Chapter 9
Junseo, keenly noticing as a fellow man what that sound meant, reflexively looked at his body. It seemed that his excitement throughout the guiding had finally subsided.
Why had headquarters only given him this cute one now?
The corners of Junseo’s lips curved slyly without his awareness.
Junseo rolled his eyes. Like savoring the taste of a piece of cake melting on his tongue, he recalled the memory. The image of those thoroughly wet eyes losing focus and staring into empty space was already firmly engraved in his mind, with no intention of leaving. Junseo exhaled a low sigh at the feeling of something pulling somewhere in his body. You saw me at the end, right? Will you remember feeling my guiding?
Junseo indulged his desire while imprinting the impossibly neat face of the sleeping man into his pupils, as if he knew no shame.
At the peak of sensation, Junseo rubbed his forehead against the back of the man’s hand that he was holding, while letting out a low moan. As he felt the warm body heat against his forehead, Junseo blinked slowly.
The question didn’t disappear.
Would he look at other Guides the same way he did earlier while receiving guiding?
With wet eyes, pitifully.
Though it was merely imagination, all the childishly excited emotions were thrown into the trash.
That day before leaving work, Junseo submitted an application for a matching rate test on his own initiative for the first time.
And the next day, Esper Choi Dohyuk came looking hesitantly for Guide Yu Junseo, carrying a red ginseng gift set.
***
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After completing the payment quickly on his phone, Dohyuk threw away the blanket that had been torn yesterday at a designated spot near his officetel. Having diligently completed the report for large-scale household waste disposal, he walked to work still in poor condition. Today, his steps felt especially heavy.
Do people who’ve committed sins always feel like this?
In any case, he needed to apologize immediately. Yesterday, he’d been too disoriented to even offer a brief apology.
Of course, the victim didn’t have to accept his apology. But the person who made the mistake had to ask for forgiveness.
Dohyuk looked at the red ginseng set he’d bought, suppressing his desire to flee from embarrassment. It was something he’d found after searching all day for gifts that office workers would appreciate. Since Guides, unlike Espers specialized in combat, had physical abilities similar to ordinary people if they hadn’t received professional training, Dohyuk was confident this gift wouldn’t be bad.
Isn’t health the most important thing after all?
It was the moment when Dohyuk, who’d arrived at work, was strengthening his resolve with the red ginseng gift set in front of him. Someone stopped before him.
“Esper Choi Dohyuk! Are you feeling better now?”
It was Esper Yoon Ayoung. Given that she, a B-class Esper, had come to the third floor of the annex building where A-class Espers had their personal rooms, it seemed she’d deliberately made time to find Dohyuk. She must have been quite shocked by Dohyuk collapsing during the mission that day.
“Ah, Esper Yoon Ayoung. I’m fine. Actually, I collapsed because of the sedative, so there’s no injury that needs separate treatment.”
Ability users were divided by rank according to their grade. However, cases where a young person casually spoke informally to an older lower-ranked ability user were enough to make the public view them with cold eyes. Even after the world had turned upside down twice, Confucianism still formed the foundation in Koreans’ minds.
Thanks to that, it became natural for people to speak formally to each other regardless of status when not on a mission, and Dohyuk tended to behave accordingly. When Dohyuk spoke politely, Ayoung sighed in relief.
“That’s a relief. Thanks to you, there were no casualties yesterday! I’ve already submitted the mission report, so you don’t need to worry about it.”
“I received that. You reported it so cleanly that I didn’t need to make any corrections. Thanks for your hard work. I feel much more relieved because of you.”
At Dohyuk’s praise, Ayoung smiled with a face even darker than yesterday. Heavy fatigue clung to the area under her eyes like shadows. Only then did Dohyuk examine her complexion with a concerned expression.
“Come to think of it, I heard there have been reports that monster behavior patterns have been changing lately. You must have a lot of work if you need to collect new data.”
“Haa, isn’t that just how life is?”
It seemed Ayoung’s tired face was due to the impact of support-type Espers working overnight shifts every day because of the recently changed monster patterns.
