Into The Waifuverse

When Hestia first descended to the lower realm, she had sheltered with Hephaestus, her closest friend in heaven. She had a golden opportunity to build her Familia while taking advantage of Hephaestus’ generosity to cover her living expenses.

She could have recruited her first children, armed them with weapons, and gotten them training from senior members of Hephaestus Familia. Then, once they started delving into the dungeon, she could have saved Valis for a deposit on a proper Familia headquarters. Instead, Hestia had lazed about Hephaestus’ abode until the Goddess of the Forge ran out of patience and evicted her.

Before doing so, Hephaestus purchased an abandoned church for Hestia to live in and secured her a job at a potato stand. If Hestia wanted something, she could no longer rely on Hephaestus’ charity to attain it. Hestia would have to earn her keep.

The abandoned church was a massive downgrade for the Goddess of the Hearth, but it did have its upsides. One of them was that the basement- which Hestia had converted into a bedroom- had concrete walls. They would keep anyone from listening in on what was happening inside.

Here, Marcus could be honest.

“You may think you love me, but you don’t. No more than you will any other agent who presses his wood against you, and given your assets, many agents will want to.” Marcus looks at Hestia’s breasts.

“If I want to keep you, I must be strong enough to stop them. If they have any women as beautiful as yourself- women I desire- I need to be strong enough to take them. And so the basic dichotomy of the game is laid bare.”

“You say ‘game’ like someone designed it,” Hestia says. Then she thinks it over. “If multiple humans have powers like yours, someone had to have given it to them. But why? And why make you compete afterward? You have the power to enslave a Goddess. An army of agents should be able to conquer the world.”

“The Company doesn’t want to conquer the world. They want to learn.” Marcus pauses. “You are familiar with dimensional travel already, being a Goddess. You performed it when you descended from Heaven to Earth. You will perform it again when you return to Heaven.

“Then there is multiverse travel. The premise behind multiverse travel is that there are infinite choices you can make, which in turn lead to infinite realities.

“The Zeus Familia could have chosen not to attack the One-Eyed Black Dragon. If they hadn’t, they would still be ruling Orario. Think of the ripples that would cause.

“The fall of the Zeus and Hera Familia caused a power vacuum that let Evilus rise. Without the failed expedition, Evilus never rises, and the people they **** never die. Without the failed expedition, Freya and Loki never rise to prominence. Without the fall, they continue to delve deeper, uncovering new floors. Who knows what might have been discovered if not for their demise?

“There is a multiverse where they never went on their failed expedition. There are also multiverses where they went on their expedition and killed the dragon. There are yet more where the dragon destroyed Orario and monsters poured out of the dungeon, eventually destroying the world.

“If you can traverse the infinite realities, The Company would call you a multiversal traveler.

“A step beyond that is traveling beyond your multiverse and entering the omniverse. The Omniverse consists of worlds that are different because they just are. Worlds in your multiverse share fundamental similarities- the magic system, the deities, the laws of physics- and diverge because of choices. When you travel the multiverse, the worlds you arrive in will be familiar, even if the events are radically different.

“When you travel the Omniverse, you can take nothing for granted. I am going to use magic as an example. The Omniverse I am from had no magic at all. We developed our technology to compensate.

“The Company let me choose which omniverse I wanted to deploy to. I saw worlds where magic worked like science. Mana- their version of mind- could be transformed into other forms of energy. For example, you would convert mana into heat energy to launch a fireball.

“There was another world where everyone had the potential to use magic. You just had to go to school to learn how. In that universe, magic was divided into five schools: alteration, restoration, destruction, illusion, and conjuration. Alteration allowed their mages to change the composition of a material. Destruction magic launched electric, ice, and fire attacks. Conjuration summoned items from a different plane of existence, and so forth.

“There are omniverses where gravity doesn’t pull items down. Instead, the world accelerates up. There are omniverses where the world is shaped like a donut and the center of the world is a hole- others where fire doesn’t burn and water isn’t wet.

