Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 190

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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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A Survival Manual for Editors 190

ep26. The Meditation Center Where Bodies Change (8)
The Body Transformation Meditation Center is set against an October night.
So when you look up, stars are visible, and when your steps shift to the edge of the stream path, dead leaves crumble and the scent of rotting grass drifts up.
And the stream flowing gently beside you occasionally produces the sound of water splashing.
By these measures alone, it’s quite a pleasant trail.
But this place simultaneously possessed something that utterly ruined all those aforementioned advantages.
Crackle!
Along with the sound of footsteps crushing fallen leaves, a pair of sickly pale lights appeared across the stream—like foxfire.
Jeong Jin-u, who saw them, muttered softly.
“Runs away when it’s time, and comes back again.”
Those eerie lights were none other than the eyes of a Body-Stealing Entity.
Grrr— grrrk— grgrg—
Followed by a low, peculiar sound.
“Look how worked up it already is.”
Jeong Jin-u turned to look at me with a slight smile.
“Agent Do-un, are you adapted to Jae-gyeom’s body?”
“No particular sense of strangeness in movement, sir.”
“Then set down what you’re carrying and let’s catch that thing first. It’s about to charge at me again, and if it rings the bell and runs like before, we’ll have a headache on our hands.”
We were in the position of having to hunt the Body-Stealing Entity.
So it wouldn’t do if the Body-Stealing Entity charged and fled as it pleased, the way it had at first.
Moreover, if the bell rang again at the Entity’s threat, our bodies could switch anew.
I’d prefer it if my state and Jae-gyeom’s were restored to normal, but conversely, if Jeong Jin-u got caught up in it by mistake, we’d only lose more combat strength.
So Jeong Jin-u was thinking of hunting the Body-Stealing Entity while being careful not to let the bell ring.
“If that thing comes my way, Agent Do-un, try tackling it from the side. Once its body tears, it’ll stop attacking and run off on its own. Jae-gyeom, shine the searchlight on it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Grgrg— grrrk— grrrk—
While Jeong Jin-u was giving us orders, the sounds from across the stream grew faster.
Like a hunting cat chattering away, unable to contain its excitement.
Sure enough.
“Here it comes.”
Immediately after Jeong Jin-u spoke, the pale blue eyes vanished abruptly.
Flash!
Jae-gyeom swept the searchlight toward the stream.
At the same moment, a massive monster leaping across the stream revealed itself.
At first glance, it resembled a wolf.
But looking closer, its shape was closer to that of a lion.
A enormous four-legged beast draped in tattered black hide, fluttering like rags.
And a head section, detached from the body as if wearing a mask.
It was grotesquely shaped like a human face.
A vast face with sickly pale glowing eyes and a gag wedged in its mouth.
Those gurgling sounds were pouring out from beneath the gag.
It was a visual sufficient to transform a serene autumn night’s walk into the depths of hell itself.
Gaaarrgh!
The Body-Stealing Entity roared like a breath and lunged at Jeong Jin-u.
Jeong Jin-u, watching it bound across the stream, rolled his body to the side.
Crash-crack!
The Entity’s sharp front claws raked across empty ground.
At that moment, I was already running.
Toward the thing standing there, pounding the earth.
Every aspect of the sensation of running toward it felt wrong.
I felt elation surge up from my brain.
The target became far too clear.
It was as if only that creature and I existed in this world.
And my body running toward it was lighter than I could have imagined.
Simultaneously, a certain instinct struck my mind.
Complete certainty that it was possible.
Driven by some instinct, I pushed off the ground without thinking.
My body shot upward lightly, as if I were bouncing on a trampoline.
I was genuinely startled by the sensation of the ground pushing me up.
Just from jumping, I was launching myself like this.
Astonishing, but there was no time to marvel.
The Body-Stealing Entity’s back was already within arm’s reach.
Crash!
I clung to its back as if it were nothing.
