Editor’s Survival Guide — Chapter 21
Episode 5. Shopping! The Warehouse Mart! (1)
I seemed to have blacked out for a moment.
Everything around me was red, and my eyes stung.
—Seo Do-un, can you hear me?
Cha Si-eon’s voice rang out from my smartwatch.
When I moved my head to answer, something warm ran down it.
It was my blood.
—Answer me, Seo Do-un!
I wanted to, but my voice wouldn’t come out.
The blood covering my face was warm.
It felt as though I were submerged in a bathtub.
* * *
Ten days earlier.
It was my third day as an agent of the Bureau.
“Special Zones are classified into four types.”
I was receiving one-on-one instruction from Cha Si-eon in a small training room.
“The classification is based on a Special Zone’s form, nature, and operating principles. For reference, both the 「Railway Station Where the Siren Wails」 and the 「Hospital That Hunts Humans」 belong to Type 1.”
He had told me to ask whenever I had a question, so I shot my hand up.
“Who names the Special Zones?”
“The names are decided in meetings.”
“I see…….”
Honestly, they were incredibly lame.
The Special Zones themselves, and boss-monster names like the 「Moving Gun」 too.
Wouldn’t it be better to come up with something a little more sophisticated while they were at it?
“We use the most intuitive names possible so that civilians can identify the subjects easily.”
I had only been thinking it, but Cha Si-eon went out of his way to elaborate.
It wasn’t kindness so much as a haughty way of pointing out my ignorance.
What was I supposed to do about that personality of his……?
“Type 1 Special Zones are the largest category, with sixteen in total. They are characterized by structures as intricate as reality and clear aggression. Their current exploration rate is fifty-two percent.”
“What does exploration rate mean?”
“It refers to the properties of a Special Zone and the response measures the Bureau has identified. These include escape routes, the characteristics and patterns of hazardous entities, and methods for interacting with neutral entities.”
I see.
Fifty-two percent was a little ambiguous, wasn’t it?
“Type 2 Special Zones appear like reality at first glance, but dreamlike distortions occur within them. Their defining feature is the alluring atmosphere of the space, and people drawn into one feel an urge to remain there. There are twelve Type 2 Special Zones in total. Representative examples include the 「Iridescent Cake Shop」 and the 「Alien Slaughterhouse」. Their current exploration rate is thirty-nine percent.”
Hold on. Hadn’t he said they made Special Zone names as intuitive as possible?
And yet one of them was called the 「Alien Slaughterhouse」? Seriously?
“Type 3 Special Zones evoke the afterlife or a religious paradise. For that reason, people are often overwhelmed by awe or terror the moment they enter. There are eight in total, including the 「Palace of Dead Kings」 and the 「Messiah’s Banquet Hall」. They are the most dangerous type of Special Zone, and their exploration rate is only eleven percent.”
This was getting worse and worse.
If they resembled the afterlife, did that mean things like heaven and hell appeared in them?
“Lastly, there are Type 4 Special Zones.”
Gulp—
I swallowed dryly as the difficulty grew increasingly vicious.
But the explanation that followed was anticlimactic.
“Type 4 remains unknown.”
“Unknown?”
“Yes. Almost nothing is known about Type 4 Special Zones. Unlike other Special Zones, they do not pull in civilians, so we merely assume they are dormant.”
“Then how do you know one exists well enough to classify it?”
It was the obvious question.
But Cha Si-eon looked at me, then answered a beat late.
“The agent who died in the line of duty—the one I mentioned before—was once dragged into a Type 4 Special Zone.”
The fallen agent.
The person who had supposedly been dragged into Special Zones more than twenty times.
“That was the first and last time the existence of a Type 4 Special Zone was confirmed. According to the agent’s testimony at the time, it was ‘an ossuary so vast that no end could be seen.’”
Wow. Everything suddenly looked bleak all over again.
As though dreams weren’t enough, there were counterfeit heavens and counterfeit hells.
And an ossuary of staggering scale that had only ever been confirmed once.
