“What are you thinking?”
Raon didn’t answer Hyukjin’s question and instead opened the file he’d brought, checking the most important thing first. With no significant changes and the grade still at C, the corners of his mouth naturally turned downward.
“Isn’t this wrong?”
“It was C ten years ago too. Did you think you’d get an A if you retested?”
“What if a C-grade guides an S-grade?”
“Like throwing an egg at a rock.”
“Say it so I can understand.”
“Like giving a single sip of water to someone who hasn’t had food or even water for three days? The Esper barely feels anything, but the Guide gets their energy completely drained and needs to rest for several days.”
Not several days—he’d only fainted for about a day, so was that actually good? Raon tapped the desk with his pen. Though it was hazy now, he was certain that inside the dungeon, when Jaehwi had pulled him into an embrace, he’d felt like his very soul was being dragged away. No matter what anyone said, that had clearly been guiding.
“What if the compatibility is insanely good?”
“…How can there be good compatibility when the grades are different? Is one of you going to die or something?”
“That could happen.”
Raon merely raised an eyebrow slightly as Hyukjin, who had been sitting on the sofa eating the prepared refreshments, looked at him.
“Cut it out. You need to say things that make sense. It won’t work.”
“It can work.”
“Are you crazy? Do you want to get cursed out that badly? What’s so special about Nox anyway? Isn’t almost dying once in a dungeon enough for you? Ten years ago you were a kid, but now Nox is the one person in the world you need to be most careful of. When he’s on our side he’s our greatest asset, but to the other side he’s nothing less than a disaster…”
Letting Hyukjin ramble on as he pleased, Raon moved his fingertips over the mouse to search for combat Guide training courses.
“You know S-grade Guides’ prices have gone up worldwide, right? We’re making contacts too, but no one’s giving a definite answer. They’re all planning to wait and see who Nox contracts with first. He’s young too, so his options are definitely narrower.”
“Aiden Jung.”
Looking at the training schedule that was set up for nearly a full day rather than just a few hours made his head spin. Based on physical training, he’d have to practice using most weapons without distinction—guns, knives, everything. Though they concentrated more training on whichever side showed excellent combat ability, since their stats weren’t as outstanding as Espers’, it was unavoidable if they wanted to increase their survival rate.
They had to learn and train in anything and everything to survive so they could guide Espers. Scratching his forehead, Raon was searching for a more efficient training method when he looked up at the sound of “Hey!”
“He’s a man.”
It seemed the reason for the brief silence was because he’d been searching for who Aiden Jung was.
“So what.”
Seeing Hyukjin’s lips part then hesitate before closing, Raon turned his gaze back to the monitor.
“Add me to the list when you do compatibility testing later. If we don’t match, I won’t insist on continuing. Still, it worked when I was young, and guiding happened now too, so just in case. Even if I don’t become exclusive, as a backup for emergencies…”
“Kang Raon.”
Because Hyukjin’s voice cutting off his words was lower than usual, Raon put down the mouse and picked up his mug.
“You asked when you came in. What I was thinking. Why aren’t you answering?”
“I’m sick of this work, so I thought I’d try being a Guide. A combat type. Instead of pushing Espers and Guides into dungeons, I’ll go directly and see the field myself. Just for about 5 years? After that, won’t I be able to do the work even better?”
“It’s because of Nox, isn’t it? Like I said before, he’s an adult now. Money? You know it’s only a matter of time before he’s richer than you, right? Though there are conditions set by NCSC, he can choose which dungeons to go to. You know that clause goes into the contract. Popularity? It’s already tremendous. If his face gets revealed, it’ll be no joke, right? Even within our center, people are buzzing about it. When he was young, sure, it was hard and painful. But even if you don’t do it for him, he’s naturally set to receive compensation for all of that. You said as long as he’s alive. He’s alive!”
Getting hit with reality bombs since yesterday was making his head spin. Jaehwi had done it, and now Hyukjin was poking right at the sore spots too. He knew, he knew all this content, but his heart wouldn’t follow along.
“You know my personality is strange. Getting everything I want, doing everything I want to do. If I can’t do that, I get sick.”
“So you want to have Nox? You want to become his exclusive Guide and make a name for yourself? Isn’t the title of being MK Center’s management team leader and also Nox’s exclusive Guide appealing?”
