Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 175

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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 175

ep25. Unsealing (1)

The rain had finally stopped.
Cha Si-eon and Kwon Mu-seop, both dressed in dark suits, worked a shovel through the wet earth beneath a small tree.
Two years ago, that tree had become Lee Seob’s grave—a tomb without a body to bury.
Lee Sol, wearing mourning clothes, and a woman beside her approached the tree, carrying a small urn.
The two of them lowered Lee Seob’s ashes carefully between the tree’s roots.
The agents who had come watched in silence as a grave that had been nothing but a name finally became whole.
Perhaps the rain would have been kinder after all.
Once the burial was complete, the woman who had stood beside Lee Sol turned to Cha Si-eon and Kwon Mu-seop, bowing in gratitude.
Then she and Lee Sol came toward me.
“This is my mother, sir.”
Lee Sol introduced her from beside me, worried I might not understand.
Lee Sol’s mother bowed to me as well.
“Thank you, Agent Seo Do-un. You saved my daughter twice and found her father too…….”
The woman—Lee Seob’s wife—spoke in a composed voice, her tone steady, grief and relief woven together without breaking.
“I’m only sorry you’ve endured such hardship. Please accept my deepest condolences.”
At my words, the woman smiled faintly.
Her face, when she smiled, bore a striking resemblance to Lee Sol’s.
“I hung up a family photo yesterday.”
A family photo?
“A photo we took with her father.”
“I see…….”
I nodded at her additional words.
The redaction on Lee Seob’s record hadn’t been confined to the Management Bureau alone.
His family, too, had been denied even the right to grieve for him.
“I can finally breathe now. Thank you so much, Agent.”
Lee Sol’s mother bowed deeply.
Watching her, I couldn’t help but remember once more.
Lee Seob’s final moments. The Great Siren’s final moments.
As I’d suspected, Lee Seob had been a good father and a good husband.
Why such a person had to become a monster and remain bound to that strange place—I still had no answer.
None of us did.

* * *

All agents deployed in the Train Station suppression operation underwent rigorous medical examination.
“All personnel cleared. No abnormalities detected.”
Cha Si-eon delivered the test results.
At this, Kwon Mu-seop nodded with relief.
“Good. If the Director came through unscathed, you lot should be fine. Thank goodness.”
And mercifully, the aftereffects of resurrection seemed absent.
There wasn’t much alarm about it—we had the late Director’s precedent to reassure us.
But I was the problem.
“Do-un’s situation is different, though…….”
Kwon Mu-seop murmured while reviewing the report in front of him.
“I always thought that bastard was just lucky, but it’s not that simple, is it?”
Kwon Mu-seop’s voice was tinged with bitterness.
He’d learned that I had died multiple times and come back to life again each time.
“Keep this shared only with Director Kim and Analysis Team 5. Lock down the information.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Do-un, don’t breathe a word of this to anyone else. More people knowing won’t help.”
“Yes, sir.”
I nodded at his warning.
He was right—if it became known that while others’ lives were disposable, mine was reusable, there was nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Especially not now, when the woman who had granted me this privilege had decided to stop looking out for me.
There was no reason to broadcast that my life was recyclable paper.
After silencing us, Kwon Mu-seop turned back to the report.
Moments later, he sighed again.
“So this Big Cat’s older sister…….”
“She could be the same entity Lee Seob encountered.”
Cha Si-eon interjected casually at Kwon Mu-seop’s musing.
“Lee Seob also said he couldn’t tell if she was an angel or a human being. And the woman described by Seo Do-un had an appearance that would conventionally be considered angelic.”
“Hmm…… But wasn’t the figure Do-un saw unmistakably angelic? If Lee Seob had seen something like that, he wouldn’t have been confused.”
Right.
The woman I’d met had wings spread out like a white space behind her back.
So I wasn’t confused at all.
Despite her appearance being hauntingly familiar, I knew instantly she wasn’t human.
“Besides, the figure Lee Seob saw was a young man.”
“A young man?”
This was news to me.
With the restriction on mentioning Lee Seob now lifted, Kwon Mu-seop answered freely.
“A young, delicate man, apparently. What Do-un saw was the form of a woman he already knew. Sara, Sol, and his writer—that was the name, right?”
“Yes.”
“He’s close with Sara, Sol was the objective of this operation, and the writer? A long-standing work relationship?”
“In various ways, yes.”
“Then Big Cat’s older sister must have mimicked the appearance of women memorable to Do-un. Calling herself ‘sister’ suggests she firmly identifies as female.”
“But sir, based on the information we’ve gathered so far, the Special Zone is ruled by four creatures. If they’ve split into the Three Creatures and Big Cat’s sister, the only one showing favor toward humans is Big Cat’s sister. So the entity that gave Lee Seob hints must also be Big Cat’s sister for the pattern to hold.”
The sound recorded when I escaped from the Comprehensive Stadium.
The performance I witnessed at the National Theater.
And the message Lee Seob left at the Hotel.
Taken together, Cha Si-eon’s theory had merit.
But Kwon Mu-seop shook his head again.
“Lee Seob said that man was kind. But is this woman kind? She strikes me as vicious.”
“…….”
“And are we even certain that what we’re tracking is just four creatures? If the Crow is separate, the pattern might not be complete.”
Kwon Mu-seop had a point.
With only the information we’d secured, it was still premature to piece together the full picture.
As Kwon Mu-seop flipped through the report again, he suddenly turned to me.
“By the way, Do-un. Did you memorize this transcript, or write it out from notes?”
“Pardon?”
“The conversation with Big Cat’s sister. There’s quite a lot here—how did you capture it so precisely?”
“I wrote it down while listening to the recording on my smartwatch.”
I answered, bewildered by his question.
The conversation with that woman had indeed lasted a long time.
There was no way I could have memorized an entire unscripted, colloquial dialogue and written it out word-perfect after hearing it once.
Besides, the recording itself was intact—there was no reason to rely on memory.
“You wrote it down while listening to a recording?”
But Kwon Mu-seop looked utterly confused.
As I stared blankly at him, Kwon Mu-seop spoke again, his tone hardened.
“Your voice is all that’s on the recording.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t hear anything but Seo Do-un’s voice either.”
“…….”
Cha Si-eon backing him up from the side.
What was he talking about?
I’d spent hours listening to that recording to write this transcript.
The woman’s voice—the same voice as Nabbit—had been crystal clear in the audio I heard.
“Hold on.”
I immediately turned on my tablet.
Then I played back the recording file saved in it.

