Humanity Protection Company

TL/Editor: raei

Status: 5/week mon-fri

Illustrations: posted in discord

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As soon as Yeonwoo left the Goldberg Club's domain, an overwhelming pressure descended upon him. It felt like a hammer falling, ready to crush him.

He'd expected this. Looking up at the sky, Yeonwoo spoke logically:

"You shouldn't do this to me. I helped you by punching a hole in Golden Omnipotence's domain. I'm your ally."

It was complete nonsense. From the world's perspective, Yeonwoo was like a cockroach. As disgusting as something it wanted to kill, but an elusive pest it couldn't touch.

Whoosh, the immense pressure distorted space as it fell. The air warped, and nearby leaves and dust swirled in a vortex.

Yeonwoo made a gesture as if throwing dice into the raging wind.

'The possibility of persuasion.'

Using his sense for gauging probabilities, he chose a judgment with high possibility. His survival instinct erased failure and critical failure, leaving the dice to roll between a miss, success, and critical success.

Clatter-

Success!

A decent success achieved by cheating with his survival instinct. Though the dice seemed a bit disgruntled, the result was fine.

The pressure that had been distorting the world suddenly dissipated. It had been 'persuaded' by Yeonwoo's logic. The pressure turned into a simple gust of wind, ruffling Yeonwoo's hair.

"That's right. This is how it should be. Let's keep working well together."

Yeonwoo grinned cheerfully. Breathing was easy. Clean, fresh air filled his lungs.

It was a completely different level of comfort compared to before when he had to twist his whole body to resist.

Of course, this persuasion was short-term and the world would soon come to its senses, but he could just roll the dice each time. He could persuade, evade perception, weaken, or deceive.

'Wait a second. If it's like this...'

Safety had arrived. The lurking dangers around him vanished. Yeonwoo's brisk pace gradually slowed. His mind, which had been racing, and his heightened nerves began to relax. Ȑ

Yeonwoo muttered absently:

"Do we really need to change the world? Wouldn't it be fine to just protect this world as it is?"

The world trembled. For some reason, the sky turned yellow as if stained by sunset.

"Wow."

Yeonwoo briefly marveled at this strange weather phenomenon before quickly coming to his senses. Logic unfolded in his mind.

'If I'm safe no matter what I do, it's okay to act for convenience.'

There was nothing to lose by trying. So there was no reason not to act for a comfortable world. Even if he failed, he could at least preserve his life.

With that, Yeonwoo picked up his phone. It was a call to his next negotiation partner.

"Hello, this is Lee Yeonwoo from the Anomaly Protection Company. I'd like to discuss changing the world with the Artist Association President as a Level 6 entity-. What? Oh, a director will meet me instead?

You're saying we'll negotiate outside the domain?"

An appointment was made.

And that call was completely intercepted by the company's Intelligence Department and relayed to the directors.

------

The board meeting continued for days on end. They even ate during the meetings, and except for bathroom breaks and sleep, they talked incessantly.

At the end of this grueling marathon, the directors reached a consensus.

"Alright, let's consider the framework settled and each proceed with our projects as we see fit."

Under the grand purpose of protecting humanity, the directors set different goals and decided to move independently.

Secretly creating a humanity protection department by recruiting promising employees, sabotaging anomaly groups, mass-producing ordinary bullets, plans to reverse the inverted safety measures, rebuilding the World Alteration Device, and so on.

Above all, eliminating the unstable factor that was Yeonwoo.

As the meeting was wrapping up, the director in charge of Yeonwoo relayed some news with a subtle expression.

"Well. It seems Yeonwoo has dealt a blow to the Goldberg Club's headquarters."

"...Why?"

The directors, who had been thinking about washing up and getting some good sleep, opened their bloodshot eyes wide.

Yeonwoo dreamed of an anomaly-friendly world and was actually moving to realize that dream. He was a potential enemy of the Humanity Protection Company.

