The manifestation of a Guide itself was rare, but even when he occasionally took tests after the Center pleaded desperately, the results were always the same.
Two months had passed since Choi Hyerin, who had been his pair Guide for five years with a matching rate of 42%, had unilaterally broken off their pairing.
But to Seo Gangwoo, it held no particular meaning.
In any case, he had never received proper guiding while they were paired. She would only call him out when she felt like it and do it briefly, or she would guide him sporadically under the Center’s strong recommendation when his gauge didn’t drop from the danger level.
Whether it was because his tolerance for guiding substitute drugs had reached its limit, or whether even that little bit of guiding still counted as guiding. Recently, with guiding completely cut off, he had been writhing in unbearable pain more frequently.
To Choi Hyerin, Seo Gangwoo was merely a trophy with the business card of being one of only two S-rank Espers in the country. When she occasionally called him out to clubs or social gatherings to show him off to people like a doll, people would flatter her with envy, and Choi Hyerin enjoyed such attention.
Each time, Seo Gangwoo was reminded of someone else.
His mother, who had been an Esper….
His mother, who had been an A-rank Esper, also didn’t have good matching rates with Guides. Then she became paired with his father, a C-rank Guide, with a 65% matching rate. Later, the two married and spent a decent newlywed life.
Until his mother became pregnant….
After becoming pregnant, his father, who was a Guide, started having affairs.
Publicly, he was known as a caring husband and father, but in reality, there was the father who changed partners while cheating, and the mother who never properly got angry at such a husband.
The father boldly brought his affair partners even into the master bedroom. He didn’t even close the door, so Seo Gangwoo had to cover his ears to avoid the sounds filling the house.
After such incidents happened several times, his mother eventually found out and fought with his father, and the father started staying out overnight.
After that, Seo Gangwoo had to watch his mother suffer in pain from not receiving timely guiding.
Such terrible times passed, and Seo Gangwoo turned 14. One day when he returned home, he felt something different from usual.
He had often heard the sound from his Esper mother’s watch before, but the sound he heard that day was different.
The warning sound was faster and higher.
He approached the master bedroom and opened the closed door.
A blade of wind grazed his right cheek and blood flowed down.
Seeing Seo Gangwoo standing at the door, his mother, curled up on the bed with a face distorted in pain, urgently tried to say something, but no voice came out.
However, Seo Gangwoo could tell what she was saying by the shape of her mouth.
Get out… hurry and get far away…
In that moment, his body froze.
As if invisible hands were grabbing his feet from the floor, he couldn’t move a single step. There was nothing he could do but watch his mother’s appearance that seemed like it would disappear at any moment.
‘Is anyone inside! If you’re there, please open the door.’
‘Hurry and isolate her first!’
The area outside the front door became noisy, then people in black suits entered through the forcibly opened door. They attached some kind of restraints to his mother’s arms and legs, then disappeared together with his mother using spatial movement abilities.
To Seo Gangwoo, who was confused and couldn’t understand the situation, another Esper who had remained approached and explained. They had moved his mother, who had entered a rampage state, to another location…
Only later did he learn that they moved them inside dungeon gates to prevent damage to the surroundings from an Esper’s rampage.
And his mother, who disappeared like that, never returned.
His father, as the pair partner, was investigated for his mother’s rampage, but he lied, saying that his mother had refused guiding due to their low matching rate. The father had a good public image, and the Center, which was already short on Guides, didn’t want to force it to trial, so they just let that ridiculous lie pass.
Thus his mother’s assets as a spouse were transferred entirely to his father. Seo Gangwoo was left alone and neglected in that house until he manifested as an Esper at age 15, a year later.
As soon as his father learned that Seo Gangwoo had manifested as an S-rank Esper, he had contacted him. But he resolutely cut off the relationship. At the words that if he contacted him one more time, he would proceed with a lawsuit over his mother’s assets with evidence that his father had not provided proper guiding as a pair and had cheated, the contact was immediately cut off.
Later, he heard news that his father had moved to Zone 23, and with that, he no longer paid any attention.
After awakening as an Esper, Seo Gangwoo, like his mother, couldn’t receive proper guiding due to an extremely poor matching rate. He was barely able to endure because an improved version of the guiding substitute drug, which had side effects so severe it was unusable, was released.
