“Puhahaha!”
Nam Ihyeon, who hadn’t even been able to move, suddenly burst into loud laughter. Not content with just slumping in his seat, he clutched his belly and cackled. His laughter was so loud that nurses came from outside to check on us briefly. I fidgeted with my nose in embarrassment before speaking quietly.
“St-stop laughing. I was being serious.”
“Ah, this is killing me. I’m hearing all sorts of worries.”
“If you just laugh it off like that, it really could rot. How much would that hurt?”
As a male with the same equipment, it was a pain I didn’t even want to imagine. I tried to forget the imaginable pain by finishing my barley tea. In the meantime, Nam Ihyeon stopped laughing and was smiling while feeling the breeze by the window.
“It’s been a while since I’ve laughed this hard.”
“Don’t you hear this kind of thing a lot?”
“I guess so? But usually people curse at me, they don’t worry about my lower regions.”
“I see.”
It wasn’t a topic I particularly wanted to discuss. I looked at him with an uncomfortable expression. He wiped his eyes, apparently having laughed until he cried, then continued.
“Still, I’m not as promiscuous as you think.”
“Sure.”
“There seems to be a rumor going around that I jump from this guide to that guide. But I have pretty strict rules when it comes to bed.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“Why would I be curious?”
When I squawked as if telling him to say something that made sense, Nam Ihyeon shrugged his shoulders.
“Everyone else is so curious though? Especially men are dying to know?”
“This is really driving me crazy. Aren’t you going home? I’m not curious about that stuff at all.”
When I approached the hospital room door with the momentum to kick him out right away, Nam Ihyeon said with a laugh.
“I don’t do it if they like me.”
“I said I’m not curious.”
“To be precise, I didn’t used to.”
“Can’t you hear me? Have these free-flowing conversations about your sex life with your friends. Why are you doing this to me?”
“If it becomes serious, it gets heavy.”
“This is maddening. You’re just not listening to me, are you?”
Nam Ihyeon seemed determined to say everything he wanted to say, regardless of what I said. I gave up on opening the hospital room door and kicking him out. There was no need to inform even the nurses of his sexual philosophy.
I sat on the sofa and looked at him with an expressionless face. Nam Ihyeon’s eyes were still sparkling. He looked at me with my arms crossed and opened his mouth.
“But my thinking has changed. I’m still a bit burdened by people who like me, but I think people I like might be different.”
“You should like each other.”
“Right. That’s it. That’s what I want to do now.”
“Meaning you weren’t like that until now.”
As I spoke, I thought of Han Miyeon. Perhaps she might have a chance now. Not only did she like him quite a bit, but she also had some connection with Nam Ihyeon. Apart from guiding, they both had thoughts about romance, so there was a possibility.
That said, in this dire situation, I couldn’t play matchmaker. Once the problem was resolved, I’d have to arrange a meeting or something. I was thinking this when Nam Ihyeon continued.
“I’ve become curious. Should I say a target has appeared?”
“Who do you like?”
“Well, similar. More like interest.”
“Is it Guide Han Miyeon by any chance?”
“Why is she coming up here?”
“I see.”
It was unfortunate. It seemed better to pretend not to know around Han Miyeon. Because I could end up in an awkward position by getting involved in love talk. I continued speaking, now wanting to be done listening to love stories.
“Yes, Esper Nam Ihyeon. I hope your love works out well. Now go. We’re going to see each other tomorrow anyway.”
“Tomorrow’s atmosphere might not be ordinary, you know?”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t let your guard down and should rest well today. Who knows what will happen tomorrow.”
“What could possibly happen?”
Nam Ihyeon spoke leisurely while feeling the breeze. The thin shirt he was wearing fluttered in the wind. His reddish-tinged hair also scattered softly. So that’s how he seduces people. I thought it was cold and pulled my coat tighter.
“You can say that because you’re not the one involved. I have to face Esper Jeong Sanghyeop directly.”
“He’s just a D-class anyway.”
“After getting done in by that D-class.”
“Hey!”
Nam Ihyeon flared up. The fact that he’d been done in by a D-class seemed to embarrass him. He huffed and continued.
“It’s not certain yet, you know?”
“Oh, so if it’s not that, he becomes the guy who unknowingly committed guiding kidnapping?”
“You’re making fun of me right now, aren’t you?”
“I stated the facts. Of course, I hope it wasn’t that, because it would be good if the misunderstanding is cleared up. I hope Esper Jeong Sanghyeop doesn’t make a bad decision.”
What would constitute a bad decision for him? Even after saying it, it was a question that made me think for a long time. For Jeong Sanghyeop, the right thing was to uncover the truth about his dead sister.