Gurk— gurggh—
The Entity, seized by its back, thrashed about trying to throw me off.
I was alarmed by the sensation of my entire body being whipped around, but I later realized I could endure it better than expected.
I actually used that recoil to swing my legs up onto the Entity’s lower back.
Crackle-snap!
The moment I mounted it like riding a horse, the Body-Stealing Entity began flashing more violently.
It started bucking like a bull in an arena.
“Ha…….”
And yet, laughter spilled from my lips.
From my experience, at this degree of shaking, my body would have already flown off.
But my body—no, Jae-gyeom’s body—was enduring with far too much ease.
So much so that the situation was becoming enjoyable.
“Stop playing around and do the job!”
Noticing I seemed to be enjoying myself, Jeong Jin-u shouted.
At his voice, I snapped to attention and drew my knife.
Shuick!
Grrrrgh—
The Body-Stealing Entity emitted a sound like broken machinery as I drove the knife into its back hide.
But I paid it no mind and pulled my arm back, tearing a long gash through the beast’s black fur.
Rrrrip—
As the fur split open, grayish-white lumps packed inside were revealed.
Tumble—
Those lumps scattered and fell to the ground.
They were the body fragments of The Scattered Ones that we needed to secure.
“Jump down now!”
The moment Jeong Jin-u shouted, my body tilted sharply to one side.
The Body-Stealing Entity was trying to flip itself over.
I leaped down from atop it before it could pin me underneath.
Thud!
The Body-Stealing Entity slammed itself against the ground alone, and in doing so, a few more body fragments spilled from its torn hide.
The ground came rushing up at me as I hung in mid-air.
At the instant I thought I’d be thrown down hard, my body instinctively used the earth as a brace and performed a Falling Technique.
“Oh, not bad.”
“…….”
After rolling my body once and sitting up, Jeong Jin-u applauded.
I surveyed my surroundings and condition with a bemused feeling.
The Body-Stealing Entity had already fled.
In its place, grayish-white objects resembling mannequin fragments were piled up thickly.
And Jae-gyeom’s body that I was borrowing for now had every vein in my entire frame pulsing with excitement.
“You okay, hyung?”
“Jae-gyeom.”
“Yes?”
“Give me your body back.”
“……What?”
“This body is really great, you know?”
“Hyung, don’t joke like that.”
But I wasn’t joking.
I think I finally understand why emperors used to pester their ministers to find elixirs of immortality.
I used to wonder: if you’ve enjoyed yourself enough, shouldn’t you be prepared to depart? Why couldn’t they act their age like that?
Now that I’ve used a young, vibrant body, I understand their feeling.
After pushing around a sluggish three-wheeler, getting on a fixed-gear and sprinting at full throttle—the dopamine rush is insane.
“A young body is worth it, even if just by one year.”
“Right. Which is why I’m taking this body.”
As I nodded at Jeong Jin-u’s words, Jae-gyeom, using my face, muttered with a sour expression.
“Hyung, when you talk with that face, you sound serious…….”
But it is serious.
“And you’re really okay, right? I’m completely exhausted right now and want to go home. You don’t have some kind of illness, do you?”
Jae-gyeom, who’d been carried the whole time until now, was complaining of fatigue.
So now you’re finally learning what it’s like to be an introvert.
With this body, I think I could live as an extrovert.
So hand over your body, Kwak Jae-gyeom.
Sensing my greed, Jae-gyeom looked at me uneasily.
“You two, forget about the body for now and let’s sort through the fragments first!”
At that moment, Jeong Jin-u called us from in front of the gray lumps.
Jae-gyeom, in my body, limped slightly as he headed over, and I also dusted the dirt off my clothes and followed.
“Let’s unfold them for now. Jae-gyeom, shine some light here.”
Jae-gyeom shone his searchlight at the lumps piled along the roadside.
In the meantime, Jeong Jin-u and I moved them one by one and laid them out on the ground.
