Humanity Protection Company

TL/Editor: raei

Schedule: 5/week

Illustrations: None.

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"Mr. Lee Yeonwoo, wake up."

Clatter-

Lee Yeonwoo stood up, pushing the chair back. He bit his lower lip lightly.

'...This is not the time to be picky.'

The lie was exposed. Manipulated by a gold bar, there was no hope of getting through this nicely. Yeonwoo called upon his last resort.

In a short moment, his thoughts accelerated. He quickly conveyed his will to the dice.

'Resist the gold bars or whatever they are, cause those bastards to malfunction, break their guns, wake up my friends in the cage, open the cage too-'

Resist the anomaly, imitate the demon of absurdity, all kinds of measures poured out endlessly.

Roll-

The dice jumped up excitedly as if it was having fun. Rolling around as if dancing for a moment. The first result of resisting the gold bars came out.

Bang!

And, just as it was about to roll again.

A man's voice was heard.

"Mr. Lee Yeonwoo, stop. If you rolled it, stop, and don't roll it again in the future."

"Yes."

The dice gloomily came to a stop. Forced by the gold bars, Yeonwoo canceled the roll.

Although he couldn't overturn the judgment, he canceled it before the result came out.

Even though he learned a new way to use it, Yeonwoo's expression sank heavily. His gaze swept over the steel desk. The document where Yeonwoo had reported the dice.

The man alternated between looking at Yeonwoo's expression and the report, then asked indifferently.

"Mr. Lee Yeonwoo, did you just roll the dice?"

"Yes."

The man glared at Yeonwoo with cold eyes. Yeonwoo calmly met the man's gaze. No need to be flustered.

'Don't get obsessed with the dice.'

The dice was just a hidden card. The dice is a tool, not Yeonwoo himself. He survived from tests to errors with just his body.

His mind, cooling down and sharpening like a blade.

The man, looking at the sharp-eyed Yeonwoo, asked a question.

"What did you roll? And what was the result?"

"Resisting the gold bars. I failed."

Yeonwoo twisted the interpretation of the question, hiding the truth. He didn't mention anything about causing malfunctions. After all, the others were stopped before they rolled.

The man, unaware of this and overconfident in the gold bars, relaxed his expression and smirked.

"Resist? That's clumsy. Should I say it's rookie-like? Well, you didn't even use that dice for the lottery or stocks. It's nice to see such purity."

Yeonwoo kept his mouth shut, and the man shook his head.

"It would have been nice to work together."

The man put the gun into his suit pocket, and the woman slowly stood up, dusting off her hips.

"I told you, you wouldn't be able to persuade him."

"Even if he's no longer a company employee, it would be good to recruit people."

"We failed, you idiot."

"Then we give up on people and take something else."

The man spread his hands wide, roughly gathering scattered documents into one pile. The clumped stack of papers went into the briefcase without regard for order or classification.

The woman hid the gun in her bosom and repeatedly opened the rusty cabinets in order. After a moment of ear-scratching friction sounds, she clicked her tongue.

"When was this place abandoned? There's nothing to take."

"Still, the harvest is quite good."

The man pulled out the chair under the desk with a clatter. There lay the key to the detention center, an ID badge of an intelligence agent, a security card, a laptop, a small mechanical device, and an external hard drive.

The man picked up the key to the detention center and lightly tossed it to Yeonwoo.

"Catch."

Yeonwoo reached out his hand, but the key slipped through his fingers and fell to the floor.

While Yeonwoo bent down to pick up the key, the man and woman, who were ready to escape, stood side by side watching him. The greatest harvest was there.

Their eyes sparkled with expectation and desire.

The man spoke.

"Mr. Lee Yeonwoo. Is there a way to transfer the dice to us?"

"I don't know."

"Really? Think hard. If you can't figure it out, you're dead."

The man tapped his chest where a bulging, homemade gun was hidden. The woman's voice continued.

"It's not like we want to kill you. If we do, the hostility level goes up. But if you don't cooperate, we will kill you. Why? Because usually, anomalies parasitic on the mind reveal themselves when the host dies."

"Mr. Lee Yeonwoo, please understand. We're escaping from the company; we need to take at least the dice."

The dice had enough value to risk the hostility level going up.

Yeonwoo lowered his gaze and pondered, then raised his head slightly.

"Maybe we can roll the dice."

"Aha. Like transferring ownership? Do it. But don't roll it for anything else."

Following the man's command, Yeonwoo rolled the dice. Roll, the dice spun. Yeonwoo focused all his mind on the dice.

