Right. Espers have always been the type who live and die by their own arrogance.
Unbidden, the image of his squad moving in perfect formation under his command before his death passed through his mind. Most of them had come from the same training institution, so they knew Seunghyun’s character better than anyone.
Han Taeyun had been so dry and indifferent to those around him that the one who had actually held sway over the Ability Bureau’s Espers in practice had been Lee Seunghyun. And the thing Seunghyun had hated most in the world was the senseless act of ranking Guides by grade and harassing them.
There had been one occasion when he caught an Explosion-type Esper behind the Ability Bureau building, tapping a Guide on the cheek and groping them.
“Hey, aren’t you guys just batteries that sit comfortably in the back handing out energy while we risk our lives out front? So smile a little, yeah?”
Before the words were even out of his mouth, a combat boot had driven into the Esper’s side. Thud! Before the man could even scream, Seunghyun had grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed him into the wall.
“A battery? So you’re saying without that battery, you’d be the pathetic bastard who can’t last five minutes before your brain cells fry and you drop dead?”
Seunghyun had shoved his fist in the trembling Esper’s face.
“Touch a Guide without consent one more time. I’ll shred your mana circuits right out of your body — Ability Bureau or not. Got it? If you’re that desperate, go crawl off to the red-light district. This is a battlefield, not somewhere for you to work out your urges. Understood?”
After that day, word spread that getting noticed by ‘Mad Dog’ Lee Seunghyun meant ending up half-dead, and Espers who dared to make moves during Guiding sessions disappeared entirely. Seunghyun had kept discipline through fear, and on the battlefield, he had pushed them through the line between life and death and forged them into elite soldiers who moved in perfect sync. Back then, Guides had walked with their heads held high in front of Espers.
Yihyun’s gaze, drifting through memories of his old squad, snapped back to Go Cheolsu in front of him. Looking at this bulk of a man eyeing him with contempt made something rise in him beyond anger — it was revulsion.
“Sit down over there.”
“Guess the rumors about you losing your fear are true, huh?”
Yihyun jerked his chin toward the single recliner sofa set up for Guiding. The cold, firm delivery made Cheolsu falter. Baek Yihyun, who normally would have been cowering in a corner, was giving him orders — the bewilderment was plain on his face. But he soon let out a snicker and sank deep into the sofa.
“Didn’t you miss me, after almost dying and all?”
“Did you miss me that badly? Your Guiding levels are fine — I genuinely don’t understand why you came.”
“Gotta stock up on Guiding, haven’t I. That way I can take on Gates, and you get to sleep easy thanks to me.”
“Sure. Whatever you want to call it.”
The moment Yihyun moved in closer, Cheolsu grabbed his wrist roughly and yanked him toward him.
“If standing is too hard, I don’t mind if you sit in my lap.”
“Watch your mouth. My patience is a lot shorter than it was five years ago.”
Yihyun seized the hand clamped around his wrist. Then he shaped his condensed Guiding energy into something sharp and drove it mercilessly into Cheolsu’s mana circuits. Even if this body was unfamiliar, the instinct imprinted on his soul remained intact. This wasn’t merely disrupting the flow — it was like driving stakes into every pressure point of churning mana. An Esper who treated a Guide carelessly had no right to be treated with care in return, and he intended to make that lesson absolutely clear through this man’s body today.
“Ugh — GUH! AAAAUGH—!“
Cheolsu couldn’t even get a proper scream out as he convulsed and tumbled off the recliner onto the floor. The pain of needles raking the inside of his veins had his eyes rolling back. As Cheolsu seized on the floor, white foam began to spill from his lips. With his mana tangled beyond purification and slamming into his brain instead, there was no way he could endure it.
Yihyun watched the spectacle with cold, flat eyes, and when Cheolsu finally went limp and unconscious, he dusted off his hands lightly.
“Go Cheolsu. Seems like you’ve been pushing yourself too hard.”
He raised his voice deliberately and pressed the emergency call button on the wall. Before long the door flew open and security personnel stormed in. They looked back and forth between the A-Rank Esper foaming on the floor and the slight figure of Yihyun standing beside him in apparent bewilderment, and reacted with alarm.
“What happened here, Guide Baek Yihyun!”
“I’m not quite sure…. He started seizing the moment I began Guiding. He must have pushed himself too hard on the recent Gate raid. His condition was apparently bad enough that his body couldn’t handle my Guiding.”
Yihyun deliberately hunched his shoulders and put on a concerned, gentle smile. From the reactions he had observed around him so far, the original Baek Yihyun had been meek, soft-spoken, and always watching others’ expressions — a passive person. The agents nodded without suspicion, the image of the old Yihyun in mind.
