Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 133

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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 133

ep19. Expedition! Timeless Hotel! (6)

“So you’re saying the Director crossed through time?”
“But for that to be true, the Director would have had to disappear in front of us first. Right?”
“Sir, if we start talking about concepts like time travel or parallel worlds, this gets too big. For now, I think we should focus on the phenomenon right in front of us.”
I managed to calm down Kim Sun-woong and Kwon Mu-seop, who were throwing question marks my way.
“The Director who was with us left his arm here. But the different Director who came out of that room has both arms intact. Plus, he said he never held the Deputy Director’s hand, and the watch here is 13 seconds slow—doesn’t that suggest an unexplained time difference?”
“Hah…….”
Deputy Director Kim Sun-woong exhaled a long sigh at my words.
“So this Director really is the real Director?”
“I’m not entirely sure myself…….”
“Who do you think you are, calling someone real or fake?”
Go Hong-sang snapped sharply as he listened to our conversation.
The Director was deeply on edge now, but I could understand his state of mind.
A conversation I’d had with Cha Si-eon came naturally to mind.

-What do you think constitutes a human being?
-Lack and desire?
-Cells.

If this Go Hong-sang truly was a Go Hong-sang who had crossed 13 seconds of time, then this Go Hong-sang would also possess Go Hong-sang’s lack, desire, and cells.
But could you really call Go Hong-sang himself just because of that?
Then what about the Go Hong-sang who left with one arm missing?
That Go Hong-sang is Go Hong-sang, but this one is not.
And if the one-armed Go Hong-sang is still alive somewhere in spacetime?
If we treat him as gone and get along well with this Go Hong-sang, is that a happy ending?
It was the kind of dilemma that made your head feel like it was smoking.
The person involved had to be taking it even harder.
In fact, Go Hong-sang’s eyes had been rolling back ever since seeing his own arm.
“Stop wasting time on pointless talk and find a way out. Have you given up on the rescue request?”
In response to Go Hong-sang’s hectoring, Kwon Mu-seop spoke up.
“Communication issues are making rescue requests difficult, Director.”
“Then you need to come up with an alternative, don’t you?”
“Direct exploration is our only option at this point.”
“You’re saying we explore this place? With just this team? Think before you speak.”
Go Hong-sang pressed Kwon Mu-seop relentlessly.
Then Kim Sun-woong stepped in.
“Director, the situation is certainly difficult. There’s doubt about whether they can pinpoint our location from outside, and even if they do, whether they can breach… The Nascent Period needs another twenty days to end. In times like these, it’s better to move while we still have strength.”
The Deputy Director spent a good while persuading the Director.
Then the slightly appeased Go Hong-sang spoke.
“All right, then have Kwon Mu-seop and that friend next to him scout ahead.”
What was that supposed to mean…….
“If we scatter, we’ll be in more danger, Director. We need to stay together.”
“What are you saying, telling me to wander around with you?”
“No, Director. What I meant was…….”
In the end, the Deputy Director led the Director to a corner of the corridor.
Then he turned his back to us and started muttering something.
What was that…….
I turned to look at Kwon Mu-seop beside me, bewildered by the behavior of the senior officials.
But the Chief—goodness.
He was bearing the extreme fatigue in his eyes with a vacant stare.
Ah, Chief. What kind of fight were you having out there…….
I belatedly realized what burden Cha Si-eon and I had placed on Kwon Mu-seop.
Feeling the weight of that guilt, I spoke up.
“Still, it seems like the Deputy Director is on our side…….”
“The Deputy Director is definitely on our side. He used to be the Field Team captain.”
Ah, I’ve heard of him.
They said he was like a tiger in his day.
That explained why Kwon Mu-seop and the Deputy Director worked so naturally together.
Certainly, Kim Sun-woong had the bearing of someone from field operations.
Go Hong-sang seemed like the kind of man whose heaviest object in his life would be a book or a fountain pen, both picked up for survival.
Kim Sun-woong, by contrast, had the build of a bear, and if he set his mind to it, he could snap a fountain pen with his fingers like kindling.
Yet this Kim Sun-woong loyally and skillfully assisted his superior, Go Hong-sang.
A moment later, Kim Sun-woong returned to us after finishing his conversation with the Director.
“The Director’s convinced. But he wants to wait five more minutes, he says.”
“Five minutes?”
“Five minutes to prepare himself mentally.”
“Ah.”
The Director was leaning his back against the wall at the far end of the corridor, deep in breathing exercises.
Right, it would be a shock any way you looked at it—dying and coming back to life.
Deputy Director Kim, on the other hand, was eerily composed.
“What should we do with this arm? If it’s human remains, we should take it. If it’s just severed, maybe we should leave it.”
“Let’s take it for now, just in case.”
“Right, maybe we should.”
Kim Sun-woong gave a light answer and tucked the arm, wrapped in his outer garment, into his side.
Whether to call that boldness or thoughtlessness.
That was when Kwon Mu-seop lowered his voice and asked Kim Sun-woong.
“But are we going to keep the Director like this?”
“What else can we do?”
“If this abnormal phenomenon is only valid within the Special Zone…….”
“Then things get complicated.”
Kim Sun-woong’s gaze turned toward me.
At those words, I suddenly grasped the seriousness of the situation.
If the head of the Management Bureau went wrong in the Special Zone, the Bureau’s entire direction would change one way or another.
