Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 44

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

Editor’s Survival Rules Episode 44

 

ep9. Identifying the Fake (5)

 

“Get up, quickly!”

 

The skull masks banged on walls and chairs while shouting threateningly.

 

The intimidated people reluctantly stood up.

 

That teddy bear gang numbered eight in total.

 

There were only five people inside the theater.

 

Not only were they outnumbered, but suddenly dragged people couldn’t stand against an organized group.

 

Eventually, people were pushed by the skulls toward the exit.

 

I also mixed in around the middle and moved along with them.

 

Clang-!

 

But as soon as we came outside, we were trapped in some kind of iron cage.

 

So narrow in width that barely one person could stand.

 

Instead, it was a long iron cage stretching forward like a corridor.

 

So the people who came out of the performance hall ended up standing in a line inside that iron cage.

 

Like cattle entering a slaughterhouse.

 

While people were confused, the man standing next to me shouted angrily.

 

“What are you doing right now? Who are you people, and where exactly is this place?”

 

That man, who appeared to be around 40, was dressed in a suit.

 

But he looked hardly groomed, reasonably neat yet quite worn down.

 

I figured he was probably a white-collar office worker accustomed to overwork.

 

To that man’s question, the teddy bear spoke with a cough.

 

“Ah, wait a bit. I’ll tell you everything. First, this is a real situation. So listen well, and everyone look this way first!”

 

The people including myself had no choice but to follow the instructions.

 

The teddy bear and skulls began carefully examining the people trapped in the iron cage.

 

“Oh, found one.”

 

Soon the teddy bear pointed at a woman.

 

The skulls opened the middle door of the iron cage and dragged that woman out.

 

“Kyaa!”

 

“What are you doing!”

 

At the woman’s scream, the man next to me got angry and shook the iron bars.

 

Then the teddy bear dragged the woman over and thrust her right in front of the man.

 

“Ah, this guy is really noisy. Shut up and take a look.”

 

“Look at what…”

 

“Don’t you see anything strange? These eyes?”

 

At the teddy bear’s explanation, the man furrowed his brow.

 

After a moment, the man was startled and stepped back.

 

“See, what did I tell you?”

 

The teddy bear boasted and showed me that woman’s face too.

 

An ordinary frightened expression.

 

But that woman’s pupils were completely black.

 

Not just black, but she had no iris or pupil.

 

So it looked like go stones were embedded instead of eyeballs.

 

That eeriness gave me chills too.

 

The teddy bear seemed satisfied with our reaction and pulled the woman back while saying.

 

“If you’re wearing lenses, say so now.”

 

“Why are you doing this. Please let me go…”

 

The woman kept pleading while twisting her caught shoulder.

 

Just looking at her, she seemed like an ordinary person, which made me feel even stranger.

 

The man next to me also seemed confused and grabbed the iron bars again.

 

Perhaps because our state was pathetic.

 

The teddy bear took out a jackknife from his pocket.

 

Then he struck down at the woman’s head with it without hesitation.

 

“There.”

 

Thunk-!

 

It made the sound of splitting a watermelon.

 

The jackknife went in too easily, and only the handle remained visible beside the woman’s head.

 

“You crazy bastard…!”

 

The man shouted in rage.

 

But that was only momentary.

 

Due to an undeniable sense of wrongness, the man froze solid again.

 

That woman didn’t fall down.

 

Blood flowed in one stream then stopped.

 

With the knife embedded in her head, the woman still whispered in a pitiful voice.

 

“Please send me home…”

 

The man next to me finally screamed.

 

—

 

■ Precautions within the “National Theater for Identifying Fakes”

 

[After watching the performance]

 

1. Find the “fake humans” before leaving the performance hall.

 

There will be several more citizens in the performance hall who were dragged here like you.

 

However, there’s no guarantee that all of them are human.

 

There exist “fake humans” here that imitate real humans.

 

Their appearance is almost identical to humans, but if you look carefully, you can identify prominent flaws.

