Humanity Protection Company

Illustrations: None.

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The team leader descended the stairs, gun thrust forward, moving without hesitation. His unusually loud footsteps faded as he disappeared below, as if swallowed by a monster\'s maw.

Lee Yeonwoo stood motionless before the gloomy staircase, hesitation plain on his face.

\'Going back would be safer. Safer, but...\'

Danger lurked below. The writhing shadows, the damp and stale air, the eerie atmosphere - all pricked at his mind like thorns.

Two people had gone down into that suffocating place.

\'Team leader. Senior Ji-yoo.\'

His feet remained rooted, as if nailed to the spot. Yeonwoo stood guard before the stairs for a while, frozen like a statue, before biting his lip hard.

"I can\'t go down there."

With difficulty, he took a step back. His body turned to face the exit. Then, he pivoted slightly more to face the fire alarm on the wall.

A round, red bell-shaped alarm.

\'But I can help from out here.\'

Yeonwoo swiftly extended his hand and pressed the alarm.

Ding-ding-ding-ding!

The alarm blared wildly, and a siren wailed through the building\'s speakers. An automated announcement followed:

"A fire has broken out. Please evacuate immediately through the emergency exits."

The pre-recorded message repeated. But it wasn\'t chaotic enough.

Yeonwoo silently reached into his bag and pulled out a gas torch. He dragged over a nearby flower pot and climbed on top.

Whoosh!

The torch spat fire at the sprinkler. It burned and melted until the high temperature triggered the sprinkler, which sprayed water with a hiss.

Rain fell in the corridor. Drenched, Yeonwoo managed a faint smile.

\'The bigger the mess, the safer it\'ll be down there too. If I cause a few more incidents here-\'

His smug train of thought stopped. Yeonwoo\'s expression hardened.

Slam- Bang-

Doors along the lengthy corridor burst open simultaneously. The hands that gripped the doorknobs fell away. Yeonwoo\'s gaze followed them to the floor below the doorknobs.

Heads crawled out from the floor.

"Ugh, r-rain! Fire!"

Wriggling, people wearing mascot heads crawled like earthworms emerging onto concrete. They tilted their heads back to welcome the water streams, rubbing their entire bodies against the drenched floor.

Many human worms crawled out of the rooms. The narrow corridor quickly filled with mascot heads.

It was as if a massive worm had been formed by intertwining humans. Bodies tangled, arms and legs entwined. Heads bobbed up here and there. Voices burst from behind the mascot heads.

"Downward! Downward! To the underground!"

"To the underground where the Great One dwells! To the damp and dark underground! To the underground beyond the fire\'s reach!"

Chanting this ominous chorus, the humans crawled down the stairs.

Yeonwoo stood in their path.

\'Are they insane? If there\'s a fire, they should evacuate outside. Why go underground! No, they\'re fanatics!\'

Realizing his mistake, Yeonwoo hastily stepped back, only to step on something soft.

"Ugh!"

It was a mascot head. There were mascot heads behind him too. Somehow, mascot heads were surging towards the exit like a wave.

Just then, the mascot head Yeonwoo stepped on grabbed his ankle tightly.

"Downward!"

"Get off!"

He shook off the grip with strength honed from climbing ladders, but there were too many. Endless people flooded in, filling the floor, reaching out to push, shoving with their bodies, and those behind them barreling through.

"Urgh!"

Yeonwoo, who had been resisting, finally fell backward. No sooner did he collapse onto the tangle of mascot heads on the floor than he was swept away by the crowd.

"Downward! Let\'s go downward!"

"No!"

The ceiling flowed past Yeonwoo\'s upturned gaze. The hall\'s ceiling changed to the high ceiling of the stairwell, gradually descending like flowing water.

\'Damn it! I\'ve got a bad feeling about down there!\'

He couldn\'t let himself be carried away like this. Yeonwoo gritted his teeth and struggled. He had to break free somehow, regain his balance, and stand up.

"Move!"

He tried to free his entangled arms, plant his feet on the ground to stand upright, flailing his limbs, but Yeonwoo\'s expression grew increasingly grim. He only became more severely entangled.

Writhing flesh, damp clothes. The crushing pressure and joints twisting out of alignment. One wrong move could result in serious injury.

Yeonwoo relaxed his muscles and thought quickly.

\'The dice. What should I roll? What would succeed?\'

The judgment to roll in this situation. Gravity? Heart attack? Mental purification? Stop? Yeonwoo swallowed hard. There was no time to sense something likely to succeed with heightened perception.

"Dice, roll ever-"

Yeonwoo\'s words stopped. The distinct presence of the dice faded. The world fell silent.

Swept along by the crowd, he arrived in the basement before he could react.

---

---

A dim basement.

A few candles provided the only illumination, their yellow light flickering as shadows retreated and advanced. The damp smell of earth permeated the air.

Yeonwoo trembled, staring at the hazy ceiling. He sensed something. An overwhelming presence that shouldn\'t exist in the basement of a building like this.

