Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 195

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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, Chapter 195

ep27. A Simple Solution (2)
There were five people in that space.
Myself, Cha Si-eon, Kwak Jae-gyeom, Han Ji-su, and Jeong Jin-u.
Plus the Body Thief.
But if my body had been swapped with the Body Thief’s, how was I supposed to make sense of that?
Did I need to acknowledge once more that I’d clearly stepped outside the bounds of humanity?
It wasn’t shocking anymore, but the bitterness of it was unavoidable.
So I was managing a wry smile when Jae-gyeom muttered something.
“Then what about me……?”
For some reason, Kwak Jae-gyeom was saying the thing I wanted to say.
When I turned back to him in confusion, he continued with a look of shock on his face.
“When I was with Jin-u and the two of them, you and I swapped bodies, right? So that means I’m similar to you more than to Jin-u……?”
Now that I thought about it…….
When the three of us were together—myself, Kwak Jae-gyeom, and Jeong Jin-u—it was Jae-gyeom and I whose bodies swapped, not Jeong Jin-u.
Didn’t that mean Jae-gyeom and I were more similar to each other than to Jeong Jin-u?
“Why me……? Could I really be that similar to you?”
Kwak Jae-gyeom muttered again, his face growing pale.
This guy was that shaken by being similar to me…….
I felt a surge of indignation, but I took a deep breath to settle my mind.
Yeah, I had questions too.
If you put Seo Do-un, Kwak Jae-gyeom, and Jeong Jin-u in a box and asked someone to find which two were alike, even I would pair Jae-gyeom and Jeong Jin-u, leaving myself out.
Jae-gyeom and Jeong Jin-u were both outgoing, gregarious types who genuinely loved people.
Meanwhile, I was an introvert who endured social life through sheer willpower and found relief only in solitude.
Moreover, Jae-gyeom and Jeong Jin-u both had well-trained bodies, while I still hovered around the national average.
So if Cha Si-eon was right, the first swap should have been between Jae-gyeom and Jeong Jin-u, not between Jae-gyeom and me.
“Is the idea that similar people swap bodies just a hypothesis?”
“No, it’s been verified.”
“Then why didn’t it make it into the manual?”
“Because it’s not particularly useful information. To substantiate the premise of ‘similarity,’ you’d need extensive interpretation. Setting criteria for similarity and enumerating all sorts of contingencies would be inefficient to codify into a manual.”
“……?”
So they’d figured out the rule but deemed the explanation too complicated and not important enough, so they just left it out?
The Meditation Center wasn’t that much of a threat, wasn’t a high-traffic zone, and this information wasn’t strictly necessary to escape from it, so……?
I wasn’t sure whether to call that efficient or just lazy.
“So what exactly are the criteria for ‘similarity’?”
“The similarity in question encompasses physical condition, appearance, personality, disposition, preferences, personal history, daily patterns, political leanings, financial status, and so forth.”
“The Special Zone monitors your wake-up time and bank account?”
“Whether the Special Zone assesses all this information individually or perceives human affinity is unknown. My working hypothesis leans toward the latter.”
Now I understood why it wasn’t in the manual.
I wanted to press the issue hard.
I wanted to ask “What about this?” and “What about that?” and work through every possible case until I’d covered them all.
“I’m simply conveying what the Exploration Team uncovered.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Team Leader Cha had read my intent and struck first.
So I smoothed my expression and nodded with deliberate compliance.
“So to summarize, people whose combined similarity across all these criteria is highest end up swapping bodies?”
“No. They swap if just one criterion shows a significant match.”
“……?”
“To put it more clearly, there were two operatives with little resemblance in appearance or personality whose bodies swapped. Other personnel were present, and team composition changed at points, yet only those two kept exchanging with each other. So we traced the similarity, and…….”
And?
“We discovered they had a common factor: both had squandered their entire fortunes in cryptocurrency.”
“…….”
“Other examples include top-ranked players in a specific game, baseball fans, near-identical twins, Confucian scholars, cat prioritarians, and two people who had an unrequited crush on the same person.”
“You could’ve kept that last one to yourself.”
“Take it up with the Exploration Team.”
I made a mental note to denounce the Exploration Team for their invasion of privacy.
“So when there’s a particularly significant common trait among several conditions, that’s when bodies swap?”
“In summary, yes.”
I turned back to look at Jae-gyeom again.
Jae-gyeom looked at me and tilted his head quizzically.
“There’s almost nothing you and I have in common or overlap on, right?”
Nod—
I nodded plainly without reservation.
Then Cha Si-eon looked between us and spoke.
“This criteria includes shared experience. After work and before sleep, is there an activity you both do together?”
An activity we share…….
“Well, Jae-gyeom asks to game sometimes, so I’ll go…….”
“And I watch movies with you when you’re watching.”
“When Jae-gyeom makes instant noodles for a late snack, we eat together.”
“Sometimes you bring snacks first too.”
