When Kaori was done preparing her mountain of applications, she took the one off the top again. This was the three sisters, Feyna, Reyel, and Varla. Of the three, the only one who had a deity they had pledged their soul to was Varla and she had been rejected by him for being a woman rather than change her into a man. That was his loss but Kaori’s gain!
She pressed three fingers to the three seals and the three women appeared in front of her. At first, they just stood there in a daze but after a moment they began to regain their senses. The three of them looked around and upon recognizing each other, they began hugging and weeping. Kaori smiled and let them enjoy their reunion for a few moments before she interrupted them.
She cleared her throat and saw the three of them jump, for the first time realizing that they were in the midst of a group of people staring at them. “I am glad you were all able to reunite but I’m afraid that I might become pressed for time if I allow everyone too much leeway. I need the three of you to do something for me. Before that, I believe that introductions are in order. My name is Fujiwara Kaori, but you may call me Fujiwara-sama. I am the supreme goddess of this world and I offer you all jobs to become goddesses under me and mine.”
Kaori could tell that there was a layer of shock too thick for them to penetrate for a moment but then one of them spoke. “M-My name is Varn… no, it’s Varla. If it pleases your deityship, I would like to ask what it is that you would have us do for you? Are you really okay with having us… us women as your lesser?”
Kaori winced at the timidity of the former knight but she answered her question nonetheless. “I have yet to set roles for everyone to fill but I intend for you three to probably be the first three deities of one of the races I’m going to set up on the world once I’m done reforming it. Also, I’m a woman am I not? I didn’t come from a world where being a female is seen as a lesser role.”
All of those who came from earth winced internally along with Kaori but it was a small white lie. If it helped ease the three frightened young women into standing in her presence now and doing what she needed them to do, she would just have to tell them about the mistruth later. They did all seem to loosen up a little so she continued. “I need the three of you to imprint these contracts saying you will become deities under me. Just touch the glowing circle at the bottom and think about accepting. After that, I will have the three of you go talk to one of the other deities who have only been here a little longer than you and she will begin helping you.”
“Varla, I know what Chern did to you. I want to make sure that that sort of thing stops. I hope to one day reform the way the gods treat mortals on every world but to do that I have to make a good showing on this planet first. I need your help to do that. Everything has it’s first step. You want to reform the way the gods treat mortals and especially women, then this is the first step for you. It will likely take eons but as long as we persist, things will only get better.”
Varla got a look of determination in her eyes and the moment the document appeared in front of her she pressed her thumb to the circle and it went from a pulsing light blue to a flared gold before the document disappeared. She never even bothered to read it. It was only when her sister asked her to read the contract to her a moment later that Varla looked at Kaori in awe of the terms of the contract that she was having them imprint.
The next one up was an old man named Foglat. Kaori was a little bemused by his tale. As a scholar of magic, he had wanted to become an undying lich but as he served a goddess of both magic and life, he had missed a key flaw in his plan. He had replaced all the evil in his ritual that he could find with components of good but he had mis stepped when it came to the part about being undead. Kaori felt that the goddess in question was mostly justified in her decision but she herself would likely have made some concession for such a clever reshaping of an entirely evil ritual.
She regarded the wrinkly old mage finally uncurling from within his robes. The robes were grand in their pure white with gold embroidery and trim but he seemed too dejected to belong in them. In fact, he looked as though he desperately wanted to cry every time, he looked at his robes. Before he could go into the depths of despair, Kaori spoke to him. “Greetings, former archimage Foglat! My name is Fujiwara Kaori, but you may call me Fujiwara-sama. I am the supreme goddess of this world and I offer you a job, to become a god under me and mine.”
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Foglat jumped at her greeting him and turned to regard her. As her words registered, he at first looked overawed but then he took on a sullen and dejected overcast. “I greet you great Fujiwara-sama but I am afraid that this old fool is not worthy. I have fallen from grace and cannot be redeemed.”
Kaori smiled at him in a way meant to instill confidence back into an underling that has just gotten done with an hour long dressing down by the CEO of the company. “I think I will keep my own council about who is worthy of what. I happen to know about your past before summoning you here and while I do agree with the decision of Reyalla, that does not keep you from being of use to me.”
