Kaori spent a bit of time installing souls into the inanimate bodies of the sentient people and monsters. It took a lot of time but it was almost like office work as usual. After several days of installing souls as if they were the operating system of computers, the end was in sight. Kaori also had to set up the backstories and make sure that the history feature was working.
Everyone was equally as surprised when the history feature began making crumbling castles, sunken cities, and all manner of historic monuments as well as equipping the inhabitants with clothing, villages, food, and tools that they would have if they had the history that they would remember. It was really something to watch and watch they did.
There were dungeons all over the place and the history feature strongly suggested that the various races have been delving those dungeons for ages. The newest dungeons were the smallest and those were the only ones allowed to be near the starting points of different tribes of sentients. Some of the older dungeons with stronger monsters got memories of consuming entire villages and things like that. The people got legends about those places as well. Overall, the history feature was really something incredible to watch as it worked through the diverse group of species.
The deities then spent the next week setting all of the inhabitants up in the roles and positions that the history feature had specified. There was a lot of work to do and for almost everyone this was something totally new to them. Kaori had to coordinate the whole effort because she was the only one that the history feature responded to.
There were several dangerous situations that the deities were setting the inhabitants up to blunder into. Small things like hunters encountering predators they should run from. Scouts were set to find bad terrain and the like. There was however, nobody put directly into a life-threatening situation right after time resumed. That would defeat the purpose of setting this all up.
Once the very last inhabitant, a forest giant that took three deities to move and position, was set in place, Kaori called all of the deities together via their personal deific interfaces. They would have a big party and a feast to celebrate the completion of the world’s setup. She would have a ceremony where she would press the button and then everyone would start their regular assignments. For most, it would probably take many years before they found their calling and their final position. She hoped it wouldn’t take them too long.
Kaori had another reason to celebrate. Truth be told, they all did. When Kaori had listed her PDI system for sale in the deific catalog it took off almost instantly! Kaori could scarcely believe the amount of WP filling her coffers. This meant that none of the lesser deities had to wait for their pay at all. In fact, when Kaori listed some of her new anthromorph creations in the catalog, she had to begin setting up a new division just for that.
Kaori created another separate but connected side dimension and set it up as a sort of factory floor. She hired a lot of new deities to work in it and some of the ones with more experience switched roles to help run it. The orders were already piling up however and it had only been a few months since its inception.
Kaori knew that she was going to have to expand the operation soon. Descartes had given her a bit of input concerning the listing of items in the catalog and the relative worth of some of her creations. At first, Kaori was just going to sell the creation devices and the recipes but Descartes strongly advised against it. For him, there was a small incentive in the form of a fraction of a percent cut but the boost to his reputation for having her as his underling was actually much bigger than the WP he was earning.
Descartes did have a good sense of finances though and even though Kaori initially didn’t want the hassle, he convinced her to go for the earning potential. It had turned out a lot better than either of them thought it would because overnight the expanded species portion of the catalog had basically quadrupled. What’s more, all of the new species had her name and picture listed.
Kaori found it to be a very odd sensation. She actually split off separate consciences to handle the business contracts through the catalog but she could feel each of them and knew what they were thinking at all times. It wasn’t distracting but it was still a very odd sensation. Deities were ordering batches of her new species continuously and it was, as Descartes had said it would be, making her kilos of WP daily!
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After setting out the spread and getting everyone to quiet down, Yaju proposed to give a speech and a toast. He had been talking to Einoro about Earth and found out about the tradition. “Everyone here has benefited from the kindness, cleverness, ingenuity, and sheer force of personality of one person. That one person, that magnificent deity we all know is Fujiwara Kaori-sama. She has been the benefactor of every deity here and for me she is something even more special.”
“Kaori-sama was assigned to this world after I failed to make it prosper. Yes, there were certain circumstances, as many of you heard when Kaori-sama opened the furnace in Descartes’ face! *there was riotous laughter* She was within her rights when she arrived to fire me or even kill me outright for not fulfilling my role. Instead, she took me in and taught me what I needed to know to be a true deity! For that and many other reasons, I will propose a toast to her in a moment. For those of you who don’t know, that is where somebody wishes another well in a phrase and then drinks mead and everyone who also wishes this person well drinks along.”
“I said I would do that in a moment but first, I wanted to thank her for bringing me to meet the woman that I want to marry and spend the rest of eternity with. *Yaju got down on one knee, which barely reduced his height, and pulled out an exquisitely hand crafted ring made of starmetal.* Einoro, will you marry me?” You can guess how loud it got when she said yes with much sobbing.
The toast was made and the food was scarfed. Much drink was drunk and much merriment made. The party paused at one point and everyone held their breath as Kaori pressed the pause button to resume the time on the planet below. As she pressed the button, several things happened at once. The two globes merged and began spinning again. The screens containing still images of the inhabitants below suddenly sprang to life. And lastly, the pause button disappeared from Kaori’s book. Apparently, once it was decided that the world was complete, the deity could no longer pause the world.
Everyone finished up the party and either wandered off to sleep or began their main jobs. Many descended to the planet and took up roles to actively help, hinder, or observe the inhabitants. Others sat in their seats in the heavenly domain and watched over their charges from afar while directing those in the thick. Things began to move at last.
On a blue and green gem of a world was a group of merfolk. These merfolk formed a couple of bands to explore the nearby underwater castle that was recently shown to them. The one that had discovered it was a triton woman with beautiful iridescent scales on her flowing fins at her arms and legs. This woman was the tribe leader and proposed a joint venture into the sunken castle and perhaps even the founding of a village of both merfolk and tritons in the castle if they could clear it of dangers.
A tribe of elves were having a council meeting. There were reports from the scouts that at the far end of the valley, they had discovered another tribe. These seemed to be some kind of upright weasels. The council was discussing how to approach their new neighbors who seemed to have recently moved into the valley. Some advocated not approaching them, of course but most agreed that they would be better off finding out as much as possible about them as soon as they could.
A fox girl was looking around warily and trying to figure out where she could run. Before her was someone claiming to be a deity and asking if she wanted to have a bit of fun. Just as she was about to bolt, a literal bolt of lightning struck the one in front of her and a booming female voice began a low grumbling scolding in a strange language. The visitor thankfully disappeared and Senu couldn’t fell his presence anymore.
The war leader of the red ant army screamed orders at her subordinates. The spears were adjusted just in time and the mouse that was attacking their mound found no gap to exploit. The war leader clacked her mandibles in excitement. Moments like this were what she lived for! She dived spear first at the neck of the invader.
Bitts looked over the field and nodded. There was an ongoing discussion of how to build the new warrens below this field. Bitts had found the idea proposed by Ripple to be a little too spread out at first but when it was mentioned that the tribe would need a lot of room to expand the warrens in the future, Bitts started to see where she was coming from. The rabbit-man began stamping his foot furiously with a look of determination on his face.
In the sky above a certain gem of a world floated a certain individual. This odd individual wasn’t from this world but was more integral in the welfare of this world than any other individual of this world. This deity, this woman, sat in an office chair, wearing a well-tailored business suit, and crossed her legs as she looked down on the world spinning below her. Kaori smiled at her work.