Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 75

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Editor’s Survival Rules Episode 75

ep13. Blood-Raining (7)

Stars were twinkling brightly in the black sky.

I shook Team Leader Cha awake as he slept soundly in the roofless place.

“Team Leader, it’s time to get up. Team Leader.”

When I shook his shoulder, Cha Si-eon, who had been sleeping like the dead, suddenly opened his eyes wide.

Cha Si-eon looked back and forth between me and the night sky with startled eyes.

Then he hurriedly tried to sit up.

“Ugh…!”

No, he tried to sit up but failed.

Seeing him clutch his waist and twist his body, it seemed his wound had reopened.

It would be better if he didn’t overdo it.

But Cha Si-eon endured the pain and managed to sit up.

Then he asked me menacingly.

“What time is it now?”

“It’s almost midnight.”

At my answer, Cha Si-eon’s face contorted with anger.

“Are you out of your mind? What were you thinking doing something like this…!”

He slept well and now he’s getting angry again.

“I did it thinking we should make a plan from now on. There are still 2 hours and 40 minutes left before the ‘blood rain’ falls.”

At my calm retort, Cha Si-eon’s eyes became even more fierce.

So I provoked Team Leader Cha once more.

“If you want to blame someone, blame your own inadequacy. You’re the one who mistook the medicine, you’re the one who staggered and collapsed, and you’re the one who failed to earn my trust and cooperation, aren’t you? This is all due to your lack of leadership skills.”

“…”

“And we don’t have time to waste right now. Stop being emotional and focus on the situation.”

Cha Si-eon gritted his teeth.

It seems he’s at a loss for words since I’m throwing back the same words he usually says.

But he looked ready to explode again, so I held out my notebook to Team Leader Cha.

Cha Si-eon looked at it suspiciously, as if asking what it was.

I silently opened the notebook and held it out again.

Cha Si-eon reluctantly snatched it.

Then he looked at it irritably and came face to face with it.

All the nonsense he had babbled while drowsy.

Cha Si-eon’s expression gradually hardened, then he raised his voice at me again.

“Why did you write this down too? Are you really crazy?”

“I wrote it down in case you couldn’t remember what you said. I was being thoughtful and this is how you react.”

“That’s exactly why I’m asking why you thought like this!”

“You’re the one who said it, so why are you making a fuss at me? Do you think I wanted to know your ex-girlfriend’s name?”

“…!”

Cha Si-eon’s face turned pale.

Team Leader Cha began frantically searching through the notebook, and I watched him for a while before adding.

“Just kidding.”

“…”

Cha Si-eon froze as if he had stepped on a landmine.

Then he slowly raised his head and looked at me.

In Team Leader Cha’s eyes was a strong desire to strangle me.

Seeing those blazing eyes, I felt like all the frustration built up inside me was finally being released.

Ah, maybe I’ve been enduring everything for this moment.

When I grinned, Cha Si-eon’s jaw tensed.

He seemed to want to beat me up, but apparently he had enough dignity not to actually throw punches.

Good thing he’s well-socialized.

Satisfied with Cha Si-eon’s moral sense, I spoke again.

“Team Leader Cha Si-eon.”

“Why are you calling me?”

“Were you honestly in your right mind?”

“…”

No answer came back.

So I threw back something similar to what Team Leader Cha had once said.

“I mean, were you maintaining your rationality while thinking of reasonable alternatives or other measures?”

Perhaps recognizing the familiar expression, Cha Si-eon’s gaze fell to the ground.

Cha Si-eon just had a bad personality, but he wasn’t someone without manners.

He certainly wasn’t a coward either.

True to my belief, Team Leader Cha rubbed his face and reluctantly admitted.

“It’s true that my judgment was clouded.”

Right, of course it was.

He hadn’t eaten or rested properly for three days.

Just when he was trying to catch his breath, I happened to appear.

Moreover, what Cha Si-eon felt when he saw me seemed to be not relief but dismay.

Having heard about “Ant Hill,” he must have been thinking he had to get me out alive no matter what.

Cornered like that, what he chose was the patriotic spirit of sacrificing himself for the country.

