# Chapter 16
“…What?”
“I’m talking about Guiding… Professor. Did you forget this too? You’re our Guide.”
It felt like issues he had buried out of unwillingness to know had suddenly jumped up and slapped him in the face. He frowned, feeling a sharp, stabbing headache.
Yes, that’s right. Lee Seungwoo’s words… were correct.
Recently, he had been puzzled by the fact that his Espers weren’t calling him for Guiding because they disliked him. And just in case, he checked whether they had received Guiding from other Guides. This was because Guiding between ability users could only take place inside a Center or inside a Gate. Either way, records would remain.
But they hadn’t received Guiding from anyone.
Ultimately, the reason he had called Woo Sihyun was to check whether he was taking medication for this Guiding issue or, although illegal, whether he was properly receiving Guiding from a Guide he knew privately.
Since Woo Sihyun and Lee Seungwoo appeared to be close, he also planned to ask about Lee Seungwoo’s Guiding status as well.
But… to be able to say such things so nonchalantly in this situation.
“Ha…”
It was Woo Sihyun who became triumphant at Ko Eungyo’s dumbfounded expression.
He disliked everything about Ko Eungyo, but moments like this made it even worse. What a stupid expression, as if he didn’t know he would be treated this way. Just because Ko Eungyo had been strangely quiet lately, did he expect Woo Sihyun to forget his terrible behavior?
Ko Eungyo deserved this treatment. It meant he had no right to complain when treated as a Guiding machine, being casually asked when he would provide Guiding. If he didn’t like it, Ko Eungyo shouldn’t have drawn them in from the start.
The well-raised Ko Eungyo wouldn’t be able to endure being treated like this and would throw a fit as usual. After all, his fits of hysteria weren’t restricted by place or time. Though he’d become submissive after being beaten like a dog, the brief holiday was sweet.
But even after waiting quite a while, Ko Eungyo didn’t come charging at Woo Sihyun with a shrill scream.
Is he trying to save face now that he has a professor title?
But still, even then, Ko Eungyo’s true nature wouldn’t change. Everyone knew how terrible Ko Eungyo was. He pretended to be clean on the outside but thought using dirty methods was most convenient, and his front and back were different, changing his words five times a day. Always in his own favor. And if people wouldn’t deal with him, he would throw tantrums as if he were about to die.
Woo Sihyun found it so disgusting he couldn’t stand it. Ko Eungyo, who seemed to enjoy it when others got angry or trembled, as if it was thrilling beyond endurance. He had captured Woo Sihyun using Guiding as a weapon, but in fact, Ko Eungyo’s Guiding had never been proper.
A dirty, despicable man without the sense of calling that a Guide should naturally possess.
When Woo Sihyun, disgusted, tried to leave Ko Eungyo using that as an excuse, Ko Eungyo trapped his only friend and persistently refused to let Woo Sihyun go.
Recently, since Ko Eungyo wouldn’t meet him even when called, he had followed him to the school. Ko Eungyo’s extraordinarily outlandish method was so unprecedented that even the usually carefree Lee Seungwoo was shocked. Woo Sihyun was equally creeped out.
That was Ko Eungyo.
Always the worst.
This time too, Ko Eungyo wouldn’t change, and Woo Sihyun stared at him with contempt as he always did.
“…Make Guiding reservations through the Center app.”
But Ko Eungyo said something strange.
Blinking, Woo Sihyun stared blankly at Ko Eungyo. Just like when Ko Eungyo had ignored his provocations when they first entered his office.
*
Crazy-dog-psycho-bastards.
The headache that had started in the afternoon simply wouldn’t subside. He came out after a cold shower with his lips tightly closed. Still, the unpleasant sensation didn’t fade. At first, he was dumbfounded, not understanding what kind of treatment this was, but after returning home and cooling his head, he understood properly.
He had heard there were absolute-trash-garbage-humans who disparaged Guides who only worked at Centers, saying they were getting paid for doing nothing, and it seemed Woo Sihyun and Lee Seungwoo were that type.
