Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 164

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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 164

ep22. Ⅻ(3)
“There’s nothing particularly wrong with it.”
“What?”
“I’ve been doing this all along. What’s the problem with doing it once more? You said public opinion has shifted anyway.”
“You’re more shameless than I thought.”
“I’m sorry, but my life is on the line right now.”
When I can see a path to survival, I can’t just lie down and die.
I met the woman’s gaze squarely, and she stared back before letting out a dry laugh.
“Surprising. I didn’t know you had it in you to whine like this.”
The woman muttered to herself.
I’d been reduced to a petulant child in her eyes, but this wasn’t the time to feel ashamed.
I noticed the woman’s tone wasn’t entirely hostile, so I pressed on.
“Besides, your Director General just saved me. For her to suddenly grow strict now doesn’t make narrative sense, does it?”
…….
But at my words, the woman’s smile turned oddly subtle.
She looked at me with an ambiguous gaze, as if she had much to say.
Then, in a voice suppressing laughter, she whispered:
“You don’t know, which is why you’re saying this. And it’s such a shame you don’t.”
……?
As the woman spoke those cryptic words, the light behind her shimmered again.
She seemed to be muttering something, but what was this sound?
While I was confused, the woman shifted her tone and spoke again.
“Besides, that wasn’t even my doing.”
“What do you mean…….”
Now that I thought about it, this woman and the Raven were separate entities.
It was probably the Raven who brought the Director General back to life.
“The method is different too.”
“The method?”
“The way your Director General was brought back. That wasn’t really resurrection—it was skipping over death itself. So what I did for you is fundamentally different. That was a crude workaround using space.”
What on earth is she talking about?
“Then the Director General wasn’t actually revived?”
“Rather, he was never dead to begin with.”
……?
When I asked again in shock, the woman explained as if bestowing a favor.
“Think of life as a thread.”
I nodded.
“When someone is alive, that thread continues forward through time. And when that thread breaks at some point—that’s what you call death.”
Death. I nodded again.
“I brought you back by unraveling that broken thread and reconnecting each strand. But that Raven—”
She paused and smiled as she said “Raven.”
“That Raven didn’t reconnect the broken thread. Instead, it pulled the severed end forward and covered over the moment the thread broke.”
Covered it over?
“It made the act of the thread breaking itself nonexistent.”
Reconnecting a broken thread versus erasing the very fact of its breaking.
The former was the method she’d used on me, and the latter was the Raven’s method?
Was that why there was a thirteen-second gap in the Director General’s timeline when the Raven brought him?
But…….
“Wouldn’t making the fact of breaking nonexistent be better?”
“I go through the trouble of mending you, and this is what I get.”
I caught myself and closed my mouth.
Was there some philosophy to the way humans were brought back to life?
I glanced around nervously, wondering if I’d misspoken.
The woman smiled gently at me again.
“Just joking. Well, in your position, I suppose. But that method is really just a shortcut. It’s a kind of cheat that’s only possible in what you call an Early-Stage Special Zone. Time distorts easily here.”
Right—opening a door and pulling someone out from thirteen seconds before their death was only possible in an Early-Stage Special Zone.
Of course, even that required the aid of beings like the Raven or this woman.
But the method used to revive me was completely different, she said…….
“Then what about the method you used to revive the Management Bureau agents just now?”
“Hm?”
“You opened a door and pulled out people from just before they died, didn’t you? That’s the same shortcut the Raven uses, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“But you just called it a ‘crude workaround’…….”
“If an easy method exists, you use it.”
The woman answered my objection matter-of-factly.
“And my Breath isn’t something I give to just anyone. You don’t realize how precious it is, and you’re just throwing it around.”
The woman criticized me subtly.
Her tone was like a parent watching their carefully raised child spiral into trouble, clicking their tongue in disapproval.
Was this being naturally familiar with humans, or was I receiving special treatment?
It had to be the latter.
She’d said her Breath wasn’t given to just anyone.
That Breath seemed to be some material or ability used in bringing humans back to life.
I turned over these new words the woman had poured out.
The difference in methods of revival and what mattered remained unclear to me.
But I understood clearly that this woman bore goodwill toward me.
