Chapter 1
I had been thinking that my body felt a bit tired lately.
“You haven’t had any fever or dizziness, have you?”
“I think I might have… or maybe not.”
But honestly, if I really thought about it, there hadn’t been a single day since I started this job where my head and body weren’t tired. After getting older, I’d been living day by day barely hanging on. I’d been regularly following the extremely ordinary office worker routine of collapsing into sleep after work and becoming a zombie who only opens their eyes in the morning.
“But isn’t it difficult to consider such minor symptoms as manifestation symptoms?”
“That’s true. However, there are occasionally people who manifest from just such minor things. Your case seems to be one of those. Do you see this graph here? This is a guiding wavelength. This wavelength doesn’t normally come from regular Espers. You’re well aware of this, aren’t you?”
The doctor from the center’s medical wing continued his explanation with a good-natured smile. I could even glimpse a firm determination in that eye-smile that said he wouldn’t accept any objections.
Graphs don’t lie. And that graph came from an expensive guiding measurement device imported from America at great cost, with annual rental fees of 3 billion won paid without fail.
In the past, they used the rather crude method of gripping a stick-like handle and measuring guiding through wavelengths emitted from the hand, but that machine uses high-frequency current to stimulate the guiding energy in the body and measures the amount that escapes externally, or something like that.
Anyway, it incorporated cutting-edge scientific technology and was said to produce the most precise and accurate results of any machine currently existing on Earth.
And I was currently denying the results that machine had produced.
“But… but I’m an Esper.”
That’s right. I’m an Esper. An S-class psychic-type Esper, one of only three in the country. Thanks to that, I had no other choice but to join the center and had been working as the center’s servant ever since.
“When was the last time you received guiding?”
Guiding? When did I last receive guiding… I only remember my secretary nagging about needing to schedule guiding sessions.
“Just a moment.”
I pulled out my scheduler from my pocket to check my guiding schedule. Since I’d been quite busy with work recently, I surely must have received it about a week ago.
…But why isn’t it there?
“Uh…”
With a quiet sigh, I flipped several more pages forward in the scheduler. Only then did I see a day marked in red.
“About a month… maybe a bit more.”
“You must have been working while continuously consuming guiding during that time. What about rampage warning signs?”
The doctor’s typing speed increased. I had a strong premonition that my case would become a special case to be permanently archived in the center’s basement storage.
“There weren’t… any. Probably.”
“Hmm, then it seems guiding had already been leaking out little by little since then.”
How could this be? No matter how busy I was with work, how could I stupidly miss that cycle? Even I found it absurd.
Normally, if my physical condition deteriorated even slightly, I would think I needed to go receive guiding, but for the past month, truly, truly not once did guiding cross my mind. As an Esper, it was practically dereliction of duty.
I do carry a rampage control device, but what if I had truly failed to notice and rampaged due to guiding depletion?
“From now on, well, you won’t need to go receive guiding anymore. You’ve become able to do guiding yourself.”
“So I can self-charge with my own guiding… is that what you mean?”
“Yes, well.”
“So you’re saying I’ve become an infinite power battery right now?”
“If we’re making analogies… that would be the case?”
Wow. I’ve accomplished what no science major in this world has managed to do. My body is an infinite power battery. I can charge myself infinitely.
It was maddening. Wasn’t this basically becoming a slave that could be worked without even giving meals?
“There won’t be any unreasonable situations like my workload drastically increasing because of this, will there?”
“Ah, regarding overtime work, you’ll follow Guide labor laws. Guides have strictly limited overtime to maintain guiding quality.”
This was the only appealing thing I’d heard in the entire conversation.
“Actually, this is the first multi-type case in the history of Korea’s center, so the details will probably come out from meeting results.”
“…I see.”
“Moreover, you’re imprinted with another Esper. It’s exceptional in many ways.”
“That’s… right.”
Fuuuuuck. I swallowed the curse internally.
What was the problem? Everything from one to ten was problematic.
First, I originally had no intention of imprinting with anyone. If anything, I wanted to live alone until death, just taking guiding medication, and die lonely. It’s a bit of an extreme expression, but still.
Second, I’m only now learning for the first time that I’ve become a Guide. This is actually the most absurd part.
Finally third, the Esper who imprinted on me is Kang Juha. An S-class combat-type Esper who ranks in the top five throughout Korea’s center, and someone who returned just three months ago and filed a literal ‘Revival Report.’
For reference, I was the one who wrote that report for him.
