Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 142

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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 142

ep19. Exploration! The Timeless Hotel! (14)

A long scar ran across Director Go’s brow.
It came from the shattered glasses grinding across his face as Alpha trampled him.
Go Hong-sang, who had acquired a pirate-like wound in the span of moments, repeated back to us in half-belief.
“A monster wearing the face of one of our agents killed me…….”
“Yes.”
“The vice director’s injuries were severe, so she left first…….”
“That’s correct.”
“So you came back to find me……?”
“…….”
“…….”
The director’s eyes had grown strangely glistening.
A middle-aged man caught in emotion was far more burdensome than expected.
Doubly so when those tears belonged to a superior whose prickly temperament made him difficult to work with.
It seemed Kwon Mu-seop felt the same discomfort, for he suddenly pushed my back and spoke.
“Agent Seo Do-un insisted that we absolutely had to bring you out first.”
So that’s how we’re playing it……?
Go Hong-sang’s eyes turned toward me, wet as if freshly washed.
So I stepped back half a pace and added hastily.
“That’s not quite right. I was simply going along with Manager Kwon’s concern for you.”
Director Go’s gaze shifted back toward Kwon Mu-seop.
Then Kwon Mu-seop, managing a strained smile, picked up my words.
“It was a decision Agent Seo Do-un made. You should praise Agent Seo Do-un.”
“Manager Kwon would have found you alone if he had to.”
“Agent Seo Do-un never turns away from someone in crisis.”
“I simply followed your guidance, Manager Kwon.”
“Good heavens, you people…….”
As we volleyed credit back and forth with fierce intensity, Go Hong-sang covered his eyes with his hand and sighed.
Then came an ominous, uncomfortable sound—a sob.
“I haven’t done anything good for you…….”
The director had begun a grand moment of self-reflection.
Having once suffered from the anxiety of being abandoned, Go Hong-sang seemed deeply moved by the fact that we had come to find him.
That was when it began.
His gaze toward us becoming unnecessarily tender.
It was nothing short of a burden.

* * *

Having safely reunited with Director Go, we took a moment to gather ourselves.
I wiped away the blood smeared across various parts of my body and tended to my wounds.
While I was disinfecting the nail marks on my neck, Kwon Mu-seop came over to fetch a bandage, and spoke quietly.
“The director might just join the Otter Rescue Association.”
“…….”
See? My suspicions weren’t groundless.
The Otter Rescue Association was clearly propaganda for the managers to control the Management Bureau, and now they were even trying to recruit the director.
I took a surreptitious glance at Go Hong-sang, wondering.
Director Go smiled benevolently, as if he’d been waiting for this moment.
Ah, so the director was the type to bend his arm inward with enthusiasm…….
“You seem to be warming to Manager Kwon more than to me.”
“Of course not. I’m sure you still have plenty of grievances with me.”
“My image is pretty disastrous, honestly.”
“That might be more charming.”
“…….”
A character who threatens to abandon you but rescues you at the critical moment.
There was definitely market demand for that type.
Unable to deny this fact, I merely closed my mouth and smiled.
Director Go seemed to have forgotten past grievances, his manner now thoroughly warm.
It was clear his heart had opened completely to us.
It was a good thing.
In a situation like this, he wouldn’t nitpick everything like before.
The only minor problem was that Director Go, like most members of the Otter Rescue Association, seemed to have mistaken me for a good person.
He appeared to believe I had returned out of pity, compassion, and conscience—warm feelings.
And so he seemed to want to give me in return feelings of gratitude, affection, and solidarity, all warm and comforting…….
But I had no desire to exchange such emotional bonds with Director Go.
More honestly, I had no desire to do so with most other people either.
My actions were never truly for Go Hong-sang or Kwon Mu-seop, but for myself.
Because I had just spoken of pity, compassion, and conscience.
The thought of betraying those words mere hours later, without any catalyst or incident, was deeply uncomfortable.
I generally like both saints and villains in novels, but I cannot bring myself to feel fondly toward characters written inconsistently—where the author simply does whatever is convenient.
Seeing a character where the author’s confusion is blatantly visible fills me with subtle revulsion; if it’s already a published book, I shut it immediately, and if it’s a manuscript I’m editing, I mark every instance of that character’s inconsistency and demand consistency from the author.
A character whose words and actions contradict from page to page is as painful to read as a sentence where the subject and predicate don’t agree.
I have a kind of compulsion about consistency, and I cannot bear such contradictions in myself either.
Of course, reality is full of inconsistent people.
No need to look far afield.
Director Go’s enemy is Director Go himself, and Director Go can refute Director Go.
That said, I harbor no resentment toward this.
For some people, that very inconsistency becomes a consistency of its own.
When I see such people, I honestly want to congratulate them.
In some ways, it must be easy to live in this world, I think.
Meanwhile, some people experience inconsistency and contradiction as physical pain, unable to rest until they correct it—suffering like someone staring at a sentence with a grammatical error they cannot fix.
And I seem to belong to the latter category.
Of course, my awareness and perception are imperfect, so there may be contradictions I don’t perceive.
But within the range I do perceive, things must be handled consistently.
If they cannot be, I suffer.
So this is merely a means to avoid pain.
It’s hardly appropriate for someone like me to receive affectionate looks.
But equally, I cannot go to Director Go or the Otter Rescue Association and explain myself unprompted.
If someone were to question my actions and motives and ask me directly, I would be ready to answer honestly.
But to approach people with no particular thoughts and confess, “Actually, I’m a selfish person who only cares about my own consistency; I have little genuine interest in others”—that would simply be madness.
So today, as always, I let the misunderstanding stand, and face alone what others don’t know.
The inadequacy of my character that no one else can see.
Thump—!
At that moment, a white pillow fell heavily onto my lap.
“……?”
Startled, I lifted my head, and there stood Manager Kwon Mu-seop.
“Tired?”
“No, I’m still fine.”
I suppose my solitary thoughts looked like blankness.
I shook my head, but Kwon Mu-seop ignored my protest and spread a blanket beside me.
“Lie down for a bit. Get some rest before we move again.”
Where had he gotten this from all of a sudden?
I looked around in confusion and spotted a linen cart not far away.
It seemed he had simply taken what was visible inside.
Moreover, Director Go was already lying in a cozy nest of bedding.
“Is it alright to use these?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. They’re not liquid, just fabric.”
Kwon Mu-seop answered my question without hesitation.
“In the old days, people wanted to explore the Hotel for this very reason. If you got tired, you could go into a room and sleep in a bed.”
“Really?”
“Why, it’s far better than sleeping rough on bare ground or camping outside. The stays were longer back then. So whenever the Hotel exploration came up, everyone was happy about it—they called it a ‘hotel staycation’…….”
Are these people actually insane……?
Compared to their madness, my compulsion seems like no affliction at all.
“Have you come here often before, Manager?”
“Yeah. I used to drop by pretty regularly.”
“Then couldn’t we potentially encounter the old Kwon Mu-seop Team here?”
“……That’s possible, I suppose?”
For some reason, Kwon Mu-seop seemed uncomfortable at my question, muttering vaguely.
“Maybe with the odds of finding a needle in a desert. Besides, if we did meet them, wouldn’t it be dangerous? They might mistake us for anomalous phenomena and attack, or they might realize they’re fakes and go mad all over again.”
True enough.
The memories here are warped by the Special Zone’s influence, after all.
As I sat quietly in understanding, Kwon Mu-seop muttered softly.
“Still, it would be nice to see them.”

