My eyebrow flew up. An unasked question spoken and Mayer rolled his eyes obnoxiously.

“No, I wouldn’t have killed you. The Champions, in general, are wickedly smart. They are masters of multiple intellectual fields. Sometimes they are masters of combat, tactics, and social intrigue. They are geniuses among geniuses, and do not make mistakes as large as not surmising that you could unsummon a Soul Weapon. Even if they were subjected to terrible torture. I should know, I’ve seen it myself. They aren't infallible by any means though.” The older man held my gaze thoughtfully, before returning to sipping on his tea.

“What does that mean about me though? If it was supposed to be a group of the elite from my world, why am I here?”

“No idea. In the end there may not even be a specific reason at all. Gods aren’t any different than humans in their temperament. If anything, they’re worse. They take perceived slights to heart, smiting hundreds of people at once if they feel like they have been personally slandered, though they do have their limits. However, they've also made a random beggar the king of a country. They are random and work in ways that, if they make sense at all, allude us. It is quite possible you being here is just pure random chance.” The man shrugged.

Well that’s not exactly a super fulfilling thing to hear. Being told about a grand quest of some sort would be ideal right about now, something to set my aspirations to. But being told that you are just here by pure ass? It’s disheartening. It lacks the purpose that the other candidates have. Wait-

“Wait, so what’s the actual goal here? Why are the rest of the people here?” I asked, desperately clawing at my memory to gleam something to use as an answer but came up with nothing.

“Well, according to Ryan, that God was talking about a magical age coming to your home world. So, in defence, the God wants to find a capable leader for the planet to rely upon going into the magical age. It doesn’t sound quite right to me, and Ryan agreed it was bullshit, but we never really talked about it further.” I furrowed my brow. Well, he wasn’t exactly wrong. It didn’t really seem all that legitimate to me, like for example, how far away is this coming of the magical age supposed to be? It had been 20 years on Earth since the last wave of candidates, what had stopped this magical wave from coming then? Was this really as cut and dry the God made it out to be?

But the reverse was true, he was a God, who was I to be distrustful?

It was a trust game, one that goes around in circles, round and round with no end. Hence, I decided to not play by walking the fence. There were more things that were far more interesting than this God, what about–

“Other Gods? Are there a lot in this world?” I asked. The existence of Gods was an interesting prospect for me. Traditionally, I have believed through my life that the existence of a God is unproven. Until proven otherwise, I would reserve my thoughts on the matter. But now I have been given ample proof, and so I now wanted to know more. It was possibly the largest change from Earth to Virsdis; the possibility of active Gods.

“Oh boy, there are so many Gods that I couldn’t even give you a number. Nor would I even bother.” He chuckled at himself before continuing, “Turns out, that when one culture believes in a Sun God, that God is created if there is ample belief. Now, when another culture believes in a remarkably similar Sun God, only with slight differences, it doesn’t just take the original Sun God and add power to them. Instead, another entire God is born.” Mayer shook his head, as if lamenting the wastefulness.

“That sounds… confusing?”

“Damn right it is. There are probably a few hundred Sun Gods. They actually have Courts for Gods that have more than a manageable number of peers. There are many whose life’s work is trying to unravel the hierarchy of the Gods and their Courts. Usually by examining whatever God related material that they can get their hands on. It is admittedly interesting, when it comes down to it.”

So, Gods had their own whole thing going on. I honestly didn’t know if this information would ever be useful. I almost wanted it to be. Inter-God Court politics sound exceptionally interesting but maybe I’ve just watched too many lawyer TV series for my own good. To be honest, I was hooked. I was way in on the God gossip.

“What about a God that is the complete opposite? A God type with only one iteration.” At that Mayer thought for a moment. It obvious that he didn’t really think about these questions all that often.

“Hmm, well. There are a lot of stragglers that are their own types, not really fitting into any particular Court. But they generally don’t have much of a following, they don’t have the same cultural span that, say, the Harvest Gods have. Everyone cares about having a good harvest. Not many care about something obscure like a God of Pots.” He chuckled at that. It was obvious that he was actually serious about that last one.

“What about a big one though? Like one that commands the same sort of leverage that a Sun God does? Do they exist?” Mayer sipped his cup and smiled.

“The Death God. The one and only. Old Arun does not share titles.”

Figures it was the God of Death who was the edgy lone wolf.

“Arun is one of the only Gods to seriously interact on a functional level with the material plane. Whenever someone is dying, they know, because Arun is always standing there, waiting to take you to the other side. Seen him a few times myself, spooks you pretty bad the first time—but the times after that… its almost like seeing an old friend.”

Mayer took one last sip of his cup, finally finishing it. It almost felt like a sand hourglass in a way. The ending of the tea meant the day had started. Mayer stood up from his seat and started to walk around. After a minute or two he popped his head into the lounge room.

“Time to get the day started. Can’t be sitting around talking all day.”