Humanity Protection Company

TL/Editor: raei

Schedule: 5/week

Illustrations: None.

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'Forget the North Wind and Sun.'

Yeonwoo made a snap decision.

To hell with the mission in this situation. Survival comes first.

His heart pounded, rapidly circulating blood to deliver oxygen to his brain and muscles. A faint surge of vitality brought Yeonwoo to peak condition.

"Team leader. Should we escape to the second floor? No, let's get out of here entirely."

The team leader peered through the gap of the door Yeonwoo had opened.

Inside the room labeled skan20@@ stood a single tree.

A conifer trimmed into a conical shape, like a Christmas tree.

Behind the densely packed, pointed leaves, something lurked. He couldn't make it out clearly, but through gaps in the foliage, he glimpsed... something.

The longer he stared, the more captivating it became, writhing behind the tree.

The team leader leaned in closer, pressing his face to the door gap for a better look. As his forehead pushed against the cold steel, his head about to enter the containment room-

"Team leader!"

Yeonwoo grabbed the team leader's collar and yanked him back. His shirt rode up, choking him as he fell.

"Gack!"

The team leader let out a strangled cry as he toppled over. He looked up at Yeonwoo, dazed.

Yeonwoo squeezed his eyes shut and felt around for the doorknob. The team leader's reaction suggested visual contact might be dangerous.

SLAM.

He shut the containment room door. After counting ten more seconds, Yeonwoo opened his eyes.

"Team leader, you okay?"

"Uh, yeah..."

The team leader mumbled weakly. The image wouldn't leave his mind. The conical conifer. Something lurking beyond it. He had to see what it was, quickly-

SLAP!

The sound of a hard slap rang out. He'd hit himself with full force. The team leader licked blood from his split lip, then sprang to his feet.

"Sh*t. I'm a f*cking idiot."

He'd let his guard down. Thought the emergency containment procedure was over, tried opening it as a test, but that itself was a mistake.

He needed to act like an investigator.

This place was a danger zone crawling with anomalies.

The team leader and Yeonwoo locked eyes, recognizing they'd both heightened their vigilance.

They nodded briefly without speaking.

Survival instincts on high alert, the two investigators turned their heads in unison towards the escape route.

Rattle rattle-

"Why won't this...!"

The employee clutched the wooden door, shaking it. It must have locked in the meantime - the emergency exit no longer worked.

Trapped in the Red Zone on B3? Yeah, we're f*cked.

The team leader took out his phone to call the Extermination Team, while Yeonwoo put away his water gun and drew his pistol.

The team leader shook his head as he pocketed his phone.

"Communications are down. Not sure if it's because we're underground or if there's a problem here."

"Did the Extermination Team alert button work?"

"That should be fine. It may seem like a simple button, but it's a complex mechanism. It'll send a signal no matter what."

"How long until they get here?"

As Yeonwoo checked his gun, the team leader pulled out the pistol Yeonwoo had gifted him earlier and flicked off the safety.

"First response team within 30 minutes. If they die or lose contact, 2 hours for the specialized response team to gear up and deploy."

"So we're looking at 2 hours."

"That's right."

They openly prepared for this.

They were ready to fight with or without the Extermination Team.

The investigators were willing to do whatever it took to survive.

The two, armed with pistols, walked towards the employee slumped in front of the door. Their shadows fell over him as he clung to the doorknob.

Backlit by the red lights, the team leader spoke.

"You. If you don't want to die pathetically here, tell us everything you know."

"I don't know anything..."

The employee sniffled, his hands trembling. Yeonwoo nudged him aside with his foot and placed his palm on the door.

"What you know about this society, anything suspicious you've noticed, any strange occurrences. Spill it all."

"I'm just a low-level employee... I really don't know anything."

While listening to the team leader and employee's conversation, Yeonwoo closed his eyes and summoned his dice.

The first thing to test in this situation.

'I want to use this door. Is it possible?'

The die leapt up. And then.

Failure!

CRACK- SCREECH-

The rusted hinges suddenly shattered, and the door fell backwards. It crumbled to dust with a puff.

The Spatial Transport Device was now junk.

The employee and team leader stopped mid-conversation, looking bewildered between the broken door and Yeonwoo. Yeonwoo scratched his head.

"I failed."

"It's fine. We couldn't use that door anyway."

The two investigators assessed the situation coolly.

The door was locked and unusable - success would have been nice, but failure changed nothing.

The employee dazedly fingered the broken door before speaking again, his voice gloomy.

"I'm not sure about anything suspicious. But the higher-ups have been acting strange lately. I'm in charge of the main entrance, you see."

Even small clues were important. Yeonwoo and the team leader listened intently.

"For some reason, the executives have been coming in early and leaving late recently. Sometimes they even stay overnight. And they seemed really happy about it. That's not normal when you're working so much, is it?"

The team leader frowned.

"Were they really under some kind of mind control?"