That crazy bastard, after I went to the trouble of saving him, instead of being unable to repay the favor, he committed the terrible act of imprinting!
* * *
Three months ago.
I was having a very, very, very busy day as usual. First, I downed an iced americano as soon as I got to work, stopped by the interrogation room to conduct light questioning for information gathering from the prisoners our proud Esper soldiers had captured, then took a walk around the center grounds to cool my overheated head.
The unnecessarily damn big and damn wide center was good for contemplative strolling. While walking leisurely like that, I caught the eye of the National Security Bureau Director who was looking out the window, and ended up drinking red bean tea in the director’s office.
Ah, of course, up to this point it was meaningless. We just played about three rounds of Go Fish under the condition that we wouldn’t read each other’s thoughts. I preferred playing Go Fish while reading thoughts, but occasionally feeling like a normal person like this wasn’t bad either.
And right when all three rounds ended in my victory.
Ring ring ring- Ring ring ring-
The director’s office intercom phone rang frantically with a loud noise. The director threw down the joker card he was holding and picked up the receiver.
“Yes, this is National Security Bureau Director Shin Hyeonju.”
Soon he looked at me with a face drained of color.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
The call was brief and ended quickly.
“…They say Esper Kang Juha has returned.”
The news I heard immediately after was truly shocking.
“Kang Juha? …That Kang Juha? The one I know? No, how did he come back? Didn’t they say he was dead?”
Kang Juha. The special operations unit SOF that included him was completely annihilated when they got caught up in a gate while trying to block roads to prevent supplies from flowing to anti-coalition forces in a coalition operation centered on Mexico’s Sonora Desert.
It was called annihilation, but in reality it was more accurate to say their identities couldn’t be confirmed. A gate had formed in the middle of the desert, causing severe tornadoes and gusts around it that made external approach difficult, and the center area where the wind effects lessened had the anti-coalition forces’ core base.
Since the US, which was like the coalition’s nuclear option, gave up first, Korea lost major personnel en masse without being able to do anything. Among them, the greatest loss was losing Kang Juha.
But that Kang Juha had returned?
“It’s been half a year since he went missing!”
It was impossible. Even if he somehow broke through that gate, there would have been anti-coalition forces positioned outside! They wouldn’t have let Kang Juha go peacefully. They might not know the Korean center director’s face, but they would have memorized Kang Juha’s.
If that Kang Juha had returned, the center should be celebrating… but they contacted the National Security Bureau director’s office?
This… smelled very ominous.
“…Don’t tell me the center abandoned him and now Kang Juha is going to kill all the people here?”
According to rumors I’d heard, Kang Juha was someone who would do exactly that. He might even have the ability to do so.
“Should I evacuate now?”
When I pointed to the door and asked, Director Shin shook his head with a troubled expression.
“Why are you being so anxious, really? You’re making me nervous. This place isn’t going to explode, is it?”
“He probably doesn’t have the energy for that… They say he suffered serious internal injuries severe enough to have rampaged dozens of times.”
“…What? What does that mean?”
How does someone rampage dozens of times? Even if you’re an Esper, is that something a human body can endure?
“They say he was brought in with his whole body torn to shreds, and there are still signs of rampage remaining, so he was moved to the special treatment room in the medical wing’s basement… We got an emergency support request.”
I quickly got up from my seat. At times like this, it was best to be perceptive.
“Oh my, that must be tough… Well, I’ll tactfully return to my office now…”
“Where are you going? You have to go too.”
“What? Where do I have to go?”
“Obviously to the special treatment room.”
“Come on, what am I that I’d go to such a scary place?”
What kind of scary joke was that…
Going near an Esper who had already rampaged dozens of times was suicidal. If an Esper on the verge of rampage was a time bomb, then the current Kang Juha was a bomb with a broken timer. Literally a state where it wouldn’t be strange if it exploded at any moment.
To put it bluntly, if I was unlucky, it could go boom! the moment I opened the special treatment room door and I could die instantly.
“You’re not being serious, are you? I’m not even a Guide… It wouldn’t help even if I went.”
What reason would there be for a psychic-type Esper to be needed by an Esper on the verge of death from rampage aftereffects? If it was a Guide maybe, but I was completely useless. So naturally I thought there was no reason for me to go there either…
But Director Shin’s thoughts seemed a bit different from mine.
“Kang Juha’s brain is all melted now, he’s practically a wild beast. He’s rejecting treatment and guiding, everything.”
“…”
Ah, really, please no.
“Right now you’re the only one at the center who can handle his mental care.”
I was screwed.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
