Humanity Protection Company - 68 - Eraser

TL/Editor: raei

Schedule: 5/week

Illustrations: None.

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Crisis at its peak.

Yeonwoo’s mind raced as his concentration peaked. Time stretched, each moment feeling eternal.

He watched specks of dust fall in slow motion and blood vessels bulge on the cultist’s smooth scalp. His thoughts exploded like fireworks.

‘Eraser. Dice. Strike first. Persuasion ticket. Persuade.’

He had to turn this around. But how?

Beg for his life? Ask him to leave? Request help with other cultists? No good. That’d only delay the inevitable.

After sparing him, after he left, after killing other cultists, he’d just come back to finish Yeonwoo off.

So.

‘I have to kill him here.’

No time to breathe.

The cultist’s hand moved, the eraser starting to wipe away the room’s walls. Deletion crept closer in the stretched moment.

Yeonwoo squeezed every last bit of air from his lungs and shouted desperately:

“Sir, I’ve got hair growth medicine. I’ll give it to you as a gift. Why don’t you try it? Your hair will grow like crazy.”

Persuasion check: critical success!

The cultist’s hand stopped, veins bulging. The eraser froze right next to Yeonwoo.

“…Hair growth medicine?”

The cultist muttered, rubbing his scalp with his free hand.

Yeonwoo quickly pulled a water gun from his bag. He stepped confidently towards the slope and handed it over.

“I used to have hair loss too, but this stuff made it grow back. You should try it, sir.”

“…”

The cultist stared at the water gun before taking it.

“I just spray it on my head?”

“Yeah. Use plenty. It’s good for you.”

“Hmm.”

The cultist aimed at his own head.

Yeonwoo watched, hiding his shaking hands in his pockets.

Under Yeonwoo’s expectant gaze, the cultist pulled the trigger repeatedly. Water sprayed out, soaking his head and flowing down to his neck.

The cultist closed his eyes, savoring the water before smirking.

“Interesting.”

Grrrk-

His neck stretched slightly. Just as hope filled Yeonwoo’s eyes.

The cultist calmly raised the eraser. Its sharp edge carefully drew a straight line from the top of his head downward.

A meticulous touch. The water that had soaked the cultist, absorbed into his body, was erased.

‘…This doesn’t work?’

Yeonwoo realized instantly. He couldn’t stop. He immediately called for dice to gamble.

‘Dice! Heart attack!’

Roll-

The dice rolled. Five strands of possibility wavered chaotically around the cultist.

The cultist glared at Yeonwoo and flicked the eraser.

“Dice? Possibility? Probability? Some anomaly that manipulates those things? Then I’ll just erase the changing possibilities and probabilities.”

A familiar sensation from being persuaded earlier. He could respond better now.

Stop-

The dice stopped. No result. All probabilities erased.

“…”

“…”

They faced each other in silence.

The cultist focused, ready to respond if Yeonwoo rolled dice again. The dice was as dangerous as the eraser.

They were both holding bombs, essentially.

If they couldn’t kill the other decisively, the bomb would explode and they’d die together.

Yeonwoo thought differently.

‘…Hand-to-hand is the only way. I can’t give him anything for the eraser to catch.’

The dice had lost its power. He’d use other means.

It felt like being doused in ice water. His mind and eyes cooled. He estimated the distance closed to hand over the water gun.

Swish-

He stepped closer, naturally extending his hand. The cultist, focused on his metaphysical senses, didn’t react immediately.

Grab!

He seized the wrist holding the eraser. Yeonwoo twisted the hand upward, pressing close to the cultist. Staying out of the eraser’s path.

“What?”

Hand-to-hand combat.

The cultist was shocked. Why get close with anomalous entities like dice? Why?

Still, he tried to push Yeonwoo away, straining against the grip on his wrist. But Yeonwoo gritted his teeth and held on with all his might.

One trying to shake free, the other desperately clinging.

They spun and staggered like dancers. The world erased along the eraser’s random path.

As it crossed the sky, clouds vanished to reveal blue. Brushing the mountaintop sheared off its peak. The slope disappeared with a circular stroke.

Only the two at the center were safe, like the eye of a destructive storm.

Yeonwoo dripped cold sweat.

‘Strength, stamina – I’m lacking!’

He was gradually being overpowered. Though he kept his grip on the wrist, he was losing in punches and kicks.

Wham-!

Taking a hit to the gut, Yeonwoo sharply raised his hands. The eraser shot straight up, cleaving the Intelligence Department and mountain in half.

The moment the eraser was used elsewhere. This was his chance.

He called for dice. He called for a future Yeonwoo to counter the eraser.

‘Summon my future self!’

If he could go from past to future, surely he could come from future to past. It had to be possible. If successful, it would be the surest way out.