"How do you resist anomalies that mess with your mind?"

When Yeonwoo asked, the team leader answered with actions.

He bit down on his split lip.

CRUNCH, his canine tore into the flesh.

A chunk came off, and blood welled up. The taste of iron filled his mouth.

"Weak ones can be resisted with strong willpower and pain. You have your dice too."

"What if it's too strong to block?"

"How can we block it without specialized response equipment? Avoiding it entirely is the best option."

The team leader nudged the employee with his toe.

"Let's find the elevator first. And the emergency exit. Is this the only one? There should be at least two or three more."

"This is the only one I know of... I don't know where the elevator is either."

The team leader shook his head and started walking down one side of the corridor. The employee scrambled to his feet and hurried after him. Yeonwoo sharpened his senses before following at the rear.

---

---

They walked down the steel corridor under red lights.

Containment rooms densely lined both sides. Each door as dangerous as an explosive, they moved forward cautiously, unable to let their guard down.

After passing several doors like this.

The team leader adjusted his grip on his gun.

"I can't see the end. Did we go the wrong way?"

"At least we're not going in circles. These are all different containment rooms."

Yeonwoo spoke while looking at the cryptic letters written on each room. He'd memorized a few as they passed, and none were repeats.

New containment rooms, unfamiliar identification numbers each time. Proof they were moving forward.

Which made it all the more strange.

"Is it normal for things to be this quiet when containment's been breached?"

Anomalies wouldn't stay docile with the doors open. An eerie calm, like standing in the eye of a typhoon.

The team leader hesitated, then stopped walking.

"If some powerful anomaly were controlling all the others, it could be like this."

"...What danger level would that be?"

"At least 5. Probably 6."

Terrifying to even imagine. Yeonwoo shuddered silently. A hostile anomaly on par with the Extinction Defense Device: Broken Clock? He didn't want to encounter it, let alone exist in the same world.

As he rubbed his goosebump-covered skin, the employee beside him shook his head rapidly.

"We don't contain anomalies like that here. You don't store sparks next to a powder keg. Do you know how many anomalous entities are here?"

"That's impossible to say."

The team leader spoke as he quickened his pace. As the footsteps of the three echoed through the silent corridor, his voice continued.

"Anyway, our top priority is getting out of here-"

His voice cut off. The three pairs of feet stopped.

They stood side by side, staring at the end of the corridor.

Creeeeak-

A golden door opened as if on cue, like it had been waiting for their arrival. Brilliant white light poured out from beyond. A dark human silhouette was visible in the white glow.

A person emerged from the door.

The employee's eyes widened as he muttered.

"Director...?"

As the man, who looked about the same age as the team leader, opened his mouth with an uncomfortable expression.

Click-

Two gun barrels pointed at the director. They shouted simultaneously.

"Don't move!"

"We'll shoot!"

"...Such tempers. Can't you do something about that fiery disposition? How could you call the Extermination Team right away just because you're pissed off?"

The Director clicked his tongue nonchalantly, even with guns aimed at him. Then he turned, fully exposing his back.

"Come in. He is waiting."

They couldn't bring themselves to pull the triggers. As the two investigators stood rigid, gripped by an ominous instinct-

The employee's face lit up with hope as he rushed towards the wide open golden door.

"Director!"

Seeing his workplace superior at ease must have made him think he was saved. He vanished into the brilliant white light without hesitation.

But the two investigators only gripped their guns tighter.

"...I don't see a way to escape. And I've no idea what's enthralled that guy."

"Let's confront it head-on. If all else fails, I'll roll the dice."

"What will you roll for?"

A cold light gleamed in Yeonwoo's eyes. He recalled the accidents he'd experienced. And the idea he just had.

"Accident occurrence, dimensional travel, time stop, anomaly control."

Control isn't as grand as it sounds. In fact, it was simpler and easier than the others.

If he succeeded at a lie detection roll, the target would believe him. If he succeeded at a persuasion roll, the target would change their mind.

The team leader was aghast. His tension suddenly gone, he gaped at Yeonwoo.

"That works?"

"...The risks are high, but I think it's possible. Better than dying or being controlled, isn't it?"

"You're right about that."

They fell silent for a moment, then slowly moved into the light.

Beyond the light was a temple.

An altar enshrining the Anomaly Research Society's anomalies, with the society's high-ranking staff lined up reverently before it.

They parted to open a path to the altar. Atop the altar were five anomalies.

Their breath caught in their throats.

---

[raei: heya guys! So, I've decided to slowly go back through all the chapters to retranslate some names and terms to make it more obvious + add some kind of naming structure. Not really important but it'll help for the future chapters to have a better system.

So for this chapter:

unrealistic creatures -> anomalous entities. Unrealistic creatures is actually correct but it sounds a little different in english. I've changed to anomalous entities to make it easier/obvious as a reader.

topological transport device -> spatial transport device]

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