Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 141

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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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Survival Rules for an Editor, Chapter 141

ep19. Expedition! Timeless Hotel! (13)

Alpha, drenched in blood, rushed straight toward me.
Watching that chilling sight, I scrambled to my feet in panic.
Crash!
Then something heavy dragged at my body.
It was Seo Do-un, pulling me down from below.
Damn it, let go of me…!
As I twisted to shake Seo Do-un off, Alpha closed in to within arm’s reach.
Just as I thought I’d be caught—
Thud!
Alpha was suddenly shoved and tumbled past me.
Hanging from its back was Kwon Mu-seop, equally covered in blood.
Kwon Mu-seop, having rushed to pursue Alpha, locked his limbs around it to pin it down.
Alpha struggled back, and the two of them thrashed about in a tangled, desperate grapple.
Boom!
Alpha hoisted Kwon Mu-seop, who clung to its shoulders, and drove him hard into the ground.
“Ugh…!”
Kwon Mu-seop gasped roughly for air.
But I had no time to worry about him.
Something struck me hard as I was shoved by their struggle.
Bang!
Together with the ringing impact to my head, what came into view was—
Seo Do-un.
My own repulsive face, bruised all over.
Mimicking what had just happened moments before, it mounted me and began choking my throat.
“Cgh… ugh…!”
The one I’d failed to kill was now trying to kill me.
Ah, this thing.
Why didn’t I finish it sooner?
That was when it happened.
Scrape-scrape!
Something sliding across the floor touched my fingertips.
Without even knowing what it was, I gripped it and swung.
Squelch!
What fell into my hand was a blood-soaked knife.
I only realized what it was after it drove into Seo Do-un’s throat.
The moment its throat was pierced, Seo Do-un collapsed like a broken doll.
Thud!
It tumbled down onto me, and I recoiled in revulsion, shoving it away.
“Heave…! Gasp…!”
Then, barely catching my breath, I rushed toward where Kwon Mu-seop was locked in combat with Alpha.
Alpha, spotting me, grabbed Kwon Mu-seop by the nape and hurled him toward me.
I wanted to catch the incoming Kwon Mu-seop.
But I couldn’t bear his weight.
Boom!
I ended up pinned beneath Kwon Mu-seop and fell hard.
In the meantime, Alpha scraped the ground and retreated quickly backward.
Was it planning to flee again?
That infuriating creature, appearing at every crucial moment just to cause trouble before slinking away.
Even so, I silently prayed that Alpha would simply leave.
But contrary to my wish, where Alpha withdrew to was right beside the Director.
It placed its foot on Go Hong-sang’s throat.
Surely not….
Crack!
A sickening sound from Go Hong-sang’s neck.
At that raw, unmistakable sound, I held my breath.
But Alpha, the one who’d done the deed, remained calm.
As if its task were complete, it simply turned and left us there in the ruins.

