Chapter 5 (1/2)

Vremya stared at his holographic display with a deep frown etched in his face. Hums of displeasure escaped his throat as he rubbed his chin. The sound was grating and repeated without pause. Eventually, the Labrador Retriever lying beside him turned her head away from her personal computer. “Alright, grumpy old man,” she said and rolled her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m trying to make sense of this,” Vremya said.

“Which part?” Karta asked as she climbed to her feet. “Are you still trying to find a user for your system?”

“No,” Vremya said. “I can’t seem to—”

“Old man,” Karta said, her eye twitching upon seeing a familiar symbol on the display. “You have to charge these things.” She went to the base of Vremya’s personal computer and removed a side panel. She bit down on the spirit stone that was inside and removed it before glancing at Vremya. She swallowed the spirit stone and licked her lips. “It takes one heaven-grade spirit stone to power your computer for a year. This one was running out.”

Vremya nodded and looked down. He was wearing a red fanny pack that belonged to Pozhar. It was a dimensional storage tool, and everything the god of fire had accumulated was contained inside. Vremya reached into the fanny pack and pulled out a glowing stone which he shoved into the battery slot of the personal computer.

“Alright,” Karta said and walked back to the front of the display. “Which part were you stuck on? Finding a user?”

“No,” Vremya said, taking a spot beside the dog. “I’m still reading the user manual.”

“What the hell?” Karta asked, staring at the old man with wide eyes.

“Hmm?” Vremya raised an eyebrow. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’ve never met anyone who actually takes the time to read the user manual.”

Vremya frowned. “If you don’t read the user manual, how do you know how to use the personal computer?”

“You just know,” Karta said and rolled her eyes. “Everything’s user-friendly. If it looks like a button, then you press it. If there’s a red notification, then you click on the icon. It’s intuitive.”

“My ass,” Vremya said, and the Labrador Retriever beside him couldn’t help but take a peek at Vremya’s backside at his words. “How can something with a user manual that’s 14,465,982,347 pages long be intuitive?”

Karta tilted her head. “Maybe you’re just not very bright?”

Vremya kicked Karta, but his foot was stopped by an invisible barrier. “Why is violence amongst gods banned?” he asked with a grumble. “Such a dumb rule.”

“Well, that’s because we have to be unified to suppress the titans,” Karta said, not minding Vremya’s attempt at attacking her. “Wait a minute.” The dog’s eyes narrowed at Vremya. “You went to sleep before the titans even showed up.”

“Titans?”

“You can Poiskle it.”