Seunghyun pulled out one of the Strawberry-Flavored Mana Supplements with a hollow expression. A small bottle of pink liquid swayed lightly in the palm of his hand. Reading the item description — ‘Slightly increases mana recovery speed. Tastes great!’ — made the back of his neck go stiff.
“A self-defense stun gun? I used to blow a monster’s head open with a flick of my finger, and now I’m supposed to walk around with a toy like this? Are you kidding me?”
It was bleak. The enhancement potions that used to let him pierce through an enemy’s heart were gone, and in their place, snack-like things meant to appease this feeble body occupied his inventory.
“When the body switched, all the binding data on my inventory wiped clean too, huh……”
Seunghyun let out a self-deprecating laugh, twisted off the cap, and downed the contents in one go. A sweet, artificial strawberry flavor spread through his mouth. Whether it was thanks to the drink or not, the guiding wavelength that had been gently rippling inside him became slightly clearer.
“Tastes good though, fuck……”
Seunghyun tossed the empty bottle to the floor, and a cold light settled in his eyes. No equipment, and his strength wasn’t what it used to be — but it didn’t matter. He was the kind of stubborn bastard who had clawed his way up from the very bottom to seize the number one ranking for himself. Granted, it had been snatched away the moment Han Taeyun appeared, but the fact that he had stood at the top was what counted.
“If I don’t have items, I’ll take them from someone else. If this body is weak, I’ll crush them with technique.”
Beep-beep-beep.
The door lock shattered the silence as the front door was thrown open roughly. Footsteps echoed against the marble living room floor, drawing closer. It sounded as though whoever it was had spotted the pill bottles scattered on the floor — a series of alarmed gasps followed, and then a voice calling out for the owner of this body.
“Young master! Young master!”
The bedroom door swung open and a middle-aged woman appeared. The moment the kind-faced woman caught sight of Seunghyun inside the room, the color drained from her face.
“Young master! Wh— what are all those pill bottles, what on earth happened here! Goodness, how are you feeling!”
The woman cried out and rushed toward Seunghyun. He instinctively pulled back. It was unsettling to have someone he didn’t even recognize calling him young master and closing in on him. But his mind was already moving fast. If the original owner of this body had been cornered enough to attempt suicide, it was better to use this situation to his advantage.
They’ll believe me if I say the strong medication fried my brain a little.
Seunghyun put on the most dazed and confused expression he could manage and opened his mouth.
“……Who are you?”
The woman froze on the spot. She stared at Seunghyun as if the world had just crumbled beneath her feet, and then burst into a flood of tears.
“Oh, young master! What is this…… You don’t recognize me? Your nanny?”
“When I came to… I couldn’t remember anything. Where I am, who I am.”
Seunghyun drove the point home like a nail. The woman collapsed right there onto the floor and began to wail in earnest.
“Goodness gracious! You must have been through so much for it to come to this! You poor thing, oh, you poor dear!”
Listening to the woman’s grief-stricken sobbing, Seunghyun clicked his tongue inwardly. It was now confirmed that the original owner of this body came from a wealthy enough household to be addressed as young master. But why, instead of taking revenge against whoever had sent him those degrading messages, had he tried to kill himself?
Seunghyun watched the weeping woman and thought. The excuse of having no memory was airtight — starting now, he would use this tearful woman to extract information about this shell he was in, one piece at a time.
“Stop crying, and explain things to me first. Starting with my name.”
The woman sniffled and looked up at Seunghyun. For such a delicate, frail face, the gaze was cold and arrogant — but to the nanny’s eyes, he was nothing more than a pitiable young master.
The more the identity of this body was revealed, the more dumbfounded Seunghyun became. He had assumed this was simply a Guide — but this person was, of all things, the Ability Bureau Director’s illegitimate child. He had figured it was some kind of silver spoon situation, but underneath the glittering surface was a wretched life that had rotted to its core. The nanny put it kindly, but apparently the Director had kept the original owner locked up in this lavish penthouse in order to conceal the stain of his illegitimate child.
“Baek Yihyun…… that’s my name?”
Seunghyun — no, Yihyun — repeated the name the nanny had tearfully given him, as if spitting it out one syllable at a time.
“Yes, Yihyun. No matter how indifferent the Director may be, how could he neglect you like this……”
The Ability Bureau Director, from Seunghyun’s memory. That old bastard had an illegitimate kid like this? On top of that, a different surname, not even a resemblance.
Thoroughly scheming, just as he’d always seemed.
“Baek Yihyun, Baek Yihyun.”
Listening to the nanny’s lamentations, Yihyun let out a hollow laugh. An S-Rank Guide. To Espers, that was nothing short of coveted prey. And on top of that, the Director who should have been his backing treated him as a source of shame and looked the other way — to low-quality Espers, there could have been no better plaything.
