasn’t the same.
"Even if we see your clones and can talk to them daily, it’s not the same as seeing you in person. Please come back safely, we will be waiting for you."
Zero felt slightly guilty. He had a feeling that after he found all the keys to open the portal to Whiskeria, it would be a very long time before he would come back to Half Moon Village. Zero’s ultimate aim was to recover all his divine entities and understand Solo’s past memories to track him down. They met previously and Solo did say that they would be seeing each other again so Zero wanted to be prepared for their next encounter. He had many questions to ask Solo but first, he needed to find out the truth behind Solo’s actions and why Solo was trying to end the world through Zero.
After lunch, Zero decided to go for a walk and check his i-communicator for any replies. Of all the people he sent messages to, Zero was most interested in Hades’ reply. He asked the God of Death if there was a new lead about the person who taught the gnomes how to build a nova cannon but hades had yet to reply to him even though Zero was certain that the God of Death had read his message.
Truth be told, Zero didn’t really care who it was. In fact, he had a feeling that Solo had a hand in that no matter what. From the Mind’s Eye System to the chaos energy, Solo’s actions had always been contradictory. He often used ’helping Zero’ as an excuse to harm him or make Zero’s progress difficult. The memories he saw in the time crack were also confusing.
Zero simply couldn’t understand what his past self was thinking but he vowed to walk on the opposite path that Solo walked. If Solo yearned for the end of the world, Zero would do his best to protect it.
"Hopefully Nel can answer some of the many questions I have about Solo but for now, let’s enjoy the rest of my day off!" Zero grinned and decided on a cliff climbing competition with Clowis.
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