Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 101
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Editor’s Survival Rules Episode 101
ep16. Because I Made You (5)
“Did you want to see that man’s body?”
“What? No way!?”
Ryu Dan-a shouted back at my question.
I could hear Cha Si-eon starting to speak then stopping through the earpiece.
Glancing to the side, I saw Kwak Jae-gyeom and Oh Tae-o with surprised rabbit eyes.
But I ignored them all equally and asked again.
“Then what?”
“What do you mean ‘then what’? I was just annoyed because he was being rude to me!”
“So you really were planning to strip him?”
“Why are you even asking that?”
“I have something to confirm.”
Ryu Dan-a looked at me with incomprehensible eyes.
It was almost like looking at a thug, but I didn’t mind and focused on asking again.
“How far were you going to strip him? Outer clothes? Upper body? Or everything, top and bottom?”
“Are you a pervert?”
“No. Please answer.”
“Hah…”
Ryu Dan-a was speechless for a moment, then soon snorted and answered.
“Just, you know, moderately?”
“If you stripped him moderately and he looked better than expected, would you have stripped him completely?”
“What are you going on about? I wouldn’t do such a thing!”
“Why not?”
“Why? Do you think I’m a pervert like you?”
Ryu Dan-a got angry again and huffed.
Even stomping her foot on the floor.
But the one who suddenly acted out stripping was Ryu Dan-a herself.
The one who told the person who stopped her to strip and apologize was also Ryu Dan-a.
But I’m the pervert and she’s not?
Living life so boldly like this, in some ways it’s admirable.
“It was just a joke from the start! I wasn’t even being serious about it!”
-Everything she just said is true. Level 4 indignation. Considerable will to prove her innocence.
Ryu Dan-a protested again, and I nodded at Cha Si-eon’s analysis that followed.
Then I spoke to Ryu Dan-a again.
“I heard from Acting Director Oh Tae-o. He said Ryu Dan-a’s pranks are a bit extreme, but she still stops herself at the appropriate line.”
“So what?”
“It really seems to be true.”
“…?”
When I nodded in understanding by myself, Ryu Dan-a stared at me like a displeased cat.
“And you said it yourself earlier. That you’re good at lying.”
“Are you just making random comments because you have nothing to say?”
Ryu Dan-a asked, narrowing her eyes.
She seemed to want to understand it that way, but no.
I’m asking important questions right now.
I’ve been thinking about this continuously since before coming here.
What kind of person would I be meeting this time?
From what I’d heard, she was cooperative with the Management Bureau, scared of recording sounds, sensitive but prone to extreme pranks, and a Contaminated Person who had harmed over twenty people.
And the Ryu Dan-a I saw directly with my own eyes was someone slightly vain, who smiled with cat-like eyes, easily got angry but easily calmed down, was particularly enraged at being called by numbers, and seemed simple yet complex.
She was such an unpredictable character that it wasn’t easy to figure her out.
But now I think I’m starting to understand, so I asked again.
“Ryu Dan-a, you’re currently wondering which side to join, aren’t you?”
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
Ryu Dan-a smiled and frowned at my question.
As if asking where such a random question came from.
Cha Si-eon’s analysis overlapped with Ryu Dan-a’s perfect acting.
-Level 2 tension, Level 4 confusion. Reaction of doubting the truth of what she just heard.
Indeed.
I nodded inwardly and continued questioning.
“But you have absolutely no intention of siding with the Management Bureau.”
“Yeah, I hate these guys. You saw earlier.”
-False admission to blur the point. Tension Level 4, confusion Level 5. Strengthening of suspicion.
“So you’re choosing between the ‘three creatures’ from the beginning of the recording and the ‘thing that made me’ from the end of the recording, right? Deciding which side would be more advantageous to join.”
“What, suddenly… are you writing a novel?”
-Counter-question to buy time. Tension Level 5. Confusion Level 8. Searching for reasons within certainty.
Ryu Dan-a sitting in front of me was smiling brightly.
A relaxed face completely different from the analysis Cha Si-eon conveyed.
She said she was good at lying, and it was really true.
But I’m also someone familiar with lies.
What editors look at all day are authors’ elaborate lies.
Moreover, Cha Si-eon had given me a hint earlier.
-Number 71 has a meticulous side unlike her appearance. She’s also skilled at subtly manipulating others.
-There must be a reason she asked to meet Seo Do-un directly this time. If you just listen to 71’s words without knowing this, you risk falling into a trap.
-So in this interview, figure out 71’s intentions first. That’s the priority.
From the beginning, our goal wasn’t the recording’s content but understanding Ryu Dan-a’s true intentions.
Sure enough.
If I had naively just requested interpretation, I would have been played beautifully.
I actually panicked a bit in the middle.
So I focused only on Ryu Dan-a’s purpose and reached one conclusion.
“Ryu Dan-a, you roughly know what those ‘three creatures’ who said they’d tear me apart look like, right? Even if you don’t know their exact identity.”
-Confusion maintained at Level 8. Tension eliminated, converted to Level 5 excitement. Level 4 anger. Current emotions interpreted as displeasure, hostility, defensive reaction to unknown threat.
As if proving this analysis, the smile disappeared from Ryu Dan-a’s face.
Ryu Dan-a looked at me with a cold expression, then looked around once.
Then she met my eyes again and asked.
“How did you know?”
At words that were tantamount to a confession, I smiled instead of Ryu Dan-a.
“I guessed.”
At my answer, Ryu Dan-a’s expression became even colder.
-Number 71 wants to hit Seo Do-un.
Indeed, that was exactly her expression.