At Hyukjin’s words, Raon laughed. If he said he just didn’t like seeing him get hurt, and that even if he was in pain, he’d prefer he hurt where he could see him, he’d really seem like a crazy pervert. He could no longer say that he was just a younger brother he wanted to take care of and protect. In this return to the past, Jaehwi didn’t know about all those things that had happened between them. But didn’t he know it all?
No matter what anyone said, spending the night as people, not as Guide and Esper, as Kang Raon and Min Jaehwi, had been their will. Though he hadn’t expressed his feelings as actively as Jaehwi had, for him, what had happened couldn’t now become something that hadn’t happened.
“Stop talking and get out. Neither of us is idle enough to chat and gossip.”
Having chased Hyukjin out, Raon stared silently at the monitor before standing up. He told Jay, who followed when he moved, to wait in the office, and the place he went was the underground training room.
Since the spaces open to each grade were different, Guides and Espers of relatively lower grades were using the training rooms according to their assigned schedules. Raon’s gaze landed on those gathering in groups of three or five to train or focusing alone on basic physical conditioning.
This was what it meant to do one’s best in one’s place. They just had to move according to what was given to each of them, but right now he was trying to go against that.
Lightly nodding his head in greeting to those who recognized him and greeted him first, Raon looked along with the murmuring toward where people’s gazes were converging.
It was Jaehwi, dressed entirely in black from head to toe. Seeing that he was here despite having made a fool of himself at the hotel, it seemed his words about treating it as if it hadn’t happened were true.
Jaehwi, who was a head taller than the others, walked over and stopped three steps away as usual, one corner of his mouth twisted up crookedly.
“Hello. Team Leader Kang.”
Jaehwi, who greeted him in a feminine voice, passed by Raon’s side as if he didn’t need to hear an answer. Raising his hand slightly to wipe below his chin, his bangs were wet. Even the clothes that looked entirely black had shading, and above all, strong heat could be felt from him.
“E1101S, Esper Min Jaehwi.”
He could have let him go, but in the end, Raon had no choice but to call him to a stop.
“Yes.”
Raon turned his body and approached Jaehwi, who had passed him. Blocking Jaehwi’s path, Raon raised his head and stared intently at Jaehwi’s face. One might think it expressionless, but faint wrinkles had formed on Jaehwi’s brow. His thoroughly reddened fingertips, wiping away the sweat again as if the flowing perspiration was bothersome, also trembled faintly.
“Use the guiding room too. Espers without exclusive Guides can visit anytime to receive radiative guiding.”
He’d been maintaining about 30% through medication. If he’d trained hard enough to be drenched in sweat, Jaehwi’s stability level must have dropped, and even taking the few remaining stabilizers wouldn’t noticeably improve it.
“…Contact?”
Jaehwi, who had been looking down at him arrogantly without lowering his head, seemed to be gritting his teeth, making his pronunciation unclear.
“Shall we move somewhere to talk?”
In very urgent situations, contact guiding did happen, but it was something that didn’t occur often within the center.
“You’re telling me to receive guiding.”
Raon, who had turned his body to walk away first, placed his lifted foot back down at the words that caught him.
“Discuss whether or not to make contact directly with the Guide who will be guiding you in the guiding room, Esper-nim. Let’s meet in my office after the guiding.”
Raon, who had come to look around the training room and set up his own training schedule even if it was late, left that spot as if fleeing without achieving his purpose. Because of the gazes of the center staff and affiliated Espers and Guides watching him, it seemed it would be difficult to use the center facilities.
To reveal now that he was C-grade and express his opinion about working as a combat Guide wasn’t an easy situation either. A C-grade, not even an A-grade, going to the trouble? From D-grade up they formed teams and belonged to them, but the dungeons they entered differed according to grade.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that C and D grades didn’t exist to clear dungeons but to collect and organize the byproducts of dungeons cleared by higher-grade Espers and Guides.
Should he finish up hotel life and commute from home even if it’s far? If it was the house basement, it seemed he could simply make a physical training room and practice room. Since his grade wasn’t high, it didn’t need to be that sturdy. Walking down the corridor toward the elevator, Raon laughed hollowly as he heard the voices of Guides offering to guide each other.
As Hyukjin said, or as anyone would know, there were more than enough people who wanted to become Nox’s exclusive Guide.