“The Company is an omniversal organization, unmatched in power. It became so through the efforts of its agents. The way it works is- there is a catalog of powers The Company has for sale. As an agent, you start with two hundred credits and can purchase whatever you want. You use those abilities to capture things The Company might be able to learn from.

“They want anything new or unique and are willing to pay for it. This could be a new species; in my home omniverse, we only had humans. The Company will want dwarves, elves, werewolves, and the rest.

“They will want monsters, drop items, and their cores. They want potions and elixirs. They want samples of unique metals.

“The Company wants Gods, Goddesses, and adventurers- mortals slowly ascending to Godhood through their Falnas.

“And more than just collecting what already exists, The Company wants us to innovate. They want me to create new alloys, unique in the omniverse, using metals that cannot be found elsewhere. They want me to discover new energy sources. They want me to experiment with ways local abilities- your Arcanum, for instance- can be used.

“As I collect and innovate, I will be awarded points. Eventually, I will become powerful enough to traverse the multiverse and later, the omniverse. And that is when the real challenge begins.” Marcus smiles mirthlessly. “You see, each Agent has been assigned to an omniverse. Right now, we are isolated. We can neither attack another agent nor can we be attacked. Once we start walking the omniverse, however, encounters with other agents- other individuals with the same powers as us- will become inevitable.”

“So can you just- not explore?”

“If I don’t, I will be a standing duck. Prey for Agents who did, because make no mistake: they are out there and they are coming. When they come, they will, at best, kill me and claim you.”

“What about negotiating? Working out a peace deal?”

“That can work- if we can trust each other. The catalog is full of abilities that enhance deception. I have Covert Talent. It’s what allowed me to convince you I was your friend, and what allowed me to enslave you.

“I wouldn’t trust anything a different agent says because they might have Covert or Performance Talent. Simultaneously, they can’t trust anything I say because I might have Covert or Performance Talent.”

“It sounds like the entire system is designed to keep you pitted against one another.”

“That’s what keeps us innovating. Otherwise- well, I have you.” Marcus sits next to Hestia and wraps an arm around her. A finger circles her areola over her gown. “You probably hear this a lot but you have a gorgeous rack. Ever since I saw you, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about having them wrapped around my cock. Or sucking on your nipples while fucking you missionary. Or motorboating you.

“If not for the threat of imminent destruction, do you think I would be doing research? Of course not. I would be leading a life of debauchery; something that doesn’t benefit The Company.

“My contract with them lets The Company learn everything I learn. It allows them to learn about anything I stamp. It lets them learn what anyone I stamped learns.

“After fifty years, your Arcanum and how you use it has become a template that can be purchased in the Catalog. Any new combat styles I learn will become part of Martial Talent. Any new technology will become part of Engineering Talent.”

“Why fifty years?”

“Because agents are competing against one another. The Company wants to reward innovators with an advantage over the competition. Simultaneously, they don’t want Agents with an early advantage to stagnate or retire. If you dally for too long, eventually other agents will gain access to your research, innovate on it, and destroy you.”

“And so you’re locked in an eternal arms race,” Hestia concludes. “One where you can never relax or retire because if you do, your competition might overtake you. It sounds like a stressful way to live.”

“The arms race isn’t eternal. The game will end when one agent has murdered every other agent and taken everything for himself; the wealth, the power, and the women.” Marcus’ gaze is steely. “I have no intention of losing a game with stakes this high. If everything is to go to the victor, then I must be that victor.”

Unfortunately for Marcus, his competition didn’t plan on lying down and dying either. Across the omniverse, agents began to prepare for the Great Game. They gathered resources, made purchases, and captured their first targets.

For the moment, with agents separated by time and space, the omniverse was at peace. Everyone knew this would not last. Soon, all would begin to burn.

Which of these agents will we follow?