* * *

We agreed to rest for just two hours.
After sleeping for the first hour and waking, I sat with my back against the wall beside the sleeping Kwon Mu-seop.
Then I slowly scanned the far ends of the corridor, alternating my gaze between left and right.
Even that brief rest had lightened my body considerably.
When the break ended, I would need to find the Fitness Center again and turn the revolving door.
Not unlike the situation when we were isolated with Team Leader Cha on the Island.
But here we only needed to open and close a door without having to breach zones, which made it far simpler.
The problem was that Alpha—whether he’d truly fled or was lurking somewhere to ambush us—remained unknown…….
Still, we couldn’t abandon the escape route through “the Hanging Shadow” because of him.
Among all the Hotel Special Zones on record, this was the one with the least risk and the most stable escape route.
Moreover, “The Hotel Where Shadows Grow” had persisted for a full three years and eight months.
Other Special Zones lasted at most two years, and some only half a year—this one accounted for a notably high proportion of time.
The probability of it appearing was correspondingly high.
So all we could do was proceed with caution regarding Alpha and keep working through the Fitness Center.
I scanned the right side of the corridor, then shifted my gaze to the left.
Nothing amiss.
The fully lit hotel corridor was silent.
I turned my head from the left side back to the right.
The same: nothing unusual.
The empty corridor of a luxury hotel stirred a profound sense of desolation.
My gaze moved from right back to left.
Something was standing at the end of the corridor.
“……!”
I started and raised my body.
What is that?
A person? A man.
A man stood there with his shoulders drooping.
And that man was dressed in the Management Bureau’s gray combat uniform.
It wasn’t Alpha.
The difference in build made that immediately clear.
Then what was it? Or rather, who?
I lowered my gaze to its feet.
It was not standing on the ground.
It was floating in the air, with only the very tips of its toes touching the floor.
Damn it……!
I hurriedly shook Manager Kwon Mu-seop awake.
As I jolted his shoulder, his eyes snapped open immediately.
Before rising, Kwon Mu-seop glanced at me once, then followed my gaze down the corridor and slowly pushed himself up to sit.
He rose gradually to a sitting position.
“Its feet aren’t touching the ground.”
I whispered the words low to Kwon Mu-seop.
A human with feet not touching the ground.
Hazardous entities of the type that would burst lightly upon contact.
“It’s just standing there. It’s not approaching us.”
But for some reason, it did not move.
The one we’d met in the lobby had pressed us aggressively.
“Ha…….”
Kwon Mu-seop, who had been listening quietly to my words, suddenly let out a sigh.
Did he recognize who it was?
I took my eyes off the entity and turned to look at Kwon Mu-seop.
But his expression was strange.
Kwon Mu-seop stared at it as if he’d seen a ghost, and then, as if forgetting every protocol, groaned.
“Lee Seob…….”

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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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