Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 138

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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 Editor’s Survival Manual — Episode 138

ep19. Exploring! Timeless Hotel! (11)

“We can’t get out? What do you mean by that!”
Anger crept back into the Director’s voice.
“We found the Core, but conventional methods won’t destroy it.”
“So? So what are you suggesting we do?”
“For now, I believe we need to observe the situation.”
“Is that your answer? Standing around without any plan — what good will that do?”
Go Hong-sang had only been docile because of conditional hope.
But the moment their sole escape route was blocked, he erupted into fury.
“What exactly do you even know how to do!”
“My apologies. If you’ll wait, I’ll devise a solution.”
Kwon Mu-seop simply bowed his head under the Director’s sharp criticism.
As the Director began losing consciousness from sheer rage, the Vice-Director spirited him away upstairs.
After enduring that humiliation, Kwon Mu-seop fell silent.
He merely positioned himself before the iron door in the stairwell.
With the door left open, he began watching the constantly shifting Basement 1 below.
As though trying to conjure a solution from thin air.
Another hour passed in this state.
But we still had found no answers.

* * *

In the suffocating silence, I felt the pressure mounting in my own way.
I had to find a method.
I had to decipher Raven’s intent and escape from here.
Since this happened because of me, I had to find the thread.
But was it really right to trust Raven this blindly?
For this attempt to work, Raven would have to be a question-setter who only posed rational problems to us.
But that’s not how it felt to me at all.
All Raven had ever done was drive me to the edge of a cliff.
That I survived was the product of my own thrashing and pure chance.
Maybe even that was Raven’s design.
But if so, it had to be one of two things.
Either Raven understood my thoughts better than I understood them myself.
Or Raven was manipulating me without my knowledge.
And when my thoughts reached this point, one phrase always surfaced.

—I created you, that’s why.