So I decided to trust that inexplicable goodwill and become even more shameless.
“If you’ve taken such care to revive me, wouldn’t it be better to let me live a bit longer…….”
Glimmer, glimmer.
The lights responded again to my subtle plea.
Thank you, all of you.
And despite my nonsense, the woman still smiled at me gently.
The atmosphere wasn’t bad.
Maybe, just maybe, I could get through this…….
I was running through hopeful scenarios in silence when—
The woman, still wearing the Author’s face, spoke again.
“It still doesn’t make sense. What you’re asking for now.”
“It doesn’t make sense…….”
“Do you remember what you were thinking when you died this time?”
What I was thinking?
“You said your death was ‘just one more thing happening.'”
I went still at her words.
Then the woman burst into light laughter.
“No need to be shocked. Resurrection is like that. To bring you back, I reassembled you piece by piece. So I know you—well enough, and in some ways better than you know yourself.”
The word ‘know’ made my chest tighten strangely.
I felt exposed, and the woman gazed at me with a narrowed gaze as she spoke:
“I know how much you fear death, even though you don’t.”
…….
“So I’m asking. About your attitude, which makes even less sense than my whims.”
“What do you mean…….”
“Living again means dying again. You’re choosing to experience the one death humans should only have to endure—over and over. So why do you beg for your life so pathetically?”
“Because I want to live.”
“Don’t lie.”
The woman firmly rejected my answer.
Then, without giving me a chance to argue back, she continued:
“If you really wanted to live, you wouldn’t have sent your friends out in your place. Well, that’s the past, so never mind. But is this plea for mercy to me really about wanting to survive?”
The woman watched me, and I couldn’t hold her gaze, looking down instead.
But even without looking, I could sense it.
How sharply her eyes were piercing through me.
Then I understood at last why she’d kept smiling.
It was ridiculous.
Me, moving my lips before her—who saw through me like glass.
I belatedly regretted my pointless schemes.
Then I confessed.
“You’re right. I’d rather finish what I started, if I can.”
“Finish what?”
“My work.”
“That’s the same thing you said before. You sent your friends out fine, so now you want to save the child Lee Sol too?”
……Yes.
At my answer, the woman smirked again.
She must think I’m shameless.
Like saving someone from drowning and then asking for their bags too.
But already shameless, I pressed on.
“I know I’m pushing my luck asking for more after what’s already done, but if there’s any way, I’d like to save her too. And I think this story would be interesting enough. There are too many threads entangled in it.”
I spoke as calmly as I could, trying not to sound like I was begging.
Then I braced myself for her rebuke.
But an unexpected answer came back.
“I’ve already seen it.”
……?
“That child is saved by you. I’ve already seen it.”
The woman continued to smile as she spoke.
Her tone was even kind.
But in that calm statement of fact, I felt a strangeness and chill I’d never experienced before.
As I lost my words, the woman added:
“That’s why I put you in there in the first place.”
I didn’t understand immediately this time either.
Taking pity on me, the woman explained again:
“The reason I put you in the Train Station was for that.”
I lifted my head to look at the woman.
For some reason, looking into that abyss no longer frightened me.
The revelation she’d just made had stripped away even the luxury of fear.
I stared at her for a long moment before finally speaking.
“You’re not the Raven.”
“Right. The Raven is the Raven.”
What does that mean?
It was the Raven who put me in the Special Zone.
But you’re saying it was you who dragged me into the Train Station?
That you’re the one who caused that first incident and ruined my life……?
“You can resent me.”
The woman smiled as she spoke to me, speechless.
“I’m actually a bit sorry to you. That’s why I’ve kept you alive until now. But I’m going to stop now.”
……I barely managed to speak.
I didn’t know if what was rising in me was resentment or anger.
So I spoke without knowing.
The woman tilted her head and pushed back instead:
“Didn’t I tell you? All my rights over you are legal. I’ve already paid the price for dragging you here.”
What price? How?
When everything I’ve endured has been…….
“If you’d said you’d live as a normal editor, I might have revived you again. But not as you are now.”
Even as she said this, the woman remained affectionate toward me.
With such a kind tone and such a gentle smile, she said:
“Why would I need to fill your life every time you use it as a tool? Don’t you think?”

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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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