"Pause world," an all-too-familiar voice resounded in Ada's cranium.

"Oh no," Ada groaned quietly as she recognized who this was.

Anticipating this entity's imminent arrival, she was only a little startled when she saw her own figure materialize in front of her. However, this body double was dressed in an outfit Ada had never seen herself in including a short frilly black skirt. A T-shirt and jeans was her usual style. Looking around, Ada could see that she was still in the same place right outside the city gate but everything and everyone around her have frozen in time. Leanne's mouth was slightly ajar which could have looked seductive if there wasn't a fly right next to it. Ada hoped that Leanne would close her mouth whenever the intruder unpauses time.

"Oh no!" Ada repeated her groan with emphasis this time.

"I think you know who I am. Oh, sorry, I decided to put myself in a mortal's shoes for a change. Most mortals tend to appreciate a frame of reference and not God in their head," the figure who looked like a clone of Ada replied in the same voice as her.

"Well, can you not be my doppelgänger? That's just really creepy," Ada retorted. "Besides, I never dress like that."

"Strange how mortals are so hung up on appearances. Doppelgängers do exist in almost every world; there's only so many probabilities possible in the creations of mortals. Also, this is not including time flow changes where one entity can be in two times at once. Some of your saints were able to do this. I digress. I do find your bluntness refreshing compared to a mortal's usual worshipful tone, whether they be genuine or sycophantic," God said.

"You are not exactly what I pictured the supreme creator and architect to be like," Ada replied with mild frustration before adding, "Are you going to unpause the world so that I can finish the near impossible task you gave me? Or are you going to give me some helper tips this time? Your system instructions are not helpful -- worse than most Linux man pages I have seen."

"Yes, I have frozen everything in time," God replied nonchalantly. Ada suddenly realized that he now looked like a stereotypical Judeo-Christian depiction of God -- an old wrinkled man mostly bald holding a long beard carrying a staff and wearing a white robe.

That was an impressively fast transformation, Ada thought. She waited impatiently for him to continue.

"You know that I can't just give away everything. The task is supposed to be challenging. If I wanted it to be easy, I can do everything for you in less than a nanosecond."

"Well, why don't you?"

"Ah, the easy way out. What is the point of existence if life is not meant to be lived? If I dictate control, there is no free will and if there is no free will, there is no life worth living."

"If all life is meant to be lived, then let the mortals do their living. Why does this world need mortal-like deities here? There's no reason to have demigods like me here."

"How do you know that there are no worlds where there are no gods? As I told you, every kind of world exists from ones where no life ever existed to those where life has transcended to the plane where even I don't need to watch over them. Some worlds have very different rules than others. This one happens to be one where gods such as yourself are necessary to maintain its balance and growth. And I'll emphasize again that you are a god and not a demigod. There are quite specific differences."

"There are demigods here?" Ada inquired. Maybe I would actually get something useful from this exchange, she thought.

"You're thinking that this conversation has been a waste of time so far but you're hoping that I'll give you something useful," God said and chuckled.

"Now you should really tell me how you mindread. I think that would help in my task," Ada smiled.

"Unfortunately, mindreading of thoughts is not one of your abilities. On the demigod topic, let me briefly explain. There are beings here with much lesser powers than you but they are still much more powerful than the typical mortal. Mortals cannot kill them but deities like yourself can. You don't need to fear them since they have no capability to truly harm you."

"What are they?"

"Unlike you or the other gods, I played no direct role in creating them. They came about from the System rules. I know you play chess so let me use an analogy. When the pawn reaches the eighth rank, it automatically must be promoted by the rules of the game. The player cannot say that the pawn will not be promoted. That is just not allowed in the game. Similarly, there are rules here that dictate the creation or destruction of entities -- some of which are conscious intelligent beings."

"Just like you promoted me from a mortal to a goddess, are you saying that I can be demoted?"

"No, you are a deity appointed by me so your state cannot be affected by the System rules. As you have noticed, you're a User and not a file or process in the System. You cannot be deleted or altered. However, any process you run in the System is subject to the System's rules. For instance, you know that you can easily destroy the world but you may not know that the System will remake the world within a fraction of a second. It will appear as it was at the moment prior to you destroying it. Without these rules, this world would have completely annihilated by these original gods. With the eons, they have identified the limits of change that the System allows."

