Editor’s Survival Guide — Chapter 19
Episode 4. Welcome to the Special Management Bureau (4)
Baek Sa-ra possessed an elegance that looked drawn from a painting.
To explain the extent of it, there was the work uniform Cha Si-eon and Gwak Jae-gyeom wore.
It looked openly like the uniform of a special agent.
Pitch-black, loudly assertive clothing with cords and belts dangling everywhere.
Cha Si-eon looked menacing beyond words in it, and even Gwak Jae-gyeom somehow appeared cold when he kept his mouth shut.
Yet when Baek Sa-ra wore that same intimidating uniform, it looked merely neat.
No, she even looked fresh, as though she had just returned from a light run.
Despite the bandages and adhesive dressings patched over her here and there.
Was this the importance of the person wearing the clothes?
While I marveled alone, Baek Sa-ra took out a tablet and placed it on the table.
Then she spoke in an official tone.
“We’ll begin the post-rescue interview. You must have done this with Team Leader Cha Si-eon before, so please cooperate in the same manner.”
I nodded and sat up straight.
But instead of conducting the interview, Baek Sa-ra stared at me.
When I met her eyes, wondering why, she smiled warmly and said,
“Actually, that was an excuse. I came to meet you, Otter.”
“What?”
“I heard what happened and became curious about you, and I wanted to thank you too. I’m glad you look healthy.”
At Baek Sa-ra’s playful words, I blinked, then smiled back.
This was our first time speaking face-to-face.
But perhaps because we had shared hardship at the edge of death, I felt inexplicably glad to see her.
“You look seriously injured, Baek Sa-ra.”
“It only looks that way. It’s nothing.”
“Han Ji-su is doing well too, right?”
“Ji-su is…… yes. They say it’s all right now. Fortunately, the critical stage has passed.”
“Was Ji-su badly injured?”
“You remember, don’t you? In the hospital Special Zone, Ji-su shouted for us to get down just before the floor collapsed.”
Of course I remembered.
Immediately afterward, I had fallen together with Black in the wheelchair.
“That happened because Orange was struck by a high-powered round and exploded.”
It was only one sentence, yet I didn’t know which part should shock me.
Orange was human, so why had he exploded?
How did one exploding person bring down a floor?
And if an explosion like that had occurred, what happened to Han Ji-su, who had been close to Orange at the time?
“The scene was an unbelievable disaster when I saw it. Ji-su nearly ended up in pieces.”
Even while talking about someone being reduced to pieces, Baek Sa-ra’s voice remained refined and gentle.
So I flinched, then belatedly remembered.
This woman was highly skilled in both verbal abuse and violence.
Right. That was true. I had almost been startled for no reason.
When I nodded awkwardly, Baek Sa-ra smiled and asked,
“Horrible, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It is horrible.”
“Then why did you enter such a frightening place again? You had only just managed to make it out alive.”
Apparently, Baek Sa-ra already knew all about my circumstances.
Well, the story had spread everywhere. It would have been stranger if she didn’t know.
“It wasn’t intentional.”
When I complained honestly, sympathy entered Baek Sa-ra’s smile.
For some reason, her expression was complicated.
“I was truly grateful in the 「Hospital」. Thanks to you, Otter, we completed the mission without any sacrifices.”
“Not at all. I was the one you helped.”
“And since I came here under the pretext of an interview, I’ll show you something briefly.”
Baek Sa-ra abruptly operated the tablet.
Then she opened a screen and held it out to me.
“This is our exploration report.”
—
■ Exploration Report: 「Hospital That Hunts Humans」
Exploration No.: 17
Exploration Date: February 18, 20XX
Exploration Personnel: 2 members of Exploration Team 1, 10 convicts / Total: 12
Exploration Objective: Determine activation conditions and countermeasures for the 「High-Powered Round」 within the primary hazardous entity 「Moving Gun」’s attack patterns
—
What was this?
I had been looking at the screen without much thought when I stopped.
Baek Sa-ra asked in an unconcerned voice,
“Is something strange?”
“The exploration objective written here.”
“What about it?”
“It’s completely different from the order sheet you showed me before…….”
The exploration order White—Baek Sa-ra’s convict identity—had given me.
That order listed bizarre and complicated missions.
Complete one mandatory mission and two optional missions to return alive.
The convicts had unquestionably clung to their missions under those conditions.
Furthermore, none of their missions involved the 「Moving Gun」 or its 「High-Powered Round」.
Those were obstacles interfering with the missions instead.
At my observation, Baek Sa-ra smiled.
Then she gestured with her eyes for me to keep reading.
—
■ Exploration Details (Chronological)
00:01 Mission begins
00:07 Type A mission succeeds
00:08 Encounter with the 「Moving Gun」
00:14 Type B mission 「Bottomless Sandplay Box」 attempted
00:25 After remaining in the Psychological Testing Room for 11 minutes and 6 seconds, encounter with the 「Moving Gun」
00:36 After remaining in the Psychological Testing Room for 10 minutes and 55 seconds, encounter with the 「Moving Gun」
00:41 Type B mission 「Player Piano」 attempted
00:42 Convict “Purple” killed by a bullet from the 「Moving Gun」 in the first-floor lobby
00:43 「Moving Gun」 enters dormant period in the first-floor lobby
00:59 Convict “Green” buried and killed inside the 「Bottomless Sandplay Box」
01:16 Type B mission 「Incomprehensible-Domain Imaging Equipment」 attempted
01:21 Convict “Sky Blue” observes the 「Distorted Angel」 through the 「Incomprehensible-Domain Imaging Equipment」
01:22 Convict “Yellow” bitten and killed by Convict “Sky Blue”
01:23 Convict “Sky Blue” killed by Agent Han Ji-su
01:26 「Moving Gun」 resumes activity
01:30 Type B mission 「Nurse with Split Arms」 attempted
01:36 Convict “Orange” receives subcutaneous injection of the 「Black Ampoule」 from the 「Nurse with Split Arms」
01:38 Convict “Orange” complains of fever and removes face covering
01:55 Type B mission 「Coughing Young Man」 attempted
02:03 Convict “Orange” exposes face to the 「Moving Gun」
02:03 「Moving Gun」 fires first 「High-Powered Round」
02:09 「Moving Gun」 begins rampage
02:31 Convicts “Light Green,” “Pink,” and “Burgundy” killed by bullets from the 「Moving Gun」
—
Read only on MUGEX
This was a record of what the convicts had experienced before I joined them.