To be coldly honest, it wasn’t something for Dohyuk, who was in the same slave position, to rashly sympathize with. Support-type Espers would eventually derive the changed behavior patterns of monsters, and after that, the people who’d be struggling in the field would be combat-type Espers like Dohyuk.
But half of his heart still felt sorry for her.
Should this be called fellow feeling?
“When will the revised data on monster behavior patterns be uploaded?”
“It should be completed by next week at the earliest. Until now, most of the dungeons that suddenly appeared were near the coast. But yesterday evening, a C-class dungeon gate opened in the Chungnam region, which is also under investigation.”
“To be precise, it was near the East Sea. Wasn’t the established theory that the West Sea has been safe since the large-scale hunt five years ago? As dungeon outbreak patterns are changing, we should anticipate and prepare for dungeons appearing inland now.”
“Of course. There are already several hypotheses being discussed, and I’ll report back again when it becomes clearer.”
While focusing on Ayoung, who was responding precisely despite her bloodless face due to the enormous workload, someone pounced on him from behind.
For a brief moment, Dohyuk couldn’t think of anything. He just acted like a programmed machine. Reflexively deflecting what was approaching his neck, he grabbed the opponent’s arm and quickly twisted it. When Dohyuk swiftly subdued the other person, they screamed in protest. It was a familiar voice.
“Ow! It hurts, it hurts, I said it hurts!”
Blinking once, Dohyuk said irritably:
“…Esper Park Seungmin, when do you plan to grow up?”
As he released the twisted arm and frowned, Seungmin, who’d been making a noisy fuss, looked at Ayoung and smiled awkwardly.
“Sorry. Didn’t know you were in an important conversation. Esper Yoon Ayoung, did I interrupt? My apologies.”
“It’s okay, Esper Park Seungmin. Ah! Esper Choi Dohyuk, if you need more detailed data on the C-class dungeon, I could provide it to you after lunch, um… I just received another call…”
“Go do your work. Hang in there.”
Since what mattered most to Ayoung seemed to be Dohyuk’s well-being, she teleported away hurriedly after receiving another contact. She looked so busy it was truly pitiful.
Seungmin stood casually beside Dohyuk, who was giving a simple wave to Ayoung. Waving his hand ungracefully, Seungmin abruptly spoke once she disappeared.
“By the way, did you cause trouble? Dr. Jeong was looking for you.”
At those words, Dohyuk’s thick eyebrows frowned imperceptibly, but only for an instant.
“Really?”
“Yeah. And I saw you also have a matching test scheduled. Haven’t you checked your schedule for today yet?”
Unlike Guides who repeated a set routine like office workers, most Espers were field workers. Since missions could change rapidly depending on the situation, headquarters usually sent schedules via text through small communication devices specially issued to Espers daily. It was a device slightly smaller than a palm with an anti-hacking program installed.
“I haven’t checked it yet because I was talking briefly with Esper Yoon Ayoung. But are there more A-class Guides at headquarters? What’s with the matching test?”
“No. The situation with A-class Guides is the same as before you left. There’s that S-class, you know. The one who guided you yesterday.”
“…Ah.”
As the embarrassing memory resurfaced, Dohyuk wanted to grab and tear something apart like the blanket that had been miserably sacrificed yesterday, but he restrained himself. Since it was emergency guiding, he’d predicted there would be no other option except guiding from an S-class Guide, and his prediction was correct. He’d done such a thing in front of an S-class Guide.
Having already spent half the day in self-loathing, Dohyuk recalled his vague memory. His past self was already a criminal bastard who got excited and spouted nonsense to a Guide who was purely doing their guiding.
“…But why am I having a matching test with an S-class?”
In fact, matching tests between Espers and Guides were not conducted unless they were of the same grade. It was because there was no utility. Since S-class Guides could ultimately guide all Espers regardless of matching rate, there was no need to take time to conduct tests with lower-grade Espers.
“I don’t know either. Anyway, I was wondering why you kept looking so miserable, but if you received guiding from that Guide, it’s understandable. …Are you feeling a bit better now?”
Seungmin’s tone was full of sympathy as if he felt terribly sorry for him, but Dohyuk, who’d fallen back into self-loathing, didn’t notice the hint contained in that tone.
“It still feels like death… S-class means it’s much worse…”
