They existed!
The spokesman's words landed like a bombshell. First, the room fell so silent that a pin dropping could have been heard. The next instant, it erupted into an uproar of voices.
"Is this real? Am I dreaming? Or is April Fools' Day not over yet?"
"Ha, still trying to bury your head in the sand? Don't tell me you slept through all that commotion last night."
"Big news! This is absolutely huge!"
Although the reporters had already heard rumors and watched the videos and livestreams of supernatural battles circulating online, hearing an official spokesman for the Government of Japan personally acknowledge the existence of Superhumans—and even gods—still struck them as incredible, almost dreamlike.
What country did not have mysterious legends about monsters and ghosts? Yet as modern technological civilization developed, most people had dismissed them as feudal superstition and supernatural nonsense, except in a handful of backward, barbaric lands.
And now, in the third decade of the twenty-first century, a national government was actually holding a press conference to vouch for them?
Nor was this one of those makeshift regimes in Africa that rose and fell overnight. This was a developed country with the world's third-largest economy and a population exceeding a hundred million.
This was no joke. One misstep could destroy the entire country's credibility and authority.
All sorts of doubtful, fervent, expectant gazes converged on the spokesman onstage. An ordinary person would have been so nervous that his voice would have trembled.
But the carefully selected official spokesman showed no sign of stage fright. His expression grave, he continued with meticulous care:
"Much has happened during this difficult period. Japan has experienced setbacks and hardship, and people throughout our society and around the world have been wondering what exactly happened."
Abandoning his prepared script, the spokesman