'It doesn't matter what comes out.'

The dice stopped.

Bang!

"It's a miss."

"Roll it again."

Roll-

Bang!

"Miss."

"Again."

Roll-

Fail!

"It's a fail."

The man's expression hardened. He spoke.

"...You're not lying, are you? Answer honestly. Did you falsify the result?"

"No."

Yeonwoo confidently puffed out his chest, licked his dry lips, and spoke.

"And if a critical failure comes out while doing this, you won't be able to take it even if you kill me."

"...Then we have to kill you and take it now."

"That will be difficult too."

The man tilted his head. Yeonwoo spoke about when he obtained the dice.

"A critical success came out, and I was parasitized. You can't take it until another critical success comes out. And if a critical failure comes out... I don't know what will happen."

Yeonwoo glanced at the briefcase. The man recalled Yeonwoo's report. The dice that caused topological dimensional shifts.

And the remaining time they had.

The man and woman looked at each other for a moment, then sighed deeply. The woman turned around.

"Let's give up. We don't have time."

"It's about time they noticed something strange."

The man looked at the small device on the chair. The device that tracked the intelligence agent's location and communicated periodically blinked red.

The man put the external hard drive next to it into the briefcase and threw the briefcase to the woman.

"Take this and start the car."

"What about you?"

"I don't know. Vent some anger?"

"Idiot, we don't have time."

"Just kidding. I'll rig the scene a bit."

"Hurry up. You know what happens if you're late."

The woman reluctantly climbed the stairs.

Yeonwoo, unable to relax, watched them, then met the man's gaze. The man pointed to Yeonwoo's hand, to the key to the detention center held in it.

"Mr. Lee Yeonwoo. Open the detention center and kill the people inside."

The man grinned.

"Make it look like an anomaly killed an intelligence agent during interrogation."

---

---

Cold sweat dripped down. His heart pounded. His limbs moved on their own towards the detention center. The rusty, sturdy iron bars of the basement came closer.

Yeonwoo urgently spoke.

"Hey. No, sir. Do we really have to go this far? Do we really need to-"

"Well, you can be grateful."

"Excuse me? No, for what-"

"Isn't murder also an experience? Think of it as training."

"What kind of bullsh*t is that!"

Click-click-

His trembling hand fumbled a few times before finally inserting the key into the lock and turning it. The creaky hinges screamed as the detention center opened.

Two people slept as if dead.

The man's voice came from behind.

"It’s a joke, a joke. It might not be very effective, but this way, the company's manpower will be dispersed, right? It will also slow down their pursuit of us."

"All because of something like that...!"

Yeonwoo shouted, veins bulging in his neck. He screamed as if he was about to cough up blood, trying to wake the sleeping people.

Yeonwoo's desperate eyes turned to the two people.

The intelligence agent in a suit.

The male agent, lying nearby, was sleeping sprawled out, while Lee Seoyeon, a bit farther away, stretched her legs and breathed like a baby. Yeonwoo noticed something strange.

'Lee Seoyeon? Her leg should be amputated.'

The supposedly severed leg was perfectly intact. Hidden under suit pants, socks, and shoes, it was unclear whether it was a prosthetic or not.

Yeonwoo had no time to question it. His body moved to carry out the order even at that moment.

All Yeonwoo could do was choose the method of killing.

'Beat them to death. If I beat them to death, they’ll wake up. They must wake up.'

Yeonwoo climbed on top of the male intelligence agent, raised both fists high, and brought them down. Alternating blows with his fists.

Then, he met the man's eyes.

"...."

Breathing like a sleeping person, eyes barely open. The drowsy eyes focused, and a chilling aura passed.

The next moment, the agent sprang up, pushing Yeonwoo away. Yeonwoo flew like a paper doll, his head hitting the bars.

"Ugh!"

A fleeting gap.

The male agent grabbed Lee Seoyeon's ankle and pulled out the leg. The prosthetic leg, complete with socks and shoes, came off easily.

The agent raised the prosthetic leg and shouted.

"Freeze! Move and I’ll blow it up!"

Yeonwoo, looking on in shock, started to get up to continue following the orders. The man shouted like a thunderbolt.

"Stop!"

Yeonwoo froze in an awkward half-risen position. He vaguely heard the man tapping the floor with his toes.

"Damn it. Did they plant a bomb in the prosthetic?"

"There’s a bomb implanted in my body too! If either of us moves even a little, both will explode!"