65 - Fairy Tale

TL/Editor: raei Schedule: 5/week

Illustrations: None.

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Lee Yeonwoo could barely contain his excitement. His face flushed red as he sprang up, pacing restlessly. A vivid plan materialized in his mind.

"The best way is... no, another, better, safer for me-"

Future Yeonwoo watched his past self mutter.

Then he slowly opened his hand. The dice in his eyes began to roll. Clatter-

"Time for you to go now."

Success!

"Huh? Oh! Thanks for telling me! But, um..."

Yeonwoo's body began to fade. Translucent like a ghost, he desperately reached out and shouted before vanishing completely.

"How do I control the dice results-"

"Die once. Roll for resurrection just before your last breath. If you get a critical success then, you'll become one with the dice."

"What? No, then at least some other tip-"

The other was his future self, surely full of hard-earned wisdom from countless experiences.

And if he went back now, he'd have to face the Tree Person. He desperately needed even the smallest hint.

As Yeonwoo begged earnestly, casting aside all pride, Future Yeonwoo looked somewhat bewildered, then gestured casually as if annoyed.

"Ugh. Fine, go."

Following his gesture, probabilities shifted, and something formed in Yeonwoo's mind. Before he could identify it, his world changed.

He returned to reality, to the underground shrine of the Anomaly Research Society.

His head spun and his vision blurred. He vaguely sensed a mental wave mixed with fear and anger.

- Kill that bastard!

Danger. His vision cleared.

The Tree Person, now shedding leaves, stretched its gaunt branches with a twisted face, while the society staff surrounded Yeonwoo with uncertain expressions.

Staff densely encircled him. One by one, they drew weapons. Taser guns, knives, pistols, batons, and more...

Faced with numerous weapons aimed at him, Yeonwoo took deep breaths and checked what he'd received from Future Yeonwoo.

A small ticket appeared in his mind, far from the dice. It read:

[Guaranteed Persuasion Success Ticket (One-time use)]

"Oh..."

Even surrounded, Yeonwoo couldn't help but marvel. Then he slowly looked at the people around him.

Staff reluctantly surrounded Yeonwoo. Countless weapons seemed ready to rain down on him at any moment.

Someone adjusted their weapon and said:

"I'm sorry. We don't have a choice."

Yeonwoo calmly regarded them and took a deep breath. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ NovᴇlFɪre .ɴᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

'I should save the guaranteed ticket.'

Such a trump card should be saved for a truly desperate crisis.

So, how to break through this crisis?

Yeonwoo exhaled all at once.

"Listen to me for a moment."

"...If you have last words, speak them."

The staff hesitated, lowering their weapons slightly.

Yeonwoo recited the list of anomalies he'd heard from Future Yeonwoo like a prayer.

"The North Wind and Sun, Demon of Malthus, Surtr's Sword, Butterfly Effect, Biblical plagues-"

The staff's expressions gradually changed. They were office workers too. Office workers who knew the future. They couldn't fail to understand what this list meant.

From the center of the marble shrine, they focused solely on Yeonwoo, listening intently. Hope gradually filled their shadowed faces, completely erasing the darkness.

Yeonwoo said:

"These are the methods I got from the future to defeat the anomalous climate."

"..."

In the silence, they slowly turned. The formation that had surrounded Yeonwoo transformed in an instant to one that protected him.

Before their eerily shining eyes, the Tree Person emitted a mental wave like a scream.

- You believe that? You doubt the salvation I promised, the earthly paradise I promised?

"...I believe him more than you. Because."

The director, who had been bickering with the team leader, said as he loosened his tie.

"I never believed you in the first place."

They weren't fools. They had merely sought survival by relying on anomalies because the future seemed too bleak.

"If you can see the future, of course you can find its cause and solution. But you never even tried to find the cause. We just compromised, so we didn't demand that."

The director glanced at Yeonwoo once, then slowly raised his head to glare at the Tree Person.

If they could defeat the anomalous climate, there was no need to compromise with anomalies.

He gave a brief order.

"Contain it."

"Yes, sir."

The staff rushed forward en masse. The Cockroach and Monkey Person were docilely restrained, and the North Wind and Sun were just parchment to begin with.

The Dragon was a problem, but the Gold Dragon didn't resist. It could judge the situation. Rather, it helped the staff pounce on the Tree Person.

"Foolish mortal. Submit quietly."

- How dare a mere lizard!

As the Tree Person tumbled beneath the altar, emitting a harsh mental wave, the dragon didn't flinch. Flashing its emotionless golden pupils, it simply threw itself down to pin the Tree Person.

Crunch-!

The dragon's claws dug from bark to core. Raising its head haughtily, the dragon muttered.

