Master of the System

Vremya followed the black Labrador Retriever through a hallway. It was a large hallway, yet it seemed small thanks to all the items scattered about. There were stuffed toys hanging from the ceiling, shirts and gowns dangling from the walls. The floor was covered in a strange liquid which emitted a white mist. Vremya inhaled the mist, but it didn’t smell like anything.

“Ugh.” Karta waddled through the water on her tiptoes, trying to get as little of her paw in the water as possible. “I hate coming here. Reinkar really needs to remodel his home.”

Vremya grunted. Honestly, he didn’t mind the liquid. As a god born from the river of time, he was more comfortable in water than on land. However, he had to agree with Karta—if only to show he was sympathetic towards her. After ruining her efforts by bringing her forward in time, he didn’t want to antagonize her any further. “How many times have you been here?”

“Too many,” Karta said. “Almost every time you’re looking for a new user, you’ll have to come here. It’s too rare finding a user with good attributes located in their own world.”

Vremya grunted in acknowledgment again. After the two gods walked through the hall some more, it abruptly ended upon passing a certain threshold. Vremya looked behind himself, but the water-filled hall had been replaced with the anterior of a kitchen. In the back of the kitchen, an old man with six fingers on each hand was flipping through a cookbook whilst sitting on top of a pot which was boiling on a stove. Vremya wasn’t sure why the supposed god of reincarnation was attempting to steam his own ass, but he wasn’t going to question it.

The old man looked up, and his eyes lit up upon seeing Karta. “Ah, my furry friend, I thought you had died. Where have you been?”

Karta wrinkled her snout. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. She gestured towards Vremya with her paw. “This is my friend. He’s a total newb looking to recruit his first user.”

Vremya nodded. “I’m Vremya, the god of time.”

Reinkar smiled. “I know who you are,” he said. “There’s a picture of you on Kosmos’ wall. She misses you dearly.”

Vremya’s mouth twitched, and Karta couldn’t help but give him a strange look. “You know the god of space? Why didn’t you say so earlier? We could’ve used her portals instead of taking the train.”

“Let’s not talk about Kosmos,” Vremya said and cleared his throat. “We’re here on business, business.”

“Right,” Karta said. “We’ll take thirty trucks.”

Reinkar raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything as he reached below the kitchen counter. He pulled out thirty toy trucks and placed them in a bag. “You know how to use these, right?”

“Yep,” Karta said. “I’ll teach him too, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.” She patted Vremya’s leg. “Pay up.”

Vremya opened his fanny pack and placed a hand inside. He glanced at Reinkar. “How much?”

“A hundred heaven-grade spirit stones per truck,” the twelve-fingered man said and rubbed his hands together. “They’re guaranteed to get your users exactly where they need to go.”

Vremya fished through the fanny pack, taking out a stream of spirit stones. They flew out in single file, creating a neat pile in front of Reinkar. A small frown appeared on Vremya’s face. “Are these trucks expensive, or was Pozhar just really poor?” he asked Karta while packing up his bag.

Karta swallowed the bag of toy trucks that Reinkar tossed to her before rolling her eyes at Vremya. “These trucks are expensive. Now you know why I’m so upset you killed all my users.”

Vremya snorted. “I didn’t kill them; they just died. Who told you to pick such short-lived users?”

Reinkar cleared his throat. “Is there anything else?” he asked with a smile, interrupting his customers’ fight. “As a primordial god, don’t you want to order the best of the best? Other than trucks, I also have cellphone apps, computer programs, falling air conditioners, and sudden heart attacks.”

Vremya’s brow furrowed. “What’s the difference between those and trucks?”

“Don’t,” Karta said and bit Vremya’s leg, wrapping her teeth around the invisible barrier preventing her from harming him. She tugged him towards the exit and spoke around his leg with garbled words, “Trucks are tried and true; there’s no need to buy other gimmicks.”

