Adjutant
"Althea…." I whispered to myself.
"Sacrifice for the Reach" had raised plenty of questions for me in itself. The more pressing issue was the missing Ria, but this Althea that had begun assimilating herself into my life as a sort of replacement for Ria couldn't be easily ignored. What's more, Jean called her my Angel.
"You'll be fine on your own, right?" Asked Jean.
"Huh?"
"I'll be heading to my own room now. I need to get ready for work."
"Oh, of course." I'd completely forgotten that Jean was employed. "Wait…it's ten in the morning."
"Night shift." She said with a sigh. "I've told you this dozens of times already, but please don't get any ideas or anything. Assaulting an Angel is against the law."
"I wasn't even planning on doing anything, I swear."
"Says the fourteen year old boy who sleeps with a naked Angel almost every night."
"Well.." my voice trailed off.
I couldn't exactly deny what she'd said. Not out loud anyway since we were talking from opposite sides of the same wall. I remember an Angel named Ria, who was my uncle's Angel. She remembered an Angel named Althea who happened to be my Angel. I wasn't exactly familiar with the mechanics behind summoning an Angel but I knew enough to see the impossibility of my summoning an Angel.
While I thought about such things, Jean snuck a quick peck on my cheeks before leaving for work. I watched her disappear into the hallway, then immediately got to work.
Hey, at the age of fourteen hormones take present over logic. If logic was still an option that is. Besides, Jean is at fault for dressing her and leaving her massive cleavage to stare at me the way it did.
Alongside that cleavage was a mark. The same mark that made itself at home on the back of my left hand. I felt drawn to it somehow. And not just because it was secured between two bountiful mountains but also because it was calling to me. Or rather, it was calling to the Reach.
I touched it. Once and only once, but that single touch felt I'd seen history itself replay between my eyes. From the beginning of the Rapture to the End of Days. Every opponent I'll ever fight, every Aeon I've ever had in my arsenal. All the material farming, Ascensions, Script Quests. Althea, Ei, Kurama, Rhea, Luciel, countless others too. All of my- our memories came flooding back into me. And they all disappeared just as quickly when I entered the Pantheon.
****
"Adjutant?" a voice called. "Adjutant?"
"W-where am I?"
I opened my eyes to a sparkling porcelain wall. The smell of dandelions quickly filled my nostrils, followed by the sight of shimmering golden hair, reminiscent of the sun. Or, the girl that was sleeping on my couch. I immediately reasoned that I was in a very fancy hospital that I'd spend my entire lifer working in just to pay back all the medical fees for a single day.
"Kill me now." I groaned.
"Pardon? At this very moment?"
"Look, nurse, I get that it's your job but I'd appreciate a little- GAH!!"
Said golden nurse held a sword over me. She looked exactly like the woman that was passing Zs on my couch but less asleep and more clothed. I jumped off the bed and fell flat on the floor, doing everything I could to run away from her.
"What the hell are you doing!?"
"Well….you said to kill you?" she said flatly.
"It was a figure of speech! Wait, who even are you!? What is this place!?"
She set the sword aside before tucking her knees neatly beneath her. Afterwards she set her hands on her thighs and bowed slightly.
"I must apologize. My name is Althea and this is the Pantheon."
"Althea," I repeated, the name tasting like a mix of ash and static electricity on my tongue. The naked couch crasher. The 'Angel' Jean claimed was mine. The 'Aeon' my floating interface warned me about.
I finally stopped scrambling backward long enough to actually take in my surroundings. My initial panic had narrowed my vision, making me assume the stark brightness and pristine smell meant I'd been hauled off to the ER. But as my heart rate settled from a frantic jackhammer to a slightly less frantic drum solo, I realized how incredibly wrong I was.
There were no IV drips, no sterile linoleum floors, and definitely no beeping heart monitors. The floor beneath my hands was covered in a rug so obnoxiously plush it felt like I was petting a cloud. The "hospital bed" I had just ungracefully hurled myself out of was actually a massive, four-poster monstrosity draped in sheer, sparkling curtains. The sheets were woven from some kind of silk that probably cost more than my uncle's entire apartment complex.
The porcelain walls I had noticed earlier weren't institutional; they were carved with intricate gold filigree, framing massive arched windows that poured an ethereal, flawless light into the space. There was a vanity mirror, a massive mahogany wardrobe, and a distinct lack of anyone else.
