Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 149

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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 Guide Episode 149

ep20. The Editor’s Checklist (6)
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■ Precautions Within the National Theater that Detects Fakes
[Before Viewing a Performance]
3. Your inner self may be reflected in the performance.
Rare though it is, the content of a performance can depict your past or trauma.
If the actions on stage feel like your own story, close your eyes and endure.
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The performances at the National Theater sometimes project the inner world of their viewers.
The past. Or trauma.
My encounter with the Three and the One That Made Me fell into both categories.
It was certainly the past, and judging by how it rebuffed even hypnosis, it was a traumatic event as well.
“Earlier, you called the performance content ‘human history,’ didn’t you? That’s right. What you saw, Seo Do-un, would be hard to classify as personal trauma.”
Kim Ji-an spoke.
“What you witnessed were more fundamental images than that, and among them appear symbols that overlap with the memo you saw at the Hotel. And you being dragged to the National Theater happened right after you left the Sports Stadium. Even if you don’t remember it, the shock from that moment is still vivid—it’s the kind of moment where that impact would linger.”
Yes, that’s plausible enough.
Let’s say that performance was my subjective interpretation mixed with my own reading of the Three and the One That Made Me.
“The Four Creatures in the Bible are sacred beings.”
“They’re also the ones who break the seals and bring down plagues.”
I spoke gravely, and Kim Ji-an countered.
“And in that performance, you overlaid those creatures with the colors of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That probably means you were already perceiving them as ‘beings that bring disaster and calamity.'”
“The scale gets too large…”
“Ah, but you shouldn’t lock onto this as divine judgment. It’s more accurate to interpret it as: it was shocking enough to look that way, or there were elements present to justify viewing it that way. Besides, there’s still no evidence that these Four Creatures created the Special Zone.”
Kim Ji-an continued speaking while glancing toward Oh Tae-o.
As if asking whether anything more had been discovered in the meantime.
In response, Oh Tae-o only shook his head.
I mulled over Kim Ji-an’s interpretive approach, then spoke again.
“So you’re saying it’s not actual divine judgment or God’s messengers, but merely appeared that way within the scope of my perception?”
“Yes.”
“Then I should try to infer their true nature from within the limits of my own perception.”
Kim Ji-an nodded in agreement at my words.
Come to think of it, this wasn’t particularly unfamiliar work.
Characters in novels each carry their own limitations.
Proposing the scope of their thoughts and actions within those constraints is crucial work in strengthening a story’s coherence.
I decided to apply that limitation to myself and reason forward.
“First, to me, the Four Creatures of the Bible are incomprehensible entities. Though they’re called God’s messengers, they’re beings that bring calamity to the world, as you just mentioned.”
“Right. For believers, that day would be the long-awaited day of judgment and salvation, but for others, it’s simply a day of ruin.”
“Conversely, they’re not purely evil either. They simply carry out a task—they don’t throw the world into chaos because they themselves are wicked or greedy.”
Does that mean I perceived the Three and the One That Made Me not as angels, demons, or monsters, but more like civil servants on temporary assignment?
Hmm, maybe that’s too much of a leap.
I only encountered them for one hundred and forty-four seconds.
“Still, because of their own purposes they do meddle with the world, so to me these Four Creatures feel more like foreigners or invaders than God’s representatives.”
In any case, they’re certainly not beings I can welcome.
“And those Four Creatures were originally on the same side.”
That goes without saying in the Bible, and it was the same in the stage I witnessed.
The creatures on that stage all appeared carrying a wheel together.
“But in the recording I made, they were in conflict. Divided into the Three and the One That Made. Couldn’t we interpret this as ‘internal division occurred among the Four Creatures that were originally one team’?”
“I don’t think that’s an unreasonable interpretation.”
Kim Ji-an nodded in agreement with me and continued.
“In the performance too, the bird did something strange at the end. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse symbolize conquest, war, famine, and death in that order. You already know this, yes?”
“Yes, I do.”
Of course I know.
The Four Horsemen are a frequently borrowed motif in apocalyptic content.
“In the performance you saw, whenever those creatures moved, humans would form formations, fight each other, or collapse from hunger.”
That’s right.
That’s why I perceived it as human history.
“In that sequence, when the pale bird appeared last, the stage should have been covered in death and ended. But instead, a single man rose back to life.”
At Kim Ji-an’s words, I recalled it again.
What I saw that day.
