# Chapter 71
“The building where the Deputy Center Director was completely collapsed?”
This news spread instantly and the Center was in absolute chaos. It was the same for Hyeono. After letting Dohyun go so helplessly, Hyeono had returned to the guiding room where Dr. Yoon and Jaehee were, and upon hearing this news, he was pacing in front of the guiding room with his brow deeply furrowed. He was concerned about how to relay this news to Jaehee who was inside.
But then, suddenly, a loud voice leaked from inside the guiding room. It seemed like Dr. Yoon was shouting inside. Hyeono’s eyes widened in surprise. Then soon his brow furrowed. He suddenly remembered what Dr. Yoon had instructed him to say yesterday. Hyeono, who hadn’t heard the reason why he was told to relay such a message, looked at the door of the guiding room where Jaehee was with a worried expression.
***
“Guide Lee Jaehee!”
Dr. Yoon’s loud shout filled the room. The flames in his cold eyes looking at Jaehee gradually intensified. As if unable to contain his anger, Dr. Yoon’s face was turning increasingly red.
“That medicine. Where is it?”
Dr. Yoon, without softening his fierce gaze at Jaehee, slammed the desk and said.
“Dr. Yoon?”
Confused by Dr. Yoon’s sudden change in attitude as soon as Dohyun left, Jaehee opened his mouth, but Dr. Yoon interrupted him.
“Were you trying to die in place of Esper Choi Geonwoo?”
Dr. Yoon barked and roughly threw the materials he had prepared towards the table where Jaehee was sitting. Papers scattered messily across the desk. Jaehee, confused, looked at Dr. Yoon with wavering eyes, then lowered his head to check what he had thrown.
“……”
On the papers scattered on the table were detailed analysis results of a specific poison. Moreover, as if the results had been obtained not long ago, the time written on the paper was not very old. As Jaehee just stared at it silently, Dr. Yoon strode towards the table and roughly snatched the paper Jaehee was looking at.
“In the early stages of taking this poison, the guiding trait changes little by little.”
Dr. Yoon suddenly began reading the text on the paper.
“As the poison accumulates in the body, the guiding trait changes more and more, and accordingly, the guiding ability begins to gradually deteriorate.”
Dr. Yoon’s voice grew increasingly fierce as he read each word.
“As this process repeats, the rate at which guiding energy recovers in the body becomes slower and slower.”
Dr. Yoon mercilessly crumpled the paper he was holding, his brow distorted.
“And thus, gradually loses the guiding ability!”
Reading the last sentence, Dr. Yoon shouted as if his emotions could not be controlled. During all this, Jaehee just listened quietly with his head down. But as if Jaehee’s attitude made him angrier, Dr. Yoon threw the crumpled paper on the floor and said.
“You were feeling it all, weren’t you, Guide Lee Jaehee?”
The person taking the medicine couldn’t not know. He must have clearly felt how his body was changing, what was breaking down as he drank this.
“Huh? Tell me. As the person taking it, you couldn’t not have known, right?”
That’s why Dr. Yoon was even angrier. Because there was previous research data that the poison was deadly to guides, they were able to get results quickly, but it took quite some time to investigate the exact function of the medicine. Because of that, Dr. Yoon was only able to receive this result sheet belatedly, when Dohyun took Jaehee away.
“Something happening in your own body, you couldn’t not know. Right?”
Dr. Yoon glared fiercely at Jaehee through gritted teeth.
“And yet when I asked, you said you were fine? Even lying that your current physical state was due to using a lot of guiding energy?”
How could he endure it? How could he not be angry? It wasn’t just Dohyun who worried about Jaehee’s well-being. Dr. Yoon was concerned about Jaehee too. It was just a matter of degree. During those years until he moved to another branch, Dr. Yoon had seen the two kids grow up completely. Crying, laughing, visiting every day. So how could he not be concerned?
“You asked me to make sure Esper Choi Geonwoo didn’t die, right?”
Dr. Yoon spat out the words as if grinding them, then took out different materials and threw them in front of Jaehee. Jaehee scanned the materials Dr. Yoon had thrown with his eyes.
“…Dr. Yoon…”
But soon Jaehee’s pupils began to shake severely.
“This… is Esper Choi Geonwoo’s… wave measurement?”
Jaehee asked urgently, lifting his head. In his eyes was clearly revealed a desperate plea to say it wasn’t so.
“That’s right. It’s the record data of Esper Choi Geonwoo’s wave measurements.”