“Are you sure?” Vremya asked, letting himself be pulled away. He stared at Reinkar, but the twelve-fingered god just shrugged and smiled instead of answering. “Well, alright,” he said to Karta. “If you think trucks are the way to go, then trucks are the way to go.”

***

Smith Jr. exhaled as he tossed a pile of wood down from his shoulders. He took in a deep breath and stretched his arms, swinging them in a circle while keeping them bent at their elbows. Being a laborer for a sect was tough, but it was an honest living. His father was a laborer, and his father’s father was a laborer. In fact, Smith Jr. was pretty sure his family’s founding ancestor was a laborer as well. As a laborer, Smith Jr. had to gather wood, wash laundry, cook food, deliver meals, and occasionally become a living practice dummy, but it was all worth it. His family was living a good life thanks to the salary he brought in, and his younger siblings were guaranteed to have a better childhood than he did.

Smith Jr. picked up his axe and set out once again. Every day, the laborers of the sect had a quota to fulfill, and if they didn’t meet the required amount of lumber gathered, their food would be cut down. He might’ve been a naturally lazy fellow, but Smith Jr. was smart. He knew when he had to work, and he knew when he could slack off. Right now, it wasn’t a time to be slacking. Another sect was sending a delegation in the next three days, and the whole sect was scrambling to look presentable. It wasn’t all bad though. Even laborers could watch the combat exchange between the two sects albeit from a long distance away.

Smith Jr. nodded at the fellow laborers walking on the same road as him, going the opposite way. They had stacks of lumbers on their shoulders, and the sweat on their faces dripped to the ground with every step. Smith Jr. wiped his own forehead with his sleeve and veered off the road. He had a favorite spot for gathering lumber; the ones located in this region were easier to cut down than the rest. He wasn’t sure if that was actually the case, but it certainly felt like it. Once he found an appropriate tree, Smith Jr. took out his axe and marked the spot he had to cut. A rumbling sound appeared in the distance, but Smith Jr. thought nothing of it: a tree was probably falling down.

It didn’t take long for Smith Jr. to get his rhythm going, his axe landing on the tree every six seconds, the intervals between each hit so similar that someone could’ve accurately measured the time through his swings. After a barrage of hits, the tree couldn’t take it anymore, and Smith Jr. finished it off by pressing on it with his foot and pulling with his arm. With a crashing sound, the tree came down. There was another crashing sound. And another. Smith Jr. furrowed his brow and turned his head. His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. The strangest spirit beast he had ever seen was roaring and charging at him. Its eyes were practically shooting out beams of light, blinding Smith Jr., and instead of feet, the beast had wheels. The beast honked twice like a goose, and Smith Jr. didn’t even have time to throw himself out of the way. The massive beast slammed into Smith Jr., and his vision went black.

***

“Uh….” Vremya turned away from the display to stare at Karta. “Was that supposed to happen?”

“Obviously,” Karta said. “What else did you think was going to happen?”

Vremya scratched his head. “The truck looked like a transportation vehicle, so shouldn’t it make more sense for the user to enter the truck to be taken away?”

“It’s transporting him right now,” Karta said, pointing at the screen with her paw.

Vremya turned back towards the display. Two ghostly figures climbed out of the truck and picked up Smith Jr.’s dead body. They threw it into the back of the vehicle before getting back inside. The truck honked again, and when the sound disappeared, the truck vanished as well. Not long after, a toy truck appeared by Vremya’s personal computer.

“Alright,” Karta said. “Now that you have your user’s soul, you can throw him into any world you want with a system.”

Vremya nodded and picked up the truck. He was about to press a button on the display, but Karta stopped him by standing on her hindlegs and placing a paw on Vremya’s forearm. “Wait,” the Labrador Retriever said. “I know you really want to stick him in your everything-whatever system, but I highly recommend you put him in a cooking system first.”

Vremya narrowed his eyes at Karta. After a moment of eye contact, he sighed and lowered his hand. “Fine. I’ll create a cooking system first.”