"Mortal. I never liked you from the start. You remind me of Green Dragons."

- Crazy lizard!

Simultaneously, staff who had overcome the Tree Person's mind control approached, pulling syringes from their pockets.

More like stakes than syringes. They plunged them into the Tree Person's trunk.

"Injecting sedative!"

- Humans destined for extinction...

The fading mental wave. The Tree Person's eyes closed. The incessant mental waves subsided into stillness.

The director ordered:

"Implement proper emergency containment, send that tree thing to the lab. Properly contain the rest too."

"Yes, sir."

The staff moved in perfect unison. Suddenly, one staff member asked the director:

"What should we do with the dragon?"

"...Leave it be. It won't do anything foolish."

The Gold Dragon was carrying the Tree Person in its mouth, following staff guidance to the lab.

As the scene settled somewhat, the director approached Yeonwoo.

Yeonwoo had been talking with the team leader, but stopped and looked at the director.

The director bowed politely.

"Thank you. Thanks to you, we have hope."

"It was just a lucky break."

It really was pure chance. That his future self was alive, and that self gave him information.

The director marveled, gesturing somewhere.

"Please, tell us more inside. We need to discuss how to proceed from here."

"Understood."

The team leader, nursing his swollen face, muttered.

"Damn. It worked out well, but. My teeth..."

---

---

The conference room inside the shrine.

Only Yeonwoo was there. The Extermination Team's First Response Team had entered, thoroughly grilling the society for failing to follow containment procedures. The team leader had gone to get his teeth treated.

There was quite some time before they could talk.

In the silence, Yeonwoo gently tapped the table. The water gun on the table and the guaranteed ticket in a corner of his mind.

An idea that occurred to him after seeing Future Yeonwoo.

After thinking for a while, Yeonwoo carefully grasped the water gun.

"It said I digested all the rainwater."

Come to think of it, since he'd resisted the rain's toxicity, didn't his body have some kind of antibodies? Couldn't he absorb rainwater within the limits of what the antibodies could handle?

He decided. Yeonwoo dabbed a drop of rainwater with his finger and rubbed it on his head.

"..."

He wasn't sure. Nothing seemed to have changed. His hair was fine, and he didn't feel more energized. Maybe because it was just one drop.

'I'll have to keep absorbing it steadily.'

Next, Yeonwoo closed his eyes.

[Guaranteed Persuasion Success Ticket]

Somehow the distance between the dice and the ticket seemed greater than before, but Yeonwoo examined the ticket. A new way to use the dice. A way to control the dice's risks.

'I should be able to make these too, right?'

Yeonwoo called the dice.

"Um... Create a guaranteed search success ticket."

A light experiment.

Clatter-

Failure!

A new ticket was created. Yeonwoo nodded at its name.

[Guaranteed Search Failure Ticket]

"Dice. Search for a receipt."

Declaring he would search for a receipt put somewhere in a bag, wallet, pocket, or somewhere, the dice rolled and failed.

Looking at the space where the failure ticket had vanished, Yeonwoo thought.

'What was I trying to find?'

He was trying to find something.

Yeonwoo shook his head, shaking off the thought. The important thing was the ticket experiment. He roughly understood the results. A bright light dawned on Yeonwoo's face.

'With this, I can control the risks to some extent.'

He just needed to make tickets in advance. Use failure tickets on relatively safe rolls, and save up success tickets.

Yeonwoo rapidly moved his lips.

"Create guaranteed search success ticket. Create guaranteed search success ticket. Create guaranteed search success ticket. Create guaranteed search success ticket. Create guaranteed search success ticket."

How much time passed like that?

The conference room door opened. The director who entered cautiously, stopped abruptly.

"Are you alright? You don't look well."

Yeonwoo slowly turned his head to look at the director. The director stepped back.

Disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes.

And a pile of failure tickets in a corner of his mind. Not a single success ticket.

"I'm fine, really fine."

"If you say so..."

The director sat across from Yeonwoo and opened his mouth.

"Then let's discuss the future."

---

[raei: sorry for the no chappy yesterday, was super confused about something in chap 48. I'm releasing a bunch today, as well as advance chappies, I'll post it on the last chap of the bunch!

Also:

c31: Chief Lee of the cleanup specialists -> Team Leader Lee

c48: Chief of the First Response Unit -> Manager of the First Response Division

- there is also a reference to a 'First response team' and a 'specialized response team' in c62, but just the names of the teams themselves, not including who they belong to. Most likely the same team associated with the Extermination team revealed in this chap and maybe the same with the specialized team.

c62: President -> Director

Anyway, I'll still be going through all the terms we've come across so far... But uh, I realized very very few, have ever appeared again past the event they first showed in.]

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