1:00 PM
The laughter from the divine peanut gallery gradually died down, replaced by the sound of presences departing—that weird sensation of attention shifting away, like spotlights being turned off one by one. Ruho sat in his dirt chamber, still processing the fact that his magical ability was literally just jumping, and listened to the gods saying their goodbyes.
"Alright, this has been fun, but I've got souls to process," someone said.
"Yeah, I need to check on my domain. The mortals are probably burning something down again," another voice added.
"Good luck with the jumping thing, mortal!" Tyrix called out cheerfully. "Try not to hit your head on any low ceilings!"
"I hate you," Ruho muttered, but Tyrix was already gone.
One by one, the divine presences faded until only three remained. Ruho could feel them—Azirel's chaotic energy, Seria's calmer but sharp presence, and someone else. Someone heavier, older, like the weight of centuries pressing down on the fabric of reality.
"Why are you three still here?" Ruho asked, his voice tired. "Don't you have god stuff to do?"
"I absolutely do have god stuff to do," Seria said, her tone pointed. "Unlike SOME people who are currently shirking their responsibilities to watch their pet project flounder in a dirt hole."
"I am NOT shirking!" Azirel protested immediately. "I'm monitoring an active experiment! This is literally my job!"
"Your job is processing souls," Seria shot back. "You have a quota, Azirel. A daily quota that you are currently ignoring to play around with one mortal."
"Millions of people die every day!" Azirel's voice rose defensively. "I can't process all of them! That's literally impossible! Do you know how many deaths occur across all the realms every single second? It's insane! The numbers are completely—"
"It's approximately two people per second," Seria interrupted, her voice crisp and factual. "Across all realms under your jurisdiction. Which comes out to about 172,800 deaths per day. Your quota is 10,000 souls. That's less than six percent of the total workload, which is distributed among all trainee gods in the death processing division. You're not being asked to do the impossible, Azirel. You're being asked to do your fair share."
"10,000 souls is still a LOT of souls!" Azirel argued. "Do you know how long it takes to properly evaluate someone's karma? To review their life history, calculate their score, determine their afterlife destination? It's not like I can just glance at someone and go 'yep, heaven' or 'nope, hell.' There's nuance! There's complexity! There's—"
"There's automation," Seria said flatly. "You have access to the soul processing interface. Ninety-eight percent of cases are straightforward. The system flags the complicated ones for manual review. You could process your entire quota in four hours if you actually focused instead of watching Ruho struggle with basic survival."
"But this is WAY more interesting than processing souls!" Azirel whined. "Come on, when was the last time we had a perfect fifty-fifty karma split? When was the last time someone died mid-masturbation and got dropped into a test world? This is unprecedented! This is—"
"This is you avoiding work," Seria said. "Again."
"I'm not avoiding work, I'm prioritizing unique circumstances!"
"You're procrastinating!"
"I'm conducting important research!"
"You're watching reality TV!"
"It's EDUCATIONAL reality TV!"
Ruho rubbed his temples, feeling a headache building behind his eyes. "Can you two please stop arguing for five seconds? My head hurts, I'm hungry, I'm covered in mud, and I really don't need to listen to divine workplace drama right now."
Both gods paused.
"Sorry," Seria said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "We're being unprofessional. This is an ongoing disagreement that—"
"That Seria keeps bringing up because she's jealous that my project is more interesting than her boring mercy work," Azirel interjected.
"I am NOT jealous! And mercy work is not boring! I help people! I provide comfort and relief to those in need! Unlike you, who drops mortals from orbit and calls it 'world-building!'"
"It WAS world-building! The orbital insertion was thematically appropriate!"
"It broke forty-two of his bones!"
"He got better!"
Ruho groaned. "What about the third guy? Vexor? Why is he still here if you two are so busy?"
There was a brief pause, and then the deep, resonant voice of Vexor filled the chamber. "I am semi-retired."
"Semi-retired?" Ruho repeated. "Gods can retire?"
"Trainee gods can," Vexor clarified. "Once we've completed our service requirements and demonstrated sufficient competency in our domains, we're permitted to step back from active duty. I processed souls for fourteen thousand years. I've more than earned my rest."
"Fourteen THOUSAND years?" Ruho's brain tried to wrap around that number and failed. "How old are you?"
"Approximately sixteen thousand years old," Vexor said calmly, like he was discussing the weather. "Give or take a few centuries. Record-keeping was less precise in the earlier eras."
"Sixteen thousand..." Ruho trailed off. "What did you even do for sixteen thousand years?"
"I processed the souls of kingdom builders," Vexor explained, and there was a note of pride in his voice. "Great leaders, empire forgers, civilization architects. Julius Caesar crossed my desk. Genghis Khan. Alexander the Great. Ashoka. Qin Shi Huang. Charlemagne. Every significant ruler who shaped the political landscape of their era—I evaluated their karma, judged their legacies, determined their afterlife destinations."