“Or we clean the room on days off.”
“After cleaning, we game again.”
“We watch season matches together.”
“Oh, recently we got really into a drama.”
“That should be enough to warrant a swap.”
I suppose that was it…….
“Three or four hours every single day living as one, and you’re asking if we’re similar?”
Cha Si-eon muttered, looking at Kwak Jae-gyeom.
At that, Jae-gyeom finally nodded, his face showing understanding.
Cha Si-eon observed his subordinate with an unforgiving gaze for a moment, then continued.
“The important point is that Jeong Jin-u was present, yet it was Seo Do-un and Kwak Jae-gyeom whose bodies exchanged.”
“You just said they swapped because they were similar enough to swap.”
“What that means is that Seo Do-un’s exchange with the Body Thief has little to do with whether Seo Do-un is human or not.”
“……?”
“If Seo Do-un were not human, then in the first exchange, it would have been Kwak Jae-gyeom and Jeong Jin-u who swapped. But it was Seo Do-un whose body exchanged with Kwak Jae-gyeom’s, which means Seo Do-un is still within the bounds of humanity.”
I listened to what Cha Si-eon was saying, and then I laughed without energy.
What kind of argument was that.
But honestly, I could see it that way.
In the presence of Kwak Jae-gyeom and Jeong Jin-u, I was a human Seo Do-un who shared more in common with human Kwak Jae-gyeom than with human Jeong Jin-u.
So just because my body had swapped with the Body Thief didn’t mean I had to suddenly reclassify myself as something other than human.
“That’s true. Jae-gyeom is definitely human.”
I muttered lightly, but halfway through I swallowed the thought.
On second thought, this wasn’t a time to feel relieved by myself.
“Then what was the Body Thief?”
I was still human.
The Body Thief, whose body had exchanged with mine.
Then shouldn’t that person also be considered human?
And besides…….
“They spoke.”
“…….”
“When I entered the Body Thief’s body, whoever entered mine spoke Korean.”
They’d screamed at me not to interfere.
The moment they realized the bodies had swapped, they’d tried to die, and when I stopped them, they’d shrieked.
There was no doubt.
That person was human.
Trapped in the Special Zone like Lee Seob or Team Leader Kang Seung-cheol.
And from what I could sense, they’d been confined in that space for quite a long time.
“When did the Body Thief first appear?”
“About two years ago.”
So that person had been locked in there for two years?
Treated as an ordeal for the people dragged in—one to overcome on the path to escape—their body torn and slashed.
As I sat in silence for a moment, Cha Si-eon spoke.
“That is not a target for rescue.”
“I know that too.”
We’d already confirmed it with Team Leader Kang Seung-cheol and with Lee Seob.
There was no way to save a person who had become a Core Entity.
Especially one whose body harbored a core—the moment that core ceased functioning, death was inevitable.
Because the core had rooted itself so deeply in that flesh.
When that core disappeared, the body inside would be torn to shreds.
So the only outcome when that was torn out was death.
“However, the Body Thief was not particularly seeking rescue.”
We had all seen it.
How the moment their body swapped, they tried to die.
That nameless person’s desire was for peace.
Though Cha Si-eon surely understood that, he said nothing more.
Nor did I press further.
I understood why Cha Si-eon had silenced me in the Meditation Center.
We stood before a crossroads once more.
Should we maintain a Special Zone as it was—cost-effective, where people rarely died?
Or should we free one person who was already as good as dead, who asked only for peace amid suffering?
It was a choice that could not be easily made.
* * *
—Life is precious.
Most people agree with this premise.
—Those in danger should be saved.
The same holds true.
People regard the maintenance of their own life as an important value.
And through imagination, they can regard another’s crisis as their own.
Therefore, most people agree that life is precious and those in danger should be saved.
But what if conditions are attached?
—If we save that person, maybe a hundred people will die later.
Or—
To explain our current situation more concretely, we might say this:
—That person is already dead anyway, and if we let them die, maybe hundreds more will die. But that person is in such agony that they want to die.
……That’s an irritating thought.
But since yesterday, I couldn’t shake it.
Because my body swap with the Body Thief had let me see and feel too much.
So I kept turning that nameless person over in my mind, but I wondered what good it did for me alone to weigh it on the scale.
I had no authority.
I could thrust an uncomfortable truth at Cha Si-eon while he pretended not to see.
Like I had when Lee Seob and Lee Sol were coming apart.
But was that right?
I had no certainty.
While I stared blankly out the car window, the car stopped.
“We’ve arrived.”
The place Jae-gyeom had stopped the car was none other than our house.
Looking at that familiar sight, I swallowed a sigh.
And I set aside my thoughts about that person whose body had swapped with mine for a moment.
Because here stood another person at a crossroads.
Today was the day.
In just a moment, Yeon Ga-ram’s fate would be decided.

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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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