Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 157

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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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A Survival Manual for Editors Episode 157

ep21. Shrouded in Mist (7)

The Big Cat charged forward.
The Raven clenched in its jaws hung limp, swayed helplessly by the creature’s momentum.
Could it really be dead?
The moment I imagined its death, my heart sank like a stone.
A sense of loss I couldn’t explain.
Had I, like Kwon Mu-seop, come to believe that thing was on our side?
I forced myself to focus, tearing my gaze away from the Raven.
Then I concentrated on the Big Cat instead.
Its form looked like some creature turned inside-out, its interior and exterior reversed.
Had it shed its old body and regrown a new one?
The size and shape were nearly identical to before.
But its movements were wrong somehow.
There was something off about the way it lurched forward.
“The Big Cat has the Raven in its jaws! The Big Cat looks injured too!”
I shouted at Cha Si-eon and Baek Sa-ra, who were running ahead.
That’s when the Big Cat suddenly froze in place.
The area around its neck began to glow intensely bright.
“Fire Breathing…!”
“Into the river!”
The moment I cried out, Cha Si-eon veered sharply to the side.
Then, in one fluid motion, he leaped over a railing that was quite high.
As he kicked off the railing and spun through the air, Cha Si-eon leveled his gun at the Big Cat.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat!
Cha Si-eon sprayed gunfire as he fell.
Fortunately, the Big Cat made an enormous target, and its neck glowed so brightly through the thick mist that it was unmistakable.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat! Boom!
An explosion followed the gunshots.
A deafening roar that felt like it would split our ears.
The water’s surface flared bright as if engulfed in flame.
In that moment, I plunged through the scarlet-stained surface and fell into the cold water below.
Splash!
The impact of hitting the surface nearly knocked me unconscious.
No—I think I actually did lose consciousness for a moment.
The blade-cold river water shocked me back awake, and that was only the beginning of another ordeal.
The river rushed into a child’s delicate airways.
I swallowed helplessly, and before I knew it, I gasped for breath.
As the water entered my windpipe, convulsions seized my ribs from within.
My lungs, desperate for oxygen, were about to inhale water instead when—
Whoosh!
“Gasp! Cough, hack…! Cough!”
I surfaced again with Cha Si-eon, gasping for air.
I looked around, breathing in heaves.
The river’s surface still flickered with scarlet light.
Looking up, I saw the bridge burning.
It must have ruptured before the Big Cat even unleashed its flames.
“What about Baek Sa-ra…?”
“Over there.”
When I searched for Baek Sa-ra, Cha Si-eon pointed across the river.
Fortunately, Baek Sa-ra appeared to be unharmed.
But as I turned my gaze toward her, something entered my field of vision.
A dark object drifting on the glimmering crimson surface.
It was the Raven.
“Team Leader, there! The Raven is out there!”
Cha Si-eon had started swimming toward Baek Sa-ra but changed direction when he heard me.
He swam toward the Raven bobbing in the water and snatched it up.
Whether it was dead or merely unconscious, it didn’t so much as twitch as Cha Si-eon grabbed it.
He handed it over to me.
Meanwhile, Baek Sa-ra swam toward us and asked.
“What do we do now?”
Cha Si-eon looked up at the bridge.
Without knowing the situation up there, climbing blindly would be suicide.
“We swim downstream and regroup with Nines, Tens, and Elevens.”
Then Baek Sa-ra pointed past the bridge.
“Team Leader, look over there.”
Baek Sa-ra was indicating a point where the river’s surface seemed to suddenly drop.
Something dark-red was oozing down from the bridge.
“I think that’s Sticky Blood.”
Sticky Blood.
A toxic substance that dissolved everything except the structures of the Special Zone itself.
One of the Big Cat’s attack patterns.
It seemed the Big Cat was still very much alive.
But why? To block our passage?
Just then, the Sticky Blood began dripping into the river in steady drops.
Blood that neither mixed with nor sank into the water.
Like oil on water, it floated across the surface, beginning to form a thin film.
“We need to cross now.”
Baek Sa-ra spoke gravely after seeing it.
“It’s trying to block us from getting to the other side.”
“That blood won’t stay in that spot permanently.”
“Exactly. It’s using a temporary measure to buy time, which means they’ve hidden something on the far side. Something important enough to defend.”
“……”
“They could’ve divided us and picked us off one by one. But they keep holding this position, which proves there’s something over there worth this effort.”
Baek Sa-ra’s reasoning had merit.
But if we cross now, the operatives left behind will face the Big Cat with no information.
As the one in charge, I had no choice but to deliberate.
Cha Si-eon looked at the Raven I was holding tight.
Then, after a moment, he swallowed and nodded.
“Understood.”
Cha Si-eon and Baek Sa-ra didn’t hesitate any longer and swam toward the point where the water’s surface bent at a right angle.
Already, Sticky Blood was floating in that area.
For now, there wasn’t much of it, so we could push it aside with the waves we created as we swam.
We reached the point where the surface folded inward, and crossing that section proved easy enough.
Gravity bent naturally with the topology, and we slipped through effortlessly.
But that place was very dark.
Above our heads, instead of sky, lay another river.
In this section, bridge faced bridge at their undersides, and river met river face-to-face.
It felt claustrophobic, like entering a tunnel.
Anyone with claustrophobia would have collapsed long ago.
But Cha Si-eon and Baek Sa-ra pressed on, kicking off the bridge’s columns to cleave through the water.
How long did we swim like that?
The surroundings brightened again.