However, that had already become meaningless. When he himself was facing death, what would be a good decision and a bad decision for him?
While I was lost in thought, Nam Ihyeon approached right in front of me. Then he pressed firmly on my forehead.
“What?”
“You think too much. Just accept things as they happen. Don’t try to predict with your head. Is that damn intuition of yours always right? There are times when it’s wrong, so why are you trying to figure everything out with that tiny head of yours. Are you Conan?”
“How nice would it be to be a great detective? Get your hand off.”
I swatted Nam Ihyeon’s hand away and let out a sigh. Nam Ihyeon was right. Things didn’t go according to the novel, and the possibilities for change were endless. There would be limits to the answers I could get by wracking my brain that wasn’t even working well.
“Ah, right. I have something to ask.”
“Me?”
“Do you remember the gate that opened in Pyeongseong City three years ago? They said all the S-classes went.”
“Where’s Pyeongseong?”
“It’s near Pyongyang.”
“Ah. The black bamboo?”
“Black bamboo?”
“It was a gate densely packed with black bamboo, and the monsters’ grades were high. The bamboo kept growing back no matter how much we cut it, and creatures we’d never seen or heard of kept pouring in. It was complete chaos.”
I listened to his words carefully. The black bamboo gate was that gate where A-class espers had been dispatched. From what I heard, it seemed to be the same as the gate that had been in Pyeongseong.
“The other gate that opened in Korea that day was also a black bamboo gate.”
“How do you know that?”
“What do you mean how do I know? Did you know?”
“Yeah. But just anyone wouldn’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was a composite gate.”
A composite gate meant that some point of two gates connected. In other words, the Pyeongseong gate and the Korean gate were connected at some part. This was new information. If so, although S-class espers weren’t dispatched, they could have been inside the same gate. Did Jeong Sanghyeop know this fact too? If he didn’t know, wouldn’t something change if he learned the truth?
“Do, do you know A-class espers were dispatched there? Did you meet them?”
“Yeah. It was crazy. Where were they putting those kids? I found the ones hiding and threw them all out. Outside the gate. They must have been completely out of it too.”
“There must have been people who died.”
Nam Ihyeon turned his head slightly and looked at me quietly.
“You know a lot. Who told you?”
His expression was serious, different from before. He looked like he wished I didn’t know this fact. Kim Haewon had also said he wished I wouldn’t approach this matter. He’d also hidden the fact that it was a composite gate.
“I found out. I think Esper Jeong Sanghyeop’s older sister died there.”
“Who was it?”
“Jeong Suhee.”
“So was she the one who got eaten, or the one who blocked it?”
“Eaten? I don’t know about that. I only heard that the body was found, but was hard to recognize.”
Nam Ihyeon let out a sigh. Then he plopped down on the sofa and continued the story.
“The boss monster of the black bamboo forest was a Markos.”
Markos was a ghoul-type monster that ate people. It was especially famous for eating espers to absorb their abilities while growing its body. It had a face like a human but possessed a body like a large tiger that crawled on all fours, and was a special monster that occasionally appeared in Gab or Eul grade gates.
“By the time we finished the cleanup, it had already absorbed one person. One person was blocking it, but was more or less half-eaten.”
At the words “half-eaten,” I felt my breath stop. The reason Jeong Suhee’s body was unrecognizable must have been because of the Markos’s digestive fluids.
I was so shocked that I couldn’t close my gaping mouth. Nam Ihyeon looked at him as if he’d expected this.
“Couldn’t those people have hidden or run away?”
Nam Ihyeon shook his head from side to side.
“They chose not to do that. Those two people.”
“What do you mean?”
It didn’t make sense. They should have run away the moment they saw the Markos. The moment the Markos was discovered, they would have been able to tell the grade of this gate. A duel with a monster they couldn’t handle meant only death. In fact, they said most of the espers had already fled.
“The place where the Markos was discovered was near the entrance of that gate. If those two hadn’t been there, the Markos would have gotten out before we arrived.”
“Outside? Into the area where civilians were?”
Nam Ihyeon nodded. He looked into the air and continued.
“Seventeen minutes until we got there.”
“……”
“Those two people bought us those seventeen minutes. They saved hundreds of people with that.”
Nam Ihyeon didn’t laugh anymore. I couldn’t laugh either. I couldn’t tell if Jeong Sanghyeop properly knew this fact.
A-class Esper Jeong Suhee died while doing her utmost in mission performance. It was literally death in the line of duty. But if it had been my family, if it had been my sibling, could I have accepted it obediently?