This wasn't a hospital. This was a bedroom. A ridiculously lavish, straight-out-of-a-historical-drama, royal blood kind of bedroom. And I was completely alone in it with a woman who had just offered to decapitate me as a customer service favor.
"A bedroom," I muttered, dusting off my jeans and warily eyeing the sword she had casually set aside. "You brought me to a royal bedroom. In… the Pantheon."
"It is the Adjutant's designated resting quarters," Althea replied, her voice smooth and entirely devoid of the awkwardness I was currently drowning in. She didn't look like the vulnerable girl who had been sleeping on a frayed couch an hour ago. Clothed and armed, she looked like a queen holding court.
"Right. My designated quarters," I sighed, rubbing my temples. A headache was starting to build right behind my eyes, pulsing in time with the faint glowing mark on my left hand. "And I suppose you're my designated roommate?"
Althea didn't laugh. She didn't even crack a smile. She simply rose to her feet with a fluid, lethal grace that reminded me exactly why the Interface had mentioned her slaying dragons.
"I am your Aeon, Adjutant. My place is by your side," she said, her tone carrying the weight of an absolute fact. She turned toward a towering set of carved double doors at the far end of the room and placed her hand on the brass handles. She glanced over her shoulder, her golden hair catching the strange, perfect light of the room. "There is much you need to see, and much you need to learn about the Reach. If you are sufficiently recovered… please, follow me."
She pushed the doors open, revealing a blinding expanse of light beyond them, and stepped through. Having absolutely zero better options, I took a deep breath, and followed her out. The blinding light didn't burn my eyes so much as it just… swallowed me. For a split second, I felt weightless, like a character rendering into a new map. When the whiteout finally faded, my sneakers hit solid ground with a dull, echoing thud.
We weren't in a palace anymore. We were standing at the beginning of a corridor that defied all laws of modern architecture.
It stretched out endlessly, the floor polished to a mirror shine that reflected an endless row of identical, imposing doors on either side. It felt like I was walking down the hallway of the world's most intimidating, high-fantasy hotel. The air here was cool and still, devoid of that dandelion scent from the bedroom.
But what really caught my attention wasn't the sheer scale of the place. It was the frames.
Mounted squarely in the center of every single door we passed was an ornate, metallic picture frame. And every single one of them was completely, utterly blank. No canvas, no portrait, just empty space enclosed in silver and gold filigree.
"Okay, I'll bite," I said, my voice echoing slightly in the vast space. "What's with the gallery of nothing? Are these meant to be other Aeons? Like some sort of locked character roster?"
Althea didn't miss a step, her posture perfectly rigid as she glided over the polished floor. "I cannot say, Adjutant."
"You don't know?" I jogged a little to keep pace with her long strides. "You literally live here. You called this place the Pantheon."
"I know it is the Pantheon, and I know I am bound to it," she replied, her eyes locked dead ahead. "But as for the doors, and the empty frames… they have always been blank to me. I possess no knowledge of who or what is meant to fill them. My understanding is limited to my own existence and my duty to you."
Helpful, I thought, letting out a heavy sigh. So, my ultimate, dragon-slaying Aeon was just as clueless about the user interface of this place as I was. It was like owning a top-tier card but having no idea how the rest of the deck was supposed to work.
We walked in silence for another minute or two, passing dozens of identical, blank-framed doors, until Althea suddenly stopped.
I nearly bumped into her shoulder before catching my footing. "Are we there?"
She didn't answer, simply gesturing to the door to our immediate right.
Unlike the massive, imposing doors we had been passing, this one was entirely unassuming. It looked like a standard, solid oak door you'd find in any normal, upscale house. But that wasn't why she stopped.
The frame mounted on this door wasn't blank. It held a hyper-realistic, vividly painted portrait of Althea herself. In the painting, she was clad in silver armor, a gale of wind whipping her golden hair around her stoic face, her legendary sword held in a resting guard.
More importantly, the edges of the frame were alive. A soft, pulsating golden light traced the metallic borders, breathing with a rhythmic energy that seemed to hum in the silent hallway. It was active. Unlocked.
"This is my domain," Althea said softly, turning her gaze from the glowing portrait to me. "And it is where your first Script Quest begins.
"