I clenched my teeth silently.
If that premise was true.
What was I supposed to do now?
If I dove into that Core, would Raven — who made me — reveal himself?
“Do-un.”
“…!”
I looked up reflexively at being called, startled.
Then Kwon Mu-seop stared at me with concern in his eyes.
“You alright?”
“Sorry?”
“Your face has gone pale.”
At Kwon Mu-seop’s words, I ran my hand across my face.
I couldn’t verify my complexion that way, but I could feel my fingertips were as cold as a winter glass window.
“I’m fine.”
“If something’s wrong, tell me straight. Don’t hide it or push yourself.”
Kwon Mu-seop spoke while observing my condition.
Yet he himself looked oddly composed.
I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely composed or just making an effort to seem that way.
Unable to know which, I too feigned calm.
“Really, I’m fine. I’m just a bit tired, I think.”
“Yeah, lunar exploration is always exhausting.”
“Lunar exploration?”
“Oh, they don’t use that term anymore? Exploring an Unexplored Special Zone. They called it that because it felt like falling on the moon.”
Exploring an Unexplored Special Zone.
I’d only heard rumors of it.
That old method of exploration from before convicts could be utilized.
In its early days, the Management Bureau had ethical standards much like other public institutions.
Moreover, there weren’t even any criminals in Special Zones back then.
So explorers would haul provisions like climbers scaling Everest and just camp out indefinitely in Special Zones.
And when they encountered citizens, they’d bring those people along too.
It was an approach possible only in an age when people feared Contamination not at all.
And Kwon Mu-seop was someone who’d survived from that era until now.
I have respect for his career.
But sadly, our present situation was far more dire than those old “lunar explorations.”
This wasn’t an Unexplored Special Zone — it was a Nascent-Period unopened Special Zone.
An isolated space where we couldn’t even be sure an exit existed, and we had barely a day’s worth of rations.
Could we possibly survive until the Nascent Period ended and the Rescue Team arrived, without starving or becoming Contaminated?
So I had to find a way out somehow.
But I was lost.
Just thinking about Raven tangled my mind.
More than that, I wasn’t a creator — I was an editor. I was clumsy at building something from such total emptiness.
I was swallowing water like someone trapped in a maze, when Kwon Mu-seop suddenly spoke.
“Do-un, you don’t have to carry this alone.”
“Huh?”
“If you were isolated by yourself, that’d be different. But you don’t need to solve everything on your own right now. So ease up the pressure.”
I looked at Kwon Mu-seop, startled by his unexpected words.
Then he suddenly muttered with a melancholy air.
“A broken superior spouting this probably won’t sound convincing….”
“No, that’s not it.”
“I’m sorry I’m so incompetent. But don’t spread word of it when we get out….”
Kwon Mu-seop’s self-deprecation was ambiguous — half-joking, half-serious.
Either way, I was quite flustered and quickly denied it.
“I never thought you unconvincing. It’s just….”
“Just what?”
“I felt something like the sorrows of a breadwinner….”
“Ha-pfft.”
Kwon Mu-seop laughed at the phrase I’d carefully chosen.
Seeing someone with such a grave expression pull off such a joke was ridiculous.
He chuckled several more times, apparently finding it even funnier on reflection.
I watched him, then lowered my voice to ask.
“Do you think we can escape from here, sir?”
“I don’t know the outcome either.”
“….”
“Don’t look at me like I’m being irresponsible.”
At his remark, I averted my gaze.
Kwon Mu-seop chuckled softly, then continued in a leisurely tone.
“How many things in the world have certain outcomes? Only games offer guaranteed rewards for every action. Reality runs on Luck Seven, Skill Three — seven parts luck, three parts skill. So you fill up the three-part skill first, and hope for luck.”
At Kwon Mu-seop’s measured words, I felt genuinely shaken.
Surprisingly, Kwon Mu-seop wasn’t blindly trusting Raven at all.
If anything, he was more inclined to hedge his bets across all possibilities.
Once I grasped that misunderstanding, a strange sense of liberation washed over me.
So I turned his words over in my mind, then exhaled the breath I’d been holding.
“Phew….”
So I had been tensing my shoulders as he said.
After breathing out, I felt much lighter inside.
Right — let me set aside the question of Raven for now and focus on what’s in front of us.
There’s no need to blindly trust anything.
Let me keep a reasonable distance and search for fragments of possibility.
First, there was something surprising about this Nascent-Period Special Zone.
I’d thought a Type 1 Special Zone held only the memory of war.
So I’d imagined that, like a volcano erupting, the terrible memories buried in this space tore through the layers and became a Special Zone.
But unexpectedly, this space held all of ordinary daily life as well.
So what was it then?
Did a Type 1 Special Zone contain all memories equally, and they selectively extract only the memory of war to operate?
Plus, this number 13 that Raven kept showing me.
Was it mere coincidence?
If Raven knew me, then Raven would also know that I’d think of Nabbit at the sight of that number.
If there’s a clue in this…..
Something came to mind immediately.
“Sir, are you familiar with the concept of the Akashic Records?”
Nabbit’s new work.
The Akashic Records — a central motif of it.
“What’s that?”
“A library where all information is stored — an occult concept.”
Kwon Mu-seop showed interest in my explanation.
“When text exists in a person, it’s memory. But when it’s transferred to a library, it becomes information. So the Akashic Records contains all the world’s information and the memory of every moment. Doesn’t that setting seem similar to what’s happening outside?”
“So?”
“So….”
I began to continue, then stopped short when I saw Kwon Mu-seop’s face.
He was smiling — quite pleasantly, in fact.
“Looks like you’re thinking along similar lines. That’s actually why I called you over.”
“Really?”
When my eyes widened, Kwon Mu-seop nodded with satisfaction.
I let out a bewildered laugh at this strange sense of kinship, then spoke gravely.
“But before that, there’s something I need to confirm.”
“I’ve already checked that.”
“You mean… you were watching outside the door all this time?”
When I asked in disbelief, Kwon Mu-seop nodded again.
And I felt a strange sense of déjà vu at that sight.
That’s right.
I’d already been fooled by Kwon Mu-seop once before when I mistrusted him.
“So I was thinking of trying it right away, but there’s a problem to resolve first.”
Even as I felt a subtle sense of betrayal, Kwon Mu-seop glanced upstairs with his eyes.
Where the Director and Vice-Director were.
“Honestly, I think it’s an opportunity we won’t get again.”
“….”
…Right, I’d forgotten about that.
That’s right — Kwon Mu-seop was a snake who only pretended to be a punching bag.
Knowing everything, yet playing the fool.
I’d felt sympathetic about Kwon Mu-seop getting beaten down by the Director.
“So I gave it some thought, and since you took the lead on this, I was hoping you’d help divide up the roles.”
Kwon Mu-seop lowered his voice as he spoke to me.
Ah, of course.
This guy was calculating his next move even while taking criticism….
After hearing out Kwon Mu-seop’s proposal, I spoke with a concerned expression.
“But sir, I’m not very good at dealing with superiors.”
At my honest confession, Kwon Mu-seop stared at me for a moment.
Then he smiled broadly and replied.
“Don’t lie to me.”

* * *

“I believe I’ve found a way for us to escape.”
At my words, Kim Sun-woong showed interest.
By contrast, Go Hong-sang looked skeptical.
Like someone determined not to be taken in twice.
Still clinging to the attitude of receiving reports and approving authority even in a situation where we had to escape together.
Thinking it was quite a talent, I continued.
“But before we move, I’d like to negotiate with you, Director.”
At the word “negotiate,” Go Hong-sang looked at me as if I were mad.
I believed in respecting elders as elders.
So butting heads with superiors was never my strength.
But if it was necessary, I had no choice.
“In exchange for safely getting you out of here, I’d like you to authorize a special operation regarding the Train Station.”

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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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