“Ah… must have been early-stage berserk symptoms. Understood. We’ll move him to the medical room immediately.”
Yihyun let out a short breath as he watched the agents carry Cheolsu out like luggage. The moment the door closed, Yihyun’s eyes went sharp again.
That’s one down. Any of the ones coming in today who act out of line — I’ll make sure they’re all dealt with properly.
His resolve to restore order in the Guide wing was no empty declaration. The next two Espers who came in after also couldn’t hold themselves together under Yihyun’s offensive Guiding, and were carried out foaming at the mouth or dry-heaving. Outside the room, murmurs began circulating — “why does everyone who goes into Baek Yihyun’s Guiding room end up like that” — but Yihyun himself was perfectly calm.
At last, the morning quota ended, and the alarm signaling lunch sounded.
Following the crowd streaming toward the noise, he found the Ability Bureau’s staff cafeteria without any trouble.
The moment he pushed open the door and stepped inside, the noisy space fell momentarily silent. Every pair of eyes locked onto Yihyun. Some held curiosity, but most carried the kind of interest reserved for a spectacle and undisguised contempt.
Yihyun clicked his tongue and picked up a tray with complete composure. Baek Yihyun, who people had expected to quietly eat like a mouse in some corner, squared his shoulders and went through the food line, then planted himself with pointed confidence at an open table in full view of everyone. The unexpected behavior sent a wave of murmuring through the room.
“Hey, did you see that? The nerve.”
“Well, the rumor about him being the Director’s kept woman isn’t for nothing. The whole suicide thing was probably just a performance, too.”
Yihyun, you really did live your life on hard mode.
The word kept woman, drifting over just barely loud enough to catch, made Yihyun pause. Whether it was a rumor the Director’s side had spread to conceal the illegitimate child, or something people had fabricated themselves, it was disgusting either way. At the same time, on the opposite end of the cafeteria, a completely different kind of low whisper was spreading.
“……It’s true, apparently. I saw Cheolsu being carried out with my own eyes earlier.”
“It wasn’t just Cheolsu. All the Espers who went in during the morning session are supposed to be in the medical room? They said Baek Yihyun barely even touched them and they were foaming.”
The voices laced with curiosity were cracking the atmosphere of pure ridicule. A few Guides who had been watching began to carefully pick up their trays and drift toward the area around him. The empty space that people had avoided for fear of being associated with Yihyun was starting to fill.
“Hey, Yihyun……”
A woman spoke up cautiously. Yihyun stopped his spoon and looked up at her. An unfamiliar face. His gaze moved naturally to the name tag on her chest.
[B-Rank Guide Seo Minji]
Yihyun set his spoon down and put on a carefully troubled expression.
“Sorry, I took some pretty harsh medication and the side effects have left my memory hazy. Were we acquainted?”
“Huh? ……Oh. That is. We’d just exchanged greetings in passing…… I think?”
Minji’s voice trailed off as she looked away. The visible flustered reaction and the way her eyes shifted — one glance at her expression made it obvious they hadn’t even exchanged greetings; this was clearly the first time they’d ever spoken.
To think that an illegitimate child Baek Yihyun, whom no one would ordinarily have given a word to, was drawing this much attention. The impact of the morning’s Esper-medical-room incident had clearly been substantial.
Yihyun’s gaze moved to the wrist below her sleeve. A vivid, dark bruise — unmistakably the kind left by an Esper’s unreasonable demands — stood out clearly. Yihyun pretended not to see it and asked,
“Is that so? What can I do for you?”
“Um, is it really true…. that Cheolsu was carried out of your room?”
Yihyun nodded indifferently.
“Yeah. Must not have been taking care of himself lately. He just keeled over the moment I started Guiding.”
The eyes of the Guides who had been quietly listening in around them went wide with shock. Go Cheolsu was a man notorious for treating Guides like his personal toys. Minji asked again, her voice trembling.
“That can’t be right. Esper Go Cheolsu is famous for being meticulous about his physical condition…… What exactly did you do to him?”
The air in the cafeteria sank lower in an instant at Minji’s question. The Guides who had been listening in held their breath and fixed their eyes on Yihyun’s lips.
Yihyun set his spoon down without any particular expression and answered as though it were nothing.
“Hmm? Nothing much, really. If they treat us like batteries, we just treat them like machines.”
Yihyun’s eyes curved into a pleasant arc.
“When a machine overloads — it blows.”