* * *

Go Hong-sang, the Director, was dead.
Once we’d confirmed his death, we immediately headed toward the Deputy Director.
Kim Seon-ung was desperately pressing down on his thigh above a pool of blood.
Blood trickled through the gaps between his fingers.
A wound from being stabbed with a knife while fighting Alpha.
Moreover, the pool of blood Kim Seon-ung sat in had a long, streaking trail in one direction.
It was the trace of the knife being pushed toward me earlier.
“Do-un, gauze!”
At Kwon Mu-seop’s shout, I pulled out every bit of medical supply from my vest.
Kwon Mu-seop stuffed gauze into Kim Seon-ung’s wound.
It must have been agony, carving into living flesh like that, yet Kim Seon-ung didn’t even whimper.
Crack!
Only something that sounded like breaking came from his mouth, clenched around a handkerchief.
The hellish first aid was over.
Kim Seon-ung barely held onto consciousness, and we stood gasping for breath in front of him.
“Guess I really am getting old….”
Kim Seon-ung muttered as he spit out the handkerchief.
At that ridiculous comment, something almost like a smile flickered across Kwon Mu-seop’s otherwise rigid face.
“Manager, you’ve got blood on your head too….”
“It’s nothing. Bumped my elbow just now.”
Kwon Mu-seop spoke without concern and simply wiped the blood away.
Once the blood was cleared, his forehead was slightly split open.
The place Alpha had swept through looked less like a room and more like a ruin itself.
Go Hong-sang the Director: dead.
Kim Seon-ung the Deputy Director: seriously wounded.
Kwon Mu-seop the Manager: lightly injured.
I was relatively unscathed, but Seo Do-un, who looked exactly like me, had turned to scattered ash and dust.
Since Seo Do-un was destroyed like that, was there no point in seeing it again?
Could it be that, just like Gwak Jae-gyeom’s Delta, a new generation wouldn’t be spawned in its place?
As I stared at Seo Do-un’s remains with unease, Kwon Mu-seop muttered aloud.
“Is the Director not coming back this time?”
Until now, Go Hong-sang the Director had faithfully returned every single time he died.
But for some reason, nothing happened this time.
I kept watching the door, but the late Director didn’t suddenly burst through it like he had thirteen seconds ago.
“Could it be because there’s a corpse left behind?”
The Deputy Director muttered this with a pallid expression.
“Try leaving just his left arm and disposing of the rest of the body. He might come back then.”
It wasn’t mere joking.
The Deputy Director seriously suggested testing the Director’s resurrection conditions, and that was the most fundamental method for understanding the spatial laws of the Special Zone.
“Let’s get you out of here first, Deputy Director.”
Kwon Mu-seop made this suggestion to the Deputy Director.
The Deputy Director was in a state that required an ambulance immediately.
There was no way we could calmly run experiments while leaving the Deputy Director like this.
“You’re right. I’m just dead weight here anyway.”
The Deputy Director nodded readily, and we helped him toward the Shadow of the Hanged Figure.
The innermost glass window of the Fitness Center.
Within it, a shadow shaped like a person being hanged was suspended.
I flinched slightly at the sight.
For a moment I felt nauseated, but I forced myself to maintain composure.
“Deputy Director, just in case—please deliver this to the outside.”
Kwon Mu-seop handed his notebook to the Deputy Director as he spoke.
Kwon Mu-seop had been writing in that notebook continuously since earlier.
It was probably a record of this space.
The Deputy Director looked between the notebook and Kwon Mu-seop’s face, then muttered quietly.
“Don’t overdo it. You come out right away too.”
“Yes.”
Kwon Mu-seop answered immediately, but the Deputy Director still looked unconvinced.
The Deputy Director took the notebook and forced himself to stand with effort.
Then he removed the silver ring he always wore on his hand.
He threw it toward the Shadow of the Hanged Figure.
The shadow swallowed the silver ring as if it were a hole.
The ring vanished in an instant.
Just when I thought nothing would happen, the shadow suddenly expanded and engulfed the space.
Everything went pitch black.
Then in the next moment, light returned and the ordinary Fitness Center reappeared.
The Shadow of the Hanged Figure in the mirror was unchanged.
Only the Deputy Director who had been beside us was gone without a trace.
“Looks like he got out fine.”
Kwon Mu-seop muttered like a sigh.
If we threw the silver ring at that shadow, we’d be able to escape in exactly the same way.
To be honest, I wanted to get out of this suffocating space immediately.
But before that, I had to see to the Director.
We turned back toward the Director’s corpse.
Go Hong-sang the Director lay facedown on the floor, silent and still.
“…Should we really cut off his arm?”
“Hah….”
