Humanity Protection Company

TL/Editor: raei

Status: 5/week mon-fri

Illustrations: posted in discord

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There was no reason to waste time.

Yeonwoo instantly crossed through space, arriving at the clearing where the amateur magician had opened the two-dimensional door.

It was a night with a bright full moon. Under the pale moonlight, a grotesque scene unfolded in crimson. The earth had become reddish flesh, and the trees surrounding the clearing swayed like fleshy tentacles.

The mountain, which should have been filled with the hoots of owls and night birds, was now full of squelching sounds.

At the center were two people.

A man with an axe slung over his shoulder. A woman in shaman's clothes, kneeling as she rifled through a book made of flesh. Both had bodies grotesquely transformed, but their minds seemed intact as they conversed.

The man, Yeonwoo's father, whose hand had melted and fused with the axe, swung it menacingly.

"You crazy woman. What the hell have you done?"

"Come on, Yeonwoo's dad. How was I supposed to know this would happen? How could I have known the spirit possession went wrong?"

The shaman woman snapped back. Her mutated shaman clothes rippled. Colorful strings that had transformed into fluorescent tentacles waved in the air, as if trying to lure prey.

The spellbook's influence was similar to spirit possession, and its power was real, so it was understandable for a shaman to make such a mistake.

But that wasn't his problem.

Yeonwoo's father swung his axe at the nearby tentacle trees. Blood spurted like a fountain. Covered in blood, he brandished the axe threateningly.

"If you made a mistake, fix it quickly! At this rate, the whole village might go to hell!"

A door had opened. Contamination poured through the open door. The area turning to flesh was gradually expanding.

The shaman hurriedly began searching through the flesh book again. Blood vessels spread across the book made of thin skin, forming characters. Her protruding eyeballs quickly scanned the text.

"Alright, alright. But you know, Yeonwoo's dad. This really happened."

"If you spout nonsense, your head will fly off. Think before you speak. If things go south, I'll chop off your head and set the mountain on fire."

Yeonwoo's father lived in a house he'd built in the mountains. He had plenty of kerosene for his stove, as well as firewood and charcoal. Enough to methodically set fires and burn down the entire mountain if needed.

'Since it's flesh, it should burn if set on fire.'

His father slumped down, wiping his face with his liquefying hand.

"What the hell is all this? I thought I'd eaten something bad."

A strangely mutated deer had invaded his home. He'd killed it with his axe and then doubted himself for a while.

He'd wondered if the mushrooms he'd gathered in the mountains were hallucinogenic, or if his stove had malfunctioned and leaked gas, or if the alcohol Park had given him was laced with opium.

But it was real, and searching the mountain had led him to this crazy shaman. He lamented:

"You crazy woman. You've lived in the village all this time, how could you do something so dangerous?"

"That's why I did it secretly in the mountains. I followed all the taboos, how was I supposed to know it would turn out like this?"

The shaman raised her head indignantly, but quickly lowered it again when she saw the blood-red axe blade.

The countryside, with its low population density, was less affected by safety measures. Rural areas that had experienced anomalous events for generations naturally had taboos. As a shaman who passed down such taboos, she had been careful in her own way.

'Ah. So it was Shaman Aunt.'

At this point, Yeonwoo, who had been observing the situation, stepped forward puzzledly. There was no sound of leaves crunching underfoot. Everything had turned to flesh.

"Dad!"

At that shout, both people turned their heads simultaneously. They blinked silently. Though it had been a long time, it wasn't hard to recognize him.

"Yeonwoo? When did you come down? I didn't hear you were visiting."

"My, how Yeonwoo's grown. You were just a little thing, and now look at you."

Both waved their hands in delight, forgetting the situation. Their mutated hands waved oddly.

Only then did they realize the situation. A place where bodies were deteriorating as if exposed to radiation.

"Yeonwoo! Get down the mountain quickly! You can't stay here!"

"That's right! Hurry down and tell that Hyeseong shaman over the next mountain! That woman might know how to deal with this!"

Yeonwoo sighed deeply. If it had been someone he'd never seen or heard of, he might have kidnapped them to use as a magician.

But it was hard to be harsh with an aunt he'd known since childhood.

Yeonwoo clenched his fist. First, he closed the door, then reverted the mutated land, and restored the two people's bodies to their original state.

With three clenches of his fist, everything returned to normal as if time had reversed. A deer cried out in the mountains.

"Hurry down the mountain. I heard people came up to hunt wild boars."

"...Is this a dream?"

Yeonwoo's father blinked. He couldn't understand what was happening. In fact, the whole flesh dimension issue had been beyond his comprehension, but he'd accepted it with the typical rural open-mindedness.

But Yeonwoo solving this was too much to handle...

"Do they teach this kind of thing in the city these days? You've really become a city person."

You know, how technology advances so quickly. That's city life and cutting-edge technology for you. Well, strange things happen in the countryside too, so there must be even more in the crowded cities, and ways to deal with them.

Yeonwoo said no more and quickly led the two people down the mountain.

------

Yeonwoo's father lived in a mud house halfway up the mountain. The three of them went inside and sat awkwardly in the living room.

Yeonwoo was skimming through the spellbook. In one hand, he openly held threads of probability. There was no need to hide anything from people who had experienced an anomalous event.

