Where did things start going wrong?
I don’t know for sure, but first of all, those docile eyes looking at me were wrong.
Kim Seohyeon should have turned dark.
Whether people died or lived, he would vent his anger through combat, and Korea would reap all the reflected benefits—that was the future I knew.
But what? A Guide?!
And it was absurd. Just how much of a cheat character is this bastard?
According to research results, the light that enters the body first identifies the ‘fundamental characteristics,’ then references the individual’s ideology or nature. It synthesizes those two factors to derive the final characteristics, and usually the ‘fundamental characteristics’ carry more weight.
And when the yin and yang of the fundamental characteristics are similar, the final characteristics manifest according to the subject’s nature and will.
In other words, the fact that his characteristics manifested as a ‘Guide’ means this guy’s fundamental characteristics have similar yin and yang, and this time he thought quite humanistically…….
“Hyungs, my characteristic is Esper. My trait is idol, they say? What, what am I supposed to do with this?”
As expected, Seon Doyu was born to be an idol.
“Ah, that. Your dancing and singing will be buffed. You won’t break out in nervous sweats on stage, there’ll be a reflector panel effect and stuff, you know what I mean?”
“……You’re joking, right?”
Crucially, it also gives useful buffs to the audience watching the stage, but he’ll find out about that later.
On the other hand, Kim Jaei, who was always noisy, had an ambiguous expression.
“Mine isn’t showing up.”
“Your characteristic?”
“Isn’t Esper the default characteristic? My trait isn’t showing.”
“Wait a few days.”
Kim Jaei suddenly looked at me with a very suspicious face.
“What are you? You’ve been weird since earlier. How you explained everything smoothly on the platform, how you found the light right away. Look at you even now, you’re speaking so confidently?”
Seon Doyu chimed in and nodded vigorously.
Kim Seohyeon also had a curious expression.
I’d already roughly thought of an answer to gloss over this. My concept to pull out and use whenever needed was.
“My trait is ‘Search,’ that’s why.”
“Search?”
“Yeah. It’s like a trait where I can roughly figure out what the essence is.”
“Wow, the specs are insane…….”
[Name: Lee Yesol]
[Characteristic: Esper]
[Trait: ???]
I glanced at my status window. Of course it was complete bullshit.
‘Search-type’ Espers did actually exist. Before my regression, when I went on the [Earth Village’s Special Espers] program panel, I remember seeing it as an unusual job.
“Now the data’s working.”
There were messages from my parents.
It was several photos of Mother and Father holding wine glasses and smiling.
[Mom] (Photo)
[Mom] (Photo)
[Mom] It’s been years~~ since we played like this ^^ Thanks to our son~ hearts pew pew
She even put on sunglasses and red lipstick on her lips, she’s really excited.
I showered her with cat emoticons holding hearts and left the boundary of Cheolwon land.
Beyond the boundary line of Cheolwon land, the press was pressing camera shutters toward the refugee procession.
“Ugh, I’m non-public…… Is this okay?”
Planet’s undisclosed trainee Kim Jaei, who’d lost his mask, desperately raised his collar in his own way to cover his face, but because of his exceptional proportions, it instead became a look that drew even more attention.
Seon Doyu walked out naturally waving his hand like a celebrity on a red carpet, and Kim Seohyeon slapped away the bazooka camera of a reporter coming to take a close-up shot.
“Hyung, you’re so cool.”
We soon boarded the government transport bus in order.
“Yes, please sit from the back seats in order, in order.”
Of the four of us, Kim Jaei was the first to get on the bus.
“Hello?! Oh my~”
Following the guidance, Kim Jaei sat in the seat next to a female student.
Next, Seon Doyu sat down.
“Hyung!”
Seon Doyu patted the empty seat next to him. I was about to plant my butt down when my body bent backward.
“What!”
I struggled and whipped around to look back. Kim Seohyeon had been grabbing the shell of my coat.
“I’ll sit there. You take two seats.”
“……?”
“Your leg hurts.”
Kim Seohyeon, this bastard…… he’s really become a full Guide.
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.”
Watching the back of his head overflowing with humanity as he swiftly claimed the seat next to Seon Doyu made my heart unsettled again.
Now who’s going to protect our country…….
My leg was wrapped up in bandages so I couldn’t tell the detailed condition, but from the feel of it, it seemed like I’d already entered the recovery phase.
It was thanks to the Guide’s quick treatment.
The bus was evacuated to a gymnasium in Gyeonggi-do.
Since there were too many people to push into nearby hospitals separately, temporary facilities were set up in public institutions.
I was watching the news being shot out from a large beam projector.
-While Cheolwon has been declared a ‘special disaster area,’ a civilian rescue operation is underway. The total number of survivors whose identities have been confirmed so far is 17,210. Reporter Ah Hyeonye, are there still many residents who haven’t escaped from inside?
‘Seventeen thousand people.’
If the count continued to add up like this, it would be thirty thousand.
Before my regression, barely over ten thousand people survived in the first game, but despite all the twists and turns, it seemed the initial response went well.
“The place you brought people back from the brink of death to is just a gymnasium? Are you people in your right minds?!”
“We closed our stores and came here too!”
“Bring the President here right now!”
The gymnasium atmosphere was quite chaotic. On one side, church members were gathered reciting prayers, and on the other side, people were shouting that they’d contact outside reporters and give interviews immediately.
“Hey, let’s be quiet.”
“What?! What did you just say!”
