Woo-chan suddenly grabbed Han-gyeom’s wrist, the one holding the cigarette case. His grip was rough, enough to make his wrist throb, but thankfully, Han-gyeom didn’t drop the case.
“What the hell is this?”
“A tracker.”
Han-gyeom replied calmly and flicked the nearly finished cigarette away with practiced ease.
Woo-chan glared at him, not even sparing a glance at the cigarette as it fell.
“Seo Won put it in, didn’t he? You brought this knowing full well what it was?”
Han-gyeom exhaled the last acrid breath of smoke and nodded, not denying it.
“Yeah. That bastard put it in, and yeah—I brought it knowing that.”
Speaking like it was some word game, Han-gyeom glanced briefly at the GPS, still blinking red.
“Because I told him to.”
“What?”
Woo-chan let out a hollow laugh, then snatched the cigarette case and hurled it across the room. The GPS, flung along with the scattered cigarettes, bounced across the floor a couple of times.
Without pause, Woo-chan stomped on the GPS with the heel of his dress shoe. Crunch. A harsh sound echoed as the device broke apart and the red light finally disappeared.
Han-gyeom shook off Woo-chan’s grip from his wrist and stared down at the shattered GPS pieces, now split into three fragments.
“It’s no use. This location was already exposed a long time ago.”
Woo-chan’s eyes widened, unable to make sense of what he was hearing.
“Didn’t you want to escape from that mansion?”
Every day that Cha Han-gyeom spent locked away in that mansion was a bleak repetition, drained of all vitality and saturated with helplessness. Like livestock being bred and fattened only to be dragged off when needed to provide Guiding—just thinking of that pitiful version of Han-gyeom made Woo-chan’s chest tighten.
Wasn’t it time he finally got to be free?
To live without having everything taken from him, without constantly being used or manipulated—shouldn’t Han-gyeom have at least that much?
Woo-chan felt Han-gyeom’s pain as if it were his own, vivid and raw, almost like he had lived it himself.
That was why he wanted to save him from Seo Won’s prison. He believed Han-gyeom would be just as glad to escape, and when he saw him standing here now, he’d genuinely felt relieved.
But the man who should have shared the deepest sense of kinship with him had made a choice entirely opposite of what he expected.
“Did Seo Won threaten you? That bastard figured it all out and tried to use you, didn’t he? That’s it, right?”
It was the only explanation that made sense.
If the Ice Apple Seo Won created wasn’t truly everlasting like the reports claimed and instead had a limit, then Han-gyeom would need an Imprinter’s ESP to survive. Whether he liked it or not, he wouldn’t be able to leave Seo Won. So maybe Seo Won used that as leverage—maybe he blackmailed him.
But Han-gyeom met his gaze with clear, unwavering eyes and said firmly, without a trace of falsehood:
“No. It’s the opposite.”
His fist clenched tightly.
“I’m the one who used Seo Won.”
A clenched fist, so tight it made Han-gyeom’s pale skin turn even whiter, swung without hesitation.
“Because I wanted to beat the shit out of you myself.”
The punch landed with a thud, snapping Woo-chan’s head to the side. Han-gyeom’s blow, sharper than it looked, had clearly landed well, but Woo-chan only staggered for a moment—he didn’t fall.
“Woo-chan!”
The moment Woo-chan took the hit, a male voice rang out from inside the cathedral, where it had been completely silent until now. As if expecting it, Han-gyeom fixed his gaze on the empty air where the voice had come from.
There was no one in sight, but the sound of hurried footsteps echoed closer. Woo-chan raised a hand toward that direction. At his signal, the man who had been using invisibility seemed to stop in place.
Rubbing his stinging cheek with one hand, Woo-chan turned back to Han-gyeom, still staring at him with questions in his eyes.
“You hit me just because you wanted to?”
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
Han-gyeom shook out his aching hand, stinging just as much as Woo-chan’s cheek. A faint sense of relief spread across his face.
“I hate bastards who touch what’s mine without permission more than anything.”
“…‘Yours’?”
Was he talking about Song Jae-woo, the one he got addicted to Guiding? But the word was plural.
The confusion still hadn’t left Woo-chan’s face.
But this wasn’t the time to be having that conversation.
Even if the distance from Seo Won’s mansion to this place was over an hour at the fastest, there was no time to sit back and relax. They had to wrap this up and move out before Seo Won tracked the GPS signal and showed up.
If Han-gyeom had been cooperative and showed no signs of resistance, they could’ve simply used the Black Cube of a spatial Ability User and teleported out of there instantly. But in his current state, that just didn’t seem possible.
