“However, if an emergency situation arises, you can move as a supporter.”
“Supporter?”
“Yeah. Because you really don’t know what variables might occur inside a dungeon gate. When there are many monsters, even just restraining the monsters that are a bit further back with firearms helps.”
“Ah, I see.”
“But that’s also done while watching the situation. If you push yourself too hard and end up being a hindrance instead, it’s worse than not stepping up at all. Actually, just providing guiding is a big help for Guides, so you don’t need to worry about combat. You just need enough stamina to follow around the field and be able to manage your own body, because it’s for minimum safety. In that sense, our Guide Kim Jiwon-nim must work hard to build stamina! That’s what I’m saying.”
“Ugh, everything always comes down to stamina…”
Jiwon pouted. He naturally knew that’s what he needed most right now, but he showed petty resistance to Woojin who kept crying out about stamina until calluses formed on his ears.
“Stamina is national power, and a healthy mind dwells in a healthy body!”
“I already have a healthy mind!”
“More! You can have an even healthier mind! Break time over! Let’s get up~.”
“A-already…?”
Woojin lifted up Jiwon who had become one with the floor.
Jiwon, who was simply pulled up as he was dragged, sighed but moved his heavy body. It was because he knew how terrible his stamina was to slack off.
“Okay. That’s it for today. Let’s start the next lesson with special firearms. That doesn’t mean the stamina training time is being reduced though. We’ll proceed as is. Let’s add 30 minutes before and after. Good work today!”
“Yees… G-good work.”
Jiwon, who barely finished his greeting, became one with the floor again.
Woojin, who had been chuckling at the groaning sounds of “Oh my, this is killing me, I’m dying,” burst into laughter when Jiwon immediately shut his mouth tight after he said, “Do you still have energy left? We could do more, you know?”
“What? Woojin-ssaem, what’s so funny?”
Just then, the training room door opened and a Guide with a pure impression, with a slender figure and long hair tied up in a ponytail, entered wearing training clothes.
“Jieun, you’re here?”
“Yeah. Oh, Jiwon’s here. But what’s wrong with him? Get a hold of yourself. Are you dead?”
Lee Jieun, a Guide who was one of the few field Guides at Center 1, had come in to exercise and discovered Jiwon sprawled on the floor and broken, then approached and poked his body with her finger.
Jieun was also a longtime regular at Café Ellin, so she had become acquainted with Jiwon, who stamped his attendance at Ellin whenever he came to the Center, through frequent encounters.
Previously, at a friend gathering she attended with her pair, she had confronted Choi Hyerin who was treating low-rank Espers with contempt and ordering them around like servants, which led to a scene. She had become interested in Jiwon who won the argument against that Choi Hyerin and approached him first to talk.
It was so satisfying that even now, whenever she had a little free time, she would listen to the audio recording of Jiwon and Choi Hyerin and burst into laughter.
Of course, even if that incident hadn’t happened, she originally couldn’t resist cute things, so she definitely would have tried to become friends with Jiwon when she saw him.
“Ueoeoe… Noonaa.”
Jiwon, who hadn’t been reacting, couldn’t help but whine when she poked even his sensitive side.
“You’re alive~?”
Jieun’s lips gradually curled upward because his barely wriggling resistance was cute.
“I’m deaaad. Don’t look for meee…”
“Kyahaha, look at him.”
Jiwon reached out his hands to defend himself somehow and avoid the tickling, but even that lacked energy and was a beat late, so he allowed all the attacks.
“Ngh.”
“Jiwon, let’s just be siblings. Hm? I think I’ve found my long-lost sibling from long ago. Even our names are similar. Jiwon, Jieun!”
Jieun was saying something that would make Jisu, who was at their family home, glare with axe eyes and come running.
“Say that when you have a sibling to lose.”
“Right here!”
Woojin, who had been childhood friends living next door since young, pushed aside Jieun who was talking nonsense and still tormenting Jiwon with her fingers.
Seriously, her eyes flip whenever she sees something cute. Sheesh. Woojin shook his head.
“But did Jiwon’s class time change? I always come to exercise at this time.”
“He doesn’t have enough stamina to fill the normal class time, so we always finished earlier than usual. His stamina increased a bit now, so filling the full time is the first time today.”
“Oh ho, I see. He’s working hard.”
“Jieun noona, Woojin hyung is a devil.”
“I know. He’s like that. No consideration. A very selfish guy.”
Jieun mercilessly gossiped about him in front of him and giggled with laughter.