"You mean like a god can destroy a whole city but he or she can't just sink a whole continent into the ocean?"

"That's right. One of the rules is the preservation of the status quo in the System which only accepts changes within certain tolerances. But let me finish with the topic on the demigods. They're quite numerous and some of them can have very useful abilities which would help you greatly."

Ada nodded. I am guessing this is where you don't tell me where to find them, Ada thought.

"I can't tell you where to find them. This is part of the fun. Think of it like a treasure hunt," God replied with a smile.

"Well, thanks for that piece of valuable info. I'll keep an eye out. Is that why you came here? To give me some pointers since I feel like I'm progressing extremely slowly?"

"Actually, I think considering your given resources, you have been doing quite well. I came here specifically to relieve some of your fears. Having too many lingering attachments to your previous world will not help you here."

"Am I dead in the other world?" Ada was shocked.

"Wow, that is certainly not true. Your family is alright and your friends are all doing well. No one has died yet or grew ill."

"They aren't worried about me suddenly disappearing?"

"I have temporarily adjusted the temporal relationship between your previous world and this one. In other words, time here passes much faster than time on your world."

"What's the ratio?"

"1000 to 1. In other words, one thousand seconds here is equivalent to one second there."

"This means an Earth day here is the same as 86.4 seconds there. 365 Earth days here is the same as 525.6 minutes or just 8.76 hours."

"There you go. If it takes you three years here though, they may start getting worried. This conversation has been interesting but I am afraid I have to take my leave again. Got to start the initiatePandemic process soon but I need to adjust a few of its parameters. Don't want to kill too many people."

"Wait a second! Initiate what?" Ada cried out in surprise.

There was no reply except the sound of the world rushing back to her. She blinked and saw that time has unfrozen. Whatever God meant about that, she sincerely hoped he would keep her family and friends safe. She should have enough time to get back and save the world there if needed, she thought grumpily.

"Ada, what are you saying?" Leanne asked with concern. "You have to save two worlds?"

"No, Leanne, I was just lost in thought," Ada replied as she approached her High Priestess and Seer and her only follower so far. "Is Mr. Farmer and his family doing alright?"

"Mr. Farmer?" Leanne was confused again.

"I was making a terribly corny joke. I'm talking about the man and his family we just saved."

"Ah, he's doing fine but he is feeling quite rattled. I was right in that he actually doesn't have any family in the city."

"Lying isn't the best policy in my book and I'm not sure how they're going to make a living here. Maybe they have some useful skills here?"

"They don't see any other way. Sadly, I don't see them having any other choices either."

"Of course they do, Leanne. Tell them to just follow me. You have done it and you can see that I am definitely not bumbling around trying to figure this world out," Ada said sarcastically.

She was thoroughly surprised with Leanne's excited reaction.

"You're right, Ada! That is exactly what we can do. They need a new home and a purpose. You need more followers," Leanne said excitedly.

Before Ada could stop her, Leanne had started to talk rapidly and excitedly with the fishermen family. I'm accursed to be illiterate until I learn this forsaken tongue, Ada thought grimly. At that thought, Leanne and the family of five approached her.

"I told them that you're my master and that you're currently accepting more servants. They said that they would accept," Leanne grinned.

"What happened to keeping a low profile and playing our roles?" Ada questioned but then added. "Yet, this isn't a bad idea. I can definitely use more followers."

"Good! I told them that you need to ask them the same question that you asked me. I can be the translator."

"Did you tell them that I'm a god? What I'm about to say makes it pretty clear."

"Yes, I did and from what I see, they're desperate enough to believe me."

Ada took a deep breath and turned to the family. Then she laid the heavy question on them, "Mortal, swear to me that you will discard whatever other deities you believe in and become my follower for the rest of your existence. You will follow the commands I give you and in return I will ensure that you are blessed and protected always."

Leanne repeated the same words in Exicozan to them. There were a few utterances and bowing down of heads.

...

...

...

In the outside world, there was no magical light or anything to indicate dramatic has changed. The family was still standing there and from their faces, Ada could see that they haven't felt anything different inside. Time to educate them as their new divinity but first ... we really need to find a place in the city to actually get them some food, Ada thought.