After arriving at the Center, he entered Building A. Seo Gangwoo let out an internal scoff at the fact that Guide Choi Hyerin was at the Center. Since becoming paired with him, her mandatory performance quota had disappeared, and for the five years they’d been paired, she was someone who hadn’t come to work at the Center even once.
Though he didn’t know how things had been handled with the higher-ups after the unilateral pair contract termination was approved, even though she was no longer an S-rank pair legally on paper, Choi Hyerin still didn’t come to the Center and didn’t seem to have received any penalty application from the contract termination.
As he passed through the lobby, the waves inside his body surged, and his head grew dizzy from the vast amount of information that was inevitably and automatically accepted. The disorderly noise and sensations he couldn’t help but hear even if he didn’t want to had followed him for over 10 years, but recently it had become severe enough to be unbearable.
Seo Gangwoo tried hard to ignore it, caught an elevator, and pressed the button for the 7th floor, then suddenly bent at the waist and groaned.
“Kkeueut—!”
The powers that had been forcibly suppressed through guiding substitute medicine burst out all at once. The strength of the rebelling energies he’d barely managed to press down was greater than expected.
He tried to control it somehow, but like water flowing out from a burst levee, that power only grew stronger, not weaker—it couldn’t be stopped. It felt like his body would burst from the unrestrained waves.
If he lost consciousness like this, it was obvious he would go berserk. The dangerous state was growing uncontrollably large, and it seemed even Choi Hyerin’s guiding wouldn’t be able to resolve it, but for now there was no other method.
His insides became a mess like a muddy swamp, and he barely managed to take steps while enduring senses that had become so sensitive that even the air touching his skin seemed to scrape past sharply.
After a while, his vision became blurry and eventually went completely dark.
His ears, which had been suffering from all sorts of sounds, gradually darkened.
Now, moving even one step was difficult.
Seo Gangwoo barely held onto his fading consciousness and stood.
Is this the end now….
Is this life he’d tenaciously endured finally coming to a close….
Because he’d turned off his watch, the Explosive Esper Disposal team hadn’t come yet, but if he’d left it on, they might already be putting restraints on his wrists and ankles and moving him to a dungeon gate. Still, since he was inside the Center, they would quickly detect abnormal energy once the rampage started.
His eyes and ears had lost their function, but his other senses only became crazily more sensitive. Because of that, he could barely remain conscious, but something faintly caught on those sensitive senses.
Though it was a very weak energy, an energy he’d never felt before approached him gently yet intensely.
When he instinctively thought he needed to go where that energy was, his body, which had barely been standing unable to move, moved on its own.
It was practically an unconscious state. Seo Gangwoo slowly advanced, following a single thread of energy without even knowing what it was.
And the moment what had been caught on his senses was felt right in front of him, perhaps because he thought he’d arrived at his destination, his body lost strength and he collapsed toward the direction where the energy was felt.
What his body touched was a small-framed person who staggered. He tried to stand upright, but the instinct to touch that energy was stronger, so it wasn’t easy to straighten his body once it had tilted.
At the sign of them struggling, perhaps trying to escape, his right hand moved to strongly embrace the body in front of him.
He wanted to touch more of this energy he was feeling for the first time.
It felt like a single drop of water had fallen in the middle of a dry desert, but the moisture evaporated from the hot sun in an instant.
Though it was just a single drop, the wave was not small. He felt like he’d go crazy because his thirst wasn’t being quenched as much as his impatient heart wanted.
Just then, the small body that had been fidgeting stopped, took Seo Gangwoo’s hand, and sent energy.
A single drop of life-giving water became a mouthful.
* * *
Jiwon had been working the 5 PM shift since yesterday. The work schedule was assigned to do afternoon shifts about 2-3 days a week, and if he worked the afternoon shift until today, tomorrow he’d be back to morning shift again.
If that happened, he’d work until 2 AM and then have to come in at 8 AM six hours later, so he decided to just sleep in his personal private room. The personal private room was so nice, and it was too bothersome to go all the way to the dormitory just to sleep. According to Team Leader Lee Juyeon, other guides often did the same on shift rotation days.
Even though it was a two-shift system that others found difficult, Jiwon only found it comfortable. Guides just needed to be checked in during their designated work hours. Because guiding work was at individual discretion, they didn’t have to work until 2 AM, and they didn’t have to start work right at 8 AM for the morning shift.
So if you put your mind to it, you could slack off at work. You just had to fill the mandatory performance quota set for each month.
The government and the ability user headquarters prioritized guides’ treatment and convenience above all else to prevent guides from defecting to other countries and for individual safety, so the work environment at the Center couldn’t help but be good.