Roll-

The cultist gnashed his teeth and gestured towards probability, but too late. The result came.

Critical success!

An extremely low probability manifested dramatically.

Several people suddenly appeared around them. Four Yeonwoos from parallel worlds, diverged at points he’d passed.

Special Forces, Devil Worshipper, Doomsday Cultist, and Goldberg Club Yeonwoos…

“What’s going on-”

“Who summoned me-”

The Yeonwoos with different appearances first assessed the situation, then looked at each other, this world’s Yeonwoo, and the cultist with the eraser.

The four Yeonwoos made their judgment simultaneously.

“Return! Go back! Quickly!”

“Move! Dimensional shift! No, return!”

The eraser? Such a dangerous person right there? Multiple versions of me for some reason? This accident was huge. They had to escape fast!

Four dice rolled at once.

The cultist reflexively flicked the eraser frantically.

Erased possibilities.

As the parallel world Yeonwoos lost their words and as the cultist desperately tried to take down Yeonwoo, Yeonwoo painfully opened his mouth and shouted.

“Do you know how to solve the climate anomalies? If not, I’ll tell you, so let’s kill this bastard together!”

The future Yeonwoo didn’t appear for some reason, but with this many of him, they could surely survive.

—

—

Those from parallel worlds weren’t clock repairmen. They didn’t know the solution. When time stopped, they hadn’t attended the lecture on anomalous chronology, so they spent time elsewhere until time naturally resumed.

Not being clock repairmen, they hadn’t visited the Anomaly Research Society either.

Still, being Yeonwoo, they’d learned about the climate anomalies through other routes, but they were desperate to find a way to survive.

The Special Forces Yeonwoo moved immediately. He joined the physical struggle.

“Move!”

As if switching places, he grabbed the wrist, trading blows back and forth.

“Die!”

The cultist, lip split, sat down hard and threw his weight downward. His hand and the eraser dropped with him.

As the trembling eraser moved towards the Special Forces Yeonwoo’s torso, the Devil Worshipper Yeonwoo and this world’s Yeonwoo rolled their dice.

“Eraser lost.”

“Eraser moved.”

“You damn bastards!”

Roll-

Two dice rolled simultaneously, ten strands of possibility tangling chaotically. The eraser’s target changed.

Busy flicking his hand to erase probabilities. In the end, the eraser that barely grazed the Special Forces Yeonwoo’s body was used futilely to erase probabilities.

At that moment, the Goldberg Club Yeonwoo silently approached from behind the cultist and shoved a gold bar into his pocket.

“You’ve received gold, so you have to work, right?”

“Get lost!”

As he violently shook his trapped wrist to erase the gold bar’s compulsion, the dice’s probability manipulation struck again.

Not just one. Four dice rolled, twenty strands of possibility writhing chaotically.

The cultist was now desperate just to erase probabilities.

The hand with the eraser was used to defend against the dice, while the other tried to fight the Special Forces Yeonwoo, but the tide gradually turned.

“Fracture, brain bleed, organ rupture-”

“Blood clot, shorter life, memory loss-”

“Take eraser, control humans, seal eraser-”

Endlessly rolling dice. Methods learned by parallel world Yeonwoos through different experiences.

The cultist took a beating, unable to use the eraser as a weapon.

At this point, the Doomsday Cultist Yeonwoo stepped back and spoke quietly.

“Is this world’s Dandelion[1] still alive?”

“Uh, I’m not sure.”

“Didn’t you escape together?”

“No. I stayed in that house and escaped using dice later.”

“…She might be alive then.”

The Doomsday Cultist Yeonwoo briefly observed the chaos, then slowly raised his hand.

The anomalous entities hanging from his clothes were dazzling. From a toy gun that opened blue doors to a game controller that operated cars, and various unidentifiable odds and ends.

He gripped one of the guns. He spoke.

“I’ll help.”

“Uh…”

Bullet hit check.

Bang-!

A gunshot rang out, the bullet hitting the floor. Though probability was erased by the eraser, there was no chance to stop the bullet.

The cultist looked at the gun with crazed eyes and screamed.

“Let’s die together!”

There was no answer. This was where he’d die. One eraser couldn’t handle five dice. Without the eraser, he was just another person.

The moment he decided to make the eraser go berserk to completely wipe out himself and the area. The instant his attention turned elsewhere.

Wham-!

The Special Forces Yeonwoo’s fist struck his jaw hard. The cultist lost consciousness and went limp. The Special Forces Yeonwoo moved smoothly, snapping the cultist’s neck in one motion.

Crack-

Thud-

After tossing aside the corpse, he kicked the eraser far away and said.

“The solution to the climate anomalies. Tell me.”

“Yes.”

—

[1. raei: Dandelion was the girl that escaped from the house of giant’s first.]

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