I’d imagined body fragments would look like human chunks with blood dripping, given the name.
Fortunately, they resembled chunks of marble more closely.
Like fragments from a marble statue carved in human form that someone had smashed back up with a hammer.
And the strangest part was that these stone-like things were somehow soft and warm to the touch.
As if still alive.
Is that why the Special Zone sent Yeon Ga-ram’s left hemisphere here?
“All twelve pieces.”
Jeong Jin-u counted the body fragments and spoke.
“Two child fragments, four adult male fragments, two adult female fragments, one elderly fragment, the rest still unidentifiable.”
Heads, hands, feet, forearms—those could be classified fairly quickly.
But other sections, like torsos and limbs, were harder to distinguish.
“There don’t seem to be any matching fragments yet.”
“We’ll need to collect more fragments.”
The total number of The Scattered Ones is fifteen people.
And the divided fragments number between a minimum of nine and a maximum of twenty-eight per person.
So those body fragments alone totaled at least one hundred fifty, at most four hundred.
With such a large pool, we’d need to repeat the hunt for the Body-Stealing Entity quite a few times.
It was unlikely that fragments of just one person would conveniently drop in succession.
It seemed escape would take considerable time, but there was no need to sigh preemptively.
We weren’t alone here.
“Team Leader Cha, can you hear me?”
The moment we grasped the quantity of fragments, Jeong Jin-u sent a transmission to Cha Si-eon.
-Yes, I hear you. Any problems?
“Nah, we’re doing great.”
Jeong Jin-u glanced at Jae-gyeom and me once before speaking.
“We just encountered the Entity, secured twelve fragments. It’s running uphill now.”
-Understood. We’ll respond if it comes this way.
Cha Si-eon replied flatly.
The Body-Stealing Entity cannot attack humans.
So when attacked by humans, it only thinks of fleeing.
Now that it’s been hit once, it’ll run to the end of this stream path, where it’ll get hit again by Cha Si-eon and Han Ji-su.
Then it’ll flee back to us, and the Entity would be trapped between our team and Cha Si-eon’s team, destined to keep getting stripped bare.
“Let’s move again too. Agent Do-un, grab the air bag from Jae-gyeom’s pocket.”
I pulled out a flat, folded pack from my pants side pocket.
Now we had to move with these fragments, and they possessed the exact weight of a human body.
So the twelve fragments we’d gathered already exceeded the weight of one person.
Having to carry Seo Do-un’s body while dragging along such luggage was quite a burden.
So we inflated the air bag to make a sturdy balloon.
After that, we tied the scattered fragments to the air bag and threw it into the stream.
Splash!
The air bag bobbed up and floated, with the body fragments dangling from it.
Now we just had to pull it along from outside the water with a rope.
After finishing one round of labor, I brushed off my hands and spoke.
“Isn’t this a bit much for ordinary citizens to clear?”
“It’s difficult to do as quickly as we just did. But once you enter the Meditation Center building, there are instruction manuals and equipment, so fairly quick-witted people manage to escape eventually.”
So it really is physical prowess that moves the world.
I began to covet Kwak Jae-gyeom’s body even more intensely.
After launching the air bag, I was drinking water for a moment.
That’s when Jae-gyeom, who had my body, kept staring silently at the stream.
More precisely, at the air bag floating in the stream and the body fragments dangling from it.
At that quiet gaze, Jeong Jin-u asked for explanation.
“Kwak Jae-gyeom, is something wrong?”
“I’m not sure, sir.”
“……?”
“It’s just… for some reason, that scene feels like a ‘tragedy’…….”
Pfft!
At Kwak Jae-gyeom’s outrageous remark, I spit out the water I was drinking.
As I turned to look at Jae-gyeom with water dripping from my chin, he actually lodged a protest against me.
“But think about it! Those fragments are mimicking people who were killed here! Don’t you feel anything about this?”
My face asking that question was desperate.
It was utterly maddening.

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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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