The Black Cube’s biggest advantage was that it allowed for group teleportation. But its greatest drawback? It couldn’t teleport someone who didn’t genuinely want to be moved.
So if they wanted to take Han-gyeom with them, there were only two options: convince him right now to agree to teleport, or find an entirely different means of escape.
Even the usually composed Kang Woo-chan couldn’t help but grow anxious.
‘If only it weren’t for the Imprint…’
The truth was, Woo-chan didn’t fear any Esper. He had a defensive barrier that could neutralize any ability if he wanted to, and just a single touch was enough to drive anyone into a state of Guiding addiction.
He was basically an Esper’s worst nightmare.
But even someone like Kang Woo-chan had a vulnerability—Espers already Imprinted by another Guide. Guiding had no effect on them. All he could do was disrupt their powers one by one and try to run.
Just the fact that he had to flee from an Esper was insult enough. And on top of that, this one was Seo Won—an enemy he wanted dead more than anyone, someone who needed to be eliminated for the sake of the future.
The shame of it made his blood boil. But rather than blaming Han-gyeom, who had become the bait in this mess, Woo-chan could only look at him with quiet sympathy.
“Han-gyeom, do you even realize? If it weren’t for him, your Imprinter wouldn’t be dead. He’d still be alive, heart perfectly intact—”
“That’s exactly why I told you not to touch him.”
Han-gyeom’s eyes sharpened, instantly brimming with murderous intent.
“Because I’m going to kill that bastard. So don’t you dare lay a filthy finger on him.”
In Han-gyeom’s gaze, Woo-chan saw a venomous fury—merciless and suffocating.
It reminded him of that long-ago day when he was forced to watch helplessly as children rotted away one by one inside 143 transparent capsules.
He knew everything.
That Seo Won’s heart had driven Han-gyeom’s Imprinter to death.
That’s why he could burn with such toxic rage.
A wretched man, prioritizing brutal revenge over salvation or freedom.
And yet, because Woo-chan was no different, he couldn’t turn away. The sense of kinship clawed at him too deeply.
Which made it all the more impossible to let him go.
Woo-chan grabbed Han-gyeom’s arm tightly.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not sending you back to that mansion.”
At those firm words, Han-gyeom let out a dry chuckle.
“If you don’t send me back, I’ll be dead before long. If I don’t suppress the seizures in time, it’s over in five minutes.”
“Then I’ll fix it, no matter what it takes. I’ll search through every damn Esper on this planet until I find someone who can cure you.”
He didn’t have a way to immediately stop Han-gyeom’s seizures, but Woo-chan was confident—confident that he could bend any Esper, other than one’s own Imprinter, to his will. As long as the Ice Apple was still sustaining Han-gyeom, he’d scour every corner of Korea, even the world, until he found a solution.
But even as he listened to Woo-chan’s desperate, heartfelt vow, Han-gyeom only laughed coldly.
“You dragged me here without asking, and now you want to save me without asking?”
A flicker of emptiness passed through Han-gyeom’s smile.
“Just once, I’d like to do something my way.”
“Han-gyeom, I—!”
At that very moment—
The rotted doors of the old cathedral flew open with a bang as a man and woman burst inside.
“Woo-chan! It’s bad—!”
“Some lunatic outside is—!”
Behind the two, their faces pale with fear, the door slowly creaked shut.
And just before it closed completely, they saw it—far beyond the threshold, a savage blizzard of ice raging toward them.
‘No way. Already? That’s impossible!’
Woo-chan felt a chill run down his spine as he turned back to Han-gyeom. The arm he had been gripping—Han-gyeom was no longer resisting. Instead, his body seemed to sag in quiet relief.
“I was starting to wonder how I’d stall for more time.”
Han-gyeom, too, had his gaze locked beyond that door, fixed on the storm that was fast approaching.
***
The reason Seo Won—who didn’t possess any teleportation abilities—was able to reach the abandoned cathedral in an instant was thanks to a very reliable accomplice.
“Fuck! When we get back, I’m charging you triple for the teleport fee, got it?! Ugh, ngh—”
Yoon Jeong-ho, who had teleported to Han-gyeom’s coordinates, clutched his mouth with one hand and gagged uncontrollably.
Yoon Jeong-ho’s teleportation ability couldn’t move living beings together with him, but it did allow him to transport objects he was in contact with.
Taking advantage of that limitation, Seo Won had sent one of his “replicas,” using the ability’s loophole. His eyes were icy and emotionless—chilling in a way that suited his element—as he shot a glare at Yoon Jeong-ho.
To enable the teleportation, Seo Won had no choice but to embrace Yoon Jeong-ho in his duplicated form, and truthfully, he was experiencing just as much nausea.