“You see, I come from a world that had no access or at least no well-known access to magic. I have no good grasp of the use of magic. We had stories but there was another power that obfuscated the subject of magic. We had science in such scale that magic wasn’t really taken seriously. As I am the supreme goddess of this world and I intend for there to be magic, I need someone more versed in its use to be the overarching deity in charge of that aspect. That brings us back to you. As an added bonus, if you were to become the god in charge of magic for my world, you would have great reason to step across the boundaries of worlds and thank Reyalla for her gifting of knowledge and magic to you.”
With her last words, Foglat brightened immediately and couldn’t imprint the contract quickly enough. Well, maybe they wouldn’t need any kind of counseling where he was concerned. He was also very bemused by the idea of all the gods wearing suits of black even if they were good gods. It took a lot of explaining by Merin, who was now sporting the image of a trendy grey ogre woman with short sharp silver horns on her head and claws on her fingers.
The next was Tanju, a former cleric of the god of law. He looked absolutely broken but when she introduced herself, he snapped into a ramrod straight posture and looked as though he were going to sweat blood. When he got the document in front of him to imprint, he went over it a dozen times looking for the loopholes and treachery he was sure must be inherent in her law. When she told him that she wanted him to be the one to make sure laws came into being he almost turned white but he regained his composure when she further detailed that she wanted him to explain to all of his adherents about the virtues of tolerance in the law. She motioned for one of the counselor deities to work with him as she picked up the next application.
The young man that sprung up from where he was summoned was named Vizzig. He looked around warily but in a matter of seconds, he dropped his guard entirely with a look of resignation. He must have had some innate sense of the strength of people like in some anime. Kaori had heard that certain warriors in olden times had the innate ability to judge the strength of people just by looking at them. When she introduced herself, he got a look of realization and immediately dropped to one knee with one fist on the ground and head bowed. When the contract appeared in front of him, he imprinted it without looking once. When she told him that she would probably have him take on the mantle of a god of death or assassins, he just bowed his head in acceptance. Kaori couldn’t get a read on him and motioned one of the counselors to see to him.
Next up was a woman who was the madam of a brothel and was very cruelly denied by her patron deity. And for what? All because Cenest didn’t let one of her charges get dragged off and raped or even killed! Kaori was thoroughly disgusted with this Neir but then she realized that she was from the same world as Chern and a lot of things fell into place. When she asked Cenest to become a goddess of fertility, she was almost certain the woman would start to bawl and she really couldn’t blame her. This was a chance for all of them to fix mistakes made by other gods and goddesses before. She definitely got counseling and Kaori didn’t even have to motion for it, Gelor was simply at her elbow the moment she went to stand, helping her gallantly to her feet. She couldn’t help but wink at him when she caught his eye and he just grinned.
The next one was Garros, he was a scholar who had run afoul of the god of knowledge because he wouldn’t propagate the knowledge of soul corruption. The god of knowledge hadn’t even bothered to talk to him when he died, just cut him off and threw his soul out into the oblivion. Garros looked broken at first and a bit freaked when Kaori introduced herself. When she told him that she had a plan to introduce bits of new knowledge to a bunch of tribes of hunter gatherers he was a bit puzzled but then she explained a bit more and he was eagerly begging for a chance to help. When she told him she wanted to make him the god of new knowledge, in charge of secreting bits of revelation away in the far corners of the world and in every dungeon, he just about jumped for the contract to imprint. Probably wouldn’t need counseling for this one. Apparently, one of the goddesses disagreed as she was already there talking to him, but then, maybe counseling wasn’t all she had in mind?
Kaori then summoned several more but left others to come forward and take care of them. Each of them were given a bit of time with one of the angels before most of them were sent to the afterlife in her domain. Others were deemed to be a bit more valuable and were retained as lesser gods to begin immediate work under one of her current deities. The whole process took what Kaori figured must have been days. They were all very surprised when she summoned tables stacked full of pizza!