But Jaehee’s hope was shattered. Jaehee’s hands trembled at the unbearable fact.
“…But you said he was receiving… guiding energy from other guides?”
The wave measurement data for Geonwoo had figures that made one doubt their eyes. That it was okay because he was receiving guiding energy from other guides. That there was nothing to worry about. That Choi Geonwoo’s waves could be calmed with the guiding energy of other guides. Although he had clearly heard from Esper Jeong Hyeono that Dr. Yoon had said so… looking at this data now, he absolutely couldn’t have said that.
“Did you… lie?”
Jaehee asked in a trembling voice, clutching the paper with both hands as if in disbelief.
“Guide Lee Jaehee.”
Dr. Yoon, ignoring Jaehee’s words, continued.
“What did you say to me at first?”
“……”
“You asked me to make sure Esper Choi Geonwoo didn’t die, right?”
Dr. Yoon didn’t soften his expression towards Jaehee.
“Look again. At that level, he won’t die.”
That was true. Looking only at the wave measurements in the data Dr. Yoon provided, there was a high probability he wouldn’t die. Because he was receiving very small amounts of other guides’ guiding energy, mistaking it for Jaehee’s. But that was actually putting on the brakes at the threshold of death and causing Geonwoo greater pain.
“Dr. Yoon!”
This meant Geonwoo was continuously experiencing such terrible pain that death would feel like relief. Jaehee, his face pale with worry for Geonwoo, immediately stood up. He was about to go to Geonwoo right away. Dr. Yoon stepped in front of him.
“I said it before, didn’t I? Because he’s receiving guiding energy from other guides, Guide Lee Jaehee only needs to perform contact guiding occasionally. We’re going to do it that way from now on. We’ll maintain this method until Choi Geonwoo’s bond is erased.”
Dr. Yoon’s words were no different from saying that Geonwoo would continue to repeat the moment just before death.
“What if something goes wrong? What if he d-dies? You know… how painful this is, don’t you?”
Jaehee said in a trembling voice, his eyes wet, as if his emotions were surging.
“Then, Guide Lee Jaehee. It’s okay for you to do that? Say something that makes sense!”
But Dr. Yoon didn’t sympathize with Jaehee’s emotions. Instead, he burst into anger and firmly grabbed Jaehee’s shoulders with both hands.
“From now on, don’t guide as much as possible. Minimize contact guiding too. Only guide when Esper Choi Geonwoo seems like he’s about to die.”
Dr. Yoon said, putting strength into his hands holding Jaehee.
“Got it? From now on, you do as I say.”
But Jaehee didn’t give any answer. So Dr. Yoon played his trump card.
“If not, I have no choice but to tell Esper Kang Dohyun.”
“Dr. Yoon!”
“That to save Esper Choi Geonwoo, I can’t drive Guide Lee Jaehee to death! So choose.”
A painful emotion bloomed on Jaehee’s face.
“What will you do? Will you follow my words? Or should I tell Esper Kang Dohyun and watch together as Esper Choi Geonwoo dies?”
“……”
“Huh? Choose, Guide Lee Jaehee.”
Jaehee couldn’t say anything. For a moment, his breath caught, and at the same time, a tear rolled down his cheek. Seeing this, Dr. Yoon gritted his teeth and softened his fierce voice a little.
“Say you’ll do as I say.”
Jaehee’s tears fell on the paper on the floor.
“Then, by whatever means, I’ll make sure Esper Choi Geonwoo absolutely doesn’t die.”
The black ink on the paper blurred as the letters got wet with tears.
Jaehee had no choice.
“…I’ll…”
Jaehee’s falling tears erased all the letters on the paper.
“…do it…”
Like Jaehee’s heart, bruised dark blue, the paper too lost its form with all the letters blurred, filled with stains.
Knock, knock! But the sadness didn’t end there. The unbearable pain came all at once.
With the knock, the guiding room door swung open. The one who opened the door and entered was an Esper with a large build. Hyeono was also behind him.
“Guide Lee Jaehee!”
The Esper, with an urgent face, looked for Jaehee. Dr. Yoon hid Jaehee, who was full of traces of crying, behind his body and asked instead.
“What’s the matter?”
At the words of Dr. Yoon, whose rank was much higher, the Esper immediately conveyed the urgent matter.
“A gate is being generated near the Center!”
Jaehee reacted to those words. The first massive gate occurring near the Center.
‘…Dohyun…’
It was the gate where Dohyun had lost his leg before the regression.
The cruel fate of the original work was slowly tightening around Jaehee’s throat.