First things first — he’d deal with whoever sent those messages.
If this had been Lee Seunghyun before his death, he would have gone straight to find the bastards who had the nerve to send him texts like that and snapped their necks on the spot. But right now, he was in the body of a frail Guide.
Even so, a cold killing intent gleamed in Yihyun’s eyes. The soul of the world’s number two-ranked Esper — who understood the physiology of Espers and the inner workings of the Ability Bureau better than anyone — had entered this body. Whether it was the Ability Bureau Director, the Espers who had toyed with him, or the gilded bars of this extravagant cage — he was ready to break them apart one by one.
“Nanny, I’m hungry. I need to eat something first. Can’t figure out who to kill first on an empty stomach.”
“Yes — pardon? Kill, young master?”
The nanny startled, eyes going wide. Right. Yihyun caught himself in the same instant — the bloodthirsty words that had just slipped out of his own mouth. Right now, he was supposed to be a frail illegitimate young master who had been cornered enough to attempt suicide.
Yihyun immediately softened his expression and dropped his gaze to the floor.
“……Ah, what did I just say? My head’s so dizzy — I must have been talking about the monsters I saw in my dream.”
“Young master! Goodness, to see such horrible things even in your dreams…… Oh, what are we going to do.”
Her face melting into concern in an instant, the nanny clasped Yihyun’s thin hands tightly in her own.
Right, at least the nanny is definitely on this body’s side.
Seunghyun established his first objective as Baek Yihyun. First: get this goddamn body into something resembling working order. Then: find out where the hell Han Taeyun was and what he was doing, and get some kind of help out of him. And then: raid his inventory.
Yihyun sat down before the plain rice porridge the nanny had carefully made. “Eat slowly, young master.” Leaving the nanny’s worried voice behind him, Yihyun typed that name into his phone’s search bar first.
[Han Taeyun]
He fully expected results like ‘the hero who saved humanity’ or ‘the leader of the World Alliance.’ But the moment he saw the news headlines flooding his screen, Yihyun’s mind went blank.
[One year after the W-08 Incident that claimed 30,000 casualties… Han Taeyun achieves complete dominance over the entire W Territory]
[The tyrant who painted half the world red — who can stop Han Taeyun?]
[Han Taeyun, transformed since the ‘Gehenna Gate’ five years ago — why did he turn his back on the world?]
“……What?”
The porridge he had been holding in his mouth dribbled down his chin. He didn’t even think to wipe it away. Only one question circulated through his paralyzed mind.
Why? This bastard — why? The last words he had spoken while self-destructing his Core at the Gate five years ago flashed before him like a slideshow. He had even left a dying declaration: ‘Survive and prove it. That you were worth more than me.’
That brilliant, noble number one-ranked bastard — the one he’d kept alive to save the world — was out there destroying it instead.
“Young master! Is your stomach so upset you can’t even swallow the porridge?”
The nanny, who had been watching from beside him, pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the corner of his mouth, dissolving into tears again. She seemed to have mistaken Yihyun’s blank, shock-stricken silence for his stomach being completely ruined from the drugs, leaving him unable to eat properly.
But inside Yihyun’s head, fury and sheer disbelief were raging like wildfire.
This insane bastard? I died because of him and got crammed into this pathetic body to suffer through all of this!
Han Taeyun’s betrayal went beyond a simple act of treachery — it was the act of hurling the life Yihyun had sacrificed in his place straight into the trash. The blood rushed to his head at the realization that the comrades who had died at that Gate five years ago, and his own sacrifice along with them, had all been nothing but kindling for making the monster that was Han Taeyun.
“Han Taeyun…… you fucking bastard.”
A low, lethal curse fell from Yihyun’s lips. The nanny flinched so hard she hiccuped, but Yihyun paid her no mind as he scrolled through article after article.
“I’m not letting this go.”
Yihyun set his spoon down hard. His objective had been revised. It wasn’t simply a matter of avenging the original owner of this body — he had to drag that mad monster he had personally kept alive back down to earth with his own hands.
The personal physician summoned under the nanny’s insistence checked his watch before even looking at the patient. For someone described as a senior medical officer under the Ability Bureau, his manner was outrageously discourteous, and it was plain as day that the mere act of stepping foot in this room was an irritation to him.
“These are the medications you took. It appears you emptied approximately half of each bottle.”
He didn’t even glance at the pill bottles the nanny held out to him — instead, he turned toward Yihyun, who was lying on the bed, and let out a contemptuous smirk.
“If you didn’t have the guts to die, why make such a production out of taking all those pills? The Director had to receive a report in the middle of a meeting because of you. What a headache.”
