Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 131

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Survival Manual for Editors Episode 131

ep19. Expedition! The Timeless Hotel! (4)

* * *

“The conclusion’s already been reached. If you put something like that on the table, what does that make me?”
Director Go Hong-sang spoke while leaning back against the sofa.
“Just handling those corpses is giving me a headache. The police are already complaining about unsolved cases piling up. Things are chaotic enough outside—I’d prefer it quiet on the inside, at least.”
Director Go Hong-sang’s tone was monotone enough to be called subdued.
But warmth was difficult to find within it.
His quiet voice came closer to expressing annoyance with dignified restraint.
If someone meeting him for the first time like me could sense this, there was no way Manager Kwon Mu-seop wasn’t aware of the pressure underlying it.
Yet Manager Kwon broke the silence again.
“This isn’t something to be quietly buried, Director. It concerns morale among our staff.”
“That’s exactly why I wish you’d dealt with it quickly. Why did you let something hopeless balloon into such a mess?”
All that came back was a cold rebuke.
“I sympathize with Contaminated Person 146 too. But what about the other Contaminated Ones? They’re all the same. Person 146 has already received excessive special treatment. And it hasn’t helped anyone. So I’m asking we follow protocol, and I don’t understand this stubbornness. Isn’t this the manual you all wrote with blood on your hands?”
“If I may—”
“No, Manager. If you understand it’s presumptuous—”
“Truly, if I may: a manual is still made by people. Moreover, no manual can cover every situation. So if necessary, we should be able to exercise discretion.”
Manager Kwon spoke in a steady voice.
Go Hong-sang regarded him for a moment, then adjusted his rimless glasses and muttered.
“That discretion, right at this moment?”
Perhaps it was my imagination.
But his measured voice seemed laced with mockery.
“And only for people you know? Then what happens to ordinary citizens without connections to the Bureau? Isn’t it rather brazen to stay silent all this time and then do this?”
It wasn’t my imagination.
Go Hong-sang was eyeing Manager Kwon with considerable displeasure.
Kwon sat quietly with his fists clenched, as if this treatment was nothing new.
It seemed only I, witnessing Kwon’s humiliation directly, was flustered.
Director Go Hong-sang mentioned the special operation at the Train Station the moment I took my seat.
What followed was rebuke and criticism directed at Manager Kwon and the Field Team.
Just as Yun U-jeong had said, the higher-ups seemed displeased with the Bureau’s movements regarding Lee Sol.
Perhaps because of this, Go Hong-sang openly rebuked Kwon, and I sat in discomfort watching it unfold.
Of course, a director could scold a manager.
But tearing him down in front of his subordinates seemed excessive.
The manager has pride too.
Could Go Hong-sang be deliberately humiliating Kwon to crush him?
“Director, even so, to call it neglect… isn’t that too much?”
I was beginning to suspect Go Hong-sang’s true intent.
Deputy Director Kim Sun-ung, who had been sitting quietly, interjected with a gentle voice.
“Don’t you know better than anyone how hard these people work?”
When Kim Sun-ung mediated with an appeal, Go Hong-sang let out a sigh as if conceding defeat.
Then he spoke again in a considerably softened tone.
“You mentioned Person 146’s father was a friend of Manager Kwon’s. I understand the sentiment. It’s precisely because I understand that I’ve made concessions so far. But I can’t go any further. I’m sorry, but I have no debt to that agent, and I have a responsibility to guide the Bureau onto the right path. So let’s end this discussion here.”
“Director, this isn’t a situation you can just dismiss—”
It was when Kwon was about to speak again.
Whirr—
The interphone on the table rang, and Go Hong-sang picked up the receiver without acknowledging Kwon.
“Yes. Ah, they’ve arrived. I understand. The audit committee has arrived, so let’s step out. Agent Seo Do-un will wait here.”
Go Hong-sang spoke quickly, as though tired of the exchange.
Then, before standing up, he drove in one final wedge.
“I want the Bureau to maintain a low profile. Exist without existing, or at least—while I’m director—absolutely no more incidents like before. Is that clear?”
“…….”
Go Hong-sang rose from his seat as if there was nothing more to say.
Watching him, I understood something clearly.
Why Manager Kwon always looked so drained and exhausted whenever he came back from dealing with superiors.
Director Go Hong-sang was like a wall with only human skin.
A wall that spoke like a person but where words didn’t truly land.
Moreover, though he’d made various accusations as if targeting Kwon’s weak points, they all seemed merely pretexts.
Go Hong-sang’s true intention lay in his final words.

‘Exist without existing.’
‘Don’t cause trouble while I’m here.’

This seemed to be the directorial philosophy that shaped the Bureau’s current orientation.
As Director Go Hong-sang stood, Deputy Director Kim Sun-ung and Manager Kwon rose with him.
And I swear by all that’s true—I did nothing.
Weee—!
It just so happened that a siren sounded from underground at that very moment.
Boom—!
Director Go Hong-sang merely stumbled at the vibration.
“Oh dear.”
And the loyal deputy director merely steadied him.
Manager Kwon was simply pushed aside as a result, taking one step back.
In that tumble, Kwon’s back merely brushed lightly against the back of my head as I sat…….
A sequence of simple events—’stumble, touch, bump, tap.’
That was all.
Yet in the next instant, our world turned pitch black.
……At first, I thought there’d been a power outage.
So we each lit up our phones and shone them around.
“Huh……?”
And we all realized something was wrong.
A large bed sat beside us.
A bed covered in white sheets—one that hadn’t been there just moments ago.
This was no longer the director’s office.
The realization struck me with confusion before alarm—because of the number of phone lights moving ahead of me.
I hadn’t been pulled into this strange place alone.
Along with me came the Bureau’s director, deputy director, and field manager.
It was the largest group ever pulled into a Special Zone together.

