Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 132

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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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Editor’s Survival Manual Chapter 132

ep19. Exploring the Timeless Hotel! (5)

“Seo Do-un, use me as a stepping stone and make for the door!”
“Y-yes…!”
I took Kwon Mu-seop at his word and used his body as a platform, scrambling toward the foyer.
But even with my foot braced against Kwon Mu-seop’s shoulder, the door remained more than a meter away.
I hesitated, then hurled myself toward the restroom beside me.
I draped my torso across the restroom wall and clawed my way up.
“Manager!”
I stretched out my arm and hauled Manager Kwon Mu-seop up into the restroom after me.
Looking down from the restroom wall, I saw Director Go Hong-sang and Vice-Director Kim Sun-woong barely clinging to the wall-mounted television.
A wall-mounted television, of all things.
It was far too flimsy a structure to bear the weight of two grown men.
“Hell…!”
Desperation seizing him, Kwon Mu-seop scaled the shoe rack near the foyer like a rock climber.
Since the restroom and foyer were nearly adjoining, reaching the door took only moments.
Click—click!
But the door wouldn’t budge.
Kwon Mu-seop shoved at it with one hand for a moment, then, deciding it was hopeless, called to me.
“Seo Do-un, climb up and open the door!”
I took the hand Kwon Mu-seop offered.
He hoisted me up smoothly and planted me on his back.
Then he braced himself against the outer wall with both arms and legs, stabilizing me.
Seated on Kwon Mu-seop’s back, I threw my shoulder against the door.
My hopes for it to open proved futile—the door was absurdly heavy.
Thud—thud!
It shuddered but refused to yield.
And since I was braced on Kwon Mu-seop’s back, I couldn’t put my full strength into it.
“Don’t hold back—push with everything you’ve got!”
Sensing my hesitation, Kwon Mu-seop shouted at me.
Damn it—he’s right. Wasting time is just wasting energy.
I ignored the discomfort beneath my feet and hurled all my strength against the door.
“Uuugh…!”
Crash!
The door resisted, then suddenly swung open.
Thud!
“Ugh…!”
I tumbled straight onto the corridor floor.
What? Did gravity come back?
I knelt there for a moment, disoriented, then turned to look back at the room.
Manager Kwon Mu-seop was still bracing himself against the wall and shoe rack with both legs.
“Hah…!”
I snapped back to my senses and yanked the door fully open.
Whoosh!
By then, Kwon Mu-seop had already pulled himself clear of the room.
He immediately shouted at me.
“Seo Do-un, the wire!”
I tossed the wire to Kwon Mu-seop, who began unwinding it and called into the room.
“Vice-Director!”
The Director and Vice-Director were still holding their own somewhere in the middle of the space.
I was standing upright, yet people around me were falling sideways.
My sense of direction was spinning apart.
Moreover, the space was already being devoured quite visibly—roughly half the room had lost its form, leaving only color that slowly spiraled downward.
As the wire descended from above, the Vice-Director shouted to the Director.
“Director, go up first!”
“How am I supposed to manage this bare-handed…!”
“Just hold on—I’ll pull you up!”
Seeing the Director’s dismay, Kwon Mu-seop called out.
He stripped off his outer jacket and spoke to me as well.
“Seo Do-un, help me pull from behind.”
Kwon Mu-seop, still in uniform, undid his necktie and wound it around his hand.
Then he sat down in front of the door, feet planted firmly on both sides of the frame.
Fixed in that position, he began hauling the Director up by the wire.
But—what was this?
The Director was far heavier than expected.
Director Go Hong-sang was a gaunt man who couldn’t have weighed more than sixty kilograms.
Yet even with Kwon Mu-seop pulling from the front and me lending strength from behind, the Director barely budged.
As if something on the other side were pulling back just as hard.
Meanwhile, with his weight now bearing normally, Vice-Director Kim Sun-woong began climbing the wall in great strides.
He surged upward like a wild animal.
But the instant Kim Sun-woong grabbed hold of a column on the wall—
Crack!
The column crumbled to dust.
Hell, it wasn’t my imagination.
That pulling force was genuinely growing stronger.
Whirrrr—!
And now it even began emitting a sound like spinning wheels.
Kim Sun-woong scraped down the wall but arrested his fall with a grip of sheer willpower.
Then he gathered himself and managed to latch onto the door frame.
“Seo Do-un, grab the Vice-Director!”
I released the wire and hauled the Vice-Director toward me.
Thud!
Vice-Director Kim Sun-woong finally tumbled onto the corridor floor.
But there was no time to breathe.
While I was helping the Vice-Director, Kwon Mu-seop stood alone holding the wire, his temples bulging as if his blood vessels might burst.
All four of us seized the wire together.
Whirrrr—!
The Director, still inside the room, was being dragged upward, his hair and clothes whipping about in chaos.
“Director!”
As the Director was hauled toward the foyer, the Vice-Director stretched out his arm.
The Director reached back, and the Vice-Director managed to clasp his hand.
The Vice-Director wrenched that hand free from the room.
All of us tumbled backward together, and as the room consumed everything up to the entrance, the door swung shut on its own.
Slam!
“Haa—haa…!”
I gasped for breath, my eyes fixed on the closed door.
Fortunately, whatever was devouring the space seemed not to cross the doorway.
“Phew…!”
I caught my breath at last and turned to look at Manager Kwon Mu-seop.
But something felt wrong.
Kwon Mu-seop and Kim Sun-woong stood rigid and silent.
Director Go Hong-sang was nowhere to be seen.
And that smell of blood…!
“…?”
I moved toward Kwon Mu-seop, uncertain.
Then I, too, froze solid.
The Vice-Director was holding a severed arm.
An arm of Go Hong-sang’s, cut clean as if by scissors.
“Huh…!”