Worse, the 「Railway Station」 and 「Hospital」 where I had nearly died were apparently among the more ordinary ones.
I was lamenting the cruelty of the world when something occurred to me.
Come to think of it, there was something I had wanted to confirm about the 「Railway Station」.
“Have you ever been to Yongsan Station?”
I raised my hand and asked, and Cha Si-eon looked at me.
This bastard—it was a habit of his, wasn’t it?
Whenever a question was inconvenient, he stalled instead of answering.
“The inside of Yongsan Station was identical to the 「Railway Station Where the Siren Wails」. Didn’t you know?”
“I did.”
“Then do you also know that the area was bombed?”
“I do.”
Only when I pressed him did Cha Si-eon finally answer.
So the Bureau was aware of it too.
I wasn’t the only one who had found it strange.
I mulled over the suspicious coincidence, then broached the subject carefully.
“Could Special Zones perhaps be something created by the victims of those places……?”
“There is no possibility of that.”
But Cha Si-eon’s immediate answer cut me off cleanly.
“Special Zones are phenomena that require scientific investigation, not matters onto which we should graft superstitious fantasies. Making that sort of connection would not only be contrived, but also insulting to the victims.”
……Urgh. There was no arguing with that.
Cha Si-eon’s cold criticism had hit me hard.
I closed my mouth awkwardly, but he added in an icy tone,
“At present, only three facts have been established: Type 1 Special Zones imitate particular locations; the locations they imitate sustained heavy wartime damage; and Type 1 Special Zones contain numerous hazards symbolizing war. That is all.”
“……Doesn’t that already suggest a connection?”
No, this wasn’t even subtle. It was an obvious dangling plot thread.
It was foreshadowing that would cause serious trouble if it never paid off!
My editor self shouted indignantly inside my heart.
But the Bureau’s civil servant did not listen.
“We will leave the possibility open, but we cannot draw a conclusion.”
Wow. So this was the level of rigor it took to work for the government…….
When I was left speechless, that hopelessly rigid civil servant added,
“Separately, it is true that Type 1 Special Zones contain many war-related hazardous entities. So if you are dragged into one, it would not be unreasonable to think of it as being dragged onto a battlefield.”
“Is that a curse?”
“It is advice.”
When I snapped the question at him, Cha Si-eon answered without batting an eye.
That was why I thought this guy was a psychopath.
Read only on MUGEX
But in hindsight, surprisingly enough, not one word Cha Si-eon had said was wrong.
* * *
And then came this morning, my thirteenth day at the Bureau.
Up until that point, I had been going through an uneventful routine.
“Why is your spine like this when you’re still so young? Didn’t your company buy you a desk? Do you work lying facedown on the floor?”
A man in a white coat scolded me with an image of my spine displayed on the monitor.
Spoken like someone who knew nothing.
Our CEO bought his employees good desks and computers alike.
Because that allowed him to keep us sitting there and working for longer.
But if I said that now, I would be the only one who got scolded, wouldn’t I?
“Watch your posture and exercise. You don’t have to be a beast like the agents here, but you’ll suffer when you’re older if you keep this up.”
“Ha-ha. Right…….”
The grim-faced man berating me was named Kim Woo-in.
Every time I saw him, he held a lollipop between his lips like a cigarette, leaving me unsure whether he was trying to quit smoking or simply had a sweet tooth. He was one of the Bureau’s doctors.
At the moment, he was checking my physical health, mental health, contamination level, and so on every three days.
Kim Woo-in rolled the candy around in his mouth with a click of his tongue and asked,
“Last time, you said you were worried about being dragged back into a Special Zone. How do you feel today?”
“Reasonably fine.”
I answered comfortably.
The truth was that until a few days ago, I had suffered from considerable emotional instability.
Because I had been dragged into the 「Hospital」 exactly ten days after returning home.
I’d been tense, wondering if something would happen on the tenth day again this time.
But the day had passed without incident, leaving me pleasantly deflated.
