Chapter 2:
A Company of Gods and My History as a NEET
SHE WAS THE God of Fate? I knew she worked for the company, but I never guessed that Sewatari…san was the real God of Fate—the god I played as. I couldn’t drop the honorific now that I knew who she was, even in my mind. Maybe I shouldn’t even be thinking of her as Sewatari-san but as the God of Fate.
She was who I’d spoken to on the phone before, I was suddenly sure of it. Wait, how had I not noticed before? She hadn’t been using a voice changer or anything.
“You’re wondering about my voice, right? Well, I am a god. Blocking your awareness of something like that is pretty minor.”
“C’mon, it wasn’t your power, though. It was one of our coworkers.” Nattyan…san winked mischievously.
“Hey! I’m trying to sound impressive and godlike.” Sewatari-san—the God of Fate—poked her right back.
I didn’t even say anything about the phone call. Had she read my mind? I decided to test her.
“You’re thinking that I spoke really informally on the phone, right? Well, I didn’t want to give myself away. That’s all it was.”
Oh my God, she really could read my mind. She responded to my silent question perfectly.
“There are limits to my ability, though. I can’t just read your mind wherever I want. Our power is strongest when we’re in this area, which is how I’m doing it now. Sort of unfair, though, isn’t it? Me being the only one reading minds. Hold on a second.” Sewatari-san pulled out her phone and tapped the screen a few times. “Okay, that should do it. I borrowed the book’s power to block my mind reading. It’d be bad if everyone on the second floor found out about my ability, too.”
According to the directory, the second floor was owned by Isekai Connection. Didn’t that mean they were her coworkers? Other gods?
If Sewatari-san was a god, then Nattyan-san had to be one as well. I couldn’t be informal with them like I was before.
“Yoshio, what did Seri just say?” Carol asked.
Sewatari-san was making sure Carol couldn’t understand her, huh? I shot her a glance, and she scratched at her head awkwardly.
“If Carol-chan finds out I’m a god, she won’t look at me in the same way.”
Right. In the other world, gods were highly revered, and no one seemed to doubt their existence. Not like me, who hadn’t believed in gods until very recently.
“We were saying that the two of us help the gods with their work here and that we’re sorry for hiding it.”
“You help the gods?! Wow! All I can do is help the people I live with.” Carol looked up at Sewatari-san, her eyes shining with respect.
Sewatari-san replied a little bashfully, “Shall we carry on talking indoors? It’s cold out here. There’s probably a free meeting room somewhere.”
“I’ll go reserve one and get it unlocked.” Nattyan-san raced away up the stairs without waiting for the God of Fate to respond.
The God of Fate let out a small sigh. “Let’s go, then.”
“Yes, Lord,” I said.
“Stop that. We’re heathens in this world, really, so just treat us like regular humans. Don’t bother with honorifics either.”
“Okay, Sewatari…san.”
I couldn’t help but add the “san” even after she told me to stop. She frowned, and even that small expression seemed heavy with power.
We walked in through the glass door Nattyan-san left open behind her. The building was so much warmer compared to outside. The stairs were right in front of us, with an elevator to our right. On the left was the door to the travel agency.
“Our department’s on the third floor. You don’t mind using the stairs, do you? I can explain a little more on the way up.”
Sewatari-san took the lead. I followed her, leading Carol by the hand. Destiny clung to my back and rested its head on my shoulder.
“That travel agency on the first floor’s got nothing to do with us, so we don’t talk about the games with them, even if we’re friendly. Patching up people’s memories is annoying.”
Yeah, I’d been wondering if there was any connection.
Wait, what did she just say?
“What do you mean by ‘patching up memories’?”
“Oh, one of the other gods who works with us can perform a miracle to manipulate memories. It’s what we use when someone gets a game over.”
That happened to Yamamoto-san right in front of me—he lost all his memories of the game. With everything else going on, I took the whole thing in stride, but it was interesting to know it was miracle-based.
“I know we look ordinary, but we are gods. I’ve got other powers, too, though there are limits.”
“Limits?”
She mentioned limits when she spoke about her mind-reading power, too.
“That’s right. I’ll tell you more about those later. Long story short, we lost a lot of our powers when we came to Japan.”
When they came to Japan? The look on her face told me it was a sensitive subject. Besides, she said she’d go into detail later. I could wait until then.
“Right, this is the second floor.”
This landing had a door to the main section of the building and an elevator hall, just like the first floor. The main door was big and made of glass, flanked by houseplants. Beyond it were desks with computers, set up in neat lines. It looked like any other office I visited for my cleaning job, a completely ordinary open-plan design. Fifteen or so people were hard at work or talking on phones. Only three of them wore suits; the rest dressed casually. Not what you’d expect from office workers.
“There’s no dress code at our company. I usually dress a little more casual than this, but I wanted to look smart for when we came to pick you up, Yoshio-kun. Does it suit me?” Sewatari-san put one leg up on the stair above and struck a pose. With her slender figure and pretty face, she looked like a model right out of a fashion magazine.