 

You must identify them within the performance hall.

 

If you leave the performance hall together with them, very dangerous situations may occur.

 

■ Main characteristics for identifying “fake humans”

 

① Overly hard fingernails

 

② Hair with a nylon thread-like texture

 

③ Single-material eyeballs without iris and pupil

 

④ Skin where blood vessels or tendons don’t show through

 

⑤ Empty skull

 

※ “Fake humans” vary in sophistication between individuals. Entities that have compensated for all the above flaws also appear frequently, so please be cautious until the final verification.

 

—

 

This is also content that the Management Bureau already identified.

 

But this part wasn’t in the brochure I saw earlier.

 

Instead, there were only traces where part of the brochure had been sharply cut.

 

Looking at the man’s reaction next to me, this person also seems to know nothing about “fake humans.”

 

Damn, why?

 

If this teddy bear gang deliberately cut out the rule book, the problem becomes complicated.

 

Click-!

 

The skulls put handcuffs on the “fake human” in female form.

 

“You saw that, right? There are monsters here pretending to be people. We’ll find them for you, so everyone listen well. Got it?”

 

The teddy bear spoke like a class president and examined the people in the iron cage again.

 

He made them move their fingers, touched their hair, and even looked inside their mouths.

 

“Wow, why do you have so many teeth?”

 

Another one among us, no, another entity was identified.

 

It had 32 fangs behind its neat front teeth.

 

That thing was also dragged away, and now only 3 remained including me.

 

Me, that man, and an elderly person.

 

Unable to find them by appearance alone, Teddy Bear pointed at the man next to me and said,

 

“Name, age, address, current job, in that order. Starting with you, mister.”

 

That stiff man seemed exhausted by the situation and obediently confessed.

 

“Choi Sang-eun. 41 years old. Gangdong-gu, Seoul. Reporter.”

 

“A reporter?! Wow, guys, he’s a reporter!”

 

Teddy Bear got excited like a child and made a big fuss.

 

“Reporters make good money too… don’t they?”

 

But that excitement ended with a question.

 

Teddy Bear looked Choi Sang-eun the reporter up and down.

 

Choi Sang-eun looked extremely tired and wore a wrinkled suit.

 

“Hmm, well, he probably makes as much as ordinary people at least. But Choi Sang-eun? That name somehow feels unpleasant. Well, next?”

 

Teddy Bear pointed at me.

 

I hesitated for a moment then spoke reluctantly.

 

“Park Hyun-jin. 28 years old. Seocho-gu, Seoul. Preparing for employment.”

 

The contaminant that has taken control here must be referring to this teddy bear.

 

So I made up my name and occupation appropriately.

 

I don’t know what level their intelligence network is at, but it would be dangerous to give my real name that’s already entered in the Management Bureau’s organizational chart.

 

Fortunately, Teddy Bear moved on without much suspicion or verification.

 

“Good, good. Next.”

 

“Im Jong-hak, seventy years old, living in Nowon District… I’m retired and just doing odd jobs…”

 

“Hmm, you all seem like people, so shall we go straight to the sealed room test?”

 

Sealed room test?

 

I flinched at Teddy Bear’s words.

 

But there was no way to resist.

 

Acting knowledgeable here would be like advertising that I belong to the Management Bureau.

 

“Alright, move as you are!”

 

At Teddy Bear’s words, the skeletons pushed the iron cage that confined us.

 

As the bottomless iron cage moved, we had no choice but to be pushed along and walk.

 

Eventually we arrived at the area with offices, passing through the theater lobby.

 

The skeletons opened the office door and also opened the cage entrance.

 

Then they connected the two entrances to create a passage.

 

This is like being chickens moved in a chicken coop.

 

“Please enter.”

 

Teddy Bear spoke cheerfully in a historical drama style, but we didn’t move easily.

 

I know that office is completely empty.

 

But the others didn’t.

 

Moreover, having just come out after a terrible experience in the performance hall, their wariness of unfamiliar spaces was at its peak.