\'This is. This is.\'

Wriggling, the mascot heads fell silent as if they\'d never shouted, scattering in all directions. Yeonwoo, who had been in their midst, was naturally released and lay sprawled on the basement floor, but he couldn\'t move a finger.

As if the slightest movement would mean death. He couldn\'t even swallow his saliva or blink.

\'How can something like this exist in a small cult? Is there something greater here?\'

Goosebumps rose, his heart pounding.

Yeonwoo tried to deny the presence weighing on his mind, seeking escape from an unbearable reality, but he ultimately couldn\'t reject the presence impressing itself upon his psyche.

A vast, great being was right here.

Then a voice was heard. Low and husky.

"A fire in the middle of the night. Has everyone evacuated?"

"Yes."

"Then Elder Park, go upstairs, report to the fire department, and handle the situation. We\'ll wait quietly here. And don\'t dig any tunnels."

Briskly, someone approached. Yeonwoo remained still like a mouse before a snake, and the approaching figure brushed past him, disappearing beyond the stairs.

Yeonwoo squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists.

\'What should I do? What can I do?\'

A presence no less dangerous than Future Yeonwoo\'s, perhaps even more so. The clearest sense of impending death he\'d ever felt.

Yeonwoo desperately racked his blanching mind, then suddenly opened his eyes. His wavering pupils steadied.

\'If I stay still like this, I\'m done for. I have to move somehow. I need to figure out what it is, roll the dice.\'

After taking several deep breaths, he quietly rose. He stood up facing the stairway entrance but didn\'t dare to flee.

Behind him, deep in the basement, there was something vast and great. This was its domain. Who knew what price he\'d pay for any rash actions.

Trembling fingertips, Yeonwoo forced himself to turn and look into the basement.

\'An altar? A bug?\'

There was an altar there. Candles on either side, and in the center, something like a glass box for breeding insects, no, that wasn\'t it.

Suddenly, Yeonwoo\'s pupils dilated fully, his mind reeling from a massive shock. Through his mind, through his retinas, he received the great being.

It was the Great Worm.

We must become worms.

---

---

The dice rolled.

Clatter-

Crash!

Yeonwoo paid no attention to the dice, focused solely on the Great Worm. His entire psyche was directed towards the Great Worm, busy fully experiencing its majesty and might.

Just then, someone tapped Yeonwoo.

"Yeonwoo, you came too? You didn\'t have to come looking for us."

"Senior Ji-yoo?"

Yeonwoo snapped back to reality.

At some point, Yoo Ji-yoo, wearing a shoddy mascot head, had approached and was tapping Yeonwoo\'s shoulder. She spoke in a dreamy voice, gazing at the Great Worm.

"But I\'m glad you came. How do you feel, seeing the Worm Lord?"

"I too must become a worm. If I become its underling, I can achieve immortality without fear of death, can\'t I?"

Yeonwoo sincerely believed this. All the stress that had unknowingly accumulated while desperately trying to survive till now.

The solution to all that stress and worry was right before his eyes. The Great Worm! A cosmic anomaly that even the company couldn\'t handle!

Yoo Ji-yoo tilted her mascot head.

"You think differently from me."

"Senior Ji-yoo..."

As Yeonwoo cautiously asked, Yoo Ji-yoo plopped down, fixing her mascot head towards the Great Worm.

"To be honest, I\'ve just been living aimlessly. No dreams. Even this job, my mom pushed me into it so I wouldn\'t just stay cooped up at home."

Her hazy voice continued.

"But seeing the Worm Lord, I had a dream for the first time. I\'m going to become a worm. Of course, it\'s not easy. But it\'s a dream, right? I can work as hard as it takes."

"What do you mean it\'s not easy?"

Yoo Ji-yoo pointed a finger towards the outskirts of the basement. Yeonwoo looked and saw forcibly collapsed walls and hand-dug tunnels.

From the dark tunnels, faint screams and moans drifted out.

"That\'s where those who\'ve become worms stay. It\'s hard to even reach that level."

"Why is that?"

"You have to donate money for the cult leader to acknowledge you. And the ritual is tough."

Yoo Ji-yoo pointed to the eyes and mouth of her mascot head, then her arms and legs in order.

"To become a worm, you have to damage your eyes, pull out your teeth and tongue, and cut off your limbs. It\'s hard to endure this process."

Yoo Ji-yoo spoke passionately about how it couldn\'t be easy to approach such a great being, but Yeonwoo wore a strange expression and kept his mouth shut.

Something felt off. The sense of dissonance grew stronger as he looked around.

People whose clothes and mascot heads had come off while tangled coming down. Squinting in the dim light, he noticed they all had injuries.

Eyes burned by candle wax, self-extracted eyes and teeth, empty sleeves hanging limply.

\'They have to go that far? Is this right?\'

Feeling uneasy, Yeonwoo continued scanning the people and spotted the team leader. The team leader was lying face down in front of an intact concrete wall.

"What happened to the team leader?"

"The team leader? He ran straight for the wall and knocked himself out as soon as he saw the Worm Lord. Must have been overcome with emotion."

"..."

Doubt filled Yeonwoo\'s eyes.

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