Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 176

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

Survival Rules for an Editor – Episode 176

ep25. Unsealing (2)

I stood rigid like a bird struck by lightning, then wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
It was an unconscious gesture, but something came away on my hand.
Blood.
A nosebleed was flowing.
“…….”
As I stood cupping the falling blood in my hand, Kwon Mu-seop rushed over with a tissue from the table.
“What’s wrong? Are you all right?”
“The memory…….”
My eyes throbbed.
The searing pain in my head made me clench my eyes shut, but I forced myself to continue.
“……I remember. I saw the Three Creatures at that time.”
“What did you say?”
At that moment.
The moment I was escaping the Comprehensive Stadium.
I wasn’t dragged to different places within the Special Zone.
Because different entities from different domains had come to see me, the spaces had overlapped.
“Multiple spaces were layered on top of each other. And something stood before them.”
A hairless four-legged beast bearing Type 1 Special Zones on its back.
“The Big Cat.”
A massive black silhouette with enormous horns, perched atop a world brilliant as a video game.
“A horned monster.”
And a man whose feet touched a transcendent dimension beyond mortal comprehension.
“And some man was looking down at me.”
The memories of that moment came alive before my eyes like a phantom.
Through the gaps of the fractured space, the Big Cat snarled at me.
Kee-dee-dee-dee-!
A shrill, eerie cry.
That sound overlapped with the words Ryu Dan-a had interpreted for me before.

-I’ll tear you to death! Seo Do-un, I’ll shred you to pieces! You damned demon!

The Big Cat was consumed with hatred.
Why?
At that time, I hadn’t done anything yet.
I was just forced into the Special Zone and fighting for survival.
I hadn’t attacked the Big Cat, hadn’t touched the core of a Type 1 Special Zone.
Yet the Big Cat was already showing fierce hostility toward me.

-Wait, don’t touch it now.

The man restraining it.
His face wasn’t visible.
But the delicacy of his manner had burned itself into my mind.

-I should go back. I’m hungry.

And in the distance, those massive horns, watching idly and muttering indifferently.

-I’ll kill it. I’ll kill it! Die, die, die, die, die, die, die!
-Not yet.

Despite the man’s restraint, the Big Cat grabbed me in its mouth and bit down.
Crunch-!
Sitting in the chair, I felt my legs thrash of their own accord.
Clang-!
Kwon Mu-seop was saying something to me, but I barely heard it.
Blood poured from my nose unstoppably.
And what happened after that?
Ah, I remember now.
I died.
I died in agony and fell.
Into a pure white space colder than death itself.
There I encountered.

-Author……?

A woman looking at me with a strange smile.
A presence wearing the face of the Author Nabbit.
At that time, I didn’t doubt that woman was Nabbit.
So when I saw that face, I groaned, and then realized again.
That this wasn’t the first time I’d met you.
That you had come to find me like this even when I died the very first time.

-How did this happen……? Why haven’t I been able to remember until now…….

I asked in a haze of despair.
How could I have forgotten such a thing?
No, am I remembering it all correctly now?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
It was a promise and a deal and a contract.
But I can’t remember.
I’d even forgotten the fact that I’d forgotten.
My mind spiraled in helpless confusion as I asked desperately.

-What exactly are you?
-To you, wouldn’t I be a god? I created you and brought you back to life so many times.

What did I do at her playful answer?
“Ugh……!”
I quickly covered my mouth.
The me in the memory did the same.
Because more of her words had surfaced in my mind.
My deaths.
Those cruel deaths.
The worst memories a living being could have.
Some deaths bring peace, but some do not.
The deaths I experienced were not among them.
It was like splitting a seed to force out the sprout, cracking an egg to drain out an incompletely formed bird.
I died that way, came back to life, and so I died again.
As I recalled the pain too late, I moaned.

-Why would you do such a thing……?

At my resentful question, the woman looked at me with warm eyes.
Then she smiled cheerfully and answered.

-Because I created you.

I scratched my arm with my fingernails.
Don’t forget, remember.
Speaking to myself, I cut marks into my arm.

-You don’t have to struggle like that.

Nabbit smiled at me pitifully.
Looking at my blood-soaked arm, she whispered tenderly to my ear.

-You’ll know it all eventually. When you’re meant to know.

With those words, I finally lost consciousness.
In the memory.
And in reality.

