Rather than focus on the thing she couldn’t figure out, Kaori turned her mind once again towards the various different policies and retrofits for the world. This time, she was focused on the plants, animals, and monsters of the world and how they might have evolved in the environment. Kaori had read that the easier and more plausible the background of the world, the cheaper it would be.
She began looking into the proposed different regions and biomes. There were several suggestions for her to peruse now. One caught her interest and she called the groups of deities together to ask them to cooperate on the premise and to further expound on it to her.
Belle, Pross, Risse, and Rocelle all came over because each of them had figured out parts of the system that they were proposing. Belle went first and the sassy little now-dwarf goddess spoke in a clear and confident soprano. “The idea overall is pretty simple. We set up areas of high concentration magic in bands that coincide with the ripples from the impact site.”
Pross picked up in an excited tone. The demon-come-elf was more exuberant than Kaori had ever seen him. “In addition to regions of high magic, we set up regions of low magic too. It will require the purchase of that phenomena but it’s among the cheaper phenomenon to purchase. Then we use those regions to explain the various terrain and biome features! Deserts, badlands, deserted mountains… All of it can be low magic regions where creatures can either be smaller and weaker or bigger and tougher!”
Rocelle unconsciously flared her wings as she jumped into the conversation. “The areas of higher magic versus lower could allow a lot of interesting magical evolution. The explanation point that I prefer is that creatures that are moderately strong in a high magic area will become exponentially stronger if they move into an area of low magic.”
Risse slid into the conversation smoothly with an addition to what Rocelle was saying. “We were kind of thinking that there could be a growth mechanic involved in making the high magic creatures the boss of a low magic area. Like where they get bigger just by dint of having more magic than the surrounding area? I don’t know if that’s something we can find in the book or not but we figured it was worth asking about.”
Rocelle took over again. “We are all trying our best to make the world as much like a video game as possible. We all understood your intentions and everyone wants to see Kaori-sama succeed.”
Kaori glared at the angel and she flinched a bit. “Did we misunderstand you?”
Kaori just facepalmed before looking up at the woman. “Kaori-SAN! I keep telling you to drop the honorifics. Please?”
All of them looked away sheepishly because they all knew they had been using the exalted honorific despite being asked not to. Risse made up her mind at that point that she would correct anyone she heard using the overly flamboyant honorific with their supreme goddess from then on. She still felt that the honorific was justified but if it was Kaori-sans wish then she would use san instead.
The implementation of the new magic terrain mechanism went very smoothly in the model. The mechanism to implement the whole monster growth thing was a bit hard to adapt from a phenomena available already in the book but they managed. They got all of the biomes fleshed out and all of the plants, animals, and monsters finalized for each.
The dungeons took some working on. Making the semi-sentience for the dungeon cores turned out to not be very hard at all. Apparently, most dungeons came with the option to be sentient from the outset. There were options for how it would be handled but kaori decided that they would be an afterlife evolution path available to monsters.
What took the longest was getting the first generation dungeons dampened down enough that tribesmen could enter them at all. The prizes scattered throughout the various dungeons would be low tier technological developments. These were things that would be crucial to the early tribal progression to bring them to higher levels of development. Something as simple as the idea of using bows could be the difference between life and death for a whole tribe.
The problem was that the dungeons were apparently never meant to be implemented this early in the development of a planet. They were something that gods usually unveiled when the civilization had reached a certain level. Kaori however, had other ideas. She explained to the simple minds of the first gen dungeons that hadn’t even been put on the planet yet, that as long as they didn’t kill too many of the tribesmen that they would have a steady source of food and would live for centuries or even millennia. They were, unsurprisingly, very receptive to that and promised to keep their lethality in check.
Kaori Later gathers all of the deities for a meeting where she outlines the way that they will all be paid and the bonuses that they can expect. By that point, the teams that had gone to other deity-neutral afterlife zones had all come back with stacks of virtual applications from the banished residents there. There were only a few cases where the inhabitants of those zones felt they belonged there and refused the offer to leave.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Kaori informed the souls that were going into the afterlife game that they had prepared, that a great many of them would likely be pulled out and be given the opportunity to become angels or demons. The ability to change the race of the inhabitants to one of the arch-species but no other frustrated Kaori enormously. Why was it so hard to make the hybrid species she wanted?
