Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 174

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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 of an Editor 174

ep24. We Escaped (3)
“I’m not asking you to write like Seo Do-un. But shouldn’t there be some basic humanity at least, you fools? What? Don’t dump all your time and effort into muscles alone!”
Deputy Manager Yun Woo-jeong’s scolding continued.
But his words didn’t stay in my head—they went in one ear and out the other.
I felt like I’d fallen into a trap constructed by the whole world conspiring together.
The world was crueler than my faith in it, and somehow only I had been caught in this savage snare.
First, I had to contain this situation.
But how could I counter this flow?
How could I possibly push back against an atmosphere so solid that I couldn’t stand alone against it?
That was when it happened.
Suddenly, one person’s hand shot up.
“There’s something I need to confirm first regarding Agent Seo Do-un’s will.”
The person who spoke was none other than Baek Sa-ra.
But confirmation? What now?
“Agent Jeong Jin-u initially said there might be some clue in Agent Seo Do-un’s will. However, after careful examination, Agent Seo Do-un’s will was confirmed to be merely an ordinary will.”
Baek Sa-ra spoke in a calm voice.
Everyone already knew this much, so they listened in silence.
“Then why would Agent Seo Do-un ask for his will to be verified? It would be released anyway once he passed away.”
But the moment Baek Sa-ra raised that suspicion, the atmosphere shifted.
The agents began to grow tense at some sense of wrongness.
Having stirred up that disturbance, Baek Sa-ra turned to me with a question.
“Agent Seo, did you really ask Team Leader Cha to verify your will?”
Baek Sa-ra.
At her question, I felt a strange surge of emotion welling up.
It was as though the dark clouds covering the world were parting and a single beam of light was pouring down.
The chance to reveal the truth had arrived unexpectedly, and I testified willingly, trampling over every frustration.
“I asked him to destroy it.”
“…!”
“…!”
“…!”
Deputy Manager Yun’s shock in order.
Jeong Jin-u’s shock.
The shock of the other agents watching us.
The reaction felt unnecessarily grave, but I pressed on stubbornly.
“I asked him to destroy the will, and it seems the message got passed along wrong.”
At my confession, the room stirred.
“Wait, we weren’t supposed to read this?”
“Yeah, something felt off…especially the beginning.”
“How do you mishear ‘destroy’ as ‘verify’? Did your ears fall off?”
The agents whispered among themselves for a moment, then seemed to grasp the situation and began watching my expression carefully.
Deputy Manager Yun Woo-jeong in particular looked deeply flustered.
“Destroy…?”
Yun Woo-jeong’s gaze wavered uncertainly as he repeated my words.
Then he turned to me with an awkward expression and apologized.
“Ah, yes. I’m sorry.”
“No, sir. It was just a misunderstanding…”
I tried to accept the apology gracefully.
Just a misunderstanding, so it’s, it’s fine…
No, honestly it’s…not fine…
“Please give me back my will now…”
I finally whimpered while covering my face.
“Jeong Jin-u, you bastard—!”
It was as Deputy Manager Yun, even more flustered by my reaction, began to shout.
Baek Sa-ra raised her hand again and spoke.
“And there’s one more thing we need to address.”
All eyes, now more gravely serious, fixed on Baek Sa-ra.
With the full acuity of the Exploration Team, Baek Sa-ra made her point.
“In Agent Seo Do-un’s will, there’s a passage stating that he was pressured to write the will in the most humiliating way possible.”
“…!”
“…!”
“…!”
“Isn’t this the same tactic the senior agents used to mess with new recruits back then?”
Yes. Life often deceived me, but that didn’t mean my entire life was a lie.
Truth existed in this world, radiant and luminous, and it was always waiting for the moment it could come to light.
“Who told Seo Do-un to write a humiliating will!”
Deputy Manager Yun immediately launched into identifying the culprit.
Then Jeong Jin-u and the other agents looked around with innocent faces.
Insisting: it wasn’t me.
So naturally, their gazes converged on a single point.
In the agents’ view was Cha Si-eon, sitting quietly with his hands clasped on the table, his head bowed.
“…It couldn’t be you?”
Deputy Manager Yun asked Cha Si-eon.
His voice was almost a moan.
As if betrayed by the axe he’d trusted.
As if he’d never expected this from him.
At that, Cha Si-eon lifted his head.
Then, in a low, measured voice, he confessed.
“I didn’t think he’d listen to instructions that well.”
Heavy silence fell.
In that quiet, only my blood pressure rose silently and relentlessly.
Deputy Manager Yun spoke.
“…Cha Si-eon, Jeong Jin-u. You two stay behind for a moment.”
Justice existed in this world.
And Baek Sa-ra, who’d delivered justice with a single decisive blow, turned to look at me and smiled softly.
As if to say: now you can rest easy.
At that beautiful smile, I felt joy, but also something bittersweet.
Because my situation felt like an elementary school student being bullied, only to be rescued by the class president and homeroom teacher.
So despite this enactment of justice, I had to endure considerable humiliation and awkwardness all over again.
* * *
A short while later.
Cha Si-eon and Jeong Jin-u, having been reamed out by Deputy Manager Yun, came over to me and apologized.
Thirty minutes later.
We all left the Management Bureau together.
One hour after that.
We arrived at a secluded safe house with a garden, and began our celebration dinner there.
And four hours later.
The agents had successfully built a pyramid out of soju bottles.
“Hey, careful with that…make sure you clean it up before you leave…”
