# Chapter 118
“Espers, please exit this space immediately if your stability drops below 50 during combat! Guides, focus solely on eliminating the ore!”
The ability users moved in perfect unison. Riska’s power was crumbling under the hands of numerous Guides.
Swoosh! Bang! Boom!
The Riskas weren’t just watching their power disappear. Since attacking Guides was useless, they were desperately trying to break down the Espers’ wavelengths.
However, the army of ability users, who had prepared countermeasures considering that Riska could control Espers’ minds, didn’t even blink.
Ability users from all over the world had gathered. Thanks to them, Riska’s lair was gradually collapsing.
“Cough! Huk, huh…”
Jiwon moved unsteadily, groaning roughly as he watched them. He worried about Suhyun’s wavelength condition and whether something might happen while he was away, but he couldn’t just keep holding on.
‘He’ll endure…’
Because it was Suhyun, not anyone else. Because he had seen Jiwon enter this place and knew he wasn’t alone.
His nature of not wanting to hurt people would surely prevent him from going berserk.
“Ha, ugh…”
Jiwon frantically examined the reddish-black ores. Riska’s lair, much more extensive than he had thought, was filled with ores in every direction.
‘It must be somewhere among these…’
Guiding was meaningless for Suhyun now. His wavelength was being eaten away by Riska.
If the power stolen from Espers became these reddish-black ores, wouldn’t there be one created with Suhyun’s power somewhere? An ore accumulating his power.
Jiwon planned to find that ore and eliminate it through guiding.
‘There must be an ore capturing Esper-nim’s wavelength somewhere. No, there has to be.’
It might be a hasty conviction, but Jiwon had nothing else to rely on. He had to believe that eliminating the ore would make guiding possible again.
“Ha, haa…”
Jiwon, breathing laboriously, roughly rubbed his eyes as his vision blurred.
‘I can’t be exhausted already.’
Even if there was an ore containing Suhyun’s power, Jiwon didn’t arrogantly assume he could identify it by sight.
So he reached out to every ore and used his ability each time. Continuously performing guiding on every ore he touched naturally drained his body.
“Huk, ha… shit…”
His steps were precarious, as if he might fall at any moment. Jiwon struggled to keep his mind clear as he crumbled the ores.
“Heu… huh… cough!”
For a moment, his vision went completely dark and returned to normal several times. A piercing ringing sound filled his ears, and it felt as though all his internal organs were twisting.
Yet, even while coughing painfully, Jiwon’s hands didn’t stop. He exhaled roughly, keeping his legs straight despite their constant weakening.
“Why, is it so… kack! Hak…”
Why is it so vast?
To Jiwon’s eyes, wiping away something that could have been sweat, blood, or tears, Riska’s lair was overwhelmingly vast.
At this rate, it seemed impossible to recover Suhyun’s stolen power. Either Suhyun wouldn’t hold out, or he would die first.
“Ugh, no, that’s, huk, absolutely…”
Jiwon gritted his teeth.
As if not allowing even the assumption of Suhyun’s death, he finally moved his heavy legs.
‘You can’t die.’
Suhyun had to live. He absolutely couldn’t let him die.
They had finally started destroying Riska’s power. Without Suhyun, they wouldn’t have even made it this far. Most of the clues had been found by Suhyun, and yet he would die?
“Who would, accept such a sacrifice…”
Jiwon never wanted Suhyun’s sacrifice. If he had made the world safer, Suhyun should also be the one to fully enjoy that world.
“Haa…, kuk, ha…”
His trembling fingertips continued to crumble ores.
His distant vision wouldn’t clear. Despite using all his strength, his legs had given way and he had fallen and gotten up countless times already.
At first, his heavily fallen legs hurt, but now he couldn’t even feel them.
‘It’s okay. Even if I lose my guiding ability…’
But he could endure this level of pain. Not only that, he didn’t care about losing his guiding ability.
Because there was Choi Sojeong. And even without him, surely another Guide would appear.
His guiding ability was too trivial to exchange for Suhyun’s life.
‘So…’
Jiwon tightly closed his eyes and opened them again to keep from losing consciousness. Though his trembling legs refused to gain strength, as long as he stayed conscious, he could move even by crawling.
