64.
“Let me confirm one last time. Is this really all the conditions for your naturalization?”
Guide General Team Leader, Park Gyu-gwan, asked the red-haired S-class Guide before him one final time. From a national security standpoint, it might not be appropriate, but… as a senior who had indirectly heard about Choi Jae-won’s desperate struggles to claim the position as Ryu Ho-yeon’s pair, he hoped the other party would simply shake his head now.
“Yes. That’s correct. There is only one condition. To proceed with the matching rate test with Esper Ryu Ho-yeon.”
However, as if crushing such hopes, the foreigner, Lexy, repeated his intentions in a very clear tone. In perfectly accurate and fluent Korean pronunciation that couldn’t be misheard.
“Even from a broader perspective, it’s not a bad proposal. I’m not insisting on becoming Esper Ryu Ho-yeon’s pair unconditionally. It’s just a matching rate test. If the test results are poor, the Korean government gains an unpaired S-class Guide to its forces.”
“…”
“Am I misunderstanding something?”
“No. Everything you’ve said is correct.”
Park Gyu-gwan agreed with the foreigner’s words while suppressing a sigh. In truth, this conversation between her and Lexy was merely a formality. Nowhere in the world would reject an S-class Guide willing to join of his own accord. Once Lexy expressed his intention, everything would proceed according to his wishes.
However, in the process… it might be quite difficult to mend the heart of someone who would be sadly sacrificed.
A-class Guide Choi Jae-won and Ho-yeon’s current matching rate was 78 percent. It wouldn’t matter if Lexy and Ho-yeon’s matching rate didn’t exceed 78 percent. If Lexy’s matching rate with Ho-yeon surpassed the pair matching standard of 70 percent by even 0.1 or 0.01 percent, Choi Jae-won would have to vacate his position beside Ho-yeon. While 8 percent might be a significant difference between A-class Guides, once the comparison included an S-class, all comparisons became meaningless.
“I have one question.”
“Yes, ask anything.”
“Why, why specifically Esper Ryu Ho-yeon? Someone like you must have had numerous other S-class Espers begging to be your pair.”
“Why… why Ryu Ho-yeon…”
The foreigner’s brown eyes darkened. He couldn’t readily provide an answer and simply repeated the question. Park Gyu-gwan calmly waited for his response. Was it because of his appearance? Or because his manifestation ability was impressive? Several reasons crossed her mind, but she somehow suspected none would be the correct answer.
“Well, I’m curious myself. But one thing is certain.”
“…”
“I knew the moment I first saw him. That he was my Esper. That he was my destiny.”
“What do you mean…”
“Let’s just call it a Guide’s intuition.”
She had heard of such cases occasionally. Guides who could keenly sense the unique wavelengths of other ability users. Park Gyu-gwan knew one more such Guide besides the foreigner before her—Lee Han-seo, who was probably in Berlin now, unaware of the commotion in Seoul.
Similarly an S-class Guide, Lee Han-seo had recognized Park Woo-jun immediately when he went to provide suppression support at the site of Park Woo-jun’s awakening as an Esper. He said he knew the moment he first saw the unconscious Park Woo-jun. That he was his Esper.
That day, Han-seo immediately announced his separation from Ryu Ho-yeon, with whom he had been inseparable for years after formal admission, all for an unfamiliar Esper whose face he had only seen for a few minutes while unconscious. The only answer to numerous questions about his reasons was that he simply knew. And indeed, the subsequent matching rate test recorded a rate exceeding 97 percent.
“As a fellow Guide… you understand what I’m saying, right, Team Leader?”
So this foreigner’s matching rate with Ryu Ho-yeon would also likely be quite high. At least high enough that A-class Guide Choi Jae-won’s 78 percent would not be able to compete.
* * *
While the entire center was in an uproar over this unexpected news, Choi Jae-won was moving the most busily. An insurmountable wall could simply be broken, and an incoming wave could be avoided. Standing helplessly before overwhelming frustration, wallowing in tears, was not in his nature.
First, he went to Kim Jun-young and Lee Jung-hyuk to properly apologize. That he couldn’t punish or hand over Dr. An after all. Clearly stating that, given the situation, he planned to somehow achieve an 80 percent matching rate and race straight to imprinting with Ho-yeon.
‘By the way, could you exclude me and Ho-yeon hyung from missions for a while? I’m planning to somehow raise the remaining 2 percent within a month. Since imprinting doesn’t happen at once, we need to keep trying until we’re bonded. It won’t take long. I’ll compensate you adequately.’
The two of them, at a loss for words, merely opened and closed their mouths before sending Choi Jae-won off with words of encouragement not to push himself too hard. Having awakened as ability users around the same time and in close proximity, they had unknowingly been bound by primitive imprinting, and thus could not properly fathom the intensity of Choi Jae-won’s desperate desire for imprinting.
He also recalled Dr. An, whom he had set aside. However, this time, not within the center. All laboratories within the center were under the strict supervision of the Research Director.
Choi Jae-won had maintained a close cooperative relationship with the Research Director because there was no other Guide who could stand beside Ryu Ho-yeon. But now, wouldn’t an S-class Guide be more likely to support Ho-yeon better than Choi Jae-won, even with a not particularly high matching rate?