“I decided to think about it less. There’s no way to predict it anyway, and things might continue without incident.”
“That’s a healthy attitude mentally. Your contamination readings have remained normal too, so I’ll monitor you for one more week. If nothing is wrong, you’ll be allowed to go out starting next week.”
Permission to go out? That was the best news I’d heard in ages.
For the first time in a while, I left the examination room feeling happy.
But the instant I opened its door, the space changed.
The air shifted abruptly, making every hair on my body stand on end.
There was no time to look around, however.
—Seo Do-un, get down!
Something slammed into my head as Cha Si-eon shouted.
Bang—!
It was one magnificent headshot.
* * *
And now.
—Seo Do-un!
I had wanted to fall asleep like this.
But it was so noisy that every trace of sleep fled.
I moved an arm and dragged it up beside my face.
Then I barely managed to whisper into my watch.
“I can hear you.”
—……Can you move?
“Yes.”
My mind was still foggy, so I answered briefly.
The truth was I didn’t know whether I could move. I would find out when I tried.
—Then do not stand. Crawl out of your current position. Roll to your right and move toward two o’clock relative to your head. Do not raise your head.
I rolled over as instructed.
Only after I landed facedown did I realize I had been lying on my back.
My vision was a mess from the blood in my eyes, but I started crawling anyway.
Something flew rapidly back and forth above me.
—Stop there and sit up. We will deal with the bleeding now. The wound is behind your left temple. There is a hemostatic agent, a bandage, and painkillers in the lower-right pocket of your vest.
Following Cha Si-eon’s instructions, I searched the vest I was wearing and took out the first-aid supplies.
I sprayed the hemostatic agent onto the puncture near my left temple, then wrapped the bandage around and around my head.
I tipped the painkillers into my mouth as well, chewing and swallowing them.
As I did, my mind gradually cleared.
I had remained dazed as though drunk with sleep, but now I finally felt awake.
—How is your condition?
“I think I’m all right.”
Perhaps because of the medicine, my body felt passable.
But my mood was the worst.
Haah. Where was I this time?
Covered in sticky blood, I looked around.
A high ceiling with all its pipes exposed.
Metal storage racks stretching from the floor to the ceiling.
And sealed goods packed tightly inside them.
Was this a distribution warehouse?
But a slip of paper had been attached beneath every product.
As befitted a Special Zone, I couldn’t read the writing on them, but their appearance made it clear they were price tags.
This wasn’t a distribution warehouse. It was a warehouse mart.
If it was a warehouse mart, could it be that place……?
As I checked my surroundings and heaved one sigh after another, Cha Si-eon asked through the watch,
—Seo Do-un, do you remember what happened immediately before this?
“I had finished my examination and was on my way out. When I opened the examination-room door, the space changed.”
—That matches what the medical staff witnessed. Your third entry into a Special Zone was confirmed at 11:12 a.m. on March fifth, Seo Do-un.
I gritted my teeth at Cha Si-eon’s merciless confirmation.
This made three times.
It was now an established fact.
Just as Gwak Jae-gyeom had said, I was someone who would keep getting dragged into Special Zones.
When I let out yet another sigh, Cha Si-eon spoke in a low voice.
—Suppress your confusion. Survival is the priority right now.
Yes. He was right.
At Cha Si-eon’s coolheaded words, I too cut my flagging breath short.
“I’m calm now. Where is this?”
—You have been drawn into the Type 1 Special Zone known as the 「Warehouse Mart Rigged with Traps」.
“……Now I understand why you emphasized intuitive naming.”
It truly was a transparent name.
Transparent enough that I could already see exactly what lay ahead of me.
I gave a disbelieving laugh and asked,
“So how do I escape this place?”
—Before that, Seo Do-un.
“Yes?”
—Congratulations on your official appointment.
“…….”
Startled by the sudden congratulations, I soon smiled faintly.
Then, unable to say it aloud, I answered him in my heart.
Thanks, you psychopath…….