Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 173

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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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Editor’s Survival Manual Episode 173

ep24. We Escaped (2)
“To be honest, the opening was a bit—I wasn’t sure what to make of it.”
“But then from the middle on, oh, I thought—and then the ending was just… ah.”
“A will with proper setup and payoff. That was a first.”
“This is the true power of the humanities!”
She had read it.
She was definitely speaking from having read it.
I was deeply flustered—so bewildered it felt like a dream—but I hid my shock and asked back.
“How on earth did you see it?”
The time I spent trapped in the Train Station and its adjoining space was barely fifty-seven hours.
Too early to confirm death.
There was no way they would have unfurled my will while waiting for our return.
If they had done something like that, Deputy Manager Yun Woo-jeong would have shouted them down for it.
But then how?
Why?
A researcher answered my question.
“The Field Team requested an analysis.”
An analysis?
“Oh, Agent. Since we’re on the subject—you didn’t leave any kind of cipher or code in the will, did you?”
“They suddenly asked us to analyze it, so we did a compositional analysis of the paper and ink, but nothing special came up… was there just some kind of miscommunication?”
“…….”
Team Leader Cha. What in the world is this?
I turned silently to look at Cha Si-eon.
He returned an expression of utter bewilderment.
That was right. Even though Team Leader Cha displayed occasional psychopathic tendencies, he wasn’t the kind of warped individual who would publicly expose someone else’s will, which they’d asked him to dispose of.
So what was this situation, exactly?
The researchers explained the full scope of what had happened.
* * *
Four days ago.
When the agents, aside from me and Cha Si-eon, came out of the Train Station.
“Seo Do-un got off the train?”
Manager Kwon Mu-seop asked with a stiffened face.
Han Seung-yo, who was acting in Cha Si-eon’s stead, answered.
“Yes. So Team Leader Cha broke the train window and jumped out after him. Seo Do-un said he would find himself and told us to go ahead first.”
“So only those two were left in the Special Zone?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
At Han Seung-yo’s reply, Kwon Mu-seop let out a low sigh.
Then, with an even stiffer face, he pressed for details.
“Why did Seo Do-un suddenly get off the train?”
“That hasn’t been determined.”
“Didn’t he say anything before Team Leader Cha went after him?”
“Team Leader Cha didn’t appear to have a precise understanding of the situation either.”
“……So he just got off the train without warning? And you all just stood there watching?”
Anger crept into Kwon Mu-seop’s voice.
Just as a storm was about to break.
One agent, quick on the uptake, cut in.
“Agent Seo Do-un told us to check his will!”
Manager Kwon Mu-seop swallowed back the anger he’d been about to unleash at this new information.
In that gap, the agent spoke quickly on.
“I was near the entrance of the cabin, so I heard Agent Do-un’s voice. He called for Team Leader Cha before getting off the train and asked him to check his will.”
If I had been there, I would have corrected him on the spot.
‘It’s not to check it—it’s to dispose of it. Aren’t ‘check’ and ‘dispose’ completely different in both pronunciation and meaning?’—I would have said exactly that.
But I wasn’t there, and the misunderstanding was smoothly completed.
“So if we check Agent Do-un’s will, we should be able to figure something out!”
……People have two ears and one mouth.
The saying goes it’s so they listen well and speak carefully.
Regrettably, the Management Bureau had someone who listened carelessly and spoke with unwarranted certainty.
His name was Jeong Jin-u.
* * *
And so my will became an object of analysis, circulating through the Management Bureau.
During the two days I was missing.
At this unexpected turn of events, I felt my mind reeling.
“So… it was only checked by Analysis Team 5…?”
I asked, swallowing my shock, and the researchers simply nodded cheerfully.
The scope of my will’s exposure.
The Management Bureau’s Command Division.
The participants of the Train Station suppression operation.
And Analysis Team 5.
Roughly that much, then?
My request to dispose of the will had been so garbled in transmission that it came back like this.
It was an irony worthy of Greek mythology, and I couldn’t collect myself.
If there was any consolation at this moment…
“Since nothing came up in Agent Seo’s will, we also analyzed Team Leader Cha’s will together.”
“And nothing particularly came up from his either. So it was a miscommunication after all, right?”
That I wasn’t alone.
The one who had advised me to write such an embarrassing will.
His will too had been exposed to the world, so at least I wasn’t lonely…
I managed a smile toward the chattering researchers, then glanced sideways at Cha Si-eon.
On the surface, Cha Si-eon seemed composed.
But there seemed to be an odd tension in the fist he’d placed on his knee.
Shortly after, we stood up.
On the way back to the Main Building, we said nothing.
So the silence was even more awkward than when we’d come to meet Lee Sol.
And in that strange sense of exhaustion, I turned over in my mind the reality of my situation and the contents of the will I’d written.
It was dizzying.
More precisely, I wanted to bash my head against the wall from the shame that rose all the way to the crown of my head.
I feel like I’m dying, but since it’s my own doing, I can’t even direct my anger anywhere.
Why did I write such a will?
Did I have to show my resolve to definitely come back alive in such a manner?
Would it be too cowardly to resent Team Leader Cha here…?
While I was silently struggling, Cha Si-eon suddenly spoke.
