Yeo Eun-jo’s location couldn’t be tracked.
Park Se-yul clutched the pager so tightly it looked like he might crush it. Espers and Guides were practically national assets. Which meant one thing—they could be smuggled abroad or fall into the hands of hostile forces at any time.
That’s why the Center treated location tracking for Espers and Guides as top priority. It was about protection, sure, but it was also surveillance. If a powered individual decided to go rogue, it wouldn’t take much to cause chaos.
What the hell is going on?
No matter how many times he tapped the screen, there wasn’t a single trace of Yeo Eun-jo or Jin Mu-seong’s location data. It didn’t feel like a simple glitch. Not here, not at the Center—the heart of the country’s most advanced tech. There was no way both of them vanished off the grid by coincidence.
Didn’t they say the Team A summons never reached him either?
The report that Eun-jo hadn’t received the Team A training call came rushing back. Park Se-yul’s face twisted with frustration. Without wasting another second, he stormed off toward the Center’s data room.
BANG!
The door slammed open, and startled staff jumped to their feet.
“Team Leader Park Se-yul?!”
His sudden appearance left them stunned. He didn’t bother with greetings. His eyes locked on the wall, where a glowing green map showed the real-time locations of registered Espers and Guides.
Without a word, he stared at it, making the staff grow uneasy. Most of them rarely interacted directly with Espers, so the tension in the room skyrocketed. The noise stirred the data room’s team leader into stepping forward.
“What’s the reason for this visit? You know you’re not allowed in here without the Director’s approval.”
Normally, Park Se-yul would’ve handled it coolly. But his patience had already run dry the moment Jin Mu-seong took Eun-jo. As he pushed past the team leader, the head of the security team tried to intervene.
“You need to follow proper procedures if you want to maintain order in the Center—”
“That depends on the situation, doesn’t it?”
Cutting him off coldly, Park Se-yul got straight to the point.
“Have you checked on Jin Mu-seong and Yeo Eun-jo? Their locations aren’t coming up.”
“…Neither of them?”
When he nodded, the security team leader whipped around and shouted to the staff.
“Do we have anyone else missing? Run a check—make sure no one else has dropped off the grid!”
“There’s a tracking chip implanted—how could this even happen?!”
“I said check it!”
The staff rushed back to their stations, fingers flying across their keyboards. Behind them, the security team leader stood frozen, his face ghostly pale. Nothing was more important than tracking Espers and Guides—except maybe an Esper going into Overload.
You couldn’t deploy an Esper to a Gate, or assign a Guide to stabilize one, without knowing where they were. If this really was a system failure, the entire Center could be thrown into chaos. Feeling eyes boring into the back of his head, the security team leader broke out in a cold sweat.
“W-What the—?!”
A panicked voice rang out. But before the team leader could respond, Park Se-yul had already stepped forward.
“Jin Mu-seong’s location isn’t showing either?”
“N-No, sir. I mean—it’s not. I don’t know why the signal’s doing this…”
This shouldn’t be happening.
Park Se-yul stared at the staffer pounding the keys, eyes sharp—watching, gauging. Was someone pretending not to know something?
Now of all times.
Eun-jo’s condition wasn’t stable. And this wasn’t just some random moment—it happened when he was with the Team B team leader. Something about it didn’t sit right. Scanning their pale faces, Park Se-yul rubbed his forehead in frustration.
Right now, finding Eun-jo took priority over chasing down the bastard responsible for this mess. He tapped his finger lightly on the desk.
Jin Mu-seong’s card…
A memory flashed—how he’d tracked Eun-jo down the day of that photoshoot.
“Can you check Jin Mu-seong’s card activity? Just the most recent transactions from today.”
“Y-Yes! Right away!”
“Use the cards registered with alert tracking.”
His blood was boiling. To stop himself from tearing the place apart, Park Se-yul closed his eyes slowly, inhaled deeply, and forced himself to stay calm. A thick vein bulged on his temple.
After a frenzy of calls and furious typing, one of the staff suddenly looked up.
“Found it!”
He practically shouted it, like it might prove his innocence.
“Ten minutes ago—he used a card at the Hyatt Hotel near Dosan Park!”
“Huh?” The same staffer squinted at the monitor, puzzled, then added awkwardly, “The purchase was… um, condoms.”
Park Se-yul’s expression twisted violently, all pretense of composure vanishing. The entire room seemed to go cold.
***
Hyatt Hotel’s manager, Kim Yeon-bok, was pacing nervously in front of the lobby.
Ten minutes ago, he’d received a call from the Center—and it had shocked him more than anything except two other times in his life. First, when his wife got pregnant with triplets. Second, when they found out all three were boys.
And now, this. Two Espers were coming to the hotel. One was already checked in. In a suite, no less.
