Editor’s Survival Guide — Chapter 7
Episode 2. I Thought I Had Escaped (2)
I did not know what had happened to me.
Nor the true nature of that grotesque space.
Nor the true nature of this organization that claimed to belong to the government.
I did not even know how I was alive right now.
There were only three things I could vaguely surmise.
I had become entangled in some bizarre incident.
It was top-secret information withheld from ordinary citizens.
And the government organization managing that incident had a peculiar character that made it difficult to classify as either good or evil.
Then, amid all that, an enormous amount of cash had suddenly appeared.
Was this really a good sign?
I did my best to conceal the discomfort and doubt rapidly swelling inside me.
Then I asked the man again.
“……What was the question?”
“I asked what led you to use a book during the barter, Seo Do-un. This question is intended to update the rulebook, so please provide a detailed explanation.”
The rulebook.
Come to think of it, the leaflet I received had also said it was a “Special Zone under the management of the government of the Republic of Korea.”
“Did you make that rulebook here?”
“Correct.”
“And you make it to save people?”
“Correct.”
“Wouldn’t it be better simply to conduct patrols, then?”
At my successive questions, the man let out a short sigh.
Then he reluctantly began to speak.
“In the zone you entered, lethal factors against which no response is possible occur at all times. Consequently, agents are strictly prohibited from entering or remaining there for prolonged periods.”
……Didn’t that ultimately mean they stayed out to save their own skins?
I feigned bewilderment at his answer.
The man pressed me in a rigid voice.
“Please answer now.”
He used the word *please*, but his tone sounded far more like an interrogation.
The blatant pressure began to set me on edge as well.
Had I met him anywhere else, I would simply have dismissed him as an emotionally unbalanced person.
But only minutes had passed since I nearly died, so I was hardly composed enough to smile and shrug off this sort of treatment.
“Do I need to remind you what the question was?”
“…….”
For the moment, I swallowed my anger.
The question this man had asked.
What had led me to use the book during the barter.
As for what had led me to it, I hadn’t had many choices at the time.
First, the rulebook said this.
—
Request a barter exchange with the 「Something Wearing an Old-Style Uniform」.
Items that have successfully been bartered to date:
1. Cigarettes
2. Painkillers
3. Handkerchief
4. Silver ring
5. Cross or rosary
6. White flowers
7. Burn medication
8. Uncooked rice
Items that have failed in barter attempts to date:
1. Pornographic material
2. Electronic devices of any kind
3. Precious metals and jewelry other than silver rings
4. Food such as snacks, chocolate, bread, and gimbap
5. Clothing and footwear of any kind
For your safety, barter attempts involving the following are prohibited:
1. Firearms of any kind, including replicas
2. Bladed weapons of any kind, including replicas
3. Explosives of any kind, including replicas
4. Living or deceased humans
—
After retracing my memories, I spoke.
“The rulebook called it the 「Something Wearing an Old-Style Uniform」, so I began by assuming it was a soldier.”
Once I approached it from that assumption, the pornographic material and food among the rejected objects stood out.
It felt unfair to reduce people to such basic instincts, but those were two things soldiers generally favored.
“But I noticed that it had rejected things an ordinary soldier might enjoy. On the other hand, white flowers and uncooked rice were among the successful barter items, so I thought it might be someone dead—that is, a soldier killed in action.”
Rejecting pornography and food meant it had lost both sexual desire and appetite.
That was characteristic of someone sick, someone dying, or someone already dead.
If so, might the white flowers be funeral offerings, and the uncooked rice what was placed in the deceased’s mouth while preparing the body for burial?
Under the same framework, accepting painkillers and burn medication suggested that the soldier had burned to death.
A handkerchief or silver ring could be an object kept in memory of a mother or lover.
And placing a gun or blade in the hands of a dead soldier was obviously dangerous.
“So I thought it might accept a book. Since it had taken cigarettes and a cross, it seemed to be seeking comfort.”
That was my reasoning, and the book I happened to possess was worth attempting to barter.
After all, it was a collection containing only good lines from novels—the sort that might offer comfort to the heart.
Sure enough, the 「Something Wearing an Old-Style Uniform」 showed interest in the collection and tore out one of its pages.
I didn’t know which sentence it had taken from which page.
At the time, I had no opportunity to check, and now I had no means of doing so.
The man in the protective suit seemed to have disposed of all my belongings earlier.
My explanation ended, but the man said nothing.
Read only on MUGEX
He merely stared at me for several seconds.
When I stared back, he moved on to the next question.
“From the time you first read the rulebook until you met Lee Sol, you did not open it again. Is that correct?”
Why ask when he had watched all of it?
“Most people check it several more times while moving. Why didn’t you?”
“There was no particular need.”
“You memorized all of it?”
“Yes.”
The man looked at me with suspicion.
His rudeness was remarkably consistent.
“Recite everything you remember about Route C.”