Finally, even physical fights broke out among the refugees.
“……I kind of miss Mom.”
In the midst of this chaos, Kim Jaei was completely scared, drawing his legs together, and Seon Doyu was wearing wireless pods and playing a phone game.
Kim Seohyeon was also concentrating on looking at his phone. I stealthily stretched my neck to look together.
Suddenly Kim Seohyeon flipped his phone down.
I glimpsed that he’d written up to [Deobukㅊ] on the keyboard, but my eyes were bleary so I might have seen it wrong.
“Why?”
“No, I wasn’t peeking, just…… wondering what you were looking at.”
“Bored?”
Rather than being bored…… I just had nothing to do.
My phone battery was completely dead, and since the gymnasium’s public multi-tap was at capacity, I had to wait my turn to charge.
“Patient Lee Gyeryuk. Please open your info tab and tell us your characteristic and trait?”
“Why should I tell you guys that! Are you crazy! What are you trying to do! Are you trying to kill me again?! Fine, just kill me!”
The ahjussi in the back seat was lying on the floor choking his own neck.
There’ll be many opportunities to fight and die in the future, so why is he overdoing it like that…….
Compared to what will happen in the future, Cheolwon is a very rich lucky land.
“Please calm down, if you keep doing this we’ll isolate you.”
“Shut up! You put a wiretapping device in my eye!”
The ahjussi who was wildly swinging the IV bag swayed toward me. The moment the distance got closer, I felt unstable waves.
That ahjussi, I don’t know his original personality, but right now he’s not in his right mind due to wave discord.
If even me, an E-rank Esper, can feel it…… the Guides must be quite irritated.
I glanced at Kim Seohyeon.
Whether an Esper dies or lives right in front of him, he doesn’t seem interested…….
‘If it’s Kim Seohyeon…… even as a Guide, he’d come out at least A-rank.’
Actually, for it to be worth it, this guy should get an S-rank rating.
It’ll take at least two or three more months for an accurate grade measuring device to come out anyway.
More than that, I’m so curious. Why the hell did this guy become a Guide?
“Seohyeon, what were you thinking when you received the reward earlier?”
“I don’t know. Why that?”
“Tell me honestly. Seeing bone powder scattering as a handful of ashes, didn’t your heart tingle?”
“I just found out from watching the news that those were human ashes.”
“…….”
I rolled my head like a detective. First, it seemed like I’d need to hear whatever story there was.
“Can you tell me what happened after you separated from me at the auditorium?”
Kim Seohyeon seemed to think for a moment.
“I walked around the neighborhood collecting light.”
“How many?”
“Nineteen. I gave one to grandmother.”
“You ate all the rest yourself, right?”
“I donated them to the clock tower.”
Crazy. Was this the problem?
Before my regression, the guy who ate them all by himself…….
“Why the hell did you donate them instead of eating them?”
“I thought they were hard to find. I was going to give them to you or the other kids, but I heard you’d already eaten.”
Why…… are you suddenly altruistic, you.
“Also, what. Were there any emotions you newly felt while inside there? Like your heart hurt seeing sick people, or you felt despair.”
Kim Seohyeon’s gaze, which seemed to be tracing his memories, came down and fixed on my casted leg.
“I thought it would be good if you weren’t in pain.”
“…….”
“I was thinking that.”
“……Oh, well, thanks so much for now.”
I ended up pressing my forehead. I’m going crazy, this.
I’d directly hammered under the poison myself to burst it open, and was looking for the cause of the water leaking out.
* * *
The next day, most of the civilians received large amounts of relief supplies and returned to Cheolwon land.
Some said they were anxious and got motels or hotels, and the injured were evacuated to hospitals.
I, an injured person with my leg firmly wrapped in a cast, was lying in a two-person hospital room eating snacks and watching TV.
Morning news.
The history of other countries excluding Korea flowed the same. My small butterfly effect seemed not to have reached other countries.
Headlines like [Light masses embedded in England’s ‘Big Ben’], [San Marco’s broken clock tower, did God fix it himself?] were being introduced as global village news headlines.
‘As expected.’
I was nodding my head when suddenly the shabby garbage steel frame clock tower in Cheolwon that I’d destroyed appeared on the screen.
-Then why didn’t any light come out from Korea’s clock tower? Reporter Lee Yeongjae covered this.
-Yes, this is an empty lot in Cheorwon County where Swiss Village development is scheduled. According to witnesses, this clock tower was damaged by a few students’ pranks. First, let’s watch the video together.
-Heave-ho, heave-ho, heave-ho. Beep-damn it. Pull harder!
My hand that was eating snacks stopped. The voice modified like a mosquito sound was my voice.
-Unidentified students are vandalizing the clock tower.
-Yes, that’s correct. The clock tower in question was completed early this year-
Behind the announcer reading the prompter, me, Kim Jaei, and Seon Doyu were shown in a panorama struggling and pulling the rope.
I was so surprised I quickly turned off the TV.
No. It’s fine. There was a mosaic and even voice modification. No one will know…… How could no one know? Maybe they won’t know. I was blinking my eyes in panic when a call came. It was Park Jaeseon.
“Hello?”
-Hey, are you okay?
“Uh, what about?”
-Ah…… You don’t know? Are you pretending not to know?
“What am I supposed to know again…….”
-No…… That…… You still don’t know?
“Wait, hang up.”
I urgently searched for and entered the trainee gallery.
[Title: Planet Entertainment Official Statement Full Text (783)]
