Knock, knock, knock.
A soft knock echoed from the other side of the door.
Kim Seong-gyeong, who had been quietly resting in his room, frowned slightly in confusion. Who could it be? At this hour, there shouldn’t be anyone looking for him. Espers, maybe? The thought didn’t quite sit right, but he rose from his seat, cleared his throat, and called out.
“…Yes. Come in.”
“Hello.”
How did he even know I was here?
As the door creaked open, Kim Seong-gyeong’s eyes widened slowly at the sight of the unexpected figure stepping inside.
“Kim Yong-ha…? What are you doing here…?”
Kim Yong-ha looked noticeably thinner than before, his face pale and haggard. The sight left Kim Seong-gyeong visibly shaken. It made no sense—at this time of day, Kim Yong-ha should’ve been in the research facility, doing Guiding. So how had he gotten in here?
One name flashed through his mind—Kang Hak-gwan.
The only person with the authority to summon an S-Rank Guide like Kim Yong-ha from the Guide Center to the research institute… was him.
Did Kang Hak-gwan call him here? But why?
“…How did you get here? Actually—more importantly, you don’t look well. Are you sick or something?”
Kim Seong-gyeong couldn’t help but ask, his concern overtaking his curiosity. Kim Yong-ha looked like he might collapse at any moment, yet he still forced a tired smile.
“A lot’s happened lately. But I’m okay.”
“A lot,” huh… Could it be related to Hwang Seol-bin?
Kim Seong-gyeong already knew how obsessively fixated Kim Yong-ha had been on Hwang Seol-bin, so it wasn’t hard to figure out what had triggered this sudden decline. The news must’ve hit him like a truck. It had been a shock to him, too, when he first heard that Hwang Seol-bin had become a Villain—it felt like getting clubbed in the back of the head.
“…If you’re really feeling that bad, there’s a medical bay here in the institute. You should get checked out.”
“Yeah. I’ll go.”
“But still, how did you get in here in the first place?”
“…Kang Hak-gwan called me.”
“I knew it…”
Just as he thought. So it was Kang Hak-gwan. Maybe the man thought Seong-gyeong couldn’t handle things alone. But Kim Yong-ha was a Guide—what use would he be in a situation like this?
Noticing the puzzled expression on Kim Seong-gyeong’s face, Kim Yong-ha spoke again.
“He asked me to convince your sunbae to come back.”
“…Convince him?”
“Yeah. While I try to talk him down and get him to let his guard down… you’re supposed to ambush him from behind and bring him in.”
Kim Yong-ha calmly laid out the rough strategy Kang Hak-gwan had shared with him. Seong-gyeong nodded along, listening in silence.
Hwang Seol-bin and Kim Yong-ha knew each other, so a short conversation should be possible. If he used that moment to move in from behind…
It felt a little underhanded—but it could work.
Still… this guy was dangerously obsessed with Hwang Seol-bin. Is this really a good idea?
What if he tried to pull something reckless? Or worse—did something to endanger Seol-bin?
A flicker of suspicion passed through Kim Seong-gyeong’s eyes before quickly disappearing. With his gaze lowered and a sorrowful look on his face, Kim Yong-ha continued.
“But… to be honest, I get it. I understand why he ran away from the Guide Center. I feel the same way. I want to run away too.”
“…The Guide Center does everything it can to protect and support its Guides. Why would you want to run away?”
Kim Seong-gyeong genuinely didn’t understand. The Guide Center had always been dedicated to helping Guides—so why were they so desperate to escape? First Hwang Seol-bin, and now even Kim Yong-ha… What the hell was going on?
“I look awful, don’t I?”
Out of nowhere, Kim Yong-ha touched his own face, lightly tracing the hollow lines with his fingers. Kim Seong-gyeong responded with an awkward nod.
“Yeah. You look pretty bad.”
“…Do you know why I look like this? It’s because the Guide Center locked me up.”
“What…? Locked you up?”
“Yeah. I was being held by Kang Hak-gwan all this time. I only got out today. Not that I’m really free—I’m still under surveillance.”
He gave a dry smile and jerked his chin toward the Esper standing guard outside the door. Kim Seong-gyeong’s expression stiffened.
“…That wasn’t for protection? They actually locked you up? But why? Why would the Guide Center imprison you? There’s no reason for that.”
“Because I’m an S-Rank Guide.”
That single line left Kim Seong-gyeong speechless.
“Just because I’m S-Rank, they treated me like I was dangerous. I had someone tailing me around the clock, and they wouldn’t let me go anywhere outside the Center. This time, they didn’t even let me leave my room. I was locked in there—completely isolated. I couldn’t do anything. Day after day, I felt like I was suffocating.”
“…That was for your safety—”
“No, it wasn’t. Have you ever been trapped in a room like that, completely cut off from everything, unable to move? Ha… Even criminals aren’t locked up like that. If anything, my sunbae probably had it worse than I did—not better.”
The moment Hwang Seol-bin’s name left Kim Yong-ha’s lips, Kim Seong-gyeong’s eyes wavered.
