Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 136

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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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The Unnamed Editor’s Survival Manual, Chapter 136
ep19. Expedition! Timeless Hotel! (9)
“Oh my, Director. You must have suffered greatly.”
“Gasp… sob…”
“Director, keep your mouth closed and rest. Your throat will be parched later.”
“Huff… huff.”
“I meant no harm, sir. If you’re to be buried after leaving here, you’ll need at least your arms…”
“Agh… ugh…!”
Director Go Hong-sang sat crumpled on the stairs, sobbing openly.
Beside him, Vice-Director Kim Seon-ung continued his peculiar commentary.
Does the Vice-Director dislike the Director?
I was listening to the Director’s wails one floor below, alongside Manager Kwon Mu-seop.
Kwon looked up with a complicated expression, and when our eyes met, he offered a weak smile.
“It’s okay. You did well.”
At Kwon’s words, I belatedly realized something.
That I’d been uncomfortable without knowing it.
How could I have known he’d weep so bitterly like that…?
It was my first time making someone cry since my school days, and my first time making a middle-aged man cry at all.
So I stood there ashamed of this disaster, lost in reflection.
Director Go.
The man who wouldn’t even set foot in the Management Bureau building because something felt off.
The man who’d left field operations to the Vice-Director, saying he didn’t understand them.
The man whose aim for running the Management Bureau was “no incidents during my tenure.”
He clearly hadn’t come here wanting this job.
Perhaps he’d been pushed into it against his will.
Having been stationed at the Presidential Coordination Office before transferring to the Special Management Bureau, he’d been exiled from the center to the periphery.
So perhaps Director Go simply wanted to pass his time without trouble and return to the mainstream.
But the field operatives kept throwing themselves into dangerous operations…
And the Manager not only failed to stop them but actively defied orders…
And now even the Director himself had ended up in the Special Zone…
“Ugh… sob…”
“…He’s been crying for a while.”
“Tell me about it…”
He must be very upset.
From the moment he first saw his arm, his expression had been terrible.
Yet to think he’d actually blame the Vice-Director for it.
I wouldn’t call it a proper explanation—more like a childish excuse—but, no. Actually, let’s just go with that.
Let’s chalk this whole mess up to that.
Let’s make it all the fault of the Vice-Director and the Director’s left arm.
While I nodded to myself, the Director’s sobs gradually subsided.
Instead, the Vice-Director’s voice drifted down in scattered fragments.
His tone was polite, but the gist of what he was saying amounted to: “Tough luck, right? We’re all struggling. Let’s just do our best, okay?”
A moment later, the Vice-Director descended the stairs toward us.
Then he lowered his voice and spoke.
“The Director’s fine now. He promised to listen better from here on.”
Maybe the Vice-Director didn’t see the Director as his superior anyway.
Then Vice-Director Kim suddenly looked at me.
With a smirk, he muttered something.
“Manager Kwon’s been looking rough lately.”
A pointed remark—*that’s your fault*, unspoken.
I felt embarrassed and answered quietly.
“I’ll apologize to the Director when we get out.”
“No, don’t. If you apologize, he’ll make a bigger fuss.”
The Vice-Director waved me off at my words.
“Just keep acting cocky like you do now. Manager Kwon will cover for you anyway. That’s what managers are for—might as well use them properly.”
He said this with a grin.
“But first, we’ve got to get out of here.”
The Vice-Director still seemed at ease.
As though this situation—isolated in an unknown space—was nothing much.
That’s what Field Team operatives were like.
And so I pitied the Director up there even more.
Dragged here against his will, he was suffering the humiliation of losing an arm—he was just a normal civil servant.
* * *
After we regrouped, we emerged back into the lobby.
But this time, the lobby that appeared was engulfed in flames, belching black smoke.
“…”
Crossing that sea of fire would be suicide, pure and simple.
We retreated to the stairwell and tried again.
The lobby that opened before us this time had its interior completely transformed.
As if time itself had shifted—the modern lobby now looked decidedly vintage, and Western soldiers in uniform were walking about.
They looked like American soldiers, but getting past them seemed risky too.
“Let’s move forward when we get a lobby with no one in it.”
We nodded at Kwon’s suggestion.
The lobby changes every time the door opens and closes.
So it made sense to keep cycling until we landed a version favorable to us.
We went back and forth between the lobby and stairwell, checking each new configuration.
We did this a dozen times or so.
Finally, a lobby with no one in it appeared.
It looked like the dead of night—only minimal lighting was on.
“Moving forward.”
We all stepped out together into the nocturnal hotel.
Pad-pad-
With no one around, only our footsteps echoed through the silence.
Pad-pad-
We were about halfway across the empty lobby when I glanced to my side and flinched, stopping dead.
“…?”
At the far end of the lobby, there was a person.
A woman in a neat business suit was standing there, grinning at me with a smile so wide it split her face.
Startled, I held my breath and nudged Kwon, who stood beside me.
But his reply caught me off guard.
“There’s one on the other side too.”
What?
I turned to look at Kwon.
On the opposite end of the lobby stood a man in a suit, posed defensively, his grin baring all his teeth.
What was this…?
I turned back to look at the woman in bewilderment.