Ryu Dan-a’s gaze at me was menacing.
An expression of being extremely angry without even knowing what had been done to her.
She looked ready to kick back her chair and rush at me immediately.
In the midst of this, Cha Si-eon spoke.
-Seo Do-un. If there’s basis for that guess you just made, explain it. If you just guessed, continue bluffing like this.
There is basis for it.
But it’s too long to explain everything…
But I guess I have to.
If I let this slide, Ryu Dan-a will either headbutt me or roll around on the floor.
“I reasoned it out from Ryu Dan-a’s answers and several clues.”
“So, what exactly did you figure out and how?”
“Ms. Ryu Dan-a said she wanted to meet me after hearing the recording. But when you think about it, this was actually dangerous for Ms. Ryu Dan-a.”
“Why?”
“Since Ms. Ryu Dan-a knows Acting Director Oh Tae-o, there’s no way she wouldn’t know about the brainwave analysis device.”
“Ha, ridiculous. Don’t you think I might just be confident?”
“That’s why I also left open the possibility that it was just a simple prank. Ms. Ryu Dan-a did play absurd pranks from the start and only said things that would confuse me until the end.”
“I just said what I heard.”
“You pieced together what you heard and delivered it.”
“….”
“Both the content and the delivery method were editing filled with intent to confuse me, a kind of wordplay. But Ms. Ryu Dan-a didn’t stop midway either. So I judged it wasn’t a prank. Ms. Ryu Dan-a’s pranks aren’t this style, right?”
Having no words to refute, Ryu Dan-a pouted her lips.
If Ryu Dan-a was the type to stop her own pranks, she should have done the same with me.
But I was left neglected while taking damage.
Ryu Dan-a just watched me with what seemed like pity.
So this wasn’t a simple prank.
“So I thought about Ms. Ryu Dan-a’s intention, and only one thing came to mind.”
“What’s that?”
“Probing.”
-5 points of surprise. Excitement and anger reduced to half levels. A reaction acknowledging her scheme was discovered.
I nodded inwardly at Cha Si-eon’s analysis.
To understand Ryu Dan-a’s intention, I tried thinking from her perspective.
Ryu Dan-a is a contaminated person isolated in the Management Bureau.
But the Management Bureau played her a suspicious recording.
It happened that Ryu Dan-a could understand that sound, and Oh Tae-o requested an interpretation.
This was the situation given to Ryu Dan-a.
Now Ryu Dan-a had to choose.
If Ryu Dan-a were just a vain person, she would have simply interpreted it and demanded material compensation.
But for some reason, Ryu Dan-a came out saying she wanted to meet me directly.
What could Ryu Dan-a gain from such a choice?
Ryu Dan-a, who’s surprisingly smart.
Even risking the danger of brainwave analysis.
Only doing things that would displease the Management Bureau that confined her.
The reason she insisted on meeting me.
“My conclusion is that Ms. Ryu Dan-a also needed to assess the situation. She heard a strange recording with disturbing content, so she wanted to confirm who exactly these conversations were about.”
-6 points of surprise, 5 points of confusion. Hostility has disappeared and now she’s purely amazed.
“Unbelievable… you piece it together like that?”
Ryu Dan-a muttered as if dumbfounded.
Then she openly questioned me.
“Fine, I get that far. But what’s next? How do you conclude that I’m considering which side to join and that I know about the ‘three creatures’?”
“That’s because Ms. Ryu Dan-a is too good at lying.”
“What?”
“When I asked about the identity of the ‘three creatures’ side, Ms. Ryu Dan-a said she didn’t know. That was the truth.”
“So?”
“But when I asked how many there were, you said ‘three creatures are making sounds.'”
“Because there were three types of sounds. You guys can distinguish that much too, right?”
“Then when I asked how many were on the ‘the one who made me’ side, why did you immediately say you didn’t know?”
“….”
“If Ms. Ryu Dan-a really had the logic that ‘number of sounds equals number of people,’ you should have counted how many sounds there were when asked about ‘the one who made me’ too. But Ms. Ryu Dan-a just said she didn’t know.”
Three creatures because there were three sounds.
That’s too flimsy logic for someone supposedly clever to use.
Modern people are familiar with smart devices that make all kinds of sounds by themselves.
Moreover, the Special Zone is a space far more extraordinary than this.
The contaminated person I saw at the National Museum of Korea stretched their head like a string and spoke through holes in it like a solo chorus.
So it would be more natural for the answer to this question to consistently be ‘I don’t know.’
Whether there were three sounds or thirteen, you can’t tell from a recording alone where or how these sounds are coming from.
But Ryu Dan-a couldn’t say that.
If she answered ‘I don’t know’ when she clearly knew how many there were, it would have shown a false reaction.
“This means Ms. Ryu Dan-a has some grasp of the ‘three creatures.’ Though she knows nothing about ‘the one who made me.'”
“…Unbelievable.”
Ryu Dan-a’s deflated voice.
-2 points of confusion. 4 points of anger. She’s annoyed after being convinced.
And Cha Si-eon’s calm analysis that followed.
I spoke with confidence at that expected reaction.
“So Ms. Ryu Dan-a needed more information.”
“….”
“Because through the recording, she learned that the ‘three creatures,’ whose sounds alone are frightening, are in conflict with some unknown entity.”
Ryu Dan-a’s gaze looking at me became even narrower.
So I felt relieved inside.
It seemed my qualities as an editor were still intact.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Ashira
Damn…you’re too amazing Seo Do-un, such a badass!!
It feels like you can tell someone’s inner thoughts or ulterior motives just by interacting with them