Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 185

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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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The Editor’s Survival Manual — Episode 185

ep26. A Change of Body (3)

After finishing morning training, I returned to the residence and opened the Tablet first.
No reply.
The message I’d sent yesterday afternoon seemed to have been cleanly ignored.
“Sigh…….”
Here I was, fixating on a message from someone who inspired not affection but only regret.
While I was briefly sinking into pessimism, Jae-gyeom emerged from the shower with a towel draped over his head.
“Jae-gyeom.”
“Yes?”
“If you get into trouble with another team, how do you settle it?”
“Trouble? Well, if trouble starts, it’s Sparring right away.”
Sparring…….
“You go at it hard, and whoever loses crawls away on their own. Why? Want me to have a go with Yeon Ga-ram?”
Jae-gyeom toweled his hair dry and glanced at me briefly.
Then he spoke with surprising seriousness.
“I don’t think the time is right yet, sir.”
“I don’t particularly feel like fighting…….”
“How about you just bear it for a month? Build your body for a month, and then — pow!”
Jae-gyeom raised the towel and threw a jab into the air.
“A month will be enough?”
“I think it should be. That Yeon Ga-ram guy — he just goes through the motions of training, but when I look at his weights, he’s basically all soft. So a month should do it perfectly. Special training welcome!”
So he was calling a month out for me.
I had no sense of just how much he was underestimating me.
“So I reckon a month will be just right, sir. I’m excited about the special training!”
Jae-gyeom’s eyes began to shine with anticipation.
I drew the line again before his hopes could grow any larger.
“I’m not fighting. Even if I do, it’ll be with words.”
“Ah…… do you think words will work on that guy?”
“There’s no reason they shouldn’t.”
My request wasn’t grandiose at all.
I wanted him to refrain from excessive interference and focus on the work.
This was something I had every right to ask for, and it would do Yeon Ga-ram no harm.
It was far better than challenging him to a duel without warning or stabbing him from behind.
That’s what I thought.
And the opportunity to act on that thought came almost immediately.
As I headed downstairs for breakfast with Jae-gyeom, we ran into Yeon Ga-ram in the corridor.
I spotted him first, and he saw me at almost the same moment.
But when Yeon Ga-ram saw me, he looked away.
Normally, he would have charged toward me the instant he spotted me.
Had he actually seen the message?
I thought his reaction odd and moved toward him.
“Agent Yeon Ga-ram.”
The moment I called out, Yeon Ga-ram turned his back on me.
Then he abandoned his companions and started walking toward the opposite end of the cafeteria.
“……?”
Someone calls you and you just leave like that?
Bewildered, I went after him.
“Agent!”
But Yeon Ga-ram kept walking briskly, pretending not to see or hear me.
I reflexively followed, but then decided it wouldn’t do and broke into a light run.
I cut off his path and spoke again.
“Let’s talk for a moment.”
Only then did he stop and look at me.
But Yeon Ga-ram’s expression and demeanor were different from usual.
“What do you want to talk about?”
He asked me with his face hardened and his tone stiff.
It was hard to recognize him as the man who’d come close to me just a few days ago with a smirk.
Though internally I was startled, I kept my expression neutral and spoke.
“Did you not see the message I sent?”
“What message?”
“I sent you a message yesterday, but I didn’t get a reply.”
“Do I have to reply to every message I receive?”
You should at least reply to something, you bastard.
I barely swallowed the words that almost spilled out.
“So what’s the matter?”
“Nothing else — it’s just that you’ve been talking to me for the past few days…….”
“Ha.”
The moment I began, Yeon Ga-ram let out a bitter laugh.
Then, his face hardening further, he shot back at me.
“You’re making all this fuss over a few words in passing?”
“I’m not making a fuss at all…….”
“Yeah, yeah. Got it.”
“……?”
“I said I get it. What more do you need? This is ridiculous.”
Yeon Ga-ram cut off the conversation unilaterally and brushed past me, muttering.
As my senses reeled from that encounter, I suddenly found myself thinking.
Had Baek Sa-ra already beaten him?
Later, when I checked, that wasn’t it.
Neither Baek Sa-ra, nor Jeong Jin-u, nor Cha Si-eon, nor anyone else had made contact with Yeon Ga-ram.
Then why was he acting like this?
I couldn’t begin to guess the reason.
As an editor, I was a failure.

* * *

First, take a deep breath.
Every person has their own narrative.
Yeon Ga-ram must have one too.
He’s a person, after all.
Breathe, breathe.
Even if on the surface there’s no causal logic or consistency, there must still be some context and reasoning behind it all.
Yes, Yeon Ga-ram could dislike me.
I was indeed loud about things at the Management Bureau, and there’s the Otter Rescue Association that supports me unconditionally despite having no real connection to me.
So there’s nothing particularly strange about someone disliking me without any real connection either.
In the end, what they like or dislike isn’t me — it’s their own interpretation of me.
But the inconsistency in his attitude is still odd.
Cha Si-eon’s pressure and Baek Sa-ra’s ferocity are at least consistent.
But Yeon Ga-ram’s mockery has no consistency at all.
He acts overly friendly and keeps needling me, and then the moment I say something, he flips like a sunfish exposed to sunlight.
And meanwhile he treats me like I’m practically a scoundrel…….
……Deep breath. Breathe again.
I drew in a long breath and calmed the churning in my chest.
Don’t get angry. First, assess the situation.
First, Yeon Ga-ram is not a person who does ordinary work.
So additional consideration is needed for that context.
But you’re not the only one working at the Management Bureau, right?
No, calm down!
“Everyone else is fine, so why are you like this” is not an approach to understanding.
Start over from the beginning.
Yeon Ga-ram is not a person who does ordinary work.
At the same time, he tends to have unnecessary words and actions.
He doesn’t know how to respect others’ boundaries.
His overall demeanor is generally reckless, but when he’s actually called out, he reacts with excessive emotion.
The disadvantages he’ll suffer as a result are entirely foreseeable.
Yet Yeon Ga-ram doesn’t account for this — he directly bears the consequences: damaged reputation, shrinking influence, being struck by Baek Sa-ra, and so on.
Judging only from this, Yeon Ga-ram might be someone who needs more consideration.
But surprisingly, the probability that Yeon Ga-ram has above-average intelligence is quite high.
The fact that he works at the Management Bureau itself means he passed a fairly high screening threshold.
Which makes it all the more mysterious.
What exactly is Yeon Ga-ram?
I thought and rethought until my head was practically smoking.
Did he get a bit scrambled monitoring the Special Zone?
……That has merit.
Yes, if I interpret it that way, it actually makes more sense.
Otherwise, how could an educated adult openly display such juvenile behavior?
I finally nodded in understanding.
And then I finished my deep breathing.

