12 Hours After

Translator: Khan

Editor: Aelryinth

“Yes, boss. I’ll contact Iceland right now.”

“Please.”

I put down the phone and turned my head back to the monitor. There was a guidebook for the new class on the screen. I had read it all the way through, and then I read it from the beginning again.

[Editor Class Guide.]

[Congratulations. Han Sang-hoon, who has been promoted to Editor Class. As we have announced since the beginning of your first paid subscription, your Editor Class will have a godly capability, unlike those below. From now on, not only can you read the future news passively, but you can actively change it yourself.]

I looked at it with my arms crossed. If this was true, the future news would become a totally different concept.

[New active skill ‘Edit’ targets already issued news and will edit the news as it is named. Edited news, as soon as it’s edited, changes the universe in time for events in the news. ‘Edit’ is controlled by ‘openness’, but it can have a powerful impact on your world immediately, so please use it carefully.]

I read it twice, but I still couldn’t get the hang of it. I looked down at the scroll.

[There are four skills available in the current Editor Class. Thirty skill points are not currently allocated.]

The skill points given to me this time were thirty.

[People Search Lv4 (Active skill – four points required)

There is one more slot to search for a person. It will be available with other passive skills applied.

Ranking News Lv3 (Active skill – three points required)

You can receive first, second, and third place news with high cumulative view counts in a specific category. You can use it three times a month. It will be available with other passive skills applied.]

The rating of the future news, which was at the bottom of the Ranking News, was not visible. Therefore, it seemed that I couldn’t see the future beyond twelve years from now.

‘Is twelve years the end?’ I went down the scroll with that thought.

[Infiltration Report Lv2 (Active skill – ten points required)

We will send a reporter to a specific target. The reporter will conduct a fifteen-day intensive

investigation into the target and bring in one article that will not be reported to the established

press. When you are sending a reporter, you can specify what to investigate.]

‘I’ve already seen this.’

The key was at the end.

[Edit Lv1 (Active skill – thirteen points required)

Attempt to edit the published news. Editing is limited by ‘number of characters’ and ‘probability items.’ Edited news, as soon as it’s edited, changes the universe in time for events in the news. Edited news doesn’t come back from the future news. Other news that has been altered by editing will not have correction news. You can use it once a month.]

‘It changes the universe… What a grandiose thing it is…’

Anyways, that was great. I happened to have a future to change, a nuclear war that would bring the end of the world.

‘But… then… can I really make the nuclear war disappear by typing in a few words?’

Come to think of it now, I wondered if this was really feasible.

‘Maybe I canceled the bunker expansion too soon. If I say I am going to rebuild it, that’s enough. Why don’t I be a little fickle when I have already paid fifty million dollars and will pay another two hundred million dollars? Anyway, this is possible once a month, so let’s use it right now.’

Deciding that, I allocated skill points for each skill. When I looked at it, four points were needed for People Search, three points for Ranking News, ten points for Infiltration Report, and thirteen points for Edit. It was exactly thirty points.

‘There’s nothing to worry about this time.’

After allocating the skill points, I pressed the OK button. Soon a message followed, ‘Congratulations. You have been promoted to Editor Class. Upgrade your news to Pxxxxxxxx Class! What is needed to be promoted to Pxxxxxxxx Class is a subscription fee of ten million dollars. The qualifying terms are to control more than fifty listed companies in your countries with a combined market capital of more than four trillion dollars.’

“What?” When I saw it, I opened my mouth wide.

‘The condition of more than fifty listed companies is okay but… four trillion dollars? It was four hundred billion dollars earlier, but now it’s ten times as much.’

Before that, the total market capital of the KOSPI that Invictus Investment of four hundred billion dollars was listed on was only two point four trillion dollars now. Creating a four-thousand-billion-dollar company on the KOSPI was more like saying that the nation’s economy should almost be doubled.

“It’s… it’s impossible…” I muttered like that and soon realized, ‘No… No… What if I use this ‘Edit’ skill to make money?’

‘If the world is not destroyed, I may soon earn four trillion dollars. Why don’t I edit the stock price of Invictus Investment to the upper limit price after searching under my name? No, but before that, what if I intervene in the foreign exchange market and edit the exchange rate? Maybe it will be possible in a few days. It is very easy to do it that way. Rather, it may end up achieving the rating faster than I got to Silver.

‘Is Pxxxxxxxx Class the next Editor Class? How many x’s? Eight? That’s a word of nine characters. If I think about it a little bit, one word will be complete.

I picked up my pen and wrote ‘Pxxxxxxxx – Total nine characters’ on a notepad. That was the way it was. I was going to think of something, but I couldn’t.

‘Let’s think about this in a little while. Let’s edit something first.’

Thinking that way, I finished the rating upgrade and closed the email with the guide.

——-

Thirty minutes later, at 8:50, I received the upgraded emails, from “E 12 Hours After” to “E 12 Years After.” I first clicked on the news of 12 Hours After.

[Politics – Rep. Ahn Joon-sung urges economic cooperation with North Korea.

Economy – Invictus Investment’s fourteen percent rise on the second day of listing.

Society – The rise of the A.I.: Is the white collar class falling?

Life/Culture – In the low yuan era, cheap overseas travel to China.