* * *

The entire Bureau leadership dragged into the Special Zone at once…….
I swallowed my bewilderment and switched on my flashlight.
Then I scanned the darkness around us.
The ceiling wasn’t particularly high.
The room was sized such that there was ample walking space between the large bed and furniture.
A large bed stood in the room, and a flat-screen TV hung on the opposite wall.
It looked like an ordinary master bedroom at first glance, but the details were off.
The pale gray carpet on the floor, for instance.
The small refrigerator in the corner of the room.
And most notably, the bathroom next to the bed was enclosed in transparent glass, its interior fully exposed.
In my experience, there’s only one zone where transparent bathrooms existed as a variant.
We were inside a hotel guest room.
“What on earth is happening……?”
That’s when Go Hong-sang whispered from the darkness.
Deputy Director Kim Sun-ung answered him.
“It appears all four of us have been drawn into the Special Management Zone.”
“Why all of a sudden?”
“It’s possible it came through Seo Do-un…….”
Go Hong-sang drew in a breath, then lowled his voice at me harshly.
“You should have been more careful. How could you be so careless!”
Excuse me……?
I’d simply been sitting there.
You people approached me, and it was the Raven who suddenly pulled us all here—yet you’re blaming me.
“It’s not Agent Seo Do-un’s fault, Director. For now, let’s assess the situation first.”
The deputy director calmed the director in place of my bewildered response.
Then he looked around and continued.
“This looks like the Hotel, but how long has it been since the Hotel’s core was destroyed?”
“The Hotel’s core was destroyed on June 3rd. Today is July 1st, so it’s been twenty-eight days.”
“Then isn’t it still too early?”
At Manager Kwon’s answer, Kim Sun-ung muttered as if thinking aloud.
Special Zones, no matter how thoroughly destroyed, regenerate over time.
And the time it takes for a reset Special Zone to regenerate is roughly fifty days.
That’s why the Island, which was destroyed even earlier than the Hotel, still hasn’t reappeared yet.
Moreover, it was the Bureau’s established doctrine that one couldn’t enter a Special Zone in such an early genesis phase.
“We’ve entered a zone still in the process of generation…….”
“Why does that matter now? Send a rescue request immediately.”
The director urged the deputy director, who was muttering calmly.
Though Go Hong-sang didn’t show it, he seemed quite flustered by the situation.
By contrast, Deputy Director Kim Sun-ung appeared remarkably composed.
“Director, we cannot deploy agents into a Special Zone of unknown status.”
“The command division itself has been dragged in—are we really going to abide by protocol? Initiate emergency measures.”
“Hmm…… Manager Kwon, can you reach headquarters?”
“No. I checked Agent Seo Do-un’s smartwatch, but communications are down.”
There are a few Special Zones where communications are severed.
The Bleeding Island, which we’d succeeded in restructuring twice before.
The Circulating Library, where neither memory nor records can be left behind.
Unlike those, the original Hotel had been an ordinary zone with functional communications.
So why is it dead now?
Could it be because we’ve entered a zone we supposedly couldn’t access?
If so, it might be impossible to reach in from the outside either.
I swallowed dryly at the ominous calculation.
What was the Raven planning with this stunt?
The collision of the director, deputy director, and manager against me had lasted barely an instant.
One or two more seconds and the director would have remained properly standing, the deputy director would have let go.
Manager Kwon, caught between them and me, would have withdrawn to an appropriate distance.
But taking advantage of that brief gap, the Raven had pulled us all in.
There had to be intent behind it.
And the Raven’s intent at this juncture could only mean…….
Removing obstacles standing in the way of its plan……?
I turned to look at the director, seized by unease.
That’s when Director Go Hong-sang was intently studying the table beside him.
“Everyone, look at this.”
The director indicated the table with a grave voice.
I shone my flashlight in that direction, and we all witnessed it together.
The table by the window was swirling and disappearing like water draining from a bathtub with its plug pulled.
A solid object was clearly being sucked away like liquid into somewhere.
Silently, as fine particles disappearing into a blender.
We were genuinely startled by the grotesque spectacle.
And the beam from my flashlight was itself being warped in a circular pattern as it too was drawn in.
As if a black hole had opened in empty air.
We slowly backed away from that distortion, seized by foreboding.
In the process, the table vanished completely.
Next came the walls and floor.
The wall and floor around the table began to be sucked into the same point.
Just as I realized space itself was collapsing inward, I lost my footing on the floor.
“……!?”
I suddenly found myself falling.
Not downward, but toward the window where the table had vanished.
As if gravity’s direction had reversed, I was pulled sideways into the void.
I wasn’t the only one falling.
The small furnishings in the room—chairs, pillows, and the like—had already tumbled and been devoured by the hole in space.
Just as I was about to be drawn along with them.
Crash—!
Manager Kwon, clinging to a column in the wall, seized my wrist.
Then, pulling me toward him, he shouted.
“Do-un, climb over me and head for the door!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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