“They’ll all have forgotten.”
“…….”
“Since the Train Station suppression succeeded, their focus will be on that now. There’s a lot of new information to process, and a lot to organize going forward. So no one will worry about the will.”
Team Leader Cha spoke in a grave voice as if he understood something profound.
Were those words for me, or for himself?
I watched his back with a gloomy feeling.
“Moreover, the Field Team won’t make light mention of the will. So if Seo Do-un just stays calm and responds appropriately, it’ll pass quietly.”
Was this him taking responsibility for the misguided advice he’d given?
Or was it solidarity with a colleague suffering the same pain?
I didn’t know which, but I deeply nodded at his counsel.
Right. The will wasn’t an essay submitted to a literary contest.
No one would say to my face, ‘I saw your will.’
Somehow my rambling words—written as if on an anonymous message board or private blog—had come back with my name attached.
What I’d written intending to hide my identity or show to no one had been exposed to people who knew me.
Just thinking of that situation made cold sweat break out and made me want to bite my tongue.
But this too would pass.
Just like every wave I’d already weathered, this would too.
Above all, I was not alone right now.
* * *
“Agent Do-un! I saw your will!”
“…….”
I’d momentarily forgotten.
That Team Leader Cha’s accuracy rate was below fifty percent.
That no matter how commonsensical his words, Team Leader Cha had a way of making an exceptional situation emerge that leapt far beyond them.
Afternoon, in the Field Team meeting room.
The members of the Train Station suppression operation gathered in one place.
There, Cha Si-eon and I received enthusiastic welcomes from the agents who’d come out earlier.
And the agents were riding atop a peculiar misunderstanding.
“Leaving a will like that and staying behind—that’s cheating… Seung-yo even cried reading it.”
“I didn’t cry.”
“You definitely got choked up, didn’t you?”
“…….”
“Hmm? Agent Do-un, why are you sweating like that?”
At Jeong Jin-u’s question, I forced my mouth upward into a smile.
It seemed the Field Team had long since abandoned the assumption that my will contained important information.
Instead, they believed, in a truly absurd manner, that I had conveyed my conviction to them through the will.
Not knowing where to even begin correcting this, I was just sweating coldly when.
“Hey, sit down. This isn’t a middle school classroom.”
The voice of Deputy Manager Yun Woo-jeong, just in time.
Manager Kwon Mu-seop and Deputy Manager Yun Woo-jeong were entering the meeting room.
The agents quickly took their seats at the superiors’ arrival.
Once seated, Manager Kwon Mu-seop opened his mouth.
“You’ve all worked hard. And you did well.”
Just two words landed with weight.
“Thanks to you all, I feel like we’re finally getting the reward for all our hard work so far. It must have been frustrating for you. I bet it was most frustrating for you. Thank you for enduring this long, and thank you most of all for coming back alive. Lee Sol is recovering, so be relieved, and as for Lee Sol’s father… Agent Lee Seob, we plan to send him home in good health. And the Director was very pleased. So he’s decided to come personally and give commendations.”
“Ooh…”
The agents exclaimed at the mention of the Director.
The Director—he’d opposed this so fiercely before, but now that results are in, he’s pleased, honest as ever.
People are funny that way, but honestly, it’s better than someone stubbornly insisting on pride and being difficult.
“Things will change quite a bit from here on. Since you’ve built your accomplishments with your lives on the line, you can take pride in yourselves now.”
At Kwon Mu-seop’s commendation, the agents cheered.
Kwon Mu-seop watched them smile, then said to Yun Woo-jeong.
“Deputy Manager, you say something too.”
“Don’t get too excited.”
At Yun Woo-jeong’s single word, the cheering stopped abruptly.
He shook his head and added.
“I know you did well. You did, that’s right. So maintain your humility. Don’t rush ahead trying to do better, and don’t despair next time if you don’t perform at this level. You were exceptionally good this time—it’s not your baseline. Do you understand?”
“Yes!”
“And you all saw Seo Do-un’s will, right?”
Suddenly?
At Yun Woo-jeong’s ambush, the cold sweat that had momentarily stopped began flowing again.
“Since we’re on the topic of humility, show some sincerity when you write your wills. Hmm? We’re not advertising that you lay down your lives, and hopefully that’ll never happen, but if families receive wills written carelessly, what will they think? Write them genuinely like Seo Do-un does, all right? Read some books in your spare time.”
No, Deputy Manager. Why now, at this timing…
I could feel cold sweat sliding down my spine.
But… ugh… this too will pass.
So I’ll take comfort in not being alone…
It was then.
“You know why I’m saying this? Team Leader Cha, what kind of person writes ‘No special circumstances’ on his will? Just one line? And he’s the team lead.”
“……?”
I doubted my ears.
No special circumstances?
Just one line?
“That’s pretty harsh, isn’t it? Do-un wrote three full pages by hand and submitted that.”
I turned my head following Yun Woo-jeong’s gaze.
“I will revise it.”
Cha Si-eon humbly accepted the criticism.
……There’s a verse: “Though fate may deceive you…”
I was now understanding that verse to my very bones.
Ah, so this is what it feels like.
To be deceived by the world.
Cha Si-eon, feeling my gaze, glanced sideways at me.
I asked him silently with my eyes.
What are you…?
Cha Si-eon answered with his eyes too.
That’s how it came to be.

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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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