“Escape via the 「Recycling Bin」. Recommended if you have failed to escape through Routes A and B or are unable to seek refuge in the 「Circulating Library」. If the inside of the railway station is dirtied with human saliva or similar matter, the neutral entity known as the 「Cleaner」 will appear. At that time, the 「Recycling Bin」 pulled by the 「Cleaner」 is connected to reality and may be used as an escape route. However, if you enter the 「Recycling Bin」, the portions the 「Cleaner」 judges to be dirty will be removed at random. These may be parts unrelated to sustaining life, such as hair, fingernails, or limbs, or they may be parts directly essential to life, such as the heart, lungs, or brain…….”
“That’s enough.”
When I recited the rulebook word for word, the man cut me off as though he had confirmed what he needed.
I didn’t know whether he was a soldier or National Intelligence Service, but his conversational style was really something to behold.
No, perhaps it was this awful precisely because it wasn’t a conversation, but an interrogation.
Neither possibility was pleasant.
Nor did I understand why I had to be interrogated this way.
The one fortunate point was that the man did not appear to have any other objective.
I had been suspicious when he suddenly produced such a large sum.
But he didn’t seem to intend to use the money as bait for a scam or to coax me into anything.
Had that been his goal, he would have been kinder than this.
In that case, this man really was a government employee carrying out official duties.
……Wasn’t that a problem in its own right?
Whatever. I simply wanted this uncomfortable interrogation to end.
As I thought that, the man questioned me again.
“Were you still capable of rational thought when you handed Lee Sol the ticket?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did you act with a rational alternative in mind?”
“…….”
“Did you act without any plan?”
“Is there a problem?”
“There is no problem. The compensation calculated for you includes a portion for saving a life.”
Then why in the world was he asking?
“You appeared to think quickly, so I asked to determine whether you had made some other calculation. If not, that is sufficient.”
While I was left speechless, the man concluded the matter by himself.
So I savored the feeling of having been declared a thoughtless fool, then answered with a dry laugh.
“Yes, my calculations were inadequate. And there was no manual telling me to save my own skin first.”
At that moment, the man’s writing hand stopped dead.
He remained still with his pen suspended, then looked at me and spoke stiffly.
“Then you may use this opportunity to learn.”
“No, thank you. It hardly seems worth going out of my way to learn.”
I answered with a casual smile, and the man stared at me for some time.
I did not avoid his gaze either, resulting in a brief and unintended staring contest.
As I thought, this man made me uncomfortable.
He was probably thinking the same thing as he looked at me.
The man swallowed a sigh and spoke again.
“Finally, do you have any suggestions concerning the rulebook we provided?”
Suggestions, my ass…….
I was about to say no, but changed my mind midway.
“It had a lot of errors. I think you need to proofread it.”
“What do you mean by errors?”
“It’s difficult to understand from the very beginning. Telling people out of nowhere not to forget they’re human—what good does suddenly emphasizing something they ordinarily recognize without thought do besides confuse them? Especially people abruptly dropped into some incomprehensible place. If there’s a particular need to emphasize it, you should at least provide the minimum explanation necessary for readers to accept it.”
The man’s eyebrow twitched at my criticism.
But I continued without concern.
“There’s also a sentence stating, ‘Within a Special Zone, all acts of consumption—such as eating, drinking, or reading—are prohibited.’ Is it really correct to group ‘eating and drinking’ and ‘reading’ into one category? How is anyone supposed to infer the other acts omitted by ‘such as’? The penalty for violating that warning isn’t trivial; it’s damage to body and mind. Shouldn’t you convey the meaning more precisely? Before any of that, you also need to resolve the contradiction of placing a rulebook there to be read and then warning people not to read anything.”
Using cushioning language was a fundamental skill for an editor.
Because if an editor seriously set about hacking sentences to pieces, the author would die.
But this topknot was not an author, and he seemed to need a lesson in mutual courtesy.
So, hoping this unfriendly public servant might become a little friendlier, I continued tearing into him.
Why bother writing about those lockers when they weren’t even practical?
Did you know some bastards used them to murder people, cut them apart, and sell them?
Didn’t you realize something like that might happen? Are you idiots?
How can you name things like 「Railway Police」 and 「Severed Station Attendant」 based purely on your own impressions?
Wouldn’t anyone unfamiliar with them say, “What the hell is that, you fucking nerd?”
Yet seeing them in person would scare people witless and make their brains shut down. Do you want everyone to die?
I enjoyed watching the man’s face contort as I said everything I wanted to say.
I had already regretted being unable to underline the rulebook.
I could only be grateful that he had given me an opportunity like this.
“Of course, I understand that you worked hard to make it.”
When I added that afterward, the man’s eyebrow twitched.
His expression asked whether I meant to wound him and then offer medicine.
I didn’t.
Smiling to show that I had no medicine to offer, I added,
“But it looks as though you need to work harder, so you may use this opportunity to learn.”
I returned his own words in a reasonable imitation, and the man’s face finally crumpled in a most satisfying way.
He stared at me with his jaw clenched, then at last recited reluctantly,
“We will take it under advisement.”