“We’ll take it back to the residence.”
“This is our achievement.”
“Come on, wake up. We need to add another layer…”
Jeong Jin-u waking up Han Seung-yo, who was sleeping under the pyramid.
True to a celebration of success, the agents threw themselves into it without restraint.
I watched their uninhibited energy for a while, then quietly stood up and went outside.
“Whew…”
There were plenty of drinkers in publishing too, but these people were no joke either.
I’d had a drink or two out of politeness, but that was nowhere near enough to match these people with their restraints removed.
So I stepped outside for a breather, and a breeze happened to blow by.
The hackberry tree hanging over the veranda rustled, carrying the scent of summer night.
It was peaceful.
As if all the days before were lies.
But they shouldn’t be lies.
Because what we’d barely managed to achieve was precious.
Rustle—
While savoring the summer night, my clothes made a sound.
Ah.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.
It was my will, returned to me by Deputy Manager Yun.
“…”
The product of my shame.
I was about to tear it up and throw it in the trash when I paused.
I was going to throw it away.
But looking at how hard I’d pressed the pen to write it, I felt it would be a waste.
So after hesitating for a moment, I unfolded my will and read it.
—
To the Management Bureau,
Hello. I am Seo Do-un.
The fact that you are reading this letter means I am no longer among the living.
I hope my death brings you no great sorrow.
If others were also lost, I extend my condolences and sympathy to them and their families.
I received advice to write my will in the most humiliating way possible.
So I thought about how to make myself ashamed, and I found ways to do it, but it seemed wrong that the living should have to know the intimate preferences of the dead just for the sake of my embarrassment. So I decided to refrain from mentioning it. I reconsidered what degree of shame would be unpleasant to you, and I confess: I am actually in a romantic relationship with Team Leader Cha Si-eon. Is that true? Of course not. A sentence born purely for the sake of shame has done its job beautifully. I will desperately struggle to survive precisely so I can hide this sentence.
—
I’m going crazy…
What was I thinking, writing something like this and putting it in someone else’s hands, past me…
I closed my eyes tight at the fact that this nonsense had been exposed.
I endured the pain for a while, then after a deep breath, I faced the will again.
My rambling continued thick through the second page.
Written without the slightest thought that anyone would see it, it was nothing but complete gibberish—not just overflowing with thoughtless drivel but spilling beyond the margins.
So I scanned through it with blurred eyes, then paused at something on the final page.
—
I am striving to live with such desperation.
But on the other hand, I often think it is all for nothing.
Because human effort and hope are betrayed far too easily.
Yet people foolishly cling to expectation and refuse to abandon hope, only to suffer all the more greatly for it.
Then wouldn’t it be better to resign and surrender beforehand, so that we could meet any catastrophe with cold mockery?
Life has already been stolen from me, and I barely have the strength to evade death as it keeps coming for me. Why flail so desperately? Why not choose death peacefully instead?
Harboring such thoughts in the corner of my heart, I was actually wavering.
Not just me, but all of you here—are you not like frogs slowly boiling in a pot?
Are you not simply enduring meaningless time like Sisyphus bearing eternal punishment?
If so, wouldn’t it be fine if we all died together?
I dared to think such a thing.
But when I actually imagined death, strangely enough, I still wanted to live.
I thought life had been taken from me, but even that was life.
The time I thought I was merely enduring in this place was my life. Bearing a single day in anxiety because I don’t know tomorrow is still a day of life. And because there is a day of life even without perfect salvation, I could exist for one more day.
This was neither meaningless nor fleeting.
So it was an honor to share this life with all of you.
Thanks to you, I lived a few more months of life, and that life was…
—
Rip—rip-rip!
I couldn’t endure any longer and tore the will lengthwise.
Tearing it vertically and horizontally, shredding even the letters contained within it.
Goodbye, paper stained with my shame.
It would be perfect if I scattered these dramatically.
But I couldn’t litter the garden with scraps of paper.
So I was looking around for a place to dispose of it when—
“What are you doing?”
“Ugh!”
At the sudden voice from behind me, I jumped and yelped.
Dammit, I nearly coughed up my heart.
Turning around, I saw Cha Si-eon standing there.
Like me, he seemed to have come out for air, casually settling onto the veranda.
“I heard roughly what was in the will.”
“…”
“I confirmed your resolve not to die alone.”
“Does Team Leader have any standing to criticize me for that?”
“…”
After our brief exchange, silence fell.
The wind blew in to fill the gap.
Then Cha Si-eon spoke again.
“Thank you.”
“…?”
“Because of you, I was able to do what needed to be done.”
That was unexpected of him.
I hesitated for a moment, unsure how to respond.
It seemed like I should thank him as well since we’d each done favors for the other, but thinking about it, the timing didn’t seem right.
So after a moment of thought, I came up with an appropriate answer and reciprocated.
“I look forward to working with you going forward.”

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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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