He was no longer the Research Director’s sole card, and for that reason, he could no longer trust her. She was not on Choi Jae-won’s side. She was solely on her son’s side.
Choi Jae-won purchased a commercial building near the center and urgently moved in equipment and various facilities from the temporary laboratory he had privately set up before his admission. The three-story building, which had previously housed a café, reading room, and restaurant, was recreated into two floors of laboratory space and one floor of living quarters.
From the time employees knocked on the door of the Esper General Team Leader’s office until now, only two days had passed.
Having obtained Ho-yeon’s consent, he had successfully confined—no, ensconced—him on the third floor, so the urgent matters were somewhat addressed. Now it was time to seek final cooperation.
“It’s been a while, Mr. Howard. We meet again.”
“Yes. Though it doesn’t seem that long to me.”
His trump card was none other than Howard. Now that things had come to this, it was truly fortunate that Ho-yeon’s biological father had arrived at this timing. In this case, he needed Ho-yeon’s father not so much as a parent but as another Esper who wanted Lexy.
“You’ve heard roughly what’s going on, right? That S-class Guide you so desired is fearlessly trying to cross the line.”
“Yes. That fearless spirit is part of his charm.”
“My, that doesn’t seem charming to me. I’m sorry. I’d rather not be a stone dislodged by a rolling stone.”
Choi Jae-won smiled leisurely and presented documents that had been frantically compiled over two sleepless nights by staff from the law firm led by Lee Han-seo’s father and the group’s legal team.
“I heard you were granted early retirement based on special merits before completing your mandatory service period as an Esper. And that after retirement, you lived in seclusion until you happened to meet Lexy. Is that correct?”
“That’s right. That friend, really, like magic… Yes, he fell before me like magic. In a forest devoid of people, he suddenly appeared alone, like magic.”
“Keep your romantic sentiments to yourself. Anyway, as you already know, Lexy currently has unclear nationality and other identification details. Since you’ve been living together after declaring your retirement, you two aren’t registered as an official pair either. So, my proposal is.”
Choi Jae-won paused briefly and took a light breath. His body, which hadn’t slept properly, expressed fatigue, but his head, in a state of excessive excitement, spun more clearly than ever.
“That Mr. Howard first applies for naturalization in South Korea and requests formal recognition of the pair Guide you’ve been protecting as a condition. The objections from your original affiliated countries and financial losses due to your early retirement reversal will be handled by the lawyers I’ve hired.”
If Lexy’s nationality were certain, his affiliated country would actively block the extraction of their asset. But strangely, no matter how much they investigated, they couldn’t uncover anything about his past before appearing as Howard’s cohabitant and Guide. Currently, all that supported Lexy’s existence was his ability as an S-class Guide and the endorsement of David Howard as his identity guarantor.
However, despite suspicions about his untraceable past, an S-class Guide was too sweet a fruit to reject in these turbulent times.
Choi Jae-won decided to throw another appetizing bait to the government officials who were drooling with their mouths wide open, ready to swallow the S-class Guide whole. That bait was David Howard, the Esper of the century.
“Well, why must it be that way? For me, it would be much simpler to take him and join one of the countries I originally belonged to.”
“If you could persuade the party involved, that would be more convenient for me. But how quickly can you handle such a simple matter? By the time you’re able to take that Guide away, the matching rate test between Esper Ryu Ho-yeon and Lexy would have been conducted several times. Lexy’s naturalization application was already submitted yesterday. I’ve used various connections to delay its approval and drag out the matching rate test schedule, but it’s difficult to sustain for long.”
Had there ever been a time when he used his grandfather’s extensive network of connections across various sectors as well as now? No, he didn’t think so. Choi Jae-won recalled his grandfather’s voice repeatedly asking if it wouldn’t be cleaner to empty his heart and leave the center again. The old man, who had aged considerably while Choi Jae-won was growing up, had set aside his stubborn demeanor and sounded quite tired even through his voice. But Choi Jae-won was determined not to stop. If he were going to stop, he wouldn’t have started in the first place.
In the end, his grandfather, unable to resist his downward-flowing love, raised the white flag again.
“If Mr. Howard applies for naturalization first during that time, we can somehow process it as a priority through a fast track. I’ve already discussed it with the higher-ups. Everyone agreed that gaining an S-class Esper along with an S-class Guide would be much more beneficial than just an S-class Guide.”
Choi Jae-won had no intention of allowing Lexy the opportunity to measure his matching rate with Ho-yeon from the start. The moment David Howard and Lexy obtained South Korean nationality as a pair, they would immediately be put on a plane and sent to the International Ability Users Union Headquarters in Berlin. They would be drafted as South Korea’s U-class dedicated team force in place of Park Woo-jun and Lee Han-seo. Though nominally South Korean citizens, they would essentially be permanently tied to the International Union.
He needed to buy time by any means necessary. Whether his plans would actually work or not, whether Howard and his pair Guide would obtain South Korean nationality or not, none of that was his concern.
What mattered to him was simply buying time—a few weeks, or even just a few days—until he could safely complete his imprinting with Ho-yeon. Of course, he had no intention of allowing the thief who dared covet his position the right to set foot on the same soil as Ho-yeon for the rest of his life.