“!”
But the woman who’d been far away had somehow moved much closer to me.
In just the time I’d glanced away, she’d covered at least twenty meters, yet she stood perfectly still now, still smiling.
The woman who resembled a hotel employee maintained the shape of a perfectly intact human from head to toe.
But there was something deeply inhuman about her.
She grinned only with her mouth—impossibly wide—while her eyes remained utterly lifeless, her lips forced into an unnatural split, making her look less like a person and more like a disturbing digitally manipulated photograph.
“The woman I saw has approached me by roughly twenty meters. She is now approximately twenty meters away. She is no longer moving.”
“Is she in motion?”
“No, she’s stopped.”
“She seems to move when you look away.”
“There’s one behind us too. We’ve identified three so far.”
Vice-Director Kim cut into my exchange with Kwon.
“They came to guard it, looks like.”
If he meant “it,” he was talking about the Core.
“Director, can you see what Manager Kwon is looking at right now?”
“The man on the right, you mean…?”
“Yes, you found him well. Can you keep looking at him and walk?”
“Yes…”
“Manager Kwon, we’ll be watching too. Everyone follow him carefully without blinking. We’re only a few meters away now.”
“Everyone, please place your hands on my shoulders and follow.”
I fixed my gaze on the woman as Vice-Director Kim instructed.
Then I placed one hand on Manager Kwon’s shoulder.
Manager Kwon started walking, and we fell into step behind him.
Pad-pad-
As long as I kept watching, the woman didn’t move.
But our direction of advance seemed to displease her.
Her body remained frozen, but her eyes tracked me relentlessly.
Grrrr- grrrrring-
And there was a faint grinding sound.
The woman was gnashing her teeth while still wearing that wide smile.
It made her expression impossible to read—was she laughing or furious?
One thing was clear, though.
She was waiting for the moment I’d look away.
Playing Red Light Green Light—a game from elementary school—for my life.
My eyes began to sting with strain.
I forced more pressure into my gaze and kept watching her.
The stairs down to the underground weren’t far now.
Then it happened.
Swish-swish-swoosh-!
Something rushed past with a sharp sound.
A dark shape entered my peripheral vision.
It was racing toward us, and I recognized what it was instantly, crying out:
“There’s another one!”
“Run!”
Manager Kwon, who’d been leading us forward calmly, suddenly bolted.
We lost our grip on his shoulders and had no choice but to look ahead.
Kwon was already far ahead, opening the door to the stairwell leading underground.
He held the door open with his foot, waiting for us.
“Seo Do-un, grab the door!”
Get the door, not go inside?
I started to dash through, then pivoted, throwing my body against the open metal door frame instead.
Kwon rushed past me a moment later, shouting:
“Vice-Director, toss the Director!”
I braced myself against the door and looked back.
The Vice-Director was hurling the Director by the back of his collar.
Beyond him, the hotel staff member had grabbed the Vice-Director’s arm.
But then Kwon kicked the creature loose, breaking its grip.
Crash-!
Despite its human form, it made a sound like a car collision when it flew backward.
The Director tumbled toward me, and I caught him and shoved him down into the stairwell.
Then I looked up at the hotel staff.
Fortunately, they were all clustered together within my line of sight.
At that moment, they stopped moving.
Then they straightened and smiled again.
Kwon and Vice-Director Kim backed slowly toward them, keeping their eyes fixed.
Grrrr- grrrrring-!
The hotel staff gnashed their teeth while grinning broadly.
Their hands folded neatly on their bellies, they glared as though desperate to tear us apart.
We kept our eyes locked on them as we retreated into the stairwell.
Then we shut the door.
* * *
“Director, are you alright?”
The Vice-Director asked calmly after rolling the Director like a bowling ball.
The Director, too exhausted to rage, simply nodded silently.
But the Vice-Director still looked worried. He turned to me and spoke.
“Agent Seo, shine the searchlight here.”
I turned the searchlight I’d been holding to illuminate the dark stairwell.
The worn, weary figure of Director Go sitting on the stairs became starkly visible.
Then the Vice-Director noticed something and murmured:
“Director, what’s this wound on your neck…?”
The Vice-Director gestured to me, and I aimed the searchlight at the back of the Director’s neck as he indicated.
Just as he’d said, the Director’s nape bore scratches as though something sharp had clawed at it.
All of them looked freshly made.
Moreover, there were several small holes in the collar of his dress shirt.
The Vice-Director had grabbed the Director by the back of his neck and thrown him, it’s true.
But I doubted human fingernails could leave wounds or marks like this.
When questioned by the Vice-Director, the Director hesitated before answering:
“I’m not sure of the cause. Every time my memory seems to cut out, I find new scratch marks on the back of my neck.”
“…Director, you should have mentioned that sooner.”
I wasn’t alone in wanting to say this.
But out of respect for our superior, we swallowed our words and examined the suspicious wounds instead.
Then the Vice-Director murmured:
“This looks like claw marks… from a bird, maybe?”
At the word “bird,” I stiffened.
I exchanged a glance with Kwon, and sure enough—
He was smiling strangely.
With that peculiar expression, he murmured:
“The talon marks are exactly the size of a Raven’s foot.”

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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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