"That's actually pretty cool," Ruho admitted.
"It was fulfilling work," Vexor agreed. "But after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the era of true kingdoms effectively ended. The last great empire-builders passed through my domain, and then... nothing. Modern politics became too fragmented, too democratic, too committee-based. No single individual wielded the kind of absolute power that defined the classical kingdom builders I specialized in."
"So you just... retired?"
"Semi-retired," Vexor corrected. "I no longer process souls at all. I maintain my domain—kingdoms, architecture, civilization building—and I occasionally take on special projects like your mansion. But mostly, I spend my time sipping tea with Seria and discussing philosophy."
"Hey!" Seria's voice cut in sharply. "Don't lump me in with your retirement activities like I'm just lazing around!"
"Are you not lazing around?" Azirel asked, his tone dripping with mock innocence. "I mean, you're the beloved granddaughter of Guanyin. You're basically divine royalty. Nepotism baby. You probably got your position handed to you on a silver platter."
"I am NOT a nepotism baby!" Seria's voice rose indignantly. "I earned my position through hard work and dedication! Yes, my grandmother is Guanyin, but that doesn't mean—"
"Your grandmother is literally the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion," Azirel interrupted. "One of the most revered deities in multiple pantheons. And you just happen to be the trainee god in charge of mercy? That's not suspicious at all."
"Correlation doesn't equal causation!" Seria shot back. "I was drawn to mercy work because of my own values and interests, not because of family connections!"
"Uh-huh. Sure. And I'm sure it's just a coincidence that you got fast-tracked through training and have one of the cushiest positions in the entire trainee god program."
"My position is NOT cushy! Do you know how emotionally draining it is to deal with suffering on a cosmic scale? To feel the pain of millions of souls and try to provide comfort? It's exhausting!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, is it exhausting to have unlimited resources and divine support while you help people?" Azirel's voice was pure sarcasm now. "Meanwhile, I'm over here with a backlog of 10,000 souls per day and a supervisor who keeps rejecting my world-building proposals because they're 'too ambitious.'"
"Maybe they're too ambitious because you keep making planets the size of STARS!"
"ONE planet! I made ONE planet that big!"
"One is too many!"
"You're just jealous that my creative vision is bolder than yours!"
"I'm not jealous, I'm concerned about your complete lack of restraint!"
"SHUT UP!" Ruho shouted, his voice echoing off the dirt walls. "Both of you, just SHUT UP! I don't care about your work drama! I don't care about quotas or nepotism or who's jealous of who! I have actual problems! Like being stuck in a crocodile burrow with no food and a magic spell that lets me JUMP!"
Both gods went silent.
Ruho took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "Azirel. Where exactly am I right now? Like, geographically. On this massive planet you created. Where am I?"
"Oh!" Azirel's tone immediately shifted to excited, like he'd been waiting for someone to ask this question. "Okay, so, let me pull up the coordinates. Just a second..."
There was a pause, presumably while Azirel accessed whatever divine GPS system tracked Ruho's location.
"Alright!" Azirel said cheerfully. "So, you're currently on an island. Specifically, you're on the smallest island in the entire world."
"Smallest?" Ruho felt a flicker of hope. "Okay, that's not so bad. Small island, I can work with that. How big are we talking? Like, a few square kilometers?"
"Well, since this world is approximately 1.8 times the size of the sun, everything is naturally scaled up proportionally," Azirel explained, slipping into full world-building exposition mode. "The continents are massive, the oceans are massive, even the islands are massive compared to Earth standards. But relatively speaking, this is the smallest landmass classified as an island in the entire world."
"Azirel," Ruho said slowly. "How big is the island."
"It's part of the Quartet Archipelago," Azirel continued, clearly enjoying himself. "Which consists of four major islands arranged in a rough diamond pattern. This particular island is the southern point of the diamond. It's called Verdant Reach, though I'm not sure if the locals call it that anymore since I haven't checked on the naming conventions recently. Anyway, the island is approximately..."
He paused for dramatic effect.
"7.67 million square kilometers."
Ruho stared at the dirt wall in front of him. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Seven point six seven million square kilometers," Azirel repeated helpfully. "Give or take a few thousand. The coastline is really irregular so it's hard to get exact measurements, and there's some debate about whether certain coastal features count as part of the main landmass or separate formations, but—"
"AND THAT'S THE FUCKING SMALLEST?!" Ruho screamed, his voice cracking. "SEVEN POINT SIX SEVEN MILLION SQUARE KILOMETERS IS THE SMALLEST ISLAND?!"