Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 16

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Editor’s Survival Rules Episode 16

Episode 16. ep4. Welcome to the Special Management Bureau (1)

When I opened my eyes, I saw a white ceiling.

It was a scene I had already seen once before.

“Rescue subjects 12 and 13, consciousness recovered.”

Likewise, a voice I had heard once before.

When I turned my head, I saw a person wearing a hazmat suit.

“Rescue subject, are you conscious? Can you see this?”

Hazmat Suit waved a pen in front of my eyes and asked.

Still the same perfunctory movements.

I stared at the pen swaying in front of me for a moment, then felt annoyed for some reason and swatted it away with the back of my hand.

“Ah.”

Thwack, roll roll roll—

The pen flew away and rolled across the floor.

Hazmat Suit looked at the fallen pen for a moment, then pulled out a new pen from his pocket and scribbled something.

“Optic nerve normal, musculoskeletal response also normal…”

Damn it…

Hazmat Suit was a magnanimous person who could easily handle a rescue subject’s petulance.

I found that annoying, and this déjà vu was so depressing that I squeezed my eyes shut.

* * *

“I’m suddenly sorry, Editor-in-Chief. Ah, my body is fine… No. Yes, yes… Thank you. Then I’ll contact you as soon as the test results come out.”

I hung up the phone and let out a long breath.

Then I looked at the men sitting across from me at the table.

Two people were sitting in front of me.

One was Cha Si-eon, whom I still hadn’t managed to strangle.

The other was actually a blonde young man.

Among them, the blonde stranger I was meeting for the first time smiled and spoke up.

“You must have many questions?”

I was genuinely surprised by the man’s question.

It was the first time I’d seen his face, but his voice was familiar to my ears.

It was that hazmat suit’s voice.

“Yes, that’s me. I’m Kwak Jae-gyeom from Response Team 3.”

The hazmat suit who revealed his name, Kwak Jae-gyeom, appeared to be in his early to mid-twenties.

His face had a cheerful, smiling expression that matched his lively voice, and his hair was flashily bleached blonde.

Both his atmosphere and appearance were completely different from the gloomy Cha Si-eon.

But then that Kwak Jae-gyeom suddenly lit up and leaned toward me.

“Rescue subject, can I call you hyung?”

“…Suddenly?”

“Yes, really, I’m serious!”

What’s with this sudden brotherly bonding out of nowhere?

When I looked bewildered, Kwak Jae-gyeom spoke with high energy.

“Actually, we were watching everything this time too. Wow, but I never expected you to take off the mask there. You did that to save Sa-ra noona, right? We really, completely couldn’t have imagined it.”

Ah, that story.

“Did Baek Sa-ra and Han Ji-su get out safely?”

“Yes, they both got out fine. They were injured a bit, but nothing life-threatening.”

“That’s a relief.”

When I sighed, Kwak Jae-gyeom grinned and chattered again.

“Anyway, when hyung took off the mask, we actually didn’t expect much? To be honest, I thought you’d die right away. But you held out surprisingly well, so people got more and more excited, cursing that the rescue team wasn’t going in fast enough… It was really no joke, you know?”

Kwak Jae-gyeom was making a big fuss, but I wasn’t in the mood to go along with it and just sat there looking displeased.

Then Kwak Jae-gyeom expressed himself even more enthusiastically.

“I’m not exaggerating, but there are hardly any people in the Management Bureau who can hold out alone when that monster gun goes berserk. But you did that with no weapons, wearing just an otter t-shirt? Of course it caused an uproar! Right now, both the field teams and support teams are all in emergency mode because of hyung. We even made an ‘Otter Rescue Operation’ yesterday, you know?”

Otter Rescue Operation…

Isn’t this mockery?

And why am I already hyung?

No, before that.

Do these Management Bureau guys all watch Special Zone situations together like they’re watching sports commentary?

Come to think of it, Baek Sa-ra had known about me from way back too.

“Anyway, whether it was the Train Station or this time, everyone got incredibly excited thanks to hyung. And hyung’s response to the Moving Gun will also be included in the manual, so there will be separate compensation from the Management Bureau for this part.”

“Wait, hold on.”

I interrupted Kwak Jae-gyeom’s increasingly lengthy speech.

It was generally good news, but right now I needed to address more urgent issues first.

“Before that, what exactly is this situation? Why can’t I go home?”

My personal safety issue, specifically.

I had just called in sick to work indefinitely.

The reason was aftereffects from the traffic accident I had before.

Of course, this was a fabricated excuse, and there was a different real reason.

Because these guys had notified me that I ‘couldn’t go home for a while.’

It was already absurd that I got dragged back to the Special Zone and put through the wringer, but now I can’t even go home.

Compensation or whatever, I needed an explanation.

Then Cha Si-eon, who had been sitting beside us, spoke up as if he’d been waiting.

“First, I’ll explain what the Special Management Zone is.”

“Why…”

But I questioned back, and Cha Si-eon, whose words were blocked, looked at me.

So I asked back again, more precisely.

“I asked why I can’t go home, but why are you suddenly bringing that up? Before, you told me to stop showing unnecessary interest and focus on returning to daily life.”

At my point, Cha Si-eon’s gaze suddenly turned toward somewhere far away.

What, why are you avoiding eye contact?

“The situation has changed. I will explain this step by step.”

This is ominous.

My premonition was quite bad, but I had no choice but to listen attentively.

