Humanity Protection Company

Illustrations: None.

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Click—

As the PPT slide changed, the researcher’s ID photo and brief bio appeared.

“I am Kim Gak-jung, a researcher at the Clock Hand Manufacturing Lab. Today, I will be giving a light introduction to the study of anomalous time.”

The murmuring noise subsided. Employees interested in the lecture focused on the researcher and the PPT, while those attending as an excuse to slack off continued looking at their phones.

The researcher didn’t pay any attention to their reactions. With a hunched posture, he pressed the remote and began his lecture.

“What is time? Not the time dictated by physical laws, but the strange time of an anomalous world. How do anomalies manipulate time, what principles do they follow to perform impossible feats that the universe doesn’t permit?”

Click—

The PPT transitioned to a cartoonish depiction of Isaac Newton. Under an apple tree, Newton got hit on the head by a falling apple.

“Newton was inspired by a falling apple to discover the law of universal gravitation. We will dig into another law from the apple. Not an apple falling from above, but an apple falling from the past to the future—time itself.”

People who had been looking at their phones began to focus on the lecture, turning off their devices to watch the screen.

Click—

The next slide showed a character in an old-fashioned cartoon style walking sideways, running forward, and jumping up.

“Time is a coordinate, just like XYZ coordinates. From left to right, back to front, bottom to top, and from the past to the future.”

Yeonwoo was too tense to focus on the lecture and noticed someone raising their hand.

“I have a question.”

A middle-aged professor. The researcher nodded.

“Please ask.”

“If time is a coordinate, does that mean it can be traveled freely? Even from the present to the past?”

“Yes. That’s what time-related anomalies do, and our company’s time department has made breakthroughs in this research.”

“That’s theoretically impossible…”

The questioner, perhaps knowledgeable in the field, was visibly agitated, muttering to himself. The researcher began moving in place.

He moved left and right, forward and backward.

“We can move freely in these directions.”

Suddenly, the researcher jumped and landed back on the stage. The sound of his footsteps echoed through the speakers.

“But we can’t move freely up and down, because gravity pulls us down. However, we can overcome gravity.”

Click—

The next slide showed photos of missiles, satellites, spacecraft, airplanes, and jetpacks—all devices that overcome gravity, pushing off the ground and heading for the sky.

Looking at the PPT, the researcher then glanced down from the stage.

“The reason we fall toward the future is that something in the future pulls us, like gravity. Perhaps... no, that’s too deep for now.”

Muttering to himself, the researcher snapped out of it and pressed the remote again.

The next slide showed two photographs side by side.

On the left was a black-and-white photo of an empty concrete room.

On the right was a high-resolution color photo of a cluttered laboratory. In the center of the room was an A4 sheet of paper.

“Just as we use the power of engines to overcome gravity, we use powerful time engines to overcome the gravity of time. This video demonstrates that.”

Click—

As the photos turned into videos, a low hum filled the room.

In the high-resolution video on the right, the A4 sheet of paper was enveloped in blue light and disappeared, reappearing in the black-and-white video on the left, bathed in white light.

A document had been sent from the future to the past.

“In this way, we can overcome the limitations of time coordinates with limited means—ooohhh—”

Suddenly, the researcher’s voice stretched out endlessly and then stopped.

It wasn’t just the researcher. The entire auditorium fell silent. Everyone froze—whether they were listening attentively, looking down at their phones, or whispering to each other.

Blinking eyelids, fingers reaching to tap phone screens, mouths opening to speak—everything stopped as if turned to stone. Even the machines, objects, and insects stopped.

Silence. The underground auditorium was devoid of any sound, not even the faintest breath.

Time had stopped.

---

---

Yeonwoo was no exception.

He froze mid-glance, searching the auditorium for any potential danger. His heartbeat was silent, making him seem like a preserved statue.

Then, the dice rolled.

Roll—

Miss!

Nothing changed. In the frozen time, Yeonwoo remained a statue, and the underground auditorium was still silent. A dead world with no sound or movement.

In this frozen world, only the dice\'s time continued. After its waiting period, the dice rolled again.

Roll—

Miss!

Resisting the time stop was as difficult as dimensional travel.

The dice rolled, failed, rolled, landed on a miss, rolled, failed, rolled, landed on a miss, rolled, failed, rolled, and finally, succeeded after countless attempts.

