Chapter 63: A Reunion of Misfits

The popcorn was delicious. Each kernel was a miniature explosion of cosmic butter and divine salt, the perfect snack for watching a world-class train wreck. And oh, what a train wreck it was. On my main divine monitor, World #776-Aethelgard was playing out better than I could have ever imagined.

Silas - formerly known as my cringey ex, Shoujo - had made his grand entrance. He hadn’t descended in a majestic pillar of light. No, the [Protagonist’s Path] skill had determined that the ‘optimal’ route for his arrival was via a hay cart. A hay cart that was already occupied by a family of very startled pigs. He landed face-first in the muck, his perfect silver hair now decorated with straw and things I’d rather not identify.

His first words upon gaining consciousness were, “Where… am I?” a classic of the genre. Immediately, the [Aura of the Tortured Soul] activated. The farmer driving the cart, a simple, weathered man, took one look at Silas’s tragic, pig-slop-covered face and was compelled to offer advice.

“Looks like you’ve had a rough one, son,” the farmer said, patting him on the shoulder. “Have you tried chamomile tea? Does wonders for my cosmic angst.”

I howled with laughter, nearly dropping my popcorn. It was perfect. It was everything I wanted. But as the hours rolled on, a strange feeling began to creep in. I was the audience, but I wanted to be the director. Watching him suffer was fun, but I felt a familiar itch. The itch to meddle. The itch to make things weirder.

Silas’s current predicament was a solo act. It needed an ensemble cast. A cast of chaotic weirdos who would elevate his journey of humiliation from a simple comedy to a multiversal sitcom.

My divine mind, a tool of infinite creation and cosmic understanding, immediately landed on the two most chaotic variables I had ever created.

“Celeste,” I said, snapping my fingers. The popcorn bowl vanished. “Bring up the monitoring feeds for World #420-Goblinia and World #58-Draconia.”

Two new screens flickered to life beside the main one. On the left, a thriving, bustling city made of mud, sticks, and surprisingly sophisticated pulley systems was displayed. In the center of it all, sitting on a throne made of polished river stones, was Kenji Tanaka. He was no longer a hapless salaryman; he was the Goblin King, wearing a tiny, lopsided crown made of bottle caps and lecturing a room full of goblins with the help of a PowerPoint presentation he’d somehow crafted out of woven leaves.

On the right screen, a massive, shimmering pink dragon was wrapped affectionately around the peak of a mountain. At the base of the mountain, a terrified-looking knight in shining armor was trying to sneak away. This was Yui Amano, my clingy dragon girl, who had apparently decided this entire mountain was her new “precious person” and was “protecting” it from would-be climbers.

They were thriving, in their own bizarre ways. They were also completely wasted in their own isolated little worlds.

A wicked, brilliant, and profoundly irresponsible idea began to form in my mind.

“Celeste, what do you know about divine skill [Nexus of Worlds]?” I asked, a slow grin spreading across my face.

There was a pause. The hum of the servers in my office seemed to dip for a second. “Lady Akane,” Celeste began, her voice carefully neutral, “Divine skill [Nexus of Worlds] is a tier-10 reality-altering art. It is designed for catastrophic emergencies, such as the merging of dying universes to preserve the last vestiges of life. Its use requires quintillions of divine energy points and is flagged for review by the Over-Council of Deities. It is not, and I quote the celestial manual, ‘a tool for making your fanfiction crossovers canon.’”

“So you’re saying it’s possible,” I said, completely ignoring the second half of her statement.

“Theoretically. But the potential for catastrophic failure is over 97%. You could create a spatio-temporal paradox that unravels all three realities from the inside out. You could accidentally fuse the goblin king with the clingy dragon. You could create a world where it rains angry badgers forever.”

“But I could also create a world where a goblin capitalist and a clingy dragon have to team up to annoy my ex-boyfriend,” I countered. “Celeste, think of the narrative potential! It’s a cross-dimensional team-building exercise! It will promote inter-species cooperation and economic growth!”

“My ethical subroutines are screaming, Lady Akane.”

“Mute them,” I ordered, standing up and stretching. “I feel a surge of creative inspiration coming on. Prepare to channel the necessary energy. I’m about to do something incredibly stupid and brilliant.”

I strode to the center of my office, which sunk into the floor to reveal my personal reality-crafting chamber. It was a vast, dark space filled with floating holographic rings of divine code. This was where the real magic happened.

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road!” I clapped my hands, and the room roared to life. I began the ‘chanting,’ which was mostly just me humming the theme song to my favorite magical girl anime while pulling on imaginary levers. “By the power of unresolved romantic angst and my divinely ordained pettiness, I command thee! Worlds, connect! Realities, merge! Let the chaos… commence!”

A beam of pure amethyst light shot from my hands into the cosmic void. On my monitor, I saw the code of the three universes begin to tremble. First, I reached out to Kenji.

His leaf-based PowerPoint presentation was interrupted as my face, a hundred feet tall and glowing, appeared in the sky above his mud-hut city.

“Greetings, mortal-turned-goblin-king!” my voice boomed. “I am the Goddess of… uh… Opportunity! And I have a proposition for you. I am offering you exclusive access to a new, untapped emerging market, filled with idiots ripe for economic exploitation! Do you accept?”

Kenji, to his credit, barely hesitated. He pushed his bottle-cap crown back up his head and yelled at the sky, “Does this market have a stable currency and what are the current trade tariffs? I’ll need to see a projection of the five-year growth potential before I commit any of my goblin resources!”

“Excellent! You’re in!” I said, not answering any of his questions.

Next, Yui. She was napping, curled around her mountain, when my voice echoed in her mind. “Greetings, lonely dragon! I am the Goddess of… Friendship! I have sensed your desire to protect. I have a new ‘precious person’ for you. He is very special, very tragic, and in desperate need of your unique, overbearing, and slightly suffocating brand of guardianship. Interested?”

The dragon’s massive head perked up. Her giant, pink eyes blinked. A thought, pure and simple, echoed back to me. ‘New friend?’

“The bestest friend,” I assured her. “Now, hold on tight, it’s going to get a little weird.”

With a final, dramatic flourish, I slammed the three universes together. There was a sound like a billion zippers all being zipped up at once. The edges of Aethelgard frayed for a moment, and for a split second, a goblin mud-hut appeared on top of the royal palace before vanishing. A shower of angry badgers rained down on a remote, uninhabited desert. A minor, acceptable glitch.

In a field a few miles outside the capital city where Silas was currently trying to explain his smelly aura to a confused guard, two pillars of light descended.

From one, Kenji Tanaka emerged, dusting off his tiny business suit made of moss. He immediately pulled out an abacus and began calculating the potential profit margins of the local flora.

From the other, Yui Amano appeared in her human form - a cute, pink-haired girl in a frilly dress. She sniffed the air, her eyes wide with excitement. “I smell him,” she whispered happily. “I smell my new precious person’s tragic angst!”

Back in my office, I collapsed onto my throne, breathing heavily but grinning from ear to ear. On the main screen, I now had three chaotic cursors moving across the map of Aethelgard. The Hero, the Goblin, and the Dragon.

My masterpiece wasn’t just a solo performance anymore. It was an orchestra of chaos. And I, the goddess, was ready to conduct.