How-not to be an Olympian God!

Chapter 39 - A Date Under The Cosmos

Hand-in-hand, the couple made their way back to Hermes' mansion and entered the lonely place they now called 'home'.

The halls were dark and only illuminated by the radiant moon.

"I'll show you something." Alex told Crista.

"Lead the way."

He took her to their home's balcony, but this time, they didn't sit on any of the chairs.

Alex climbed up the pillars supporting the weight of the roof and hinted at Crista to do the same. He was leading her to a hidden spot he recently discovered.

The roof of the mansion was mostly uneven, but one place, in particular, was flat and would allow for an incredible view of the night sky.

Back on Earth, the light pollution of urban centers rendered observing the stars almost impossible, but here, where the pitch darkness of the night still dominated, the celestial objects that could be seen were incredible.

And tonight, the night sky was particularly bright and colorful.

When they sat down and leaned on each other's heads, Alex softly whispered, "Back in my home, all of these stars in the sky had names, and we separated them into various constellations."

Crista whispered back to him, "What's that one there?"

She was pointing to a particularly visible constellation that shaped into a triangle.

Alex chuckled and replied, "That one is literally...Triangulum."

"That one?"

"Ursa Major, the biggest constellation of the northern hemisphere."

"This one?"

This time, she was pointing to an unusual celestial object.

If one observed with keen eyes, one could see a colorful spiral oval in the sky.

"I think that one is...Andromeda, our neighbor galaxy."

"Galaxy? What's that?" She asked him with a confused expression.

'My bad, I forgot astronomy knowledge in this era didn't stretch as far as galaxies and the fundamental structures of the universe.' Alex murmured internally.

"Basically, can you see the Sun? In the entire world, there is an enormous number of similar objects that together, form a structure we call a galaxy. Ours is the Milky Way, and Andromeda is the closest one." Alex tried to explain it the best way he could.

He wasn't an astronomy expert, but with Crista around, he felt like he could be one.

"You're telling me there is a f**king infinite number of worlds like ours, with people and gods and landscapes? That's a bit hypnotizing." She laughed.

Alex laughed back, even for him, who had access to knowledge about outer space, looking up to the night sky and trying to picture the fact that every single star he could see maybe had planets that hosted intelligent life, he still felt disoriented.

The world was way too big for his brain to visualize, but with the people he loved around him, he only needed to focus on this small world of his.

As they kept observing the sky, they fell silent, and suddenly, he felt an extra weight on his shoulder.

Looking around, he was surprised to see that Crista had fallen asleep. Her long eyelashes were still and her breathing was calm.

He too yawned and felt drowsy and comfortable.

'Good days.'

__________________________________________________________________

*Atchou!*

Alex sneezed and abruptly woke up.

He just realized he accidentally fell asleep on the roof. Strangely, a blanket that wasn't there yesterday covered the two of them.

Still, the ambient temperature was waaay too low for a spring/summer day, and a simple glance around explained the reason.

Everything as far as they could see was covered in a thick snow cover, and he almost jumped out of surprise after seeing snow.

Unfortunately, his brusque movements woke up Crista.

Her long eyelashes fluttered and had a bit of ice on them. As she opened her eyes, she stared at him and then looked around.

She seemed perplexed to see snow around them, but it seemed she was still in the state between wakefulness and sleep, and couldn't process anything.

"Interesting, isn't it?" An unknown voice spoke out and made the couple jump out in terror and the still-asleep Crista fully awake.

"Muahahahaahahahahaha....!" When Alex turned around, he found Hermes...laying there and just laughing senselessly.

He glared at him and the latter said, "You should thank me, I brought a blanket since I figured you'd be cold from all of the snow."

Crista seemed disappointed and diverted her attention to Alex, to whom she said, "Good morning, what a nice sleep we had, if only it wasn't interrupted by a certain someone."

Alex giggled and visualized imaginary arrows piercing Hermes, symbolizing this sudden verbal attack.

Crista proceeded to ask on a serious note, "So, why the f*ck is there snow....and skeleton armies marching around?????"

'Skeleton armies...?' Alex was confused but soon saw it.

At first, it looked like withering trees from a distance, but they were moving and in fact, it was an army of skeletons.

Hermes shrugged and informed them, "It's Hades and Demeter. Every time they meet, they fight. This is still quite mild. A few hundred years ago, when Hades and Persephone just got married, Demeter launched a snowstorm all over the world and almost eradicated humanity, and skeletons roamed the Earth, terrorizing every living being."

That was astonishing to the two.

Alex knew Demeter didn't have the best relationship with her son-in-law, but this was on another level.

Suddenly, they could perceive a figure hovering in the sky.

They were too far to be seen, but their silhouette reflected their tall and muscular stature.

As the person floated around, storm clouds abruptly formed around the figure and lightning bolts gathered and circulated around the eye of the storm.

Those same lightning bolts then stroke down on the mountains and the earth.

The thick lightning instantly vaporized the skeleton army into nothingness and the snow cover in a wide distance all turned into steam that floated into the air.

It was a terrifying show of strength, that they could attribute to that single silhouette in the air.

Alex and Crista looked on with their jaws wide open as the battle between two major gods was instantly over with a few lightning bolts.

The thunder, that came after the lightning, rumbled like an earthquake and rang out painfully in their ears.

Hermes, who was behind them, closed their jaws and told them, "That's Father's work. Did you see the strength of the King of the Gods?"