Master of the System

“What are you doing?” Azalea asked, glancing at the tree in front of Vremya. After absorbing Istoriya’s divinity, she had returned with Vremya to his home along with the rest of the gang.

“I’m making a tree,” Vremya said. His gaze shifted onto Azalea’s face, and when he realized she wasn’t convinced, he elaborated further. “It’s a replacement.”

“Right,” Azalea said. Who knew what gods did in their spare time? She sure as heck didn’t. Now that she was the god of history or something, what was she supposed to do? Gods surely had responsibilities they had to take care of, no?

“I’ll be right back,” Vremya said before Azalea could say anything else. He grabbed the tree and vanished. A moment later, he returned with the tree. Although Azalea couldn’t really tell the difference, she had a feeling the tree had changed somehow. Vremya nodded to himself and placed the potted tree in a corner of the room. “If anyone causes Sticky to die, I’ll come back in time and slap you before you do it.”

Karta glanced at the tree in the corner. A moment later, an aged hand appeared out of nowhere and slapped her face, leaving her with a stunned expression. She had only thought about peeing on the tree, but before she had even gotten off the couch, she already been punished! Wasn’t this too much!? “Is that the origin tree Pozhar killed when he was drunk?”

Vremya nodded. “I went back in time and swapped them out before that event happened. The replacement tree will die, and this timeline will continue undisturbed.”

Karta tilted her head. “As the god of time, you’re worried about the timeline being disturbed? With your personality, I thought you wouldn’t care if all the timelines got scrambled up.”

Vremya snorted. “Do you know how much of a hassle it is to unknot a knotted timeline? It’s a pain in the ass. It’s simply better to leave it unscrambled in the first place.”

“I see your other self is almost exactly the same as you,” Azalea said to Grandpa Vremya. It was a bit disorienting to have two Vremya’s in the room at once, but when she thought of him as someone who mastered a cloning technique, she felt better. They were the same individual even if one was the god of time and the other was the god of gravity. In the end, hadn’t she become a god as well? She couldn’t help but glance at the naked Vremya’s bellybutton. Was there really a whole universe in there? She shook her head, ignoring her distracting thoughts. “What do you want me to do now?”

Grandpa Vremya stroked his beard. “Whatever you want,” he said. “You’re a god now. Oh, there are some things you can’t do.” He waved his hand, and a jade slip materialized in the air beside him. “This is a comprehensive list of everything you need to know including rules, punishments, and their respective loopholes for the godly society.”

Azalea accepted the jade slip. “Somehow, I have a feeling new gods aren’t supposed to be given the loopholes as well.” However, she didn’t concern herself too much about it. She placed the slip against her forehead and absorbed the information inside. A few minutes later, she removed the slip, a bitter expression appearing on her face. If she had tried to absorb the information inside the slip before she had absorbed Istoriya’s divinity, her mind would’ve been turned into mush. Even the most advanced techniques of the Moon Lotus Sect didn’t have as much information inside of it. However, even after absorbing all that information, she still had no idea what the hell she should be doing with Istoriya’s power. “This doesn’t tell me anything about my responsibilities.”

“Responsibilities?” Karta asked, raising an eyebrow. “You think gods actually have responsibilities? The only responsibility we have is to not lose our divinity.”

“What do you mean?” Azalea asked. “As the god of time, doesn’t Vremya have to make sure no one is messing with the timeline of the world?”

Karta snorted. “That naturally falls into not losing his divinity,” the black dog said. “Look at me. I’m the god of potato chips. What kind of responsibility do you think I can possibly have? Make sure everyone in the lower dimension gets their daily dose of potato chips?”

“As the god of justice, naturally, I hold myself responsible for stopping injustice,” Pravos said, chiming into the conversation.

“Bah.” Karta rolled her eyes. “And what am I supposed to do? Stop people from mashing potatoes?” She nodded at Azalea. “Gods don’t have any responsibilities other than to not lose your divinity, so do things involving history.”

A furrow appeared on Azalea’s brow. What exactly did she have to do? “Isn’t history constantly being made?” Did she have to personally create history or something?

“Congratulations,” Karta said, her voice huffy. “You obtained an easy-to-maintain divinity like Vremya. Both of you can sit on your lazy asses and not worry about anything at all because you’ll naturally grow stronger as time passes.”

Azalea glanced at Grandpa Vremya. “Is that true?”

“Other than the lazy ass part, everything else is true,” Grandpa Vremya said. “It’s just like the lower dimension. The gifted can achieve twice the effect with half the effort compared to the less gifted. In our case, we can achieve all the effect with no effort.”

“I see.” Azalea furrowed her brow. Didn’t this mean … there wasn’t anything for her to do? For all her life, she had always been accomplishing tasks for Grandpa Vremya. Now that he didn’t have any assignment for her, she couldn’t help but feel a little bit lost. “So, I should just do whatever I want now?”

“Yes,” Grandpa Vremya said. He passed her a bag that he materialized out of thin air. “Here’s some cash. Don’t spend it all at once.”

Azalea’s expression darkened as she slapped away the bag. Why did it feel like he was paying her off after using her? “You can’t be thinking about abandoning me now that you’ve achieved your goal, right?”

Grandpa Vremya coughed. “What? No? Of course not. What makes you think that?”

“Well, I remember when we were still just children, you took me to see the woman who raised you,” Azalea said, her eyes narrowing. “If I recall correctly, you gave her some money and said the karmic debt between the two of you was settled. Then, you never visited her again.”

Grandpa Vremya scratched his head. “Did I do that?” He shrugged. “Don’t worry. You’re different.”

A low hum came out of Azalea’s throat as she stared at Grandpa Vremya. After a while passed, she shook her head. Even if Grandpa Vremya had thoughts of abandoning her, it didn’t matter. She was the god of history now, and from what she could tell, she was actually a really important figure in godly society. Speaking of which, she leaned over and accessed Vremya’s personal computer to browse through the news. A strange expression appeared on her face as she raised her head. “I finally understand,” she said after seeing Vremya’s wallpaper, which happened to be a river. “You’re the god of time. The spirit of the river of time. It’s so goddamn obvious now.”

Grandpa Vremya shrugged. “Now you know.”

Pravos cleared her throat. “So, I’ve been wondering…. About those titans invading the godly society….” She glanced at the four gods sharing the room with her. “Are we going to do anything about that?”

Vremya’s eyes lit up. “We should,” he said and climbed to his feet.

“Huh?” Pravos’ eyes widened. “Really!?” She quickly covered her hand with her mouth because her voice came out much louder than she had expected. Vremya was actually going to help the godly society of his own volition? She couldn’t believe it!

“Right,” Vremya said and nodded. “Once the weaker gods die to the titans, we can take their divinities and pass them on to the phoegons or useful people from the sect. Good idea.”

“Wait, no,” Pravos said, her voice faltering. “We’re supposed to save the gods from dying.” Before the god of justice could even finish speaking, however, Vremya had already disappeared.