I’ll acknowledge that he was desperate.

At the same time, that he was also ignorant.

“How’s your body?”

When I asked about his condition, Cha Si-eon glared at me gloomily.

He didn’t seem inclined to answer, so I relied on the streetlight to examine Team Leader Cha’s condition.

First, the bloodshot in his eyes had mostly cleared.

Instead, there was still drowsiness remaining.

He seemed to have slept very well, and his mental stability was being transmitted to me too, but he himself seemed displeased with this refreshing feeling.

What a temperament.

I confirmed that Team Leader Cha was fine and sat across from him.

“Let’s eat first.”

Then I emptied out the plastic bag containing snacks.

This was what Yu Ju had asked me to give to Jae-gyeom, but it looked like we were going to eat it all.

But well, as long as we achieve the goal, the process doesn’t matter.

If Cha Si-eon survives with this, Kwak Jae-gyeom will also be revived, so let’s gratefully partake.

* * *

“It seems like it was downgraded after the second reorganization.”

Cha Si-eon said while extending his hand to me.

So I handed Cha Si-eon a cola and asked back.

“Downgraded?”

“It seems to be due to the influence of the Concentration Suppression Period. At that time, we destroyed space every time we broke through zones and the battles were fierce. Even so, the reorganization proceeded, which was puzzling, but perhaps due to the damage from that time, the Special Zone seems to have actually shrunk and lowered in grade compared to before.”

Lowered in grade.

I’ve heard about initializing Special Zones or preventing reorganization, but this is the first time I’m hearing something like this.

But Cha Si-eon’s words made sense too.

“The Bleeding Island” I saw in the manual had 10 zones from A to J, and each of those zones had 7 patterns.

So this place was a massive maze combining as many as 70 killing spaces.

But now?

The places we keep going in and out of are 8 zones from B to I.

But the patterns of these zones were fixed to one each.

Zone D flood, Zone E black and white photos, Zone H soap bubbles, etc.

They were all new patterns, but compared to before, the difficulty had dropped significantly.

Since they were single patterns, once you figured them out, you just had to follow the same method afterward.

“I didn’t know they could downgrade.”

“This is my first time seeing it too. There aren’t many Special Zones that have undergone secondary awakening in the first place, and we’ve never withdrawn while resetting one, so that’s probably why.”

So this was the product of a situation that was neither here nor there.

“That’s good news. Thanks to that, we’re moving relatively smoothly.”

“It’s not a situation to feel relieved about.”

Cha Si-eon said as he handed me half of a newly opened piece of jerky.

“Because of this, ‘Big Cat’ seems to be in a sensitive state too.”

A dangerous entity becoming sensitive.

Come to think of it, ‘Moving Gun’ had been in pain, and the barcode-headed ‘Employee’ had been afraid.

So it made sense that it could become sensitive too.

“Are you certain it’s targeting Team Leader?”

“I’m certain. Besides, ‘Big Cat’ and I have some bad blood from the past.”

“Bad blood?”

“In the past, when I was on the same team as Section Chief Kwon Mu-seop, I participated in a ‘Big Cat’ subjugation.”

Was this from when Section Chief Kwon Mu-seop was a team leader?

“Then that was quite a while ago, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. It was three years ago.”

Then it must have been during the time when Agent Lee Seob went missing and the all-out war was in full swing.

“Back then, Kwon Mu-seop’s team continuously tracked ‘Big Cat’ and engaged in dozens of battles.”

“But you couldn’t catch it in the end?”

“No. Whenever it was cornered, it would call mercenary entities and escape, so we frequently lost it.”

“‘Big Cat’ doesn’t seem to be that strong of an entity then?”

“It’s strong.”

At my words, Cha Si-eon firmly shook his head.

“In terms of individual specs alone, it’s top-tier among all entities in the Special Zone. If ‘Big Cat’ decided to fight seriously, it would be difficult for our side to handle.”

“For something like that, it seems to fight pretty poorly…”

I recalled Team 1’s operation reports.

Team 1 members had engaged in a total of 13 battles with ‘Big Cat’.

And ‘Big Cat’ had fled 9 times out of those.

