# Chapter 22
Byun Tae-young knelt on the floor with his hands pressed down, his head bowed.
It must hurt like hell.
I could call Lee Ha-min to heal him, but I wanted Tae-young to feel the pain for as long as possible.
When I saw his shoulders moving regularly, I thought he might be crying from the pain, but then Tae-young lifted his head.
He was laughing uncontrollably, and I was once again convinced that Tae-young was a hopeless madman.
As huge flames rose at the center, a group of people quickly rushed over.
“……!!”
People couldn’t even make proper sounds when they saw the terrible sight.
It was probably because they knew Byun Tae-young was the one who caused it.
Guides who received the call rushed over and began Guiding.
I thought some might lose their lives since their clothes were burned and their skin was melting, but the Guides didn’t give up.
During all this, Ha-min suddenly appeared and stood beside me.
“Eunwoo. Are you okay?”
“Huh? Yeah.”
“You’re not hurt anywhere?”
“Who would hurt me? Don’t worry. I’m perfectly fine.”
Ha-min checked me carefully with his eyes and shook his head.
“Seo Eunwoo. Please listen to me for once. Why are you so stubborn?”
“If I wasn’t here, everyone would be dead. This happened because of you, and they shouldn’t die, right? Don’t you agree? Unless they die some other time for something else.”
“That’s… true, I guess.”
Ha-min seemed unsure if that was the right thing to say.
“If they were people not related to you, I would have just left. But they were your training partners, whether they wanted to be or not.”
Ha-min hesitated to agree, mumbling uncertainly.
He probably thought that if he agreed, I would keep doing whatever I wanted in the future.
“This is the first time I’ve seen other Guides doing Guiding instead of you.”
I deliberately changed the subject.
The Guides took off their shirts, held the Espers tightly against them, pressed their lips together and performed mucous membrane Guiding.
However, it seemed the waves weren’t calming down.
Ha-min watched anxiously while the Guides appeared frustrated, probably thinking that Guiding wouldn’t be easy.
To perform high-level Guiding, they needed physical contact and had to gradually increase the intensity, but that wasn’t easy because the Espers had severe burns.
Just when I was wondering if we couldn’t prevent casualties, Ha-min slowly approached them.
Then, from behind the Guide who was performing Guiding, he held the hand of the Esper being treated.
Even though he just held the hand, I could clearly see the Esper’s bright red body returning to its normal color.
‘So this is the dignity of an S-class Guide.’
I’d heard that high-ranking Guides can greatly calm waves with just simple skin contact, and now I saw it with my own eyes. Despite all the efforts the Guide had made before, no significant changes had appeared until now.
Ha-min seemed to realize this too, as he confidently proceeded to Guide the other Espers as well.
He was being very careful not to let the Guides notice, and they were too focused on Guiding to notice what Ha-min was doing.
After Ha-min finished Guiding, the Espers’ conditions visibly improved. Now if they went to the Guiding room for intensive Guiding, they would all likely overcome the dangerous crisis.
Ha-min watched the scene with satisfaction.
“It seems he controlled the chloride intentionally. So that after removing the flames, the heat would also leave the body. Byun Tae-young Esper is really amazing. Other people lose control once the flames leave their hands, but not Tae-young Esper. Other fire ability users cause more damage because they can’t control the fire after creating it, but Tae-young Esper can retrieve both the flames and the heat.”
“Ah… is that so?”
Finding out the madman could do that gave me chills.
Then this wasn’t something to worry about from the start, and maybe I was too scared.
If I had known that, I wouldn’t have shown my skills like this.
Shim Woo-jin couldn’t directly see me use my mental sword, but Tae-young saw me using the Yi Gi-eo sword.
He probably wouldn’t know it was the Yi Gi-eo sword, and I would deny it anyway.
During that time, the special task force that handles Esper conflicts in the Center approached us.
“What happened here?”
The special task force consisted of B-class or higher Espers, and they were typically intimidating and condescending when investigating incidents.
The Espers present said they had done something wrong and that’s why Byun Tae-young Esper got angry, and they didn’t mention Ha-min.
It was probably not for Ha-min’s sake but for their own.
How could they say they were hit by a Guide?
Ha-min seemed prepared to speak if the special task force came to him, but they didn’t show any interest in him.
Once Tae-young’s name came up from the Espers, there was a good chance this incident would not be investigated further and would be buried as is.
Even if an investigation concluded it was Tae-young’s misconduct, there was nothing they could do.
An S-class Esper was essentially above the law.
As people dispersed, Ha-min and I stood awkwardly before slowly walking away.
Ha-min, who had been prepared to confess and accept punishment with dignity, seemed confused about what had happened, but it was time for him to stop being surprised.
“Eunwoo. You’re really amazing. I thought I knew before, but this time… wow. Really wow…!!”
Ha-min couldn’t speak properly as he kept expressing his admiration.
“You just realized that now?”
“No. I knew, but…”
“I know what you mean. I just did it.”
I spoke kindly to him because he seemed flustered and lacked the words to express himself.
Ha-min couldn’t stop bragging about how he had knocked people down one by one with his fists.
“Eunwoo. From today, I think I should train harder. I feel like I sleep too much. I think I only need to eat twice a day. I waste too much time. I need to increase my training hours.”
“Don’t overdo it. We’re gradually increasing according to your current condition, so just follow that.”
“Really? But Eunwoo, what’s your real identity? Other Espers can’t do what you do.”
“That’s right. Don’t be curious about me. You might get hurt.”
“Ah… I want to get hurt. Can I?”
To think Ha-min would say such things now.
How much he had changed since the day we first met in the cafeteria and decided to eat together.
Even that day was a huge change compared to before.
How long did Ha-min practice, prepare his heart, and gather courage to ask if he could sit with me and eat?
“But Eunwoo. Other times, it’s better to just avoid such situations. There’s even a saying that more people die from high-ranking Espers than in dungeons.”
There was such a saying?
Though I seemed to have lived here for quite a while, there still appeared to be a lot of things I didn’t know.
“By the way, Ha-min. You were amazing too. I saw you Guiding.”
Ha-min just smiled and didn’t say anything more about it.
“Why? That’s also an amazing ability.”
“It is.”
Looking at Ha-min smiling, I realized he could no longer be satisfied with just that.
It was a big change that had happened in a short time.
***
Several days passed like that.
I thought Tae-young might want to talk separately about that incident, but nothing like that happened.
We often ate together, but that was it, and he didn’t ask me separately about that day.
However, that’s not to say he didn’t indirectly inquire about it. When I felt strange and looked up, I could immediately meet his gaze watching me.
Each time, Tae-young had a peculiar expression, neither smiling nor frowning.
The incident that day still seemed puzzling to him, but it looked like he wanted to find the answer himself first.
Since I felt I should be careful for a while, I couldn’t carry out my plan to ask S-class Espers to take Ha-min to the dungeon.
One day, when things had been boringly normal, I spotted Ha-min coming to our training place from a distance.
Just as I was about to call out to him, I saw someone approach him.
It was a tall man with a pale face, a Guide who often performed Guiding for an Esper I was frequently teamed up with.
He had been my Guide a few times, but I never received Guiding from him.
I could control my condition without Guiding, but Ha-min had told me that Guides might take that badly.
During their conversation, Ha-min was responding with an expressionless face.
Watching this, I realized how much Ha-min had changed.
Before, he seemed intimidated even when with fellow Guides, but now he looked confident.
The Guide seemed to sense this too, speaking more forcefully, but Ha-min didn’t back down easily.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