“First, the Special Management Zone, hereafter referred to as the Special Zone, is a dangerous space whose principles have not been identified. The main characteristic of Special Zones is hostile reactions toward humans, and they operate with the purpose of drawing in specific or unspecified citizens through unknown methods to kill or recruit them.”

It shouldn’t be surprising at this point, but I thought what kind of bizarre nonsense this all was.

Unidentified spaces hostile to humans.

It’s not some urban legend, and even if I saw it as an author’s manuscript, I’d be puzzled – but to hear such things in reality.

“Citizen influx into Special Zones is observed only in the Seoul metropolitan area of South Korea throughout the entire world. The initial occurrence point of this phenomenon cannot be confirmed, but the government recognized the existence of Special Zones and began official response measures 8 years ago.”

“8 years?”

I had been listening quietly but interrupted in surprise.

“Didn’t you say the manual for the Hospital Hunting Humans was still being produced?”

Doesn’t this mean they only started investigating recently?

In fact, the mission that Baek Sa-ra and the convicts were doing seemed close to early-stage exploration.

But 8 years of response?

When I looked puzzled, Kwak Jae-gyeom, who was sitting beside us, explained.

“Well, there are more Special Zones than you’d think.”

“How many?”

“Just the ones we’re monitoring are 37.”

You’re lying, right?

“In 8 years, we’ve closed about 90 Special Zones.”

Then I’ll acknowledge it.

I was shocked by the number of Special Zones being monitored, but hearing the number of closed Special Zones restored my peace of mind.

Anyway, it means our government is stronger and is steadily eliminating them, right?

Long live humanity.

I optimistically assumed this and asked back.

“Then you’ve eliminated quite a lot and there aren’t many left now, right?”

“Oh, no. That’s a bit different. This was before I was hired, but the Management Bureau’s original policy was all-out war.”

“All-out war?”

“Yes, when they discovered a Special Zone, they’d finish preliminary exploration and then people like Team Leader Cha would rush in and smash everything to pieces.”

Right, they say exorcism is originally about physics.

And it seemed actually effective too?

I recalled the moment the Moving Gun was smashed to pieces and asked back.

“Don’t they do that anymore now?”

“No. No matter how much they destroyed, the same things would appear again after some time.”

“They appear again?”

“Well, with lettuce or green onions, even if you cut and eat the top parts, as long as the roots are intact, new ones keep growing. Special Zones seem to have separate roots like that too – no matter how much they destroyed, new ones kept appearing.”

“Huh…”

“So they eventually gave up. The damage to our side was severe during the all-out battles, and there was also the problem of having to analyze characteristics and patterns again when new Special Zones appeared… Most importantly, since the number of Special Zones didn’t increase beyond 37, they changed their policy two years ago to managing rather than destroying them.”

I had the wrong premise.

There weren’t originally about 130 Special Zones that the government smashed down to 37.

There were originally 37, and they tried everything for 8 years to eliminate them, but there are still 37.

In the end, they aimed for eradication but it was like pouring water into a bottomless jar, so they compromised with management.

Humanity was weaker than I believed, damn…

Moreover, hearing this explanation, I had no choice but to ask this:

“Then how many people have been dragged into Special Zones?”

“It varies each year, but based on last year’s figures, about 4,500 citizens were drawn into Special Zones, and of those, 208 survived.”

It was a number that was surprising yet not surprising.

Just in the Siren-Sounding Railway Station, four people died that I saw directly.

They died like that in just an hour or two.

But they say there are dozens more such spaces, so the number Kwak Jae-gyeom just mentioned wasn’t unreasonable.

“They disappear like that every year, yet you managed to hide it well…”

“Oh, that’s also a bit different – rather than hiding it, it doesn’t really show in the first place.”

Kwak Jae-gyeom answered with an awkward smile to my complaint.

“The metropolitan area population is about 30 million. Including unregistered residents, it’s much more than that, and 4,500 people among them isn’t a number that would be noticeable if they disappeared. It’s slightly more than annual traffic accident deaths and much less than suicide deaths.”

Kwak Jae-gyeom’s calculation was quite cold.

At the same time, it was realistic, so I recalled what Author Nabbit had said.

How would the world look to beings of higher dimensions than humans?

Flames blazing next to someone peacefully drinking tea.

A child’s bicycle passing by someone burned black to death.

Author Nabbit’s such imagination wasn’t just fantasy.

Anyway, I think I’ve learned enough about Special Zones at this point.

“So Special Zones are mysterious spaces that draw people in and harm them, first discovered in our country 8 years ago. There are 37 in total, they regenerate even when destroyed, and last year 4,500 people were dragged in but only 200 survived, right?”

“Yes, that’s accurate.”

“So why can’t I go home?”

Round and round, finally to the main point.

…But what are you guys doing, from earlier?

At my question, Cha Si-eon and Kwak Jae-gyeom glanced at each other.

The two exchanged meaningful looks, then looked back at me as if they’d made some decision.

Really, don’t do this – why are you getting serious? It makes me anxious.

When I looked at them with wary eyes, Kwak Jae-gyeom spoke up again.

“As you’ve fully understood, the probability of an ordinary citizen being drawn into a Special Zone is really slim. It’s almost like the probability of being struck by lightning and dying. But for one person to fall into Special Zones twice in a row? That’s truly astronomical odds. But since you’ve already experienced that, probability is no longer important to us.”

Why is this rambling so long?

With an ominous premonition, I just asked directly.

“What’s the conclusion?”

“You’ll probably keep getting dragged into Special Zones from now on.”

At this point, even God should apologize to me.

Of course, I have no intention of accepting that apology.

Absolutely not.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————