Chapter 7 (1/2)

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?”