“That’s because its strategy is poor compared to its specs. ‘Big Cat’ would run away at the slightest disadvantage, even in situations where it could have held out sufficiently.”

“Does it lack judgment?”

“It seems more emotional than that.”

“Just like Team Leader.”

“…”

Oops, did I just say that out loud?

I avoided Cha Si-eon’s cold stare and put a potato chip in my mouth.

“…Anyway, ‘Big Cat’ has a bad relationship with our side, and it can identify individual people. So it sometimes attempts revenge.”

Revenge?

“After the Management Bureau reorganization, an agent who had been on Kwon Mu-seop’s team and was assigned to the exploration team once performed a mission here. At that time, ‘Big Cat’ recognized that agent and followed them around attacking.”

From Kwon Mu-seop’s team to the exploration team?

“Are you talking about Baek Sa-ra?”

“That’s right. Several explorations were conducted, but ‘Big Cat’ specifically targeted Agent Baek Sa-ra, which interfered with operations.”

“Oh, wasn’t it because of the ring?”

Baek Sa-ra had said she tore off a piece of ‘Big Cat’ during the all-out war two years ago.

If she had made it into a ring and wore it around, wouldn’t ‘Big Cat’ have been provoked by that?

“That’s not it. Agent Baek started wearing that ring after ‘Big Cat’ began following her.”

“After?”

“Knowing that ‘Big Cat’ was targeting her, she made a ring from a piece she had secured in the past and wore it. It was a kind of provocation.”

“Ah…”

So ‘Big Cat’ remembered Baek Sa-ra, who had been a member of Kwon Mu-seop’s team, and much later recognized Baek Sa-ra during exploration and came for revenge?

This really is like a cat, isn’t it?

Cats and magpies, those so-called spiritual creatures, remember people who bothered them and hold grudges – this was exactly like that.

What exactly are these things?

And Baek Sa-ra, who engaged in a battle of wills with that cat by making a ring from its piece and wearing it around – what exactly is she…?

Anyway, if ‘Big Cat’s’ nature was like that, there was no reason it wouldn’t follow Cha Si-eon now that it had found him isolated and alone.

So for us, the best strategy was to get out of here before ‘Big Cat’ started roaming around.

But there were only 2 hours left until the ‘Blood Rain’, which was ‘Big Cat’s’ active period, began.

Could we reach A Zone within that time?

It seemed realistically impossible.

It hadn’t appeared so far, so there was no way it would suddenly show up out of luck.

“Team Leader, are you sure that door is connected to A Zone?”

“The spatial structure of the island hasn’t changed. So it will appear eventually.”

“Then shouldn’t it have appeared long ago?”

At my question, Cha Si-eon took out his notebook and handed it to me.

On the page he opened, alphabets from A to J were written vertically, and next to each alphabet, the count was marked with tally marks.

“This is the number of times I broke through each zone while I was alone.”

You’re showing me this only now?

I glanced at Cha Si-eon with an incredulous look and counted the records written in the notebook.

—

A – 0 times

B – 13 times

C – 12 times

D – 7 times

E – 11 times

F – 14 times

G – 8 times

H – 16 times (☆1 duplicate)

I – 11 times

J – 0 times

Total: 92 times.

—

He really traveled around a lot, all by himself.

It’s impressive that he endured without collapsing from exhaustion.

And as expected, even when Cha Si-eon traveled alone, A Zone had never appeared.

Neither had J Zone.

“Even with this, are you confident that A Zone will appear?”

“The spaces of the Special Zone cannot be completely independent from their original form. While distortion can occur, they cannot be excluded or deleted, so the space called A should still exist according to the existing structure.”

Just as I was about to immediately argue back, Cha Si-eon pressed a yakgwa into my hand.

It seemed like he meant for me to eat this while listening, and if that was really the case, it was an excellent judgment.

I put the dry yakgwa in my mouth and chewed it, and the sweetness made my throat feel blocked.

Having successfully silenced me, Cha Si-eon continued his explanation.

“Nevertheless, the reason A Zone keeps not appearing is because all the zones we’ve broken through are each different spaces.”

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