During the meeting with the deities, Kaori told them what she was expecting of them. She told them that a lot of them would be directly in charge of one aspect or another of a race or tribe and that the well being of the tribe was their responsibility. She would be assigning angels to the gods in charge of the tribes and demons to gods in charge of monsters, dungeons, or evil tribes.
She informed them that the point of their protection was to get the overall technological advancement of the world to progress. To that end, she was willing to let some tribes get wiped out or even entire species but she would be keeping starting locations open to restart species she felt had too much potential to let go. She explained how she wanted the gods to encourage growth for their species or tribes and that the angels would be their messengers and go-betweens.
She also explained that some tribes would be better equipped to forge ahead than others. That, she proclaimed, was the reason for the demon’s involvement. They would be there to hamper the tribes that got too far ahead of their competitors. She also wanted contention as well as cooperation between the tribes and the evil gods would be in charge of promoting conflict through their assigned demons.
She told them that the balance between nurture and hinder was going to be a little tricky but that’s where the deific network would play it’s greatest role. Deities could keep in constant contact with each other and even see the progression of the various tribes as well as any other projects that were in motion. It was going to be complicated but with the help of her elder gods, they could make it work for sure. Kaori wasn’t worried about managing personnel but there were a lot more of them than she was used to being directly responsible for.
The next thing she did in the meeting was to inform every deity of the overall plan of the world. Kaori explained for the benefit of all those joining fresh and for all those who were in need of more clarification just how the world would work and what the ultimate goal of the world was. Some balked at the idea of having a world set up as a series of challenges meant solely to progress the species on the world. She told them that this was the goal given to her by her boss and many blanched at the idea of a god higher in the hierarchy than her. Kaori just grinned as she explained to all of her deities that there was always somebody higher.
After the meeting, Kaori sat at her desk and brooded. Miraphon approached her with Tozenna in tow and the pair confronted her. “Kaori-sam… san, you hired the councilors to help the gods who have problems. You have something that you aren’t letting anybody help you through so why don’t you tell us about it? / Otherwise, why did you hire me and my companions Kaori-san?”
Kaori sighed to herself but relented. “I have made it through all of the preliminary preparations for the revamping of this world. We have an afterlife, a new topography, all the biomes and wilds figured out, a method of progress found. Everything is in place to change the world and revolutionize the whole thing. There is just one final pitfall. I don’t know how to make the hybrids that the whole plan hinges on. without them, there won’t be enough diversity for the plan to work and the whole system will have to be revised. Also, there is no aquatic Arch-species. There is a vast amount of the world that will be left as oceans and I need aquatic sentients to go in them.
I kept putting it off and pushing it out of the forefront of my mind in hopes that it would magically resolve itself but it hasn’t done that at all. Instead, it has become this insurmountable obstacle that stands resolutely in the way of all further progression of my plans. I just don’t know what to do now. Even if I were to relent and spend an incredibly huge sum of worship points I don’t even have to buy the mixed races, there are a lot of mixtures that I couldn’t find at all in there. In fact, the section on aquatic sentients is abysmal. Pun intended.
Tozenna bit her green thumb and looked at The now human Miraphon before sighing and speaking to Kaori. “I know that it’s not the advice that you are looking for but I feel that you need to take a break.”
Miraphon smiled at her and then looked pointedly at Kaori. “You should take a vacation or something to take your mind off of it. There is more than enough work to keep everyone busy for a few months! I know that we have all the plans finalized but that doesn’t mean that we have the designs finished and there is an entire world’s worth of terrain to design. Aside from that, there are a lot of ghosts currently running the gamut in the afterlife. If the deities are expected to interact with them as angels and demons, they need time to see what kind of people they are so they can choose their own personnel.”
“My point, Kaori-san, is that you need to relax a bit. You never did when you were alive so I feel that you should now! / You knew Kaori-sama… Kaori-san before she was a goddess?” The look of astonishment on Tozenna’s face was priceless! Miraphon just nodded her head. Tozenna began trying to figure out how the two formerly human deities knew each other before they became gods without ever even realizing that the one was a demoness until only recently!
Miraphon persisted. “Besides, how will any of the deities under you ever feel confident taking vacations if you, their ultimate boss, refuses to take one? We need some time to just mingle and get to know each other more as well. I know! Why don’t you go to Earth? I bet that there are a ton of things that you could do there!”
Kaori wanted to protest but in the end she relented. Perhaps, she would go to Earth for a bit. Nothing in her contract explicitly forbid her from going there or even contacting her relatives but she decided against that anyway. She began to feel better about it the longer she thought about it!