"…"

"…"

"Good to see you're not holding back anymore, but…"

"But what?"

"Do you even really want to be a god?"

"I want to make everything better, and this is how I can do it."

"I know you're a bit disillusioned, but maybe that's not—"

"Musician, how many worlds have you visited?" I know you've destroyed a great many.

"…I've lost count."

"And how many have been able to become what I want just on their own?"

"Maybe… three?"

"And how long did it take them, once they started trying?"

"…Centuries, at the quickest."

Louise's eyes narrowed. "I might be new to this, but I can very much appreciate the sheer scale of the problem. I can't solve it in my lifetime, and I can't guarantee that others won't waste my work after my death."

Musician shook his head. "True enough, but that only means you need to extend your lifetime, not become a god."

She stuck a finger in his face. "What did I say about the scale of the problem?! There isn't an easy human solution to this. I can't convince every person. And destroying everyone who disagrees wouldn't work and would be hypocritical. Even here in Tristain, the least messy nation in Halkegenia, the nobles squabble and fight over petty things and hold grudges forever!"

"Does this mean you're giving up the feud with the red-headed cowgirl?"

Louise's new goal and her dislike of Kirche battled for a brief moment. "…Yes," she finally said, gritting her teeth. "But my point is that it's so hard to get anyone to work together… unless they have something to unify around."

"So… religion."

"A religion, with a real god… goddess… who inherits the authority of the previous god, but who tries to make things better."

"And you're willing to… what, settle petty disputes until the end of time?" Musician asked incredulously.

Louise made a face at that. "No. You… you can fill people with madness. So couldn't I fill them with… acceptance of each other?"

"Hm." Musician reclined in his hay. "It's not impossible. I'm sure it's not as easy as you think."

"But it would be more certain than trying to do it as a normal human."

"You aren't wrong, but…"

One of her eyebrows slowly raised. "But what?"

Musician hemmed and hawed before suddenly clapping his hands together, startling her. "Okay, full disclosure. Nothing hidden, right? Becoming a god is hard. Like really hard. It doesn't take long in theory, but even if you're prepared, even if you've tried to do it before so you know what it's like, it's really damn hard to finish it. So that's problem one."

She'd taken out her notebook and started jotting. "Becoming a god is hard."

"Problem two: Most gods are minor gods. Like you've got uber-deities, but mostly you've got stuff like a god of a creek. Or a god of a rock on some random dirt road. A god's power is absolute in their… area of influence, but if you want one that lets you spread empathy around like you seem to, you're gonna need to do a lot of work even before you even think of becoming a god."

She nodded. "Area… of… influence."

Musician nodded back. "Problem three: Sociopaths."

"…What?"

"If you get through those first two, you're going to find that there are people who just… how do I say this… don't have normal social understandings? Their emotions are broken. Or they love causing pain. Or they're obsessed with control. You gotta understand… Not everyone wants things to be better."

Louise shook her head. "Then I can just change them, can't I?"

"Depends." He shrugged. "If you change someone so they act completely different, are they really the same person? Or did you just kill 'em and replace 'em with someone else?"

A deep frown spread across her lips. "Right. Hard to be an understanding and merciful goddess if you kill people who think different."

"So what would you do?"

She sat back, thinking. I can't just make them different. I can't let them do what they want. I can't kill them. I can't convince them. Could I make them feel what they've inflicted on others? No, some of them are bound to enjoy that. She made a slightly sickened face. "…I'll work on it."

"Good luck with that." Louise gave him a small glare. "Problem four: Religions are messy. Especially for emergent gods, like you would be. You're probably not gonna end up omniscient or omnipresent like that Brimir guy is supposed to be. If someone takes your words the wrong way, you're not going to know until they've done something stupid, and it'll be hard to correct them."

"Unless I've got a power that helps with that."

"Well yeah, but you can't know for sure what you're gonna get. One god in some other world made a comment about taking others into yourself, and his followers decided this meant they should practice ritual cannibalism. Another said something about making offerings of oneself up to him, and that began a whole thing with self-mutilation."

Louise shuddered. "Yes, that's… a problem."

"And finally, problem five: Tabitha and Kirche have been listening in this entire time."

"Wait, what?" She turned to the left, and sure enough, the two were standing there quietly. Behind them, her door was wide open. "…How long have you been there?"

Kirche, mouth agape, slowly raised a hand back and forth between Louise and her familiar.

Tabitha, on the other hand, was staring at Louise intently. "Long enough."