* * *

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a bed.
An IV bag was visible beside the white ceiling.
Thinking my hand felt strange, I realized an IV needle was inserted there.
“Seo Do-un, you’re awake?”
The one asking was Kim Woo-in.
Behind him, I could see Cha Si-eon and Kwon Mu-seop.
“How long was I out?”
“Not long. It’s been ten minutes since we got here, and the nosebleed has stopped.”
So I’d barely closed my eyes for a moment.
I relaxed and spoke to Cha Si-eon, who was standing by the wall.
“Team Leader, that recording file from before. Could you play it for me one more time?”
“Seo Do-un, you should rest for now…….”
“Just for a moment. I need to confirm something.”
Kim Woo-in tried to stop me but sighed and backed off.
Cha Si-eon picked up his tablet and came to my side.
Still lying in the hospital bed, I listened again to the sound coming from that tablet.
“You’re all saying you can’t hear the woman’s voice, right?”
The people nodded.
“I don’t know why, but I can hear it. This was originally a sound I couldn’t hear either.”
That’s why I’d asked the Contaminated Person Ryu Dan-a to interpret this sound for me.
Then had I also become a Contaminated Person like Ryu Dan-a?
But not all Contaminated Persons could read the broken letters in the Special Zone or understand the creatures’ voices, it was said.
Moreover.
“But I still can’t understand the sounds of the other things.”
I dragged the playback bar of the recording file forward.
Kee-dee-dee-dee-
Tsoo-tsoo-tsoo-tsoo-
Chee-eek-
Strange noises rang out.
The sounds those things looking down at me had made.
I could remember those moments clearly now, but that was all.
The sounds they made were still just noise.
“It seems I’ve only gained the ability to understand the woman’s voice.”

* * *

The documents related to Agent Lee Seob hadn’t been released yet.
The Computer Team was working through the redacted files one by one, so it would take some time, they said.
So after getting the IV, I returned to my room and sat blankly for a while before reopening the report file I had written.

-Everyone is watching you.
-The Golden Rule
-Crow
-The Chosen One
-Face your shadow.
-They are
-20XX. 1. 23.
-Secret Exposed
-They
-The Great Angel
-The Golden Calf
-The Weeping Lion
-The Bird That Guides Souls
-They
-They
-They are
-They also

Messages left by Lee Seob that appeared in the Hotel’s early days.
Why had he repeated the word “they” like that, anyway?
Once the redactions were lifted, revealing what came next would be the Management Bureau’s top priority these days.
Now that I looked at it, there were several other sentences that caught my eye.
‘Everyone is watching you.’
If the ‘you’ in this sentence really referred to me, then this ‘everyone’ might refer to those lights glimmering behind the Big Cat’s sister.
‘The Golden Calf’ is the horned thing I saw.
‘The Weeping Lion’ is the Big Cat.
Then what of ‘The Great Angel’ and ‘The Bird That Guides Souls’?
I could try mapping the man who stopped the Big Cat and the woman who was the Big Cat’s sister onto those terms, but I couldn’t say which was which.
What bothered me more was the word ‘angel’ itself.
After examining those cryptic messages, I closed the tablet and swallowed a sigh.
I wanted to clear my mind, but it wasn’t easy.
Why had I gained the ability to hear only the woman’s voice?
Was it because of the ‘breath’ she mentioned?
The thought that I’d somehow become bound to her in some way made me deeply uneasy.

-That’s why I know. I know about you well enough, and in some ways better than you know yourself.
-How afraid you are of death, you don’t know, but I do.

The woman’s words came back to me.
Looking back now, there was no lie in those words.
So I began to grow confused.

-I’m the same. I want to give you a peaceful death too.

The thought that her unilateral and brutal mercy might actually have been for my sake began to take shape in my mind.
……No, that’s insane.
In the first place, it was that woman who pushed me into that hell.
To drop a person living peacefully into the abyss and then offer them euthanasia because they’re broken—to call that mercy?
I took a deep breath to shake off these unpleasant thoughts.
That’s when it happened.
Knock-knock.
Along with the sound of knocking on the door, I heard Kwak Jae-gyeom’s voice.
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
I answered, sitting up in the bed.
In the meantime, Kwak Jae-gyeom opened the door and entered, speaking to me with an oddly cheerful expression.
“Let’s take a vacation.”
“Out of the blue?”
“The Director asked me to ask you. If you need a break, why don’t we go out together?”
A considerate Director.
The kid suddenly has a nosebleed, and he immediately grants time off.
Come to think of it, it had been a while since I’d been home.
And besides, I needed to check on the house.
My mobile phone that I’d left at home.
A message had been sent to Oh Tae-o from that phone.
Because of that, agents had gone to our house and retrieved it.
Since other people had been in and out of the house while I was gone, I needed to go and look things over.
“My vacation probably wouldn’t be much fun for you to tag along on.”
I warned Jae-gyeom, who was already looking forward to it.
But Jae-gyeom didn’t mind at all and chuckled.
“As long as I can get away from work, anywhere is fine.”
It was something I couldn’t deny as someone who had once been a working person.

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