Well, they could treat Guides like ordinary people, but why disparage them?
There were Espers like that. Those who acted as if they were chosen ones because they were born with abilities that others lacked.
Although Guides received slightly better treatment than ordinary people because they were helpful to them, the fact that they categorized people based on whether they had abilities or not already made them terrible human scum. Especially at the time when ability users first appeared, such perspectives were prevalent, but such ideology still remained even now when ability users had become numerous and common.
He wasn’t exactly a great egalitarian, but he at least knew that such views were disgusting. So he never gave Guiding, let alone made them ‘my’ Espers, to any Espers who showed even the slightest sign of such attitudes. Not only had he never seen proper ability performance from those who boasted about their abilities, but he also already had plenty of Espers wagging their tails and running to him asking for Guiding.
While Ko Eungyo’s body might not be able to perform as well as before, he at least remembered how to do Guiding. Honestly, Ko Eungyo had such a small amount of Guiding that it was questionable how he could have a B-class Guide license. It wasn’t easy to utilize either. It was as if he had never stirred the energy inside his body.
But there was Guiding energy, and as he felt it, this energy was very pure and seemed like it would be very helpful to Espers. It was just unfortunate that this help had been received by the human scum ‘Woo Sihyun’ and the equally inscrutable human scum ‘Lee Seungwoo’.
Still, there was no Guiding call through the Center application. It’s been over two months already? Since he had given them Guiding.
“What Guiding…”
If he still felt like providing Guiding after being treated like this today, that wouldn’t make him an angel but a pushover.
Just in case, he searched to see if Woo Sihyun and Lee Seungwoo had moved to become other Guides’ ‘my’, but there was no such record. If they weren’t trying to end this relationship, they shouldn’t have treated him that way today. It was when he pressed Woo Sihyun’s details with a puzzled face.
‘…He’s not receiving Guiding?’
There was no record of receiving Guiding. Recalling how Lee Seungwoo had casually mentioned that Guiding was urgent (“What’s so urgent about it? These crazy guys.”), he irritably searched for Woo Sihyun and Lee Seungwoo’s matching Guides.
But a very strange result came out.
“What’s with these guys.”
They didn’t properly match wavelengths with other Guides at all. Ko Eungyo was about the only Guide who showed a compatible rate that made Guiding possible.
‘How is this possible?’
Even if the matching rate wasn’t very high, any Esper should have at least three out of ten Guides with matching rates of around 30-50%. If finding matching Guides was as difficult as catching stars in the sky, Espers would have gone crazy long ago.
His hesitant finger pressed on Woo Sihyun and Lee Seungwoo’s health status information.
Perhaps because they hadn’t visited the Center at all since the semester started, their body risk percentage (The body ratio[percentage] of risk; all side effects accumulated in the body each time an Esper-ability user uses their ability) hadn’t been updated for a month. Even the status from a month ago showed they were in a high-risk group.
He was very bewildered.
Was this why they had asked when he would provide Guiding?
Perhaps they had interpreted his suggestion to seek help from other Guides as meaning “receive Guiding from other Guides.”
Naturally, saying such things to an Esper who has a Guide is a great rudeness. Especially to mutant Espers for whom finding another Guide is nearly impossible, how would such words have sounded… he didn’t even want to imagine.
Wouldn’t it have sounded like “Since I’m the only one who can Guide you, crawl and beg”? Only now did he understand why Woo Sihyun and Lee Seungwoo, despite disliking Ko Eungyo, couldn’t leave his ‘my’.
Ko Eungyo scratched the back of his head while staring at his mobile phone.
Now he also understood why their faces had hardened when told to do S.M.T. As elemental ability users with water and wind abilities, elemental Espers were much more powerful than other Espers but also took on much more risk.
It was natural they couldn’t do gate operations even in simulations. This was truly something he hadn’t considered at all.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