I watched the limb and blood dripping from it, my face going pale.
But the Vice-Director did not handle the severed piece carelessly; instead, he turned to Kwon Mu-seop and asked.
“Manager Kwon, what time is it?”
“Director Go Hong-sang’s time of disappearance: 2:08 PM.”
Kim Sun-woong nodded and removed his outer jacket.
Then he wrapped the Director’s arm carefully in it.
“Director… I can’t say it was good, but to think it would end like this…!”
Vice-Director Kim Sun-woong muttered, his heart clearly torn.
Kwon Mu-seop and I were too shocked to speak.
It was then.
Crash!
The door to the adjacent room burst open, and a man came running out.
“…!”
We spun around in alarm.
But…!
“Haa—haa…!”
The man who came racing out of the adjacent room was none other than the Director himself.
It was Go Hong-sang, who had left only one arm behind with the Vice-Director.
“…?”
All of us stood frozen, staring at this new Go Hong-sang.
Pale-faced and gasping, the new Go Hong-sang looked exactly as he had moments before.
And his arm was completely intact.
The Vice-Director glanced back and forth between the severed arm in his hands and this newly arrived Director.
Then, without hesitation, he spoke.
“Mu-seop, seize him.”
“Yes!”
Kwon Mu-seop rushed forward and grabbed Go Hong-sang.
“What are you doing?”
Go Hong-sang objected strenuously, but Kwon Mu-seop paid no mind and twisted his arm, bending it back.
“Ugh…!”
Then he removed the Director’s glasses to peer into his eyes, and proceeded to check inside his mouth.
“…!”
Go Hong-sang recoiled in shock at the indignity of his jaw being forced open.
“No unusual findings evident.”
At Kwon Mu-seop’s report, Kim Sun-woong nodded.
Then he questioned Go Hong-sang directly.
“Director, what’s your vehicle registration number?”
“Vice-Director, this won’t pass without consequence.”
“Director, you need to cooperate with me right now.”
Vice-Director Kim Sun-woong spoke in a calm, measured tone.
Evidently sensing something beneath the surface, Go Hong-sang reluctantly answered.
“…12 가 9XX9.”
“When did you take up your post at the Special Management Bureau?”
“January ninth of the year before last.”
“Where were you before that?”
“At the Government Business Assessment Office of the Presidential Coordination Office.”
Kim Sun-woong asked a few more questions, then nodded at Kwon Mu-seop.
“I think we can let him go.”
Kwon Mu-seop released his grip on the wrists he’d been holding behind Go Hong-sang’s back.
Go Hong-sang glared at Kwon Mu-seop and rotated his wrists, which bore white pressure marks.
To the irritated Director, Kim Sun-woong asked again.
“Director, why did you open that door and come out just now?”
“Why? Because you pulled me out, didn’t you?”
“Could you describe, in chronological order, what happened before you opened that door?”
“Vice-Director, if you’re trying to leverage the situation to intimidate me…!”
Go Hong-sang’s tone made it clear he wouldn’t tolerate further games.
Director Go Hong-sang was plainly no simple man.
Yet the Director was clearly misreading the current situation.
Rather than explain in words, Kim Sun-woong unwrapped the bundle he was holding.
The moment a blood-soaked human arm appeared, Go Hong-sang recoiled in horror.
“What is that…?”
“It’s your arm, Director.”
“…What?”
“The Director we pulled out of that room left behind only this arm and disappeared. We don’t know where the rest went.”
“Ha!”
Go Hong-sang let out a dismissive laugh, as if hearing nonsense.
Then his expression suddenly stiffened.
He was looking at the watch on the severed arm.
The same luxury watch he himself was wearing.
“You’re welcome to check your own hand if you like.”
“Get it away!”
As Kim Sun-woong tried to show him the arm, Go Hong-sang flinched violently.
When Go Hong-sang recoiled strongly, Kim Sun-woong covered the arm again with the cloth and pressed on.
“You do realize we four were dragged into the Special Zone, don’t you?”
“…Yes, I do.”
“And that we were in a hotel room where objects began being sucked into a single point?”
“I was the first to notice that phenomenon.”
“I’d like you to explain what happened after that.”
At Kim Sun-woong’s prompting, Go Hong-sang sighed and began to speak.
“The phenomenon intensified, people got pulled in, and then Manager Kwon and the young man here escaped first. They lowered a rope—I grabbed it, and the Vice-Director climbed the wall on his own and got out.”
“And then?”
“I was almost to the door myself when everything suddenly went dark. So I opened the door and came out…!”
“Do you remember me holding your hand?”
“You holding my hand?”
Go Hong-sang’s response to being told someone held his hand was complete denial.
Kim Sun-woong’s brow furrowed as he muttered.
“So the only memories missing are from the very end…?”
Before us, Director Go Hong-sang had vanished leaving only an arm behind.
And now a Director reappeared, intact and whole, with only a few seconds of memory erased.
What in the world was happening?
Was this a hazard of the Special Zone itself?
A person returning alive was the danger?
I pondered this, when something suddenly struck me.
“Vice-Director, could I see the watch on that arm?”
At my request, Kim Sun-woong retrieved the arm again.
I hesitated briefly, then carefully removed the watch.
“Director, would you show me your watch as well?”
Go Hong-sang extended his wrist with the watch.
It bore the same luxury timepiece as the one I had just removed.
I laid both watches side by side and compared them.
“There’s a time discrepancy.”
“A time discrepancy?”
“Yes—your watch is running thirteen seconds slower than the watch on the arm.”
At my words, everyone crowded around to verify the two timepieces.
The second hands indeed moved independently, each showing a different position.
“It appears the current Director is actually the Director from thirteen seconds before the arm was severed.”

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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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