"I think because the collective noun is a murder."

...She looks really confused. "Okay but why call a group of yourself a murder."

"Because you are around twenty years old and spent most of your life in a military dictatorship that was grooming you to be a child soldier, and left your world in ashes behind you after an apocalyptic battle with an ancient god-alien who was woken up from her prison in the moon by a deranged ancestor of yours."

"...So I think the military dictatorship and ancient god aliens got handled possibly slightly better in my world."

"It is hard to see how it could be worse."

"Yeah. I don't think I'd - ever end up with a brain shape where I think 'a group of me is a murder' is funny, though."

"Then you are indeed fortunate."

Uncomfortable shrug. "Dying sucks. War sucks. Death sucks. I'm not sure knowing that's really fortunate."

"It is in knowing that and yet retaining the clarity of mind to acknowledge it."

Hum. "I mostly try to - get less of that mess existing. Develop and roll out vaccines. Mediate peace talks. Get refugees resettled, and set up services for them like schools. Push for amnesty."

"That is quite admirable of you."

Shrug. "I don't want what happened to me or El or September - our little sister - to happen to other people and - I made a trade for all the medical knowledge our universe could have, it'd be stupid if I didn't use that. And - I ended up with a lot of political power after getting caught up in a war like a decade ago. It'd have - sucked more, if I didn't do anything."

(Unless she's delayed her aging, 'a decade ago' would've had her as a preteen.)

She shifts, uncomfortably. "Though I'd maybe rather talk about other stuff."

"Of course. You mentioned an Interdimensional Welcome Center?"

"Yeah. There's pretty much only two worlds we've got that're talking to each other - here, Arda, and me and El's home world, which everyone normally calls 'Earth' but we've mostly agreed should be called 'Array' for interworld purposes. Ruby and Ellie are from a third world we can't actually access - it kicks us out in a random direction if we try - but we can fetch things from it, so we were able to get Ruby's dad out and all. We met Ruby and Ellie in a fourth world, but the magicals there ended up being hostile so we don't go there a lot. There's also a dragon around from a fifth world, but she's advised against traveling there."

"I spread around hard to modify versions of the interdimensional array after inventing it, that're point to point, so now a couple cities have receiving grounds set up for travelers."

"Currently all our interworld transit relies on personal power, so you have an advantage in that."

"It's not easy, but - once you get universal primary education, alchemy's not hard to teach, and the interdimensional array can be run by anyone with a university degree in alchemy or math - our biggest logistical problem there's been decoupling alchemical education from the military, but, like, once demilitarization started it wasn't that hard to pay people to switch to teaching, and by now the first class of alchemy students from this world are taking their own students."

"You've been going for a while, then."

"Yeah. Me and El dropped on this world like... Ten years ago, pretty much, and we figured out the interdimensional array a year after that, and then we ran into Ruby and Ellie around four years ago."

"I think that puts you at the longest-running interdimensional contact, then."

"...Huh. So you guys've been just - expanding rapidly, then?"

"The original two have both lost their native worlds, and the first other they met also did not much care for her home. That rather set the tone."

"We explore some, but... We all like this set of worlds, and me and El are the only ones who can find new worlds right now anyways. Though probably once Ruby and Ellie figure out their own interdimensional transit we'll get more aware of other worlds - they're more restless than us."

"The other group settled on a home base when they met a Lightning who is a goddess embodied as local landscape."

"Huh. There's gods kinda like that in Arda, but they pretty much don't involve themselves with mortals anymore."

"She also separately maintains a humanoid body and gains power in proportion to people who worship her, which promotes a degree of continued involvement."