As the pale blue bird took flight, all the humans on stage crumbled, and white flowers bloomed.
White roses.
The profusely blooming roses soon gathered together and formed the shape of a person.
At first glance, a sacred sight.
But looking closer, it was a face I knew, and when I realized he had his neck hanging in the empty air, the world seemed to stop.
And it was then that I felt the urge to climb onto that stage for the first time.
“This is a resurrection, which differs from the true role of the last horseman.”
“That could be betrayal to those on the same side.”
At my addition, Kim Ji-an nodded repeatedly.
“Yes. So I think the man who rose again at the end might be a manifestation of Seo Do-un yourself.”
“….”
That was somewhat unexpected.
Because I had thought this man was my father.
But hearing Kim Ji-an’s words, I found merit in this interpretation as well.
“Because I made you?”
“Exactly. Then that statement also becomes interpretable to some degree.”
Yes, this too has coherence.
The coherence that the man resurrected above death was me.
Unable to pretend ignorance any longer on a subject this weighty, I briefly rubbed my face.
In fact, Director Go Hong-sang died and was resurrected several times over.
It’s already been established as fact that dead people can be resurrected in the Special Zone.
And no matter how much I think about it, I have no idea how I emerged from the Train Station alive and intact.
Did I also die once…?
A dull impact crashed down from belated realization.
Like a wave just beginning to break, as yet only wetting my ankles—a gentle, minor sort of impact.
Well, it was shocking, but getting shocked anew about it felt a bit odd.
Maybe because I’d just witnessed Director Go’s varied resurrections, it felt strangely absorbable…
Of course, I could suddenly plunge into confusion later, but for now I found myself able to accept it with unexpected composure.
And if that’s the case, the Crow moving me around like its plaything starts to make some sense.
Since they resurrected me, they might be claiming some stake and rights in me accordingly.
Of course, since they’re using me without my consent, they’re still bad guys to me.
“This is interpretation, after all.”
As I sat quietly mulling things over, Kim Ji-an added a comment.
“We gathered symbols to understand the situation, but you don’t need to accept this as literal truth. No, it’s better to keep your distance. You might get trapped in a framework and miss seeing something else.”
Though I shouldn’t have, I found myself looking back at Oh Tae-o without realizing it.
“What…?”
Oh Tae-o’s immediate displeasure.
Right, interpretation is just interpretation, ultimately nothing but hypothesis.
For now I should organize it at the level of “this interpretation is also possible” and move on without jumping to conclusions.
“Still, seeing it fit together like this feels like things are coming into focus.”
Having bundled together things I’d been glossing over with “what is that?” into one place and stored them made everything much easier.
Whether this is right or wrong, I’ll know later.
Then Oh Tae-o spoke.
“Once the risk in the Train Station is resolved this time, we’ll be able to get more data to cross-reference…”
“Data to cross-reference?”
“Because we’ll be able to access the materials Lee Sol’s father compiled.”
“Ah.”
Lee Seob’s materials were blacklisted too.
But those are materials from four years ago, and the investigation methods have likely already been absorbed into the Management Bureau’s know-how.
Will there genuinely be meaningful data in there?
As I looked at him with confusion, Oh Tae-o began speaking again.
“The date you wrote down at the Hotel this time was January 23rd, 20XX…”
“Senior, don’t just say it like that…”
But Kim Ji-an was suffering with her ears covered and he couldn’t finish his sentence.
Oh Tae-o looked at Kim Ji-an once, then took out his tablet.
Ding—
A message from Oh Tae-o arriving on my tablet.
-January 23rd, 20XX is the day Lee Sol’s father left his last voice recording before disappearing.
-I believe Lee Sol’s father disappeared because of this recording.
-All the researchers who heard this recording were dragged into the Train Station and died.
“……”
At Oh Tae-o’s message, I recalled.
Lee Seob’s visage as it distorted in the Hotel.
And the characters hastily erased, smudged out as if in haste.
“The Research Department is expecting this operation too… because if it succeeds, we’ll be able to access data we haven’t been able to open for years…”
Right.
Come to think of it, Cha Si-eon said something like this when persuading Kwon Mu-seop.
-Besides, the continued assumption of risk from the Train Station is wasteful. Because of it, even meaningful data is being left untouched.
So that wasn’t just something casually said—it had grounds behind it.
I had wondered why the Raven was so fixated on keeping that human child Lee Sol alive.
Perhaps its true objective isn’t Lee Sol at all, but this.
Its real goal might be to make us open Pandora’s box—the true aim of the bird among those Four Creatures, the Traitor.
If that’s truly the case, would the remaining Three really just watch?
The likelihood was slim.
The weight of knowingly walking into jeopardy.
This was the moment I truly felt it for the first time.

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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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