World – The Arab Spring: will democracy come to Saudi Arabia?

IT/Science – Will the successful PS VR4 continue to be a big hit this time?

Sports – FC Seoul easily overpowered FC Sejong, 2-0.

Entertainment – Comedian Kang Seung-hyun is arrested on charges of illegal gambling.]

I could see the active skills that had been collected so far under the articles.

[People Search – 1. 2. 3. 4.

Ranking News – Enabled

Crow Summon – Summonable (two times are left)

State Setting: Korea]

And there was another new skill.

[Edit – Activate]

I looked at it vacantly and clicked on the ‘Activate’ button. Then, as the usual cursor soon turned into scissors-shaped one, the comment where “Activate” was written changed.

[Edit – Click on the article you want to edit.]

I turned the scissors-shaped cursor up and round.

‘… can I just change anything?’

I searched from top to bottom for an article I wanted to change.

‘Invictus Investment’s fourteen percent rise… I can’t change this. In Society and Life/Culture, there are only columns. If the PlayStation is a big hit, it’s good to me, too. Oh, here it is…’

In Sports, there was an article titled FC Seoul easily overpowered FC Sejong, 2-0. FC Se-jong was my club. When I first took over, I had pledged that I would go beyond Korea to become the best club in Asia. However, I didn’t pay attention to it, because not long after the decision to take it over was made, I found out that the end of the world was near. Thanks to the money I poured into it during the first season, it went up to the first division, but it was hovering around the bottom as my interest was cut off prematurely.

‘Shall I edit this, then?’ I put the scissors-shaped cursor on the article, I stopped for a moment thinking, ‘Oh, I can only do this once a month.’

‘But… if I click on this, the opportunity will be lost?’ With that thought, I called out the Customer Service in a long time.

-[Hi, how are you? Subscriber Han Sang Hoon, what can I do for you?]

I didn’t want to talk long with this guy. I went to the point.

– I have a question for this editing skill. If I click on the article, will the opportunity be consumed there?-

[No, the editing skill will be completed when the subscriber has pressed the registration button after the article has been edited.]

It was good. That meant I could experiment with other articles.

‘OK, that’s good enough.’

I tried to close down the Customer Service window, but in case there was anything else I wanted to ask, I minimized it and came back to the article. I clicked on the article of ‘FC Seoul easily overpowered FC Sejong, 2-0,’ with the scissors-shaped cursor. Strangely, a sentence appeared at the top of the article: [100% probability – probability cannot be modified less than 50%.]

‘Is the probability… 50%? What does that mean?’

Anyway, I scrolled down further and read the article.

[FC Seoul easily won one victory after beating FC Sejong 2:0. FC Seoul, which left for Daejeon in the eighth round of the K League 2024 season at Daejeon World Cup Stadium at 6 p.m., shook FC Sejong’s net with Lee Jae-sung’s heading goal in the fourteenth minute and Kang Hyun-sung’s mid-range shot in the thirtieth minute.]

The article was ordinary. The content of the article was no different from what I usually saw. There was only one difference: I could move the cursor between the lines, like I had turned on a word processor.

‘Hmm… Shall I change that FC Sejong beats FC Seoul?’

I changed the first sentence, ‘FC Sejong easily won one victory after beating FC Seoul 2:0.’ Then, the caption at the top changed to, [0% probability – Current article cannot be posted.]

‘What is it? Is it impossible for our team to beat FC Seoul?’ But in this way, the content written in the rear part would be nonsense, since the team and the players didn’t match first.

‘They didn’t go to Daejeon for an away game in a match…’

I rewrote the third sentence first, ‘FC Sejong, which met FC Seoul at home stadium in Daejeon, in the fourteenth minute in the first half…’

After I edited the article there, I recalled the names of the aces and strikers of FC Sejong for a moment, ‘Who are our aces these days?’

Then, I wrote again, ‘Koo Hyun-mo shook FC Seoul’s net with a heading goal and Ji Ho-sung’s mid-range shot in the thirtieth minute.’

But still, the probability was zero percent.

‘What the hell is wrong with this?’

While I was looking at it, I suddenly searched the portal site for ‘Koo Hyun-mo’ and ‘Ji Ho-sung’. There was news of the coming. [In the match against FC Jeonbuk, Ji Ho-sung’s toe was fractured by a tackle from the opposing defender; four weeks injury.]

FC Sejong’s ace Ji Ho-sung was unable to appear in the match because of a broken toe. I put another name in place of Ji Ho-sung.

‘Recently, I hear that midfielder Kim Sang-jin is good at it. Okay, let’s search for the name.’

I tried Kim Sang-jin in place of Ji Ho-sung. ‘Koo Hyun-mo shook FC Seoul’s net with a heading goal and Kim Sang-jin’s mid-range shot in the thirtieth minute.’

And then finally, the top comment changed like this, [84% probability- Current article registration is available – Register]

‘Oh, it’s only possible if the changes are correct. And eighty-four percent probability… It’s hard for our team to beat strong team FC Seoul 2:0… But it’s not impossible.’

In any case, the changed news seemed to have to be over fifty percent likely. I clenched my fist,

‘If this is the case, I can get rid of the nuclear war right here.’