“Huk…”
Jiwon mechanically moved and eliminated ores. At some point, he stopped thinking altogether. Even that felt like an energy expenditure.
Meanwhile, the speed at which the ores crumbled under his touch was slowing down. Not only was his nose bleeding profusely, but his entire body was a mess from vomiting blood several times while walking.
His unfocused pupils scanned the ores aimlessly.
His guiding ability was diminishing. Had he already exceeded his limit and become unable to guide anymore?
“…Ah.”
Jiwon’s eyes suddenly widened as he gritted his teeth, forcibly suppressing the anxiety that kept rising. A sigh unconsciously escaped between his teeth.
‘It’s here.’
His all-too-familiar wavelength called out to him, screaming that it was trapped here. The ore was not far away.
There was no time to distinguish whether it was an illusion or not.
In the midst of pain that felt like every cell was screaming, Jiwon squeezed out his last strength and walked toward it.
At the end of his staggering steps, there was an ore that felt particularly sorrowful, emitting light.
“Haa…, heu…”
Jiwon reached out and caressed the ore. Simultaneously, the reddish-black ore lost its light and crumbled.
“Kack! Kuhuk!”
As if it had been waiting, a mass of bloody fluid poured out from his throat.
Thud!
Jiwon’s body, which had been enduring solely through willpower, collapsed to the ground.
Whether he had done it right, whether this was the correct ore. Whether Suhyun was okay because of it.
He needed to check Suhyun’s condition, but he couldn’t move his body at all.
Jiwon’s eyelids closed heavily.
That was his last memory.
***
“Ah… ah, it’s working. The guiding…!”
At the same time.
Choi Sojeong, who had been desperately guiding Suhyun to the point that beads of sweat formed on his forehead, shouted.
“Ha, the numbers are rising!”
Sojeong’s face brightened. He couldn’t express how terrified he had been as Suhyun’s stability had only been falling, not rising, since Jiwon had let go of his hand.
9, 8, 7…
With each slight drop in the numbers, he feared the Esper, who now had his eyes tightly closed, might suddenly open them and unleash attacks in all directions.
He should let go and run away.
Sojeong had been warned multiple times. The vigilance of the surrounding Espers grew increasingly stringent.
‘Please… please, I beg you…’
But the desperate face of Jiwon kept appearing in his mind, making it impossible for him to do so.
His strong belief that Suhyun wouldn’t go berserk and his determination not to let it happen were so powerful that he felt he shouldn’t dare to give up.
“Ha… thank goodness. Really, thank goodness.”
Sojeong exhaled in relief and strived to raise the fallen numbers again. As if it had been a lie how burdensome it had been, Suhyun’s stability had returned to double digits.
“But, but why isn’t Guide Jiwon coming back?”
Only now catching his breath, Sojeong searched for Jiwon, who should have appeared by now. Suhyun’s situation had somehow been resolved, but now he grew anxious as Jiwon was nowhere to be seen.
In response to Sojeong’s question, one of the Espers standing guard looked around.
“Guide Jiwon! Wake up!”
It was precisely then that Won Jungyeom’s loud voice was heard.
“Damn it! Move aside! Get out of the way!”
Thanks to this, Sojeong, who had spotted Jiwon, opened his mouth with a pale face. He had been waiting for Jiwon to return, but not like this.
The sight of Jiwon being carried on Jungyeom’s back as they exited Riska’s lair was beyond miserable.
His blood-covered face was crumpled in pain, and his injured arms and legs hung limply.
To Sojeong’s eyes, he looked exactly like a dead person.
“…Ah, it can’t be…”
Involuntarily harboring an ominous thought, Sojeong quickly shifted his gaze from the entrance back to Suhyun. He also still couldn’t open his eyes, but at least his stability was steadily rising.
“No… he’ll be okay.”
Suhyun was coming back to life. But Jiwon dying? That was something that shouldn’t happen.
“That’s too cruel.”
Hoping that such a terrible and cruel thing wouldn’t happen to Jiwon the Guide, nor to Suhyun when he woke up, Sojeong tightly closed his eyes.
Guiding was the only thing he should do right now.
