"Haa… I'm so relieved. It's great to finally talk to someone who listens."
"Good work!"
As I ended the call and collapsed backward, I heard the relaxed voice of my supervisor from beside me.
"We've finally finished talking with the last person from Japan."
"She really didn't wake up, huh? Seems like she's a total night owl. Her brain only starts working in the evening, and she sleeps through the day. Maybe that's why she works freelance, so she has a flexible schedule."
I sighed as I lay there and accepted the documents my colleague handed me.
"That's fine. I'd rather deal with her than with those hyperactive ones who wouldn't listen or the overly sensitive types who locked themselves away in a panic."
"What did you say?!"
"Trade places with me!"
Two of my colleagues, who had to deal with the overly excited ones, began smacking my head in protest. They had been overwhelmed by the sheer enthusiasm of their assigned dungeon masters, who hadn't paid attention to anything we said.
"How did that sensitive person even get chosen at random? Even the higher-ups felt bad and sent them back. Now Japan's down to four people instead of five."
"Well, four's better than none, right? Not sure what's better, but something is."
The god responsible for sending the sensitive one back to their original world nodded in agreement.
"I wonder what the higher-ups are thinking. All of a sudden, they want to bring fantasy into the real world? That's just trouble for the people on Earth."
"Some folks are pretty hyped about it, though."
The monitor in front of my laid-back boss displayed a stream from the gods above, showing their broadcast to the humans. Judging by the number of viewers and the flood of comments on the side of the screen, a lot of people were watching.
"Why are so many people in Japan excited about this? They're acting like their favorite anime just came to life."
"Japan's an otaku nation, after all. What else would you expect?"
"Even Amaterasu-sama seemed thrilled about it."
With a sigh of relief that their work was done, the rest of the Japanese team gathered and started chatting. Some other countries were still struggling to explain things to their chosen dungeon masters, while Japan had wrapped things up.
"The one you were handling, didn't they say she's a composer and Vocaloid producer? I checked the company that contracted her for the current project—it's hilarious how they were freaking out earlier, but now they're tweeting like nothing ever happened."
My boss shrunk the god's livestream and opened Twitter, showing the posts to everyone.
"Seriously… What are they doing? That's not something you tweet from an official account."
"Aren't they the company behind some popular game?"
"Yeah, and judging by their past tweets, they've always been pretty unfiltered. Seems like that's just how they are."
"Oh, apparently, the company's founders went to the same university as her. They used to run a doujin circle together, and she worked on the early versions of their now-popular game series. She's been composing their game music ever since."
"Ah, so that explains their meltdown."
Everyone nodded in understanding as they scrolled through the company's tweets.
"Oh, looks like our two hyper ones already screwed up."
"Of course they did. They didn't listen to the explanation at all! I bet they didn't even read the help manual!"
"Yikes, their Dungeon Points are plummeting."
"The calm one bought a notebook and a mechanical pencil. Looks like they're writing something."
"Planning out their dungeon, maybe?"
"Or maybe sketching out the design?"
"I like that. Taking the time to think things through before rushing in—it's admirable."
"Oh, now they're researching something on a tablet."
"Yeah, we let them bring their own equipment from the start, just like the composer. In their case, it was intentional. The composer brought her gear because she was too worried about her work to leave it behind."
As we chatted and glanced at the monitors showing the Japanese team's streams, the atmosphere was much more relaxed compared to the other countries. Japan's team wasn't perfect, but at least they weren't in total chaos.
"Either way, I'm excited to see what kind of dungeons the Japanese team creates."
With a cheerful smile, my boss voiced what everyone was thinking, and the whole team nodded in agreement.
*
"Gyaaahhhh!!! Why?! Why him?!"
In a game company's office, an employee's scream echoed across the room as the explanation of "The Introduction of Fantasy Elements to Earth" by the gods was broadcast on every TV and streaming platform.
The voice belonged to one of the company's founders, a game producer. Clutching her smartphone tightly, she was pale and trembling.
"Nooo! Not him!!! Why?!"
Another scream followed, this time from the head of the PR department, also one of the founders. He held his phone too, likely looking at the same thing.
"What's going on with you two?"
"Look! Look at this!!!"
The PR manager frantically connected his phone to one of the office's giant monitors that wasn't taken over by the god's stream.
"What the…"
On the screen appeared a video feed from a site the gods had set up. A woman stood in a pure white space.
"That's… our composer! Why?!"
The woman shown on the screen was the composer responsible for the main themes and key moments in the company's popular game series.
"She's irreplaceable!!! She's the one who makes our music!!!"
"We just commissioned her for the music for our next release!"
One by one, the company's founders, including the CEO, gathered, their faces pale. They threw only brief glances at each other before returning their focus to the screen.
"Oh, PR Manager, can you stop freaking out on Twitter?"
"Impossible!"
An employee tried to protest the PR manager's wild Twitter posts but was quickly shut down.
The CEO muted the god's stream entirely, turning up the volume on the composer's stream. No one complained. In fact, everyone agreed—watching her was far more important than listening to the god's explanation.
The employees, along with the panicking founders, anxiously watched the stream.
The composer, clearly just having woken up, was talking to the mysterious voice, looking a bit groggy at first but quickly becoming focused as she engaged with the conversation. When a huge amount of work equipment was delivered to her in the stream, the founders all let out a collective sigh of relief.
"As long as she has her gear, we're good."
"She mentioned the internet's working, right? That means we can stay in touch."
"I wonder if there's anything we can do to help?"
"The gods gave a pretty stern warning, so I don't think we can interfere."
"We've been friends since university, and we all ended up here together. She'll reach out if she needs us."
"She's an introvert, but her communication skills are decent."
The founders nodded in agreement, their expressions strangely reminiscent of proud partners watching over someone they deeply cared about.
"By the way, are any of you even listening to the god's explanation?"
"We've muted it."
"Oh, look, a cute cat."
Some employees glanced at the muted god's stream with a mix of indifference and amusement as the chaos of the fantasy world unfolded around them.