Why would the most unstable factor at present do something helpful?

The director in charge shared some photos. Pictures of a shattered building, followed by images of the restored building surrounded by golden light and the world struggling against each other, and Yeonwoo fleeing the domain.

"They must have consumed quite a bit of gold."

"That's not the important part... Didn't he go there to cooperate? What did he do?"

The directors, who had been rubbing their eyes and doubting the photos, wore dumbfounded expressions.

Then, memories surfaced. The accidents Yeonwoo had caused in the altered world.

The company's ally who tried to destroy the world hostile to anomalies, the doomsday cultists, had been destroyed by him. The company's troublemaker who ruined their alliance.

The directors belatedly let out exclamations of realization. Their narrow vision, shocked by the revelation that they were actually the Humanity Protection Company, broadened.

"Come to think of it, he's the one who killed two Level 6 doomsday cultists."

Yeonwoo, who met the Eraser to join hands in stopping the climate that was annihilating anomalies, had a fit. The doomsday cultist wielding the Eraser died. The Warrior who came seeking revenge also died at Yeonwoo's hands.

The directors looked at the director in charge of Yeonwoo.

"Is there really a need to eliminate him? If we leave him alone, won't he just go around biting all the other groups?"

"But we can't be sure, can we? What if he joins hands with the Association President or the worshipper? A truly anomaly-friendly world might be created."

In response to this worried statement, the directors pondered briefly.

But perhaps because they were exhausted to the point of physical limits, their minds weren't working well.

In the end, they decided to postpone the decision.

"Your concern has merit, but let's observe a bit more. When has anything Yeonwoo does ever succeeded properly?"

"He's a bomb. It's hard for him to create anything."

The director in charge wore a frustrated expression.

"No, he's going to talk with the Artist side right now-"

"Then the Artist side is more likely to suffer damage."

The directors who had casually spoken these words began to yawn one by one. They had been conducting meetings while drastically cutting down on sleep.

The stamina of these ordinary people was reaching its limit. Some were already nodding off.

"Let's end the meeting for now. We'll meet again after everyone has planned their projects. I'm dying of fatigue."

Simultaneously, the directors busily clicked their mice. Click click click! They enthusiastically pressed the button to close the meeting, escaping.

In an instant, the camera screens went black. Only the director in charge of Yeonwoo, left alone, frowned.

"Is this right? ...I'm too sleepy for my brain to work. I need to rest first."

Click!

The board meeting ended. Everyone went to rest, leaving a gap of several hours.

------

Yeonwoo moved quickly.

The Artist Association's director hurriedly entered a nearby prepared location. An atelier, you might call it. A workshop where stone dust from unfinished sculptures floated in the air.

Inside, a sculptor holding a chisel and glaring at a marble block suddenly stood up.

"Yeonwoo?"

"Sculptor?"

They had an unpleasant history. This was the person who had turned Yeonwoo's shelter into a terrifying anomaly in an attempt to obtain the Eraser.

They awkwardly stared at each other for a moment before clearing their throats and sitting down.

Yeonwoo pushed aside a roughly square stone piece and sat on it, saying:

"Well, let's put the past behind us. We have more important things to discuss now, don't we?"

"Right, right. Um, I'll give you the letter from the Association President first."

The sculptor rustled about and handed over a white envelope. Yeonwoo asked curiously as he opened the envelope:

"The Association President couldn't come?"

"...Of course they couldn't."

What was this? Was he bragging about his freedom? The sculptor continued with a sour expression.

"Love and hate are separated by a paper-thin line, you know. The moment the President steps outside the Arts Center, the world would tear them to shreds."

"...Then how do they create their domain?"

Yeonwoo suddenly looked up, pausing in the middle of unfolding the letter. If they die, they can't create a domain, right? They couldn't have had a domain from the beginning, could they?

The sculptor sighed.