'A spellbook that attracts talented people through telepathy and makes them open doors. Its origin...'

Some magician had carelessly tossed it into a dimensional gap like throwing away garbage, and it had fallen into this village.

Yeonwoo sighed and handed the spellbook to the shaman.

"I used to work for a company that manages these kinds of problems."

"A public corporation? You said you were going to be a civil servant, I guess you ended up doing something similar."

His father immediately asked. In his mind, such issues should be managed by the state, and a company handling these problems must naturally be a public corporation.

But the shaman saw something different. Her eyes, trembling as if possessed, looked at Yeonwoo and the threads of probability.

"Have you received divine possession?"

"Woman, why are you trying to make the kid out to be mentally ill?"

"Divine possession isn't a mental illness! How can you doubt after seeing that chaos?"

"Well, you're just a quack-"

The two bickered.

Yeonwoo sighed heavily, exhausted. He didn't feel like explaining everything one by one.

Ah. God? You mean those pathetic anomalous entities? I am the truly omnipotent god. Yeonwoo briefly entertained such arrogant thoughts before waving his hand.

"Aunt. You'll have to go to the relevant authorities now. Since you've learned magic, you can't live like you used to."

"...Magic?"

A bright light flashed in the shaman's eyes. She had learned from the spellbook, practiced magic, and felt it. There were infinitely many worlds. She had been able to make contact with those worlds.

More than just interested, she wanted to throw away her entire worldview as a shaman and dedicate her life to this craft.

"Yes. You know those young people who recently moved to the village to farm?"

"Those, those outsiders who don't even follow the village rules?"

"Don't be prejudiced. They're people the company sent down to protect my parents. If you tell them everything honestly, they'll explain the necessary procedures and where to go."

The shaman looked guilty. She had done many mean things in the name of taboos and customs.

Writing talismans with chicken blood on gates, spraying dog urine, or throwing salt when she saw people passing by.

In any case, Yeonwoo didn't want to stay in this countryside any longer. He felt like he'd only experience more strange accidents if he stayed. It was as if all the village folklore was coming to life.

"Right. Dad. Mom got hurt by a wild boar."

"Those damn boars, need to wipe them out. Alright. I'll go down and check on her."

Yeonwoo bowed his head one last time.

"I'll be heading back now. Please call me if anything like this happens again."

"Alright, son."

His father nodded casually, and the shaman tried to grab Yeonwoo to use him as a bridge to the outsiders, but Yeonwoo crossed through space without hesitation.

His father marveled:

"I wonder when that'll be commercialized?"

"Are you out of your mind? Does that look like science to you?"

"Is there any reason it can't be commercialized if it's not science?"

"Well..."

The shaman tried to argue but ended up looking convinced instead.

------

A minor episode had passed. Time flowed on relentlessly. What Yeonwoo had experienced was merely discovering one wild magician, and the affairs of large organizations continued without pause.

Yeonwoo smiled contentedly inside a three-story building's top floor.

The Survival Agency had finally been established. He hadn't done anything himself. People from various places had done all the work. As a result, they now had a building and many employees.

"Yeonwoo, are you in?"

Ji-yoo burst through the door. She had expressed a desire to change jobs and had eventually transferred to the Survival Agency.

"Yes. What's the matter?"

"Here's my resignation letter."

"...What?"

Yeonwoo looked up at Ji-yoo in confusion. With dark circles under her eyes, Ji-yoo waved the resignation letter, urging him to take it.

"I can't work here anymore. There's too much work. I just wanted to be an investigator."

There really was a lot of work. Partly because the agency had just been established, and partly because it felt even more intense after living the relaxed life of an investigator.

"But why so suddenly?"

As Yeonwoo took the resignation letter, Ji-yoo collapsed into the chair opposite him, slamming her head on the desk. Sprawled out as if sleeping, she spoke tearfully:

"I tried it for a few days, but I really can't do it. This, this isn't a way for people to live."

As an investigator, she only had to be present at her desk except when going out for investigations. But here...

"I come to work, work overtime, sleep, come back to work, and the tasks keep piling up. I really, really can't do this."

Being an investigator was better.

Yeonwoo tried to dissuade her.

"But, but it's safe here, isn't it? And I believe the salary isn't bad either."

"I don't care about any of that!"

Ji-yoo sprang up, glaring at Yeonwoo with bloodshot eyes. Her former colleague was now the enemy. An enemy who assigned work, the company boss!

An enemy who tormented life like a life-threatening anomalous entity. Yeonwoo backed down in the face of the investigator's desperate intensity.

"Um... Alright. What is it, approval? I'll approve it when it comes up."

"Please do it quickly. I want to escape as soon as possible."

It seemed she wouldn't back down unless he processed it right here and now. Yeonwoo quickly moved his mouse.

Conveniently, they were using the company's system, so he could check it easily. With a few clicks, it was approved.

"It's done."

"Freedom!"

With that, Ji-yoo threw her hands up and ran out.

"Oh right. It's the day to inspect the dimensional portals."

Yeonwoo left to do work and meet someone he had seen long ago. He headed to the company outpost in the giant dimension that he had strongly recommended.

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