-You’re going to play editor here too?
-It’s a professional habit.
-That’s impressive.

Overlapping with my voice came the unmistakable voice of Nabbit.
The woman’s voice came through clearly, as it should.
“There seems to have been an error in the shared file.”
After playing the recording for Cha Si-eon and Kwon Mu-seop, I explained.
But the expressions on both their faces only grew stranger.
“……?”
When I reacted with confusion to their response, Kwon Mu-seop, who had been watching me intently, spoke again.
“There’s only your voice on it.”
“What?”
“All I hear is your voice. You don’t hear something different?”
“……Are you joking?”
I laughed awkwardly and looked to Cha Si-eon.
But the Team Leader also shook his head, his face grave.
What? A joke?
I know you two like to mess around, but this isn’t funny.
“You really can’t hear it?”
I moved the playback bar of the recording file, searching for the woman’s voice and replayed it.

-But among the writers you handled, there wasn’t anyone like that, was there?
-I kept thinking, why is something else holding onto what should fall into my hands…….
-Your chances of surviving here are…….

“You really can’t hear this?”
Fearing they might claim this too was a joke, I asked again, more seriously.
Then Cha Si-eon answered with a grave expression.
“I cannot. There’s only faint noise. No intelligible sound besides Seo Do-un’s voice.”
“…….”
At Cha Si-eon’s certainty, an uncanny chill ran through me.
This didn’t seem like a joke anymore.
Then what on earth was happening?
They couldn’t hear what I was hearing in real time?
As I sat frozen, at a loss for words, Cha Si-eon suddenly pulled out his own tablet.
“Seo Do-un, can you hear this sound as well?”
Cha Si-eon played another recording file.

-How did this even happen……?

What came through was none other than my own voice.
This was the audio recorded when I emerged from the Comprehensive Stadium.

-Why until now…… couldn’t …….
-……exactly what ……kind of ……is it…….

My voice, fragmented and sparse.
I listened intently to that sound, confusion mounting.
The recording that had only contained my own voice when I’d heard it before.
But then, the next moment.

-Aren’t you a god to her? She created you and resurrected you countless times.

The woman’s voice came through with perfect clarity, threaded with laughter.
Goosebumps erupted across my skin at that gentle tone.

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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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