"The world went mad. It suddenly regrets and revives them, but then kills them again. Anyway, they created the Arts Center after countless cycles of dying and reviving. So don't even think about going to the Arts Center."

The major news of the Club's building exploding was quickly understood, and Yeonwoo became a banned visitor.

It was a domain the Association President had built through suffering, the last museum protecting works of art.

'That was a bit of an unexpected accident. But I can't blame them for being careful about accidents.'

Yeonwoo smiled awkwardly and lowered his head to unfold the letter. It looked like an email printed out, rather than a handwritten letter.

The first line made Yeonwoo's mind freeze.

- You want to return the world to its original state? I welcome that. That's exactly what I want.

The rest of the letter continued with complaints about when they would do it, how they would do it, feeling like they were being stalked, how this world was really too much, but Yeonwoo reread the first sentence.

"Original...?"

Yeonwoo muttered. He didn't understand what it meant.

He quickly looked up at the sculptor, but the sculptor seemed clueless.

The sculptor, who had been looking at Yeonwoo curiously, flinched.

"W-what? Did the Association President write something bad? If so, it's because they lack social skills, so don't take it to heart. They've never really had a proper conversation with anyone-"

"That's not it. Can you contact the Association President now?"

The sculptor, who had been afraid of getting caught in the crossfire, quickly pulled out their phone.

"A call is impossible, but text is possible. I'll connect you right away."

The phone was handed over. Yeonwoo carefully typed a message.

- What do you mean by 'original'?

- You're not very smart, are you? Not even knowing the meaning of words.

- No. I'm asking what the original world was.

Yeonwoo tapped the phone impatiently, and a reply slowly came back.

- You don't know? This world has been altered. The world confessed to me. Originally it allowed anomalies, but the Humanity Protection Company used a wicked device to rewrite itself.

'Altered? Humanity Protection Company?'

Yeonwoo's eyes widened. All sorts of thoughts raced through his mind. His heart pounded, and sparks flickered in his brain.

'Mark Jung said the company tried to create a strange world but failed. He said only the device broke.'

No. It had succeeded.

The world had changed to be hostile to anomalies. The Anomaly Protection Company was originally the Humanity Protection Company. The world that company dreamed of wasn't a strange world, but a world where humanity was safe from the threat of anomalies.

Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Yeonwoo instinctively sensed danger.

'Does the company not know about the alteration? When even the Association President knows, the company that led the experiment?'

If even just the upper echelons or some departments knew.

What would they do? They would maintain the current world, and might even move to create a world where anomalies couldn't exist. They might even start assassinating Level 6 anomalies right away.

Because if the Level 6 entities were gone, they could easily destroy anomaly groups and anomalies.

Sirens rang in Yeonwoo's ears. It was an auditory hallucination. The world seemed to turn red in the face of this imagined danger.

Yeonwoo's fingertips trembled.

'I'm in danger too.'

They might overlook minor anomalies that just survive, but the dice was enough for the Humanity Protection Company to consider it a target for destruction.

In the first place, he had been going around saying he'd create an anomaly-friendly world without knowing anything. If someone from the Humanity Protection Company, which had created this world hostile to anomalies, saw him...

'Assassination! I might be assassinated!'

It was a terrifying thought.

Yeonwoo jumped up as if convulsing and looked around in a lowered posture.

The atelier itself, the street outside, the people and cars visible through the window, and even the buildings across the street - everything was suspicious.

'That's right, they had ordinary bullets! What kind of people dreaming of a strange world would make ordinary bullets!'

The ordinary bullets remained unaffected by the alteration, but Yeonwoo, unaware of this, was convinced.

The sculptor stood up in surprise.

"W-what's wrong-"

"Please relay a message! Tell them the company probably knows too! Tell them to think about what the company might do! And please, don't keep this to yourself, share it with the Club or the worshipper's side!"

Yeonwoo tossed the phone back and immediately rummaged through his pockets, throwing his own phone into the trash can.

'Assume my phone was tapped too!'

---