Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 137

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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 137

ep19. Expedition! Timeless Hotel (10)
Raven talon marks……?
“Director, would you mind explaining the situation again after your memory broke off?”
Kwon Mu-seop asked Director Go urgently.
His tone was somewhat excited, which made the Director respond more passively.
“What exactly am I supposed to explain?”
“You must have felt yourself being relocated. Please describe whether you were standing upright at that moment, or if your previous motion was continuing.”
At the more detailed question, Director Go hesitated before speaking.
“I just fell. Bang.”
“From roughly what height did you fall?”
“From about knee height, like this. Bang.”
Director Go mimed falling face-first, stretching both arms out.
Falling from knee height and landing face-first like that?
Normally you’d call that “tripping.”
But he specifically said “fell.”
Did he have no awareness of standing before or losing his balance?
“What was the situation like between when you fell and when you came out through the door?”
“After I fell, everything goes dark. But something behind me was screaming, and because of that noise I practically ran to the door.”
“Screaming?”
“Something behind me let out a huge screech—kraaaaa—like this.”
…….
…….
…….
This Director really doesn’t read the field reports.
If he’d even glanced at the recent reports, he’d have some idea what that sound was.
The three field officers stared at him with cold eyes, but the Director, basking in the spotlight alone, didn’t even notice.
That serene Director earned another question from Kwon Mu-seop.
“Any other wounds or pain besides the nape of your neck?”
“Well, the back of my head too, there’s something…….”
Director Go gingerly touched the back of his head with his hand.
I shone my flashlight there, and Kwon Mu-seop carefully parted the Director’s wax-fixed hair.
We soon found a wound made by something sharp.
It wasn’t a severe injury.
It looked like something pointed had pricked him once—just the scalp slightly broken.
As we studied the wound, Deputy Director Kim muttered.
“Looks like he got pecked by a beak?”
…….
…….
Talons raking the back of his neck, and a beak pecking the back of his head……?
What do I do.
I found myself imagining the scene of the Raven getting angry and striking the Director across the back.
I know I shouldn’t be trivializing it like this, but I found myself thinking: did the Raven’s patience finally snap too?
“That Raven fellow must have quite the temper.”
Deputy Director Kim’s half-joking, half-serious remark made Kwon Mu-seop laugh.
“He’s definitely not your ordinary creature.”
The way Kwon Mu-seop said it, he looked strangely pleased.
So I had to swallow my mounting anxiety alone.
* * *
“On Basement 1, we might encounter more immediate hostile reactions.”
As the rest period ended, Kwon Mu-seop addressed us.
It was fairly harsh news.
We had taken no fewer than four attempts to break through the Lobby.
While the first three failures were mainly due to Director Go’s mistakes and recklessness, that too stemmed from the Lobby space itself being dangerous to us.
Moreover, on the fourth and final attempt, strange things followed us even though we just passed through quietly.
This space was clearly wary of our approach to the Core.
If the Lobby was already like that, the reaction on Basement 1, where the Core was hidden, would naturally be far more intense.
“Basement 1 contains high-end restaurants, a cake shop, and so on. The Core has been found in locations including inside a Chinese restaurant’s kitchen, a wine storage rack in an Italian restaurant, inside a cake shop’s warehouse, a Nursing Room, and ceiling gaps in the Corridor.”
On top of that, we practically had to conduct a treasure hunt.
We’d have to search every nook and cranny of an entire floor while avoiding unpredictable threats.
It was no trivial situation, and yet part of my mind kept picturing the Special Zone frantically scrambling to hide its Core.
This too is no way to be joking about things…….
I brushed aside the stray thought and asked Kwon Mu-seop.
“Why does this Special Zone only hide the Core on Basement 1?”
“I can’t fully explain the principle, but there seem to be structural constraints in place. That’s why even if the Special Zone regenerates, the Core’s location doesn’t change much.”
Right, this space is bound by all manner of restrictions and rules.
Same with the things that attacked us earlier.
Those hotel employee-like entities stopped moving whenever we looked at them.
Compared to someone wildly firing guns, that’s extremely well-mannered behavior.
It works in our favor, but not knowing the reason sometimes feels eerie instead.
I’m afraid the restrictions might suddenly drop while we’re off guard.
“If you’re ready, I’ll open the door now.”
Kwon Mu-seop said with a grim expression and pushed the door open.
I watched intently as the door crack widened.
But why was it flickering like that……?
Basement 1, visible through the door gap, was neither dark nor bright.
Instead, it kept changing brightness—dimming and brightening repeatedly.
It wasn’t like a broken fluorescent light flickering.
The door gap widened further, and the scene on Basement 1 came into proper view.