The record was endlessly dry.
That made the anguish between its lines all the more vivid.
The convicts, distinguished by colors, had struggled desperately for their missions.
They failed and tried again.
Then they died.
Overcome by an indescribable feeling, I asked Baek Sa-ra,
“Were the missions the convicts carried out fake?”
“We did not make them perform work that didn’t need doing.”
“But success and a safe return were impossible for them from the very beginning.”
Because White and Blue’s true objective was to investigate the 「High-Powered Round」.
They must therefore have needed to induce the 「Moving Gun」 to fire it.
And they needed a target for that round.
In the end, the convicts’ missions had not been assigned for them to complete.
They were a device intended to make the convicts targets of the 「Moving Gun」.
“It’s too cruel, isn’t it?”
Baek Sa-ra spoke as though she had looked inside my thoughts.
“Even so, don’t waste your concern on them. It would be a shame.”
“A shame……?”
“They merely have human shapes. Every one of them is a vicious murderer. If you pity them, how do you think the innocent victims they killed and those victims’ families would feel?”
Baek Sa-ra’s words naturally brought someone to mind.
Lee Sol, hiding inside the restroom at the railway station.
That child, still only a middle schooler, had told me
that I could kill her as long as I told her mother, so her mother would not keep searching.
“So never sympathize with them. The only people sent to me in the first place are those who deserve to fall into hell.”
Saying “but they are still human” here would be a luxury.
I possessed at least that much self-awareness.
But nor could I agree enthusiastically and say, “Yes, human garbage should at least be recycled that way!”
I was an ordinary editor who had never actively killed anything except superfluous sentences.
“You’ll see this kind of thing often from now on. You need to become accustomed to it. This is a place that does what is necessary, not what is right, and you belong to the Bureau now too, Otter.”
At Baek Sa-ra’s practical advice, I nodded heavily.
“I will keep it in mind.”
“And always put your own life first.”
“That goes without saying…….”
“I’m saying it because it doesn’t seem to go without saying for you.”
Baek Sa-ra’s voice remained gentle.
Then what was this strange feeling that I was being scolded?
“Honestly, you put it last. Both in the 「Railway Station」 and in front of me. Fortunately, the outcomes were good, but luck won’t always follow you. And there are more people in the world who aren’t worth saving than you would think. From now on, therefore, make your own life your sole priority. Never gamble with it.”
Baek Sa-ra apparently saw me as a child left unattended beside the water.
Well, in the eyes of a veteran agent, a civilian like me must look precarious.
I understood her concern.
But Cha Si-eon had once said something similar too.
—Were you still capable of rational thought when you handed Lee Sol the ticket?
Ugh. An unpleasant memory.
Of course, I could not place Baek Sa-ra and Cha Si-eon on the same level.
But the strange sense of déjà vu made me offer a mild explanation.
“I understand what you mean, but you don’t need to worry so much. I don’t particularly like gambling either. And I’m a coward.”
“You, Otter?”
Baek Sa-ra stared at me as though she had heard something strange.
Then she asked,
“……If you’re a coward, why did you remove your mask?”
“What?”
“You knew the gun’s condition for entering dormancy. If I had died then, the gun would have stopped too. You would have been rescued safely afterward.”
“The rescue team was coming soon. I thought that if I bought time, both of us could live.”
At my answer, Baek Sa-ra knitted her brow.
It was a strange expression.
She looked neither angry nor offended, but somehow uncomfortable.
“If that isn’t a gamble, what is?”
“Basic human decency.”
At my answer, Baek Sa-ra’s expression grew even stranger.
“You helped me first, Baek Sa-ra. It wasn’t particularly your role, and you were in the middle of other work.”
At the time, Baek Sa-ra had been moving among the convicts while concealing her identity.
It was a dangerous situation in which one misstep could have killed her.
Yet she protected me the instant she saw me.
My presence must have ruined her entire plan, but she did not care.
How could I simply stand by when someone like that was about to die in front of me?
Any decent human being would at least try to do something.
“That’s why I returned the favor. It wasn’t gambling; it was basic human decency.”
Baek Sa-ra opened her mouth as though intending to object.
But no words actually emerged from her mouth.
“……Honestly.”
After a long while, Baek Sa-ra lowered her head and sighed.
“This is difficult.”
What was difficult?
Her hair fell forward and hid her expression.
Even so, she did not seem to be joking.
Was receiving help from a civilian really such a blow to her pride?
Unable to understand why Baek Sa-ra was taking this so seriously, I merely looked bewildered.
In the meantime, she raised her head again.
“I’ll simply tell you the truth.”
Baek Sa-ra appeared to choose her words for a moment, then spoke in a lower voice.
“If you hadn’t removed your mask then, you would have died, Otter.”
What?
At the incomprehensible statement, I looked at Baek Sa-ra.
But she was strangely calm.
She looked as though she had already given up and accepted the outcome.
In that instant, I remembered.
When she was defeated by the 「Moving Gun」,
Baek Sa-ra had looked at me with the same expression.