Kwon Mu-seop merely sighed at my question.
Manager Kwon Mu-seop seemed to share my misgivings.
“I think this is more a matter of the space itself than the body’s condition.”
“That’s what I thought too….”
Kwon Mu-seop nodded at my words.
The Deputy Director had suggested cutting off the arm, but that wasn’t the real issue.
And it seemed the Deputy Director had known as much and suggested it anyway.
Looking at all the places where the late Director had died so far:
Inside a guest room. The lobby. The lobby. The lobby.
And the places where the late Director had come back alive:
Outside the guest room in the corridor. The stairwell. The stairwell. The stairwell.
The place of death and the place of resurrection were different.
“Unless we leave this place, I don’t think the Director will come back alive….”
“…….”
Kwon Mu-seop’s silence deepened at my assessment.
Leaving this place meant abandoning the escape route we’d secured in four hours.
But there was no guarantee that this escape route would appear again in four hours.
And there was even less guarantee that the escaped Alpha wouldn’t return.
So we stood at a crossroads.
Should we abandon the late Director and escape as we were?
Or should we take the risk to bring the Director back to life?
Kwon Mu-seop couldn’t reach a conclusion easily.
Or rather, his intention had been clear from the start, but he couldn’t bring himself to act on it.
Sensing what he was thinking, I spoke first.
“We need to bring the Director back to life and leave.”
“What?”
“We can’t just abandon him like this. We have to try everything we can.”
My words made Kwon Mu-seop’s gaze waver.
Manager Kwon Mu-seop probably wanted to bring the Director back and leave too.
But alone, he had no real chance.
And he couldn’t ask me to stake my life alongside his.
So he was torn, and now that I’d volunteered first, it must be a welcome thing for Manager Kwon Mu-seop.
Yet Kwon Mu-seop didn’t readily accept my offer.
Instead, he began to examine my face with a suspicious gaze.
“Like I said before, you don’t have to take this all on yourself.”
Kwon Mu-seop spoke words that contradicted his position.
But no, this was just one of his many conflicting stances.
“And if you come at me like that, I’m the one who has to stop you.”
“But you can’t give up either, Manager.”
“Hah….”
Kwon Mu-seop let out a long sigh at my words.
“I appreciate you stepping up, but honestly, if I were you, I wouldn’t go this far.”
Kwon Mu-seop laid bare his true thoughts in a quiet voice.
Manager Kwon Mu-seop was genuinely wondering if he could accept my offer.
He seemed concerned that I was acting on impulse.
Wanting to confirm this, Kwon Mu-seop asked me directly.
“Why would you go that far?”
“Because of what I said earlier.”
“What you said?”
“I spoke to the Director about sympathy, compassion, and conscience, and because of that, I can’t turn a blind eye to this situation anymore.”
At my answer, Kwon Mu-seop’s expression became even more complicated.
He stared at me for a long time.
As if trying to discern whether my words were genuine or just a convenient deflection.
It was a pointless effort.
I was sincere, and there was no hypocrisy, deception, or self-sacrificial intent in those words.
So even if Kwon Mu-seop scrutinized me, all he could find would be disappointment and confusion.
As expected, Kwon Mu-seop quietly wiped his face.
Then, looking at me again, he spoke.
“Will you take it if I give you some pocket money?”
Our Manager, still trying to resolve the debt of his heart with money today—a true believer in materialism.
I didn’t think it was a bad approach, so I readily nodded.
“I’ll keep track. We can settle up when I resign.”

* * *

Shortly after, we exited the Fitness Center.
Well, not completely—we still had our feet in the doorway, mentally preparing ourselves.
“Once this door closes, there’s no going back. You understand, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll count to three and really close it. One, two….”
“…But what if the Director doesn’t come back even after we leave this place?”
“Why are you saying something like that now….”
Truth was, we didn’t want to stay in this space any longer.
We really hated it.
We wanted to get out, wash up, and lie down.
But damn it, we still had to go back….
“One, two….”
“…….”
“…….”
“The gap between two and three is taking too long, Manager….”
“…Yeah, let’s hurry. Three.”
At my urging, Kwon Mu-seop finally withdrew his foot from the doorway.
Click.
The door closed lightly, without any disturbance or warning.
That was when—
“Why, why are you only showing up now…!”
A middle-aged man came rushing toward us from the corridor outside the Fitness Center.
It was Go Hong-sang the Director, nearly in tears.

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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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