“Hah, you go exercise!”
Jiwon now had many familiar faces at the Center, but most were Espers and there weren’t many Guides he’d exchanged greetings with. Aside from Team Leader Lee Juyeon, Woojin who was in charge of Guide education, and Guide Bae Hyeonji, the only one was Jieun in front of him.
Although there were few occasions to run into them when he came to the Center, he did encounter people wearing Guide uniforms or people who looked like Guides even when not wearing Guide uniforms. However, they were either far away, or even when nearby, they had an atmosphere that seemed to say “don’t talk to me,” so Jiwon didn’t particularly try to approach them first to become friendly either.
“Aigoo, I’ll go wash up now.”
Jiwon, who had regained some energy, got up.
“Alright alright, good work! See you again, Jiwon.”
“Go rest. Keep stretching!”
“Yes. Jieun noona, Woojin hyung, good work.”
Leaving the two behind, Jiwon exited the training room and trudged toward the main building’s private room. It was right next door, but with his exhausted body, it felt far away.
Jiwon, who barely arrived at his personal private room and finished showering, immediately flopped onto the bed and fell asleep.
* * *
The next day, Jiwon left his private room earlier than usual and arrived at the shooting range with Woojin’s guidance, getting to touch the special gun he’d only heard about.
“This is a special gun. The designation is KG-3.2, Type A.”
Woojin brought a tightly locked black case, placed it on the table, and entered several keys. With a clicking sound, it split open semi-automatically, revealing a sleek body.
“Oh!”
Jiwon’s eyes widened.
The appearance with ornate patterns engraved on the smooth silver body that looked like it would slip was quite cool. At a glance it resembled a pistol, but it was about twice as long and thick in the body.
“Pretty, right? Try holding it.”
Woojin, who grinned, turned the case toward Jiwon.
At that invitation, Jiwon carefully reached out and took out the special gun lying quietly, fitting his hand into the grip.
Jiwon, who had expected it to be heavy with its thick body, exclaimed at the touch that was lighter than expected and fit perfectly in his hand.
“It’s lighter and more comfortable than I thought?”
“Right? What you’re holding now is the latest version that’s been improved a lot. The previous one had many complaints that the user experience wasn’t good and it was uncomfortable. This one can be separated like this too.”
Woojin also showed him the previous version of the special gun.
The previous version of the special gun had the inconvenience of having to melt the magic stone with a solvent and concentrate it after use, then charge it through another process, but the improved latest version could be used by twisting the seam to separate it and putting in a magic stone directly. On top of that, the destructive power wasn’t much different from before, so it was tremendous technology.
“It’s incredibly innovative.”
“Right. I do feel sorry for the technical staff who get ground down every time, but when you work them, they upgrade things like this, so how can you not work them? At times like this, I understand the headquarters’ position.”
Although a technical team belonged inside Center 1’s research building, it wasn’t easy to see them, to the point where one might misunderstand that they were being held captive.
They were probably dedicating themselves to research and experiments right now with eyes heavily shadowed with dark circles. Thanks to their hard work, the world became a bit safer and more convenient.
In the past, modern weapons couldn’t give any damage to monsters at all, so it was natural to face them only with the abilities of pure ability users.
Then, at roughly 30 years ago, which could be called fairly recent. Non-combat type Espers began to manifest.
When they first appeared, they received a lot of expectations.
However, as time passed, they became neglected and despised as people’s interest faded due to insignificant abilities and low development potential.
For non-combat ability users to demonstrate meaningful abilities required numerous repetitive practices and research, and for that, a stable supply of monster corpses and dungeon materials was needed.
Therefore, raising abilities alone was close to impossible, and to provide support, they were nothing but money pits.
Just when it seemed non-combat ability users would be buried like that, 13 years ago when the youngest of an American financial conglomerate family manifested as an alchemist and received massive support from family members and created a recovery potion in 5 years, the situation was overturned.
The usefulness of potions was beyond words, and when mass production became possible, not only did the death rate of Espers greatly decrease, but it also gave the nation prestige and tremendous profits.
Experts called the point when potions appeared the 3rd generation combat phase and began analyzing the evolved combat mass production, and each nation began to earnestly cultivate non-combat ability users.
Afterwards, they distinguished themselves one by one, and not only alchemy but various non-combat Espers such as blacksmith skill ability users, enhancement ability users, restoration ability users, appraisal ability users, tailoring ability users, etc., received government support.