 

“What’s inside there…?”

 

Im Jong-hak asked in the slow tone characteristic of elderly people.

 

You’d think he’d be a bit more polite to an elder, but Teddy Bear just acted rudely.

 

“Nothing at all. Just go in and come out.”

 

“Then why are you telling us to go in…?”

 

“Ugh, grandpa, come on! Just do it when I tell you to!”

 

When Teddy Bear got annoyed, the skeletons behind pushed the cage.

 

The folding iron cage folded and the space gradually disappeared, so we were eventually pushed into the office.

 

Inside was really an ordinary office.

 

With work desks lined up and sections divided by partitions.

 

The problem wasn’t this office but the ‘sealed room test’ mentioned earlier.

 

I pretended to examine the space while putting as much distance as possible between myself and the others.

 

Teddy Bear shouted at us through the door crack.

 

“Well then, good luck!”

 

Click-

 

The door closed.

 

“…”

 

“…”

 

“…”

 

An awkward silence continued.

 

About 3 minutes passed like that.

 

The door opened again and Teddy Bear peeked his head out.

 

“Oh, you’re not fighting? Hey, reporter mister! Just you come out.”

 

Teddy Bear pointed at the reporter, Choi Sang-eun.

 

Choi Sang-eun glanced at me and Im Jong-hak then went outside the office.

 

The door closed, and the office became a sealed room again.

 

Now only Im Jong-hak and I were trapped here, just the two of us.

 

“Excuse me, I have something to say…”

 

Im Jong-hak suddenly spoke with a serious face and took a step.

 

So I said firmly,

 

“Don’t come this way, just say it from there.”

 

“I’m worried they might hear from outside…”

 

Im Jong-hak slowly approached despite my refusal.

 

Though the old man’s anxious expression was pitiful, I warned again.

 

“Stop right there first.”

 

“It’s really important.”

 

“No, still don’t come closer.”

 

But Im Jong-hak didn’t stop.

 

Now he wasn’t even answering and just walked shakily.

 

I raised my voice with an ominous feeling.

 

“Don’t come!”

 

Im Jong-hak stopped abruptly at my shout.

 

Did he understand?

 

Was his previous behavior just because he was confused?

 

The moment I thought this,

 

Im Jong-hak, who had been standing still, rushed at me like a beast.

 

His pupils had disappeared and his two eyes were filled only with whites.

 

“…!”

 

—

 

■ Main Characteristics of 「Fake Humans」

 

① Cultivation in Performance Halls

 

「Fake Humans」are created in performance halls along with new performances.

 

Therefore, they do not reveal their true nature within performance halls.

 

So you must identify and subdue them within the performance hall.

 

② Human Predation

 

「Fake Humans」eat humans.

 

For this purpose, they use hunting methods almost identical to humans: acting, lying, seduction, setting traps, coordinated activities among their kind, etc.

 

Human predation is their reason for existence, and the more humans they eat, the more sophisticated humans they become.

 

Sometimes they mimic the appearance of victims they’ve consumed or people those victims remember.

 

③ Hunting Instinct

 

「Fake Humans」do their best to hide their identity.

 

However, when their numbers equal or exceed the number of real people, they cannot suppress their nature and begin hunting.

 

—

 

I ran toward the door to avoid Im Jong-hak charging at me.

 

Click-click-click-click-!

 

But damn it! The door was locked!

 

Bang-bang-bang-!

 

“Open the door!”

 

It was when I desperately shouted.

 

Kwaaak-!

 

The “fake human” that had been Im Jong-hak pounced on my back.

 

“Kugh…!”

 

It wrapped around my neck with unbelievable grip strength.

 

Soon, cool and damp breath brushed against the nape of my neck.

 

I struggled desperately to push it away, but it was useless.

 

“Ugh, aaah…!”

 

Just when I thought I was going to be bitten.

 

Kwaang-!

 

Without realizing it, I slammed it down to the floor.

 

…Oh my?

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