And they’re Park Se-yul and Jin Mu-seong?!
Should he ask for an autograph? Offer them an upgrade? Not that there was anything left to upgrade!
“Manager! What are you doing out here?”
Watching the manager pacing like a desperate puppy, a front desk staffer ran out to meet him.
“Come inside, guests are arriving—”
“Two Espers are coming!”
Espers were national heroes—practically celebrities. And these two? Among the most famous in the country. Hands clenched with excitement, the manager’s whole body trembled. The staffer laughed nervously.
“What would two Espers be doing at the Hyatt? They don’t even get along.”
“Get along?! Watch your mouth!”
“I didn’t mean it like that…”
“What if an Esper heard you say that?! Right now—!”
SCREEEECH.
The high-pitched squeal of tires cut through the lobby air, and both men turned at once. A sleek, high-end SUV had pulled up to the entrance. The door burst open—and Park Se-yul jumped out.
“Shit—Pa, Park Se—!”
The hotel manager barely held back a scream, clapping both hands over his mouth. At that moment, Park Se-yul raised a hand—and ice formed at his fingertips.
An icy staircase materialized midair, stretching upward toward the sky. In one smooth motion, Park Se-yul leapt onto it and began ascending as if gravity didn’t apply to him.
He vanished in an instant, leaving the manager and the staff frozen, staring up in awe. The shimmering steps reached all the way to the rooftop, dazzling in the sunlight. And Park Se-yul—racing up that path of ice—looked even more unreal than he did on television.
“Whoa…”
A staff member, still covering their mouth, let out a breathless sound. Even the valet workers outside and the guests just stepping through the doors couldn’t look away. Phones were already out. Cameras clicked.
“Isn’t that Park Se-yul?”
“Did a Gate open nearby? We didn’t get any alerts… That’s weird.”
“Should we call someone—”
Before the words were finished, Park Se-yul reached the 18th floor. He stopped for only a heartbeat before—
CRASH!
The sound of shattering glass exploded outward. In the next instant, every jagged shard froze midair and floated down, glistening like snowflakes under the sun. As they drifted to the ground, soft and shimmering like falling petals, the crowd below let out a collective gasp.
“O-oh…”
The manager clutched the back of his neck and collapsed backward in a faint. In one second, his national hero had become a living disaster.
Oblivious to the chaos below, Park Se-yul stepped through the broken window. The suite’s luxurious living room barely registered in his mind. His eyes were locked on the bedroom.
He pushed the door open.
There, lying completely naked on the bed—without even a sheet to cover himself—was Eun-jo. His pale body was littered with love bites, kiss marks, and the occasional bruise—evidence of just how rough and thorough the night had been.
Park Se-yul’s jaw tensed. His eyes snapped to Jin Mu-seong, who sat with infuriating calm on the armchair beside the bed, one leg casually crossed over the other.
“Tea?”
Jin Mu-seong raised a steaming teacup and let out a soft laugh.
“You’ve come a long way. I’ve always had a weakness for helping those in need.”
His voice was light, casual—as if this entire scene was perfectly normal. Park Se-yul ground his teeth, storming over to the bed. The first thing he did was pull the blanket over Eun-jo’s exposed body.
“I told you not to touch him.”
“Guess that makes this a coincidence, then.”
“……”
“Too much power use near the Gate… Eun-jo just happened to be close by… A little too convenient, don’t you think?”
Jin Mu-seong’s face said it all—he didn’t believe a word of it. And he didn’t care if Park Se-yul didn’t either. With an infuriating smirk, he took another sip of tea.
“Emergency Guiding isn’t something even a team Guide can ignore. Is there a problem?”
“Problem?”
Park Se-yul clenched and unclenched his fists. Everything was a problem. That the two of them were in this suite together. That Jin Mu-seong had openly bought condoms knowing the purchases would be flagged. That he’d dared to leave his mark all over Eun-jo.
Exhaling slowly, Park Se-yul summoned a weapon to his hand. A spear of ice, longer and sharper than anything he’d summoned even inside a Gate.
“The problem… is the one I’m about to make.”
He stepped forward. His shoes clicked sharply against the floor, each step echoing like a warning.
“Is there a problem?” Jin Mu-seong echoed, his tone relaxed.
“…If you swing that, you’ll wake Eun-jo.”
His voice was low as he set his teacup down on the side table.
“He hasn’t slept all day.”
“……”
“Someone took a little longer to show up than expected.”
If you’d gotten here sooner, you might’ve caught the part where we used the condoms too.
He didn’t raise his voice, but Park Se-yul heard him loud and clear.
That was the last straw.
Without another word, Park Se-yul hurled the spear straight at Jin Mu-seong.