My own treatment—the thing that sparked this crisis—would shift significantly as well.
And above all, Lee Sol’s issue could be completely sidelined.
A troubling prospect on all fronts.
But this was all something we could only discuss once we escaped this place.
“We need to target the Core, don’t we?”
“I think so too.”
“Since this is our first Nascent Period exploration of the Special Zone, I’ll assess the spatial conditions first and identify hazards.”
“Understood. Since you’re field personnel, I’ll follow your lead, Chief.”
“As for the Director…….”
“The Director will do the same. Just follow protocol.”
“Thank you.”
While the Deputy Director and the Chief talked, I looked around briefly.
This was a hotel guest room corridor.
But all the lights were out except for the green emergency exit lights.
So the long corridor was dark and desolate.
The Nascent Period Special Zone with almost no information gathered.
The longer a Special Zone survives, the stronger it becomes—and the more humans it consumes, the stronger still.
I’d briefly entertained the thought that a Nascent Period Special Zone might be fragile, like a baby.
But now such optimism was impossible.
The Director had left an arm behind and vanished.
This place was clearly a danger zone.
Shortly after, the Director, having prepared himself mentally, came toward us.
“We will now begin exploration of the uncharted Hotel Special Zone. I ask that you all follow my instructions.”
Once we’d gathered in one place, Kwon Mu-seop opened his briefing.
“The Hotel has been reset five times so far. During that time, the Hotel’s Core has only been found on Basement 1. So we’ll search for the Core on Basement 1 as well. Seo Do-un and I will move ahead, and Deputy Director, I’d appreciate it if you’d cover our rear visually. Director, please follow the Deputy Director’s lead, and I apologize in advance for the lack of formal protocol.”
At Kwon Mu-seop’s explanation, Kim Sun-woong and I nodded, while Go Hong-sang clicked his tongue briefly.
“Before we leave this floor, let’s just check the condition of the guest room the Director came from.”
Kwon Mu-seop brought me toward the guest room the Director had burst out of.
After a moment.
He first pressed his ear against the door to check the situation inside, then carefully opened it.
Then unexpected light spilled through the gap.
“……?”
Hadn’t the Director said it was dark in there?
The guest room interior we’d first entered was the same way.
But this time, the room we opened was softly lit in an orange glow.
And what was that on the floor—candles?
I stared in daze at the multiple candles drawing a heart on the guest room floor, the rose bouquet on the table, and the colorful balloons stuck to the ceiling, in sequence.
“Director, did you see anything like that when you came out earlier?”
“……No. I didn’t see it.”
Go Hong-sang murmured in surprise.
That was when.
A human shadow moved inside the room.
Kwon Mu-seop sensed danger and quickly pushed the door closed.
But he didn’t shut it completely, and after listening for a moment, slowly opened the gap again.
We peered back into the room through the opening.
“……!”
But the room prepared for a proposal was nowhere to be seen—the entire space was painted a vivid crimson with blood.
Splash-!
And blood that had pooled on the floor and was spilling into the entryway.
Thud-!
Kwon Mu-seop closed the door before the blood could overflow.
Then slowly opened it again.
What we saw next was…….
Clatter- clatter- clatter-!
The room’s furnishings and furniture were spinning in circles like laundry in a washing machine.
“…….”
“…….”
Kwon Mu-seop pulled out the necktie he’d casually stuffed in his pocket earlier and tossed it into the room.
It was sucked in and spun along with the furniture.
Kwon Mu-seop watched it and murmured blankly.
“What on earth is this?”
“I have no idea either…….”
Was there some kind of error?
Was it still under renovation?
We opened and closed the door several more times.
Each time, the room showed a different form and atmosphere.
“The path downstairs might not be normal either. To be safe, stay about ten paces behind us and follow.”
We stopped observing the room and descended via the emergency staircase.
When we finally reached the hotel’s lobby, we encountered yet another unexpected sight.
The hotel lobby was full of people.
Not missing persons or Contaminated Ones trapped in the Special Zone, but ordinary people—the kind who’d come to stay or eat at the hotel.
It felt so real we wondered if we’d somehow emerged into the outside world.
“Have we made it back to reality?”
“No, Chief. The season seems different. There’s a person wearing a coat over there.”
It was now July, with the heatwave just beginning.
Yet the people passing through the lobby were wearing thin coats and cardigans.
Clothes suited to early spring or late fall.
“Like what happened in that guest room earlier, maybe something’s tangled together…….”
We carefully observed the people casually passing by on the Lobby 2nd Floor open balcony.
Then Go Hong-sang, waiting in the back, grew impatient.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you searching for the Core?”
It wasn’t a particularly loud voice.
But that instant, the people passing through the lobby stopped dead.
Then they looked up toward us.
“……!”
Dozens of gazes suddenly fixed on us.
But wait—why were their eyes so large?
They all had their mouths open in perfect O’s, and their eyes were just as wide.
I was thinking, why are their eyes like that, when I suddenly understood.
Their eyes were completely hollow.
Ah-?
Ah?
Ah, ah?
Ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh?
People with black holes where their eyes should be made droplet-like sounds from their gaping mouths.
Then, like balloons, they slowly began to rise, drifting toward us.

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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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