Success!

Shiver—

Life returned to Yeonwoo’s body. His heart beat, and blood began to circulate through his veins. His eyelids twitched, and his head slowly regained its original speed as if an ant were crawling.

Yeonwoo blinked.

He saw the strangely frozen auditorium and the successful roll of the dice. He quickly understood the situation.

“So, it’s like this.”

Indeed, fate had not changed. The peaceful life had not returned. Accepting reality calmly, Yeonwoo stood up from his chair.

‘Whether it’s a hostile group or an anomaly, I don’t know what caused this, but I can’t stay here.’

Yeonwoo quietly stepped towards the emergency exit. The sound of the door opening and closing was almost imperceptible.

A faint murmur escaped through the closing door.

“...Thank you.”

He knew he could move thanks to the dice.

---

---

He moved stealthily. Leaving the underground auditorium, he held his breath and climbed the stairs, retrieved his eco-bag from under the desk, and exited through the front door.

Yeonwoo stopped outside the main entrance.

“Uh...”

The city was silent.

It felt like a world on the brink of extinction—no signs of life, no car engines, no music drifting from buildings.

People, cars, and buildings were all intact, yet the world seemed dead.

Yeonwoo looked around the street in a daze.

People walking on the sidewalks, cars on the road, the leaves on the street trees, flying pigeons, dark clouds gathering to swallow the sun, and raindrops starting to fall.

Everything was frozen. Like a photograph, like a paused video.

“This, this...”

Desperately, Yeonwoo shoved his hand into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and pressed the power button repeatedly.

But the phone remained unresponsive. The screen stayed black as if the battery was dead. Cold sweat dripped onto it.

‘If it\'s this extensive, it\'s at least Danger Level 4.’

Similar to an error spread, but worse because he didn’t know the cause or the solution.

‘Escape is the answer!’

He needed to get out of the affected area.

Yeonwoo ran down the street, bumping into the shoulders of people frozen like mannequins. The people, unable to withstand the impact, toppled over, but then froze again in their fallen positions.

Leaving behind the oddly frozen figures, Yeonwoo ran.

In the silent city, his breaths were the only sound. Passing through the stopped cars on the road, climbing the hill in the city, Yeonwoo paused to catch his breath.

At the top of the hill.

Standing where he could overlook the city, Lee Yeonwoo turned pale.

‘…The city has stopped. No, it’s not just the city.’

Everything within his sight had come to a stop. Shivering, Yeonwoo slowly looked up. There, he saw the sun.

It was around 9 a.m.

The sun, which should have been steadily moving towards the center of the sky, was frozen before the dark clouds. During the time he had been running, the sun should have moved slightly, and the shadows should have shifted, but nothing had changed.

Yeonwoo realized that time had stopped.

---

---

He had no idea why this was happening, what anomaly caused it, or if the company could respond to it.

With these thoughts, Yeonwoo hurried back to the underground auditorium.

There were clues there. Clues that could help him understand the current situation.

Thud, thud—

In the silent underground auditorium, only Yeonwoo\'s footsteps echoed. He climbed onto the stage.

Under the lights, Yeonwoo saw Researcher Kim Gak-jung. The researcher, holding the microphone near his mouth and in the middle of a lecture, was frozen without even breathing.

‘Clock Hand Manufacturing Lab. It must be a place that researches time-related anomalies.’

If any place had clues about the current situation, it would be there.

Yeonwoo rummaged through the researcher\'s pockets and pulled out a wallet. The worn wallet contained cards, cash, receipts, an ID card, an employee card, and business cards.

He took out the business card and employee card and read them. The business card had the location of the Clock Hand Manufacturing Lab. Yeonwoo sighed in relief.

‘Fortunately, it’s in this city.’

If it had been in a distant city, the journey would have been excruciating, but it was in the same city, even if a bit far.

Yeonwoo returned the wallet, took the researcher\'s employee card and business card, and left the underground auditorium.

His destination was the Clock Hand Manufacturing Lab.

‘It’s too far to walk.’

Looking around the street, Yeonwoo found someone parking a bicycle in a bike rack. Luckily, the lock hadn’t been fastened yet.

“…I’ll borrow this.”

He set the bicycle’s owner gently on the ground and mounted the bike.

Riding the bicycle, Yeonwoo sped through the frozen world.