Jiwon turned on his work tablet and pressed approval for the Espers on the standby screen today as well, in order of long wait times and high gauges.
Soon the door opened and he made eye contact with the entering Esper.
“Hello. Esper Choi Yeonmi-nim.”
“Hello. Guide Kim Jiwon-nim.”
Since it was a 68% gauge state, Jiwon did guiding right away without having other conversations after a simple greeting. The higher the gauge, the more sensitive the senses become and the more they’re in a state of suppressing rampaging waves, so they don’t converse until guiding has progressed to some degree.
This was a work tip he’d gained from a week of working. He didn’t know if other guides already did this, but…. He was becoming a pro guide like this, Jiwon thought to himself with satisfaction.
After concentrating on guiding for about 20 minutes, the gauge dropped sharply to 55%. Just a bit more should do it. That’s when the other person asked.
“Does Guide Kim Jiwon-nim only do hand guiding?”
“Yes. That’s the plan for now.”
“Guide-nim’s guiding feels really good though…. It’s unfortunate but it can’t be helped.”
Though Esper Choi Yeonmi made a genuinely disappointed expression, Jiwon had no intention of doing higher-level guiding. He thought maybe he could do hugging once they became close, but still, unless it was really necessary, hand guiding was sufficient so he didn’t feel the need.
He’d heard that most guiding was done through physical contact, and because guiding efficiency was better the higher the stage, there were many guides who had relations without hesitation.
Actually, this wasn’t just limited to ability users.
As Earth underwent great upheaval from gates, many countries collapsed and the population decreased rapidly. Within the ruined cities, typical social normative elements crumbled, and boundaries regarding sex also crumbled considerably.
This accelerated with the appearance of Espers and Guides. Afterward, along with the Guide Protection Act, the promiscuous atmosphere largely disappeared, but unlike before gate occurrences, social perceptions about sex became open, and people didn’t think much about cohabitation, divorce, or homosexuality either.
If you hadn’t settled down with one person to become lovers or get married, there were many cases of enjoying partnerships with multiple people without dating.
Though there were a minority of conservative-minded people, most people followed the social atmosphere.
Jiwon was originally the type to frequently make physical contact with close people, but he was conservative about sex. Partly because he hadn’t been healthy for a long time, but he had no particular interest in that direction.
Because of that, Jiwon didn’t feel inclined to have intense physical contact with multiple people as a business relationship, having the occupation of guide.
Unless an emergency situation occurred, maybe….
Well, everyone thinks differently. There are people like this and people like that.
Jiwon, who had been absorbed in such thoughts, ended the guiding after seeing the stably lowered numbers.
“All done.”
“Thank you, Guide Kim Jiwon-nim.”
“Not at all. It’s my job now. Good work!”
“Good work to you too.”
Jiwon was hungry, so he ate dinner and continued his work. There wasn’t much to do even if he rested, and there were many waiting Espers, so he worked hard at guiding.
Today was exactly his seventh day of work, and looking at the speed at which performance was being filled, it seemed he’d fill all the mandatory performance in two weeks. Jiwon wondered if he was working too hard himself, but shook his head at the work that hadn’t particularly been difficult.
Rubbing his sleepy eyes and checking the time, it was 11:30. He could just rest, but still, since there were work hours, he tried to stay awake until 2 AM.
To chase away sleepiness, he left the private room and came down to the first floor. Getting some cold wind at the entrance seemed to wake him up.
“Whew….”
He stretched his arms out fully and stretched, turning his neck this way and that. After bouncing in place at the cool temperature, thinking he was awake enough, he took the elevator up to the 7th floor.
Taking out his phone from his pocket, he saw there was a text from Hojun. Since he’d had it on silent, he was only now checking what had come several hours ago.
He sent a message apologizing for checking late and asking what was up, and immediately got a reply.
-[Are you doing well at work?]
Since he’d told him he was working night shift starting yesterday because of the two-shift system, he must have contacted him out of curiosity.
While heading to his private room, Room 705, he bragged about how sweet the guide job was and sent “you must be having fun with your team project,” and Hojun sent an angry emoticon.
Jiwon found Hojun’s reaction funny and giggled as he sent a text.
-[I’m screwed. I really don’t like my team members]
[Hang in there lol Now I’m a working adult so I’ll treat you when I get paid (flexing rabbit emoticon)]
At the quickly coming reply, even after arriving in front of the door he chatted in real-time with Hojun for a while, then was wrapping up the conversation thinking he should hurry and work, when suddenly something heavy crashed onto him from behind.