"This is a joke, right?" Kirche asked. "You're not actually planning on pretending to be a god, are you?"

Louise blinked. "Pretending?"

Tabitha shoved Kirche aside. "Questions."

"Answers," Musician replied.

"God."

"Yup."

"Domains?"

"Music, revelry, destruction, madness, chaos."

"Wait-wait-wait-wait you don't actually believe this, Tabitha?!"

Tabitha pointed at Musician in a manner far more animated than Louise had thought her capable of. "God!"

"No! I mean, yeah he's built like a marble statue, and he's strong, and there's that music, but there is no way he could be a god!"

"Worship?"

"Don't ignore me!"

"Unnecessary but welcome."

"Tabitha!"

Louise slipped behind Kirche and began smothering her with a pillow. "Please don't worship him. He's enough of an ass as it is."

"…" Tabitha considered this. "…Powerful?"

"Very."

Louise sighed, carefully avoiding Kirche's desperate swings. "Power is the one thing we're not short on."

"…" A look of utter shock passed over Tabitha's face. "The Storm of Newcastle?"

Louise flinched. "…Yeah."

Tabitha immediately fell to the ground before Musician. "I will worship you forever if you kill my uncle."

The room went silent. Louise dropped the pillow. Kirche fell over with a thud.

"…"

"…"

"…Ah." Musician put a hand to his chin. "Well. Not that I couldn't do it, and not that it wouldn't be welcome, but… Louise and I were just talking about turning her into this world's goddess. And I wouldn't want to step on her toes."

Louise jolted as Tabitha immediately turned and prostrated herself at her feet instead. "Wha-" She sent a desperate look Musician's way, but her annoying familiar just grinned and shrugged. "I'm not even-" He waved her on. "I haven't-" He waved again. "…"

"I don't care how you do it," Tabitha said in a surprisingly normal voice. "He killed my father. He poisoned my mother. He enslaved me. I don't care what I have to do to get rid of him. If I must worship you for all my life, then that is what I will do. Even if that means I must clean your shoes with my tongue, so be it."

"…Please don't do that," Louise requested, more than a little concerned.

"If you say so."

Louise once more turned to Musician for help. He waved her on again, and something snapped. "Fine. I cannot promise his death. I can promise that he will never hurt anyone ever again."

"…You mean that?" Tabitha asked.

Louise had never liked Tabitha. She'd never disliked Tabitha either. The short girl with blue hair nominally sided with Kirche, but that didn't mean much when Tabitha kept to herself.

However, that voice, full of hope, full of pain, touched Louise. And so she reached down, pulled Tabitha up, and wrapped her in a hug.

"I swear it."

Now to figure out exactly what I promised, she thought as Tabitha began sniffling against her shoulder.

Kirche was quieter, for once. "So you're a princess."

"Yes," said Tabitha.

"And you're a Void mage."

"Correct," Louise replied.

"And you're a god."

The music tooted.

"…I'm dreaming."

Tabitha's staff came down. Thwack.

"Ow!" Kirche glared at Tabitha for a moment, then her eyes softened in realization. "I'm not dreaming. Little Louise is actually trying to become a goddess."

"First thing I'm going to do is miraculize my height up a few feet."

"Not sure you can do that," Musician said.

"You're like eight feet tall."

"I was this tall before I became a god."

"HA!" Kirche had a crazed glint in her eyes. "Ha ha! Ha HA ha ha HA."

Thwack.

"Ow, stop that!"

"The beatings will continue until morale improves," Musician muttered. The others stared at him for a moment. The music tooted again.

"Not wrong," Tabitha said, shrugging.

"It's not my fault! This is just ridiculous! I mean, what's next?" Kirche pointed to Siesta. "She turns out to be granddaughter of a hero from some other universe?!"

"That would explain the slight electric tinge to the piano in her theme." Musician waved his hand, and a lighthearted, peppy sound filled the room.

"We have theme songs?" Kirche asked. "No, of course we have theme songs! Why not?!"

Tabitha's head started rocking back and forth, and Kirche and Louise stared at her. Tabitha immediately stopped, blushing. "Good music."

"Thanks!" Musician said, his arm suddenly around her shoulders. Tabitha turned even redder.

Siesta, who had been silent up until now, held up a finger. "Um, about my grandfather…"

"I WAS JOKING!"

Thwack.

Kirche pouted in her chair, rubbing her head. "Okay. So you're becoming a goddess."

"I'll try my best," Louise replied tiredly.

"How can we help?"

"How can you what?"