The Protagonist's Party is Too Diligent

The broadcast station’s camera was smaller than I expected.

Well, I guess that made sense. They weren’t filming a movie, and the equipment had to be portable. Obviously, they couldn’t use anything too bulky.

Of course, it was still larger than our mirrorless camera.

“So, the five of you have been living together since childhood?”

“Yes. Before moving here, our home was much smaller.”

“Wasn’t it uncomfortable?”

I glanced at the four girls.

They all smiled and shook their heads.

Of course, it must’ve been inconvenient at times. Living in such tight quarters with no personal space—how could that not be uncomfortable?

But more than anything, it was comforting to know I hadn’t fallen into this world alone.

I could only hope the others felt the same way.

“It never felt that uncomfortable.”

When I answered, the producer nodded.

Come to think of it, even though she said she was a producer, she was also holding a camera.

There were two people filming. Maybe they cut down on staff to save money.

“There are quite a lot of decorations in your living room—why are Halloween and Christmas decorations up at the same time?”

“We completely forgot about Halloween. So once we started decorating, we just did it all at once.”

Claire’s answer was a bit offbeat, but the production staff just chuckled.

No one here was making a bad first impression.

If anything, I was probably the most stoic-looking one in the group.

Still, Claire’s odd little comment just came off as a charming quirk from a cute girl.

“This is...”

“We try not to interfere with each other’s hobbies.”

As the camera zoomed in on the items arranged in front of the living room TV, Alice and Charlotte looked visibly embarrassed.

“Oh, I know these characters! I watched them a lot growing up.”

The camera panned from the left. That section mostly had Charlotte’s collection of princess figures.

To be fair, even to non-otaku, that part wouldn’t be too questionable. Nothing too risqué, just standard figures.

Movie buffs could totally be expected to collect things like that.

“Yes, I really enjoy films from that company...”

Charlotte answered as best she could.

But near the end of the shelf, the figures Alice and I had collected...

Well, the first two were fine. They wore fairly normal school uniforms. The skirts were a little short, sure, but they still looked relatively modest for characters of that genre.

And then there was Claire’s figure... in a bunny suit.

“This one is...”

Both the producer and the cameraman went silent for a moment.

Should I say Alice bought it?

But I did chip in for at least one figure too...

“These characters looked like us, so we started joking around and buying them. That’s how the collection grew.”

I came up with a quick excuse.

“Oh wow, now that you mention it, there is a resemblance!”

The producer’s face brightened.

Phew.

“At first I bought a figure that looked like Alice, then she got one that looked like me... and before we knew it, we had the Claire one too.”

“You all have a playful dynamic. It’s nice to see.”

The producer smiled, then tilted her head.

“But wait—do you mean the figures have the same names as you?”

“Yes. Both first and last names.”

“...Oh.”

She looked flustered.

“The game characters have our exact names. Not a single letter different.”

Her °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° expression turned to genuine surprise.

“If you’re not joking, that might actually be an amazing segment for the broadcast. You didn’t change your names at some point, did you?”

“No. These have been our names since birth.”

Well, not from birth in my case, but close enough.

“So, you’re saying you’re Korean—not naturalized foreigners—but you have Western names identical to those in a game?”

“That’s correct. And we were born before the game was released.”

“...”

Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?

One by one, it could be explained.

Two naturalized foreigners in Korea could have a child. That child might be given a name from their home country.

Names like Grace or Northwood exist abroad. So overlap with the game isn’t impossible.

A person might resemble a game character too.

But all of that overlapping, at once? It’s statistically absurd.

“And you’ve had no contact with the game company?”

“No. We only started streaming this year.”

Let’s see how the goddess plans to patch this hole.

Even if it’s declared a coincidence, and even if the broadcast states that clearly, people aren’t going to believe it easily.

The goddess can move us from one world to another, but she can’t manipulate people’s thoughts.

Sure, maybe she has some influence—like making me win the lottery. But if she can pull that off, let’s see her try to stop an international rumor from spreading.

“Would it be okay if we reached out to the game studio during the editing process?”

“Of course.”

There shouldn’t be any copyright issues.

There are all kinds of people in the world. Some even name their kids after characters from games or anime.

Besides, once again, in this world, we’re already adults—and we’ve always had these names.

We came first, before the game.

“Oh, and—”

“Unnie?”

I tugged on Claire’s arm, who was standing next to me.

“Her hair isn’t dyed. That’s her natural color.”

Blue.

“Excuse me?”

The producer blinked.

Too much bizarre information at once—it looked like she couldn’t process it.

She and the cameraman exchanged a glance.

Seeing that, I was confident everything was going according to plan.

*

After the crew left, we grilled meat at home.

A small celebration, in honor of the fact that everything had gone relatively smoothly.

We even laid down newspapers in the living room and fired up a portable gas stove in the center, just to really enjoy the mood.

“If this works out, do we go back to our original world?”

At Alice’s question, I nodded.

“That’s likely. But we still have time. The production crew needs to verify what we said.”

“And during that process, they’ll run into more and more things that don’t make sense.”

Charlotte said with a smile.

“That’s the key,” Claire added.

“With some luck, we might even get to visit another country.”

“You mean the country that developed that game series? Have you ever been there?”

Alice popped a piece of meat into her mouth.

“I have. But back then, I didn’t get to really enjoy myself. I went with some friends, and one of them didn’t have money.”

“Hm...”

Unfortunately, no one at the table related.

It probably wasn’t easy for them to imagine not having money while traveling.

There’s a term—grand tourer. It came from noble families sending their children across Europe to broaden their horizons. Now it’s a word used for luxury cars, befitting its origin.

Even setting aside the Fangryphon and Belvur houses, the Grace and Crowfield families were both old and powerful.

If they went traveling, they’d never be short on funds.

Even Mia had never lacked money while living in the capital.

“Basically, there were places I wanted to go, and I couldn’t.”

“Think we’ll get to go this time?”

“We’ll know once we connect with the production team.”

I smiled at Claire’s question.

Still—

“Even if there’s no work-related excuse, we might go just for fun. It’d be a waste to come all this way to another world and only stay in one country.”

Even local travel already eats up time, but that’s no reason not to go abroad.

Since we’re here, might as well do it all.

“We still have time. Today’s shoot wasn’t the last one.”

They said they wanted to film us hanging out outdoors, too.

So we’d have to prepare for that.

“Let’s think about what kind of stuff we can do for the outdoor filming.”

“It’s the end of the year. I bet there’s some kind of festival going on.”

“...Isn’t dragging the entire film crew to some remote provincial festival a bit much?”

I poked back at Claire’s sunny suggestion while picking up a few pieces of meat with tongs and placing them on Mia’s plate.

Watching her wrap the meat in lettuce and happily stuff it in her mouth, I made a quiet promise to myself—

When we move to another world again, I’ll find a way to keep this kind of life going.