“When my sunbae’s rank was revealed to be SSS, I just wanted to catch a glimpse of him. Just for a moment. But even though I’m a fellow Guide, they wouldn’t even let me near him. Said it was for his protection—but really, they just locked him up.”
Locked up…
The word sent a chill down Kim Seong-gyeong’s spine.
A memory flashed—Hwang Seol-bin had once whispered that he felt suffocated and begged for help. He’d asked to be pulled out.
“I can’t even imagine how much he must’ve suffered. Kang Hak-gwan said he was brainwashed by a Villain when he fled, but honestly… I’m starting to wonder if that was even true.”
Brainwashed…?
That was news to him. Kang Hak-gwan had never said anything about brainwashing. He knew better than to let himself get swayed—but the more Kim Yong-ha spoke, the harder it became to stay grounded.
What if Seol-bin had been telling the truth? What if he really had been locked up, struggling just to survive? Then what had I said to him? “Hang in there a little longer”? “It’ll get better soon”?
Damn it.
Had he ignored Seol-bin’s cry for help? What had Seol-bin thought of him, standing there defending the Center?
If I had helped him escape back then… maybe he wouldn’t have become a Villain. Maybe he’d still be by my side.
The weight of regret pressed down on him like a boulder. The endless loop of “what ifs” was enough to drive anyone mad.
“And…”
Kim Yong-ha hesitated, gauging Seong-gyeong’s reaction.
“What is it? Say it.”
Pushed by the sharp edge in Kim Seong-gyeong’s voice, Kim Yong-ha spoke, albeit reluctantly.
“…This is something I probably shouldn’t be telling you.”
He paused, then continued.
“I actually suggested something to Kang Hak-gwan back then—just as a temporary measure. That maybe we could bump my sunbae’s rank up from D-Rank to S-Rank. Just to use him as bait to catch the Villain.”
“…Wait. You’re saying you faked his Guide rank?”
Kim Seong-gyeong’s eyes widened. Disbelief flickered across his face, quickly followed by disgust.
They were manipulating rank evaluations?
He’d never imagined that kind of scheme was happening right under his nose—that Kang Hak-gwan and Kim Yong-ha would be involved in something so underhanded. That meant the entire re-evaluation was rigged—just a setup to fake Seol-bin’s rank?
It was almost too absurd to believe.
“…Yeah. The idea was that if the Villain thought he was high-value, they’d come for him again—and we could turn the tables and capture them. But then the results came back, and it turned out… he wasn’t S-Rank.”
Kim Yong-ha let out a weak laugh.
“He was SSS.”
SSS…
“I was stunned. None of us expected that result.”
Kim Seong-gyeong narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing every word.
So they’d planned to rig the result, but the real test revealed something even more extreme?
The media had twisted it all—painting Seol-bin as a con artist, a Villain. The news of him being an SSS-Rank Guide had been buried or brushed aside. But if that part was true—if Seol-bin really was SSS—then Kang Hak-gwan’s obsession with capturing him suddenly made a lot more sense.
And Kim Yong-ha wasn’t finished.
“That’s when everything changed. The moment that result came out, Kang Hak-gwan turned cold. He broke his promise. Locked me up. Locked up my sunbae, too.”
“Ah…”
“And now they have the audacity to say it was for our protection? Who’s protecting who here? The Guide Center? Kang Hak-gwan? Or is it the government—the one that knew and still let it happen?”
The more he spoke, the more his voice rose with emotion. His fists clenched tight, and his shoulders trembled with fury.
Watching him shake with rage, on the verge of tears, Kim Seong-gyeong let out a quiet, bitter breath.
He never imagined this was what had been going on behind the scenes.
“I…”
But no words came.
As harsh and calculating as Kang Hak-gwan could be, Seong-gyeong had never believed he was the type to cross that line. He thought the man at least had a basic sense of morality.
The same went for the government. Even if Kang Hak-gwan had been the mastermind, there was no way the government hadn’t known. And if they knew… then they let it happen.
Who the hell have I been following this whole time?
Doubt crept in, heavier than anything he’d ever felt.
He’d trusted their words without question. Obeyed them. But now—maybe everything had been a lie from the start.
He couldn’t say he fully believed Kim Yong-ha. Not yet. But the man standing in front of him, trembling and tearing up as he spoke, didn’t seem like he was lying.
Which meant… most of it, if not all, might be true.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“…Because I don’t have any power. I need yours, Esper Kim Seong-gyeong.”
“…I’m just an Esper. I don’t have any authority—not in the government, and not here in this facility.”
“But you’re the one in charge of tracking down my sunbae. Aren’t you?”
At those words, Kim Seong-gyeong froze.
It was true. Even if every mission had ended in failure, he was the one Kang Hak-gwan had assigned to pursue Hwang Seol-bin.
And if he failed one more time… it was straight to the dungeons for him. But there was no need to tell Kim Yong-ha that part.
So instead, he gave a reluctant nod, expression stiff.
He was just about to ask what Kim Yong-ha wanted from him when—
A commotion exploded outside the room.
“We’ve got an intruder!”
“There’s an intruder inside!”
