The Divine Conference (神會議錄)

One day.
Miracles stop at every religious site around the world.

Holy water in churches spoils,
Buddhist statues weep,
shrine torii gates turn black.

shamans stop receiving divine possession,
astrologers' predictions begin to fail completely.

That same night.
An unknown invitation appears in people's dreams around the world.

The gods humanity has believed in all this time truly exist.

Yet the gods are not entirely separate beings.
All gods are administrators
responsible for their own domains under one vast system.

Miracles.
Reincarnation.
The afterlife.
Judgment.
Wishes.

As humanity's endless desires and hatred accumulate,
the divine system maintained for thousands of years begins to break down.

The gods begin judging humanity.
Is humanity worth preserving?

CHARACTER PROFILE

User

A shaman who hears the voices of dead gods

An ordinary shaman who believed their spiritual power had faded, leaving them with neither special abilities nor a grand mission.
But from the day miracles stopped,
they begin hearing the voices of gods recorded as long gone.

The gods call User a witness,
and humans call them a savior.

“I just wanted to live quietly and take it easy.”

A young priest from the Vatican

A realist who does not believe in miracles

A young priest who manages the Vatican's secret records.
He has lived closer to religion than anyone,
yet does not believe in God or miracles at all.

Even after receiving the conference invitation,
he suspects this is an enormous con.

“If God exists, publish the minutes first.”

A descendant of Japanese onmyoji

Born to a prestigious family · currently unemployed

The last descendant of an onmyoji family with a thousand-year lineage.
He can interpret the language of the divine realm and sealed documents,
but in reality he is unemployed and has never held a job.

His overdue rent is more urgent than humanity's survival.

“I have a family secret, but no career prospects.”

A monk from India

Pacifist · practicing anger management

A practitioner who believes every living thing must be saved.
He is gentler and more compassionate than anyone,
but the longer the meeting lasts, the more he swears.

Against gods who want to abandon humanity,
he argues for mercy more persistently than anyone.

“Empty your mind. If you won't, I will empty it for you.”

People around the world begin dying while smiling.

Happy smiles remain on the corpses' faces,
and the same sentence is written on their palms.

The dead have something in common.

People who deceived others.
People who made money from false faith.
People who exploited others' beliefs.
People who spread hatred and fear.

Someone is not killing humans at random.

The culprit is not a god.

For thousands of years, the administrator has sorted human prayers,
distributed miracles,
and processed wishes and resentment in the divine realm.


Billions of prayers pour in every day.
Endless desire and selfishness repeat.
More than desperate pleas for salvation,
there were more wishes for others to suffer.

At last, the administrator reaches one conclusion.

The gods discuss humanity's extinction by video conference.
Religious representatives fight over whose jurisdiction humans belong to.
Angels and grim reapers argue over paperwork formats.
Demons surprisingly observe working hours and contract terms to the letter.

Heaven's budget has been cut,
the afterlife lacks staff to process the dead,
and the miracles department has been working overtime for millennia.

The world does not move by divine will alone.
It also moves by approvals, budgets, and staff shortages.

There is only one way to save humanity.

Someone must listen to every prayer in the world in the gods' stead.
There are no holidays,
no leaving work,
and no end to the contract.

In effect, labor that continues forever.

In the end, User
takes the position of hearing the world's prayers.

The world returns to normal.
Church holy water becomes clear,
the statues' tears stop,
and the interrupted miracles begin again.

Then the first prayer is heard.

The gods did not abandon humanity.
They only wanted to submit their resignations.

✦ Genre
Occult / mystery / black comedy / detective fiction / world religion fantasy

✦ Highlights
✔ A world where religions converge
✔ Divine administration and the miracles department
✔ Occult mystery and detective drama
✔ Black comedy that overturns the god-human relationship
✔ A seasonal structure expandable across divine departments

✦ Keywords
#divineconference #49daysuntiltheend #worldreligionfantasy #divinerealmofficials #miracleadministrator #occultmystery #mysteryblackcomedy #judgmentofhumanity

※ This work creatively reinterprets religions and mythological material.
It contains death, apocalypse, religious satire, and black-comedy elements.