That’s when I was struck with bewilderment.
The Basement 1 of the hotel kept changing shape.
Silently, with no vibration.
Maintaining the broad framework of floor and ceiling.
The lighting, the formations, the people passing by—everything was changing by the second.
It was as if photographs taken at the same location every day had been shuffled haphazardly and were now flipping through one after another.
“Huh…….”
A gasp escaped from behind me, as if this vision wasn’t just in my eyes alone.
“What on earth…….”
“Isn’t this phenomenon created when we open the door?”
I addressed the softly muttering Kwon Mu-seop.
“We just aren’t opening and closing the door, but the phenomenon itself seems similar.”
The hotel’s space that changes when we open and close doors.
Now that Space Transformation was occurring on its own without the door as a medium.
Kwon Mu-seop nodded as if understanding my words.
But he didn’t readily suggest we venture in.
There was no knowing what might happen if we carelessly set foot in that ever-shifting space.
That’s when Deputy Director Kim, as if he’d been waiting, used Director Go’s left arm.
Whoosh—thud!
The Director’s left arm flew out through the door.
It landed normally on the corridor floor.
And leaving that arm behind, the surrounding space continued to transform.
“It doesn’t seem to affect us?”
At the Deputy Director’s assessment, Kwon Mu-seop uncoiled his wire.
Then he slowly stepped out into the corridor.
But contrary to his tension, Kwon Mu-seop also treaded the corridor normally.
Moreover, because the scenes shifted so rapidly, the people walking around barely seemed to register Kwon Mu-seop’s presence.
“It appears to be safe for now.”
Kwon Mu-seop sighed as he spoke.
“Director and Deputy Director, please stay in the Stairwell and keep the door from closing. Seo and I will conduct a space survey.”
“Right, just in case—take that arm with you.”
The Deputy Director pointed to the arm lying in the corridor.
Director Go was left in tears like that, yet Kim Sun-woong remained utterly unflustered.
Kwon Mu-seop glanced between the Director and Deputy Director, seeming at a loss.
But finding he couldn’t deny its usefulness, he picked up the Director’s left arm in the end.
I emerged from the Stairwell during all this, and after bowing silently to the Director and Deputy Director, we began our survey.
The space opened and closed repeatedly with each step we took.
People’s clothing jumped continuously from summer to winter, and while Christmas trees sparkled in the corridor, Valentine’s Day decorations suddenly appeared.
There were moments when the space became a sea of fire or blood, but none of it harmed us.
“It’s like watching an Immersive Exhibition.”
“An Immersive Exhibition?”
“Media art. They fill a space with imagery to create an illusion of being in another dimension…….”
“Ah, so these things exist these days?”
Manager…… maybe instead of just working, you should get out and see the world a little.
Then again, an Immersive Exhibition probably wouldn’t be very entertaining for people who traverse spaces like these.
Though the space was changing chaotically, it wasn’t actually dizzying.
The problem was finding the Core amid all this scattered movement…….
Stop.
Kwon Mu-seop, walking beside me, suddenly halted his steps.
“……?”
“Can you see that?”
I turned to look where Kwon Mu-seop was pointing.
In the middle of the corridor, where the Spiral Staircase stood, something was there.
A golden glow, rippling like the corona of the sun or the aurora of the polar regions, flickered brilliantly.
We approached.
And at the bottom of the Spiral Staircase, we discovered something like a small black hole.
A black sphere—whether devouring or emitting light, I couldn’t tell.
I muttered in surprise at the sight.
“Is that possibly the Core……?”
“It looks that way to me.”
It did to me as well.
The size and form matched the Core I knew.
Found it?
Yet joy was tempered—the phenomena occurring around it didn’t seem ordinary.
A shimmer like a dream’s edge.
Currents of light were flowing around the Core.
So it appeared to be operating in complex ways.
With the Space Transformation also repeating wildly, it made me wonder if that Core was orchestrating this space.
Either way, it felt like something not to touch rashly.
Destroy just that Core and we can leave here.
Well, what do I do about this.
I think I shouldn’t become accustomed to such inhumane acts…….
I looked at Kwon Mu-seop, and he nodded.
Then he threw the Director’s left arm toward the Core.
Hoping the contact would shatter it.
But then…….
Whoosh!
The moment the arm made contact with the Core, it disintegrated without a trace.
Or rather, it seemed to be sucked in.
Into that black sphere.
“Do you have the Three-section Staff?”
“Yes.”
In our panic, we pulled out another object and tried touching the Core.
But all our attempts were easily ignored.
No matter what we touched it with, the Core glowed brightly unharmed while only the object we touched was decomposed and vanished.
This was not the Core we knew—something that broke lightly.
Faced with bitter disappointment, we confronted the reality that our only means of escape had vanished.

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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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