Then another right-angled surface appeared.
Crossing it, we found ourselves on another mist-shrouded bridge identical to the one we’d come from.
We’d made it to the other side without incident.
The only problem was that there was no way to climb back onto the bridge.
As I took in the bleak vista, Baek Sa-ra moved toward the bridge’s column.
Then she began climbing by gripping the gaps between bricks with her fingertips.
Whoosh!
In an instant, she reached the bridge’s railing and pulled herself up effortlessly.
Whistle—splash!
Baek Sa-ra threw a wire down to us.
Cha Si-eon grabbed it and began climbing, pushing off the column with his feet.
Yeah… I’m not surprised anymore.
I climbed up clinging to Cha Si-eon and made it safely onto the bridge.
Now that I was out of the water and back on solid ground, I felt almost human again.
Thud!
A splash sounded beside me as I caught my breath.
I glanced over reflexively, then quickly looked away.
“……”
Baek Sa-ra was removing her outer jacket and the combat shirt underneath.
After catching sight of Baek Sa-ra’s bare back, I turned away—only to find another equally unsettling sight.
“……”
Cha Si-eon had already removed his shirt and was wringing out his long wet hair.
Since neither direction offered a comfortable view, I crouched by the railing and began wringing out my own clothes.
After a short while, we’d made ourselves presentable and regrouped.
In the center lay the Raven I’d been clutching.
“Is it dead?”
“It hasn’t stiffened yet.”
“I’m not even sure it’s a living creature in the first place……”
Cha Si-eon held the Raven in one hand, manipulating its beak and flexing its legs.
Baek Sa-ra documented it from the side.
“It feels like there’s a heartbeat.”
“The fact that it even has a heart is surprising enough.”
“Wait—if it’s alive, isn’t it in critical condition right now…?”
Should we really be handling it like this?
Even if it is some kind of special entity.
At my words, Cha Si-eon folded the Raven’s wings back in.
Then he gently placed it on a handkerchief.
“How did the Big Cat end up catching it in the first place?”
“Maybe it was trying to show us the way.”
I answered Baek Sa-ra’s question.
“It was attacked while trying to show us the distorted spatial junction?”
“That’s what I think. These two entities have clashed before, back on the Island.”
“In any case, something’s definitely here.”
At my response, Baek Sa-ra looked around and muttered.
I turned to follow her gaze.
This place was similar yet different from where we’d started.
The spatial characteristic of a mist-shrouded bridge was the same, but here the path didn’t stretch in one straight direction.
This path was visibly curved before our eyes.
It spiraled around and around.
Like a coiled serpent.
Or like a meticulously peeled apple skin.
We stood in the inner ring of the spiral.
So beside the bridge we were on, there was another bridge.
If we followed the path around once, we would end up standing there.
“They’ve expanded the space enormously.”
The path spiraled upward, and at its apex lay something hidden by thick mist.
We’d need to go all the way up to understand what was happening, but following the path this way would take forever.
Cha Si-eon showed no patience for such waste of time—he stared intently at the adjacent bridge.
The gap between the two bridges was about seven or eight meters.
Quite far. Surely he wasn’t thinking of using a wire to cross.
Just as I was doubting his intentions—
Bang!
Cha Si-eon suddenly fired his gun.
Short, quick bursts—aimed at the railing of the bridge we stood on.
Bang-bang-bang!
He moved along the rail, firing in bursts, then grabbed the railing as it began to buckle from the impacts.
Screech!
The railing tore free and instantly became an eight-meter ladder.
He set it upright, then gave it a gentle push toward the opposite bridge.
Thud!
Yeah, really nothing surprises me anymore.
After fashioning a makeshift bridge across to the far side, Cha Si-eon gestured for Baek Sa-ra and me to follow.
We began cutting across the spiral using these shortcuts.
It definitely saved us time and effort, but there was one concern.
“What if we reach the exit without ever meeting the Monks?”
“That would be rather anticlimactic.”
“This is serious……”
I groaned at Baek Sa-ra’s half-joking reply.
Then, walking behind us, Cha Si-eon answered.
“We’ll need to go back anyway after confirming the exit’s status.”
Right—we can’t just slip out and abandon everyone else.
I accepted that and continued hopping across bridges.
After repeating this five or six times—
Something appeared through the thick mist.
Something like an outer wall of a building blocking the end of the spiral.
Could it be the Train Station?
Having spotted something, we moved faster across the bridges.
And finally we could make out what that structure actually was.
It wasn’t a wall—it was a door.
Dozens, no—hundreds of doors packed tightly together like tiles.
But about four-fifths of them hung wide open.
The remaining fifth cycled between opening and closing on its own.
Each time a door opened, the color inside changed.
Meanwhile, the doors already open all showed the same view beyond.
That uniform view was none other than the sky.
What is this?
Had the Big Cat been buying time to hide this?
Just then, one of the cycling doors stopped moving.
The sky now appeared beyond the newly opened door as well.
Could these doors keep cycling until they all showed the same sky?
Like solving an enormous puzzle……
Then a thought struck me.
My blood ran cold and I cried out almost in panic.
“We have to close those doors!”
That’s when it happened.
Something dark descended across the sky beyond the door frames.
Had we been spotted?
Had the Big Cat decided there was no need to complete the puzzle?
Crash-crunch-crackle!
Metal debris burst through the door frame and invaded our space.
What came through was none other than the bombs that had once fallen on Yongsan 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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