* * *

That afternoon, I headed to our house again.
It was to add equipment to the “Small House”.
Last week, I’d found a Notebook identical to the one I’d been using and installed it outside.
That created an entrance to the “Small House”, and since then I’d been discovering various rules.
The rules of the “Small House” confirmed so far.

1. Only I have the authority to ask questions and issue commands to the “Guide”.
If I’m present, other people can also ask and issue commands.
But if the “Guide” is used when I’m absent, a penalty called Physical Disability is imposed.

2. To bring people to the Special Zone, one command is required per person.
‘Actively drawing in people who meet conditions’ is ‘still’ not possible.
It’s possible the function could expand if we feed the Guide and it grows.

3. There are three conditions for bringing someone here.
My relationship with them, the weight of their soul, and physical distance.
The easier it is for me to understand a space and the better I know a person, the easier it becomes to bring them here.

The function of the “Small House” we most want to utilize is the rescue of agents isolated in the Special Zone.
So based on the information we’ve gathered so far, the conclusion has been leaning toward ‘I need to stay in the “Small House”‘.
Only I can command the “Guide”, and every command has to be input directly.
But I’m the kind of person who gets dragged around the Special Zone.
So the Management Bureau has been attempting a workaround.
Adding a Voice Recognition Function to the “Guide” and installing a Speaker in front of it.
Then, if I issue a command from outside and broadcast it through the Speaker, we’d test whether the “Guide” would obey.
So today, Control Team 4 came to our house together to install the Speaker——.
And Yeon Ga-ram, glaring at me with smoldering eyes, was included in that group.
“…….”
Literally smoldering.
From the moment we got in the car until after we arrived at our house, he’d been glaring at me — and when I looked back, he’d turn his head away.
Are you an elementary school student…… What on earth is wrong with you…….
I was simply bewildered, but I tried to understand, recalling my own interpretation of Yeon Ga-ram.
Smoldering—
I really was trying to understand.
Smoldering—
I wanted to let it pass quietly.
Smoldering—!
……This won’t do.
Yeon Ga-ram was openly displaying his displeasure through his entire body.
Such blatant disapproval that it was too obvious to ignore — so obvious that even others were stealing glances.
“Yeon Ga-ram.”
“…….”
He gave no answer, just shot me a brief look.
Anyone watching would think I’d skipped out on a debt to him.
“I’m not sure what’s wrong, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t show your displeasure so openly.”
“Ha, nitpicking about everything…….”
It’s not nitpicking — because of you, everyone else is on edge too.
Yeon Ga-ram scoffed at my plea.
He kept needling me as if he genuinely wanted a fight, but I decided not to engage. Instead, I spoke flatly.
“If it’s really inconvenient, I’ll request a task reassignment for you.”
“Leave the work alone!”
But Yeon Ga-ram flinched and shouted.
“I get it, so just leave the work as is, okay?”
His momentum collapsed all at once, and he implored me.
“I won’t do it again.”
Faced with Yeon Ga-ram’s response — desperate, even urgent — I found myself momentarily at a loss for words.
What the hell is this guy?
Yeon Ga-ram, who went beyond merely being a nuisance and was now sowing confusion in me.
I began to grow increasingly anxious that I couldn’t discern the true nature of this character.
What if I can’t connect the logic of that person’s behavior?
How am I supposed to classify and understand that anomalous element?
I could feel my editor’s sense of self writhing.
It was about an hour later.
That I came to understand Yeon Ga-ram’s true nature through an unexpected turn of events.

* * *

In the “Small House”, the Control Team 4 agents were in the middle of their work.
Meanwhile, I was tidying up our house outside the “Small House”.
—Officer, please come into the “House” right now!
Then came a voice through my Smartwatch.
At that urgent request, I immediately entered the “Small House”.
“What’s happening…….”
I started to ask, but then froze at the sight spread out in the living room of the “Small House”.
Someone was lying down.
With half his head blown away.
It was none other than Yeon Ga-ram.
“Ughh……!”
Faced with Yeon Ga-ram’s corpse, I covered my mouth.
Then my brow furrowed slightly.
A chunk of his head was missing as if it had been eaten by a shark, yet the surrounding area was clean.
Not a single drop of blood had fallen.
As I stared at that scene in confusion, Yeon Ga-ram’s upper body twitched and convulsed.
Rigor mortis?
The instant I had that thought, Yeon Ga-ram suddenly raised his upper body and screamed.
“Ahhhhh!”
“……!”
Screaming like that, Yeon Ga-ram still had half his head blown away.

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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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