The Agency occupied the fifth floor of a building that, from the outside, only had four.
No one ever explained that.
I parked the truck in the underground garage, took the elevator up, and stepped into a corridor that smelled faintly of cleaning chemicals and burnt coffee. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Somewhere, a printer was having a minor existential crisis.
It was comforting, in a way. Offices always looked the same, no matter what they processed.
Rows of desks stretched across the floor, each one occupied by someone staring into a screen that showed a world I did not recognize. Maps shifted slowly, continents drifting like tired thoughts. Lines of probability branched, collapsed, and rearranged themselves without ceremony.
Every few seconds, a soft chime echoed through the room.
Delivery confirmed.
World stabilized.
Narrative flow secured.
No one applauded. No one looked up. A hero arriving in another world was about as noteworthy here as a package being scanned at a warehouse.
I hung my jacket over my chair and logged in.
"Careful where you step."
I stopped mid-stride.
The floor in front of me was damp.
Slip-kun stood nearby, leaning casually on a mop, a yellow warning sign propped up beside him like a prop he didn't actually believe in. He wore a reflective vest and rubber gloves, the universal uniform of someone who could plausibly belong anywhere.
"I just cleaned that," he said cheerfully. "Wouldn't want anyone to… you know."
Slip-kun never touched his targets. He preferred gravity, negligence, and plausible deniability. Wet tiles. Loose cables. Banana peels placed with almost artistic intent. He once spent two weeks posing as a janitor in a shopping mall until probability finally lost its balance.
People laughed about him. He wasn't as efficient as the others, but he was very thorough.
Knife-chan passed us on her way to her desk, offering a polite nod. She looked unassuming, almost gentle, if you ignored the fact that she carried her tools somewhere under her sleeve. She killed up close. Quietly. With a precision that unsettled even Sniper-kun.
Speaking of whom...
Sniper-kun was leaning against the glass wall of Logistics, arms crossed, sunglasses firmly in place despite the lack of windows. A holographic intersection of worlds rotated slowly behind him, dotted with markers and branching timelines.
"Ah," he said, "if it isn't Truck-kun. The mobile disaster zone that calls himself a delivery driver."
He stepped closer and sized me up.
"You lack precision. Style." His gaze drifted to my patchy beard and he sniffed lightly. "And, apparently, self-respect."
The others laughed. Of course they did. Everyone here looked down on the Isekai Corporation's truck driver.
"Your last delivery caused a complaint," Sniper-kun said, without turning his head.
I frowned. "A complaint?"
"That's what I said."
Before I could ask more, a woman in a gray blazer appeared at my side. Bathalda… Mathilda… I couldn't remember. The same one from Customer Relations, anyway. Or maybe another one exactly like her. The Agency was efficient that way.
"Conference Room B," she said. "The client is waiting."
Inside the room, a man in ornate armor paced back and forth. His crown sat slightly askew, as if it hadn't quite accepted him yet. He looked exactly like someone who believed destiny had made him important.
"This is unacceptable," the king said, slamming his gauntleted fist onto the table. "We requested a hero. A savior. Someone chosen."
The woman nodded calmly. "And you received a candidate with exceptional narrative volatility."
Sniper-kun smirked.
I glanced at the screen mounted behind them. The familiar profile from my briefing had updated.
World Assigned: High Fantasy Monarchy
Projected Role: Demon King – 72%
Hero Path: Unstable
"It appears," the woman continued, her voice perfectly neutral, "that he possesses significantly more demon king potential than heroic inclination."
The king stared at her. "That was not what we ordered."
"The system rarely delivers what is ordered," she replied. "Only what fits."
"You may decline," she continued. "And accept a summoning freeze for the next hundred years."
Silence filled the room.
Slip-kun's mop squeaked faintly outside the door.
"This will destabilize my kingdom," the king said at last.
"You lack vision," the woman replied evenly. "This is what your world needs. So that perhaps, in the process, a wiser king will emerge."
The king left without another word.
Back on the main floor, the office resumed its quiet rhythm. Worlds turned. Numbers updated. Someone laughed softly at something on their screen.
I sat down at my desk and stared at the candidate's file, now marked DEPLOYED.
Heroes were not rewards. They were interventions. Maintenance. Sometimes solutions arrived wearing crowns. Sometimes they arrived as disasters.
Either way, someone always paid the price first.
Slip-kun passed by again, dragging his mop behind him.
"Rough client?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Happens," he said. "Gravity doesn't care what people want, either."
Knife-chan paused as she passed my desk.
Don't listen to Sniper-kun," she said quietly. "I like your working style. It's kind of old-school."
I hesitated. "Do you ever wonder what happens to them?"
She thought about that for a moment. "Only when they survive long enough to wonder about me."
Then she walked on.
I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the ceiling.
For the first time since I had started this job, I found myself thinking not about the efficiency of a delivery, but about its aftermath.
And about how little control any of us really had over the stories we were dropped into.