Seo Gangwoo couldn’t forget his mother’s final appearance, which was stuck in one corner of his mind. And he didn’t doubt that he too would soon face the same fate.
Even if he became paired with Choi Hyerin again, nothing would change.
The energies that had accumulated inside from not receiving guiding were not of a nature that could be easily released.
Only the painful grace period would increase.
He needed to rest a few more days for the energy suppressed by drugs to stabilize a bit more, but Seo Gangwoo’s situation didn’t flow that way.
A late evening mission call came, but he refused due to his unstable physical condition. However, when the call came again with news that gates had occurred simultaneously across the country and that over 30 large and small gates had been created in Zone 1 alone, Seo Gangwoo eventually got up.
Generally, when gates were created, monsters would either burst out immediately or come out with a time difference. Still, they usually released all the monsters within an hour. Therefore, quick cleanup was the only way to reduce damage.
When a gate occurred, the Espers who were on patrol would clean it up immediately as a first response, or buy time until support arrived. But when such a large number of gates were created simultaneously like this, they alone couldn’t cover it.
Among the information being transmitted in real-time, the location and information of a Grade 7 monster appeared. When he arrived at the scene, the surroundings were chaotic with people trying to evacuate from near the gate occurrence to nearby bunkers. Seo Gangwoo climbed onto a building and ran in the opposite direction from them. On the way, if he saw a monster that had fallen out, he would quickly eliminate it and increased his speed.
Monsters classified from Grade 1 to Grade 10 were stronger the higher their grade. Grade 7 could be considered boss-level from an A-rank dungeon gate.
In the distance, he could see over twenty Espers keeping in check and attacking a giant-type monster as tall as a 10-story building.
Since he couldn’t delay any more time, he ran as he was and created a long ice spear in one hand.
“Hup!”
Seo Gangwoo’s brow furrowed slightly. Whether he had suffered internal injuries from excessive ability use, the taste of blood rose in his throat.
Gold mixed into the black pupils of Esper Seo Gangwoo running at high speed.
The fierce energy contained in the transparently visible bright blue ice spear made the surroundings ripple.
At the timing of getting close to the monster, lightning flashed and seemed to seep into the end of the ice spear, then it was shot straight at the monster. The monster, which belatedly noticed as its attention was drawn to other Espers, tried to dodge, but the speed of the ice spear piercing its vital point was faster.
The giant monster that lost its life in an instant fell backward, creating a loud roar.
At the sight of disposing of a Grade 7 monster in just one strike, the other Espers watching sent looks of awe. Seo Gangwoo, without caring about such gazes, expressionlessly cleaned up the other monsters around.
“Crazy…”
“He’s handling a Grade 7 incredibly easily.”
The energies that hadn’t been stable became unstable like a bomb about to explode simultaneously with ability use. Seo Gangwoo took out medicine from the pocket of his combat suit and injected it into his arm.
Now he only had 2 pills left. It hadn’t been long since he received a new prescription, but the consumption rate was too fast.
After that, he cleaned up two more places requesting support, and the calls became quiet. There would be places still finishing up, but there was no need for Seo Gangwoo to go specifically.
A special vehicle stopped in front of Seo Gangwoo, who was about to finish cleaning up and return. Esper Team 1 Team Leader Do Hyeonuk got out of the car.
“Esper Seo Gangwoo, let’s go to the Center.”
“I’ll go next time.”
Seo Gangwoo answered while suppressing his rising irritation, but the other party didn’t back down.
“You can’t in your current state. Right now Guide Choi Hyerin is out at the Center, so I’ve contacted them, so receive guiding at the Center before you go. It’s the Center Director’s order.”
The fact that the pair contract with Guide Choi Hyerin had been terminated wasn’t known to the Center. Even now, two months later…
If it had been known, it wouldn’t have been this quiet. Probably only the Center Director and a few people of high rank knew, and besides them, S-rank Guide Do Yura knew.
The fact that it was being passed over quietly like this showed clear intentions, but Seo Gangwoo wasn’t even angry. Rather, he was more displeased with this situation where he had to meet someone he didn’t particularly want to meet on top of his already poor physical condition.
However, since the Center Director would also know that his condition was precarious, refusing would only make things more troublesome. Seo Gangwoo, thinking he might as well get more guiding substitute drugs while he was at it, boarded the special vehicle.
