Kwon Ho-eun sat up straight like a student being punished, both hands neatly placed on his knees. Bae Yeon-woo, clearly displeased about something, had sighed deeply and gone out for a smoke.
“What’s this? Why are you sitting like that?”
A harsh whiff of nicotine hit his nose. Despite his cotton-candy-colored hair, Bae Yeon-woo always reeked of smoke—a scent that didn’t suit him at all. Ho-eun blinked wide-eyed and started robotically raising and lowering his arms.
“Go get your notebook and pen.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ho-eun went back to his desk and grabbed his notebook and pen. He couldn’t understand how this damn Guide Corporation operated. If someone had a higher rank or was older, they just casually dropped formal speech.
Shouldn’t respect be mutual if you wanted to be respected in return?
But such questions were useless in his current situation.
“Alright. First, go to the company website.”
Ho-eun logged into the internal site he’d been shown during his internship.
“If there’s nothing else to do, at least browse the site. Start with the announcements. You can even access field records.”
Contrary to Ho-eun’s expectation that he’d be scolded as soon as he sat down, Bae Yeon-woo was actually acting like a decent senior and teaching him the ropes. Only then did Ho-eun remember the coffee on the table and handed it over.
“Assistant Manager Bae, here. Your coffee.”
“Hmph.”
Letting out a dismissive snort, Bae Yeon-woo accepted the iced Americano—its ice halfway melted—and took a long sip. The caffeine seemed to revive him; his crumpled expression began to relax.
“When work orders come in, they’re posted to the homepage first. Then we get a message through the internal messenger. So check frequently. And reports aren’t printed anymore. See this menu here? You upload reports through this.”
“Oh…”
“When attending meetings, you can print them out if needed. But make sure to attach the report here and select the deputy manager, me, and the other team members. That way, everyone can see it.”
Ho-eun picked up his pen and started writing down step-by-step instructions on how to navigate to the right menu.
“And your last report was a mess.”
“…Excuse me?”
Bae Yeon-woo handed over the report Ho-eun had written. Red annotations covered the page, detailing what should’ve been added and what should’ve been removed.
“A report isn’t a diary. Sure, you need to describe the situation on-site in detail. But you also have to identify problems you encountered and suggest solutions. If you’re just reporting what happened and stopping there, then what’s the point? Field guides spend most of their time writing reports. Learn to do it properly.”
After finishing his rant, Bae Yeon-woo selected multiple files and sent them to Ho-eun. A notification popped up on his guide watch confirming the files had been received.
“I’ll send you a few well-written reports. Go over them and rewrite yours accordingly.”
“Yes, sir!”
It felt like a fishbone had finally been cleared from his throat. He’d pressed his pen down so hard that the ink was starting to smudge across the page.
“And the second thing you’ll use often is the team member checklist. Right now, even though you’re technically a team guide, you’re only assigned to Do In-ho. So your checklist will just be about him. But when you start getting more team members, you’ll need to fill out a checklist every day—tracking their health, ability status, and guiding condition.”
“I’ve never done one of those since I became a team guide.”
Bae Yeon-woo took a long sip of his iced coffee, as if trying to cool the frustration flaring up inside him. It was the kind of exasperated gulp someone takes after hearing a truly dumb comment.
He wanted to ask who the hell had trained Ho-eun and left him working like this. But all signs pointed to the one person he respected most—Assistant Manager Hosoo—so he kept that question quietly buried.
Ho-eun returned to his desk and began revising his report.
His fellow interns, who usually messaged him constantly during work hours and went quiet after hours, were indeed active right now.
[Intern Kim Se-hee: I’m so sleepy, I’m already on my second coffee mix. I might pass out ㅠ]
[Intern Ryu Yoon-jae: I’m swamped today. My iced Americano’s ice is all melted ㅠㅠ]
Scrolling through the backlog of messages, Ho-eun imagined his fellow interns toiling away at their own posts. A quiet chuckle escaped as he covered his mouth. But the moment he sat back down—barely one second later—he caught himself goofing off and snapped to attention.
He now understood why the interns always replied to messages so fast during working hours.
After finishing his report by lunchtime and getting it approved by Bae Yeon-woo, Ho-eun stretched with relief.
“Let’s go eat.”
“Yes!”
It was the best thing he’d heard all day. He assumed they were heading to the building with the cafeteria, but instead, Bae Yeon-woo casually started walking toward the parking lot.
“Assistant Manager, are we eating out?”
“You can’t eat gukbap properly unless it’s from outside.”
“Oh… So we’re having gukbap?”
“Why? Don’t want it?”
“No, I’d love it!”
Seeing Bae Yeon-woo shoot him a look while holding the car keys, Ho-eun clapped his hands and launched into an impromptu ode to the glory of gukbap. Truthfully, even though autumn was around the corner, it was still pretty hot at lunchtime, and he wasn’t exactly in the mood for hot soup. But he climbed into the passenger seat, deciding he could tough it out just for today.
What he didn’t know then was just how many kinds of gukbap existed… or that it was possible to eat them five days in a row.
“So why’d you come to the field team?”
They were at the gukbap restaurant. While setting the table with utensils and pouring water, Bae Yeon-woo asked the question offhandedly.
Ho-eun took a sip of water and mulled it over.
It was mostly because he ended up tagging along with Do In-ho. But that wasn’t the whole story.
“I thought it’d feel the most rewarding.”
“Your sundae gukbap is here.”
It hadn’t even been five minutes, and the food had arrived. Gukbap really was Korea’s version of fast food.
Ho-eun tossed a few slices of sundae onto his plate, dipped one in ssamjang, and popped it into his mouth.
“I heard you snuck onto the 63 Square site too.”
“…Ahem. Yes, I did.”
Chewing diligently, Ho-eun set down his spoon when Bae Yeon-woo kept talking. If he kept eating, he’d definitely get indigestion.
“You’re pretty famous among guides. You stopped an Esper with a crystal implant from going into overload and now you’re a team guide.”
“Wow… I didn’t know I was a celebrity. Haha.”
“Oh yeah. A celebrity alright. As the ‘pushover guide.’”
Pushover—someone gullible and easy to take advantage of.
Ho-eun had never been called a pushover in his entire life.
“Pushover…?”
Unbothered, Bae Yeon-woo kept enjoying his hot gukbap while Ho-eun sat there, stunned, spoon frozen in midair.
“Usually, guides don’t agree to take on a dedicated Esper unless they’re planning to Mark them. Otherwise, they keep rotating Espers or split them up among the team.”
“Why?”
“Because Espers tend to grow obsessive and possessive of their guides. Most dedicated guide-Esper relationships eventually turn into office romances. Marking is basically a declaration of that, and you haven’t done that, right?”
“Yeah… no Marking.”
“Exactly. So that makes you a pushover. You’re draining yourself dry guiding someone you don’t even like that much.”
Staring into the steaming stone pot, Ho-eun quietly stirred his soup, setting his spoon down again.
Marking, huh.
It was a concept he’d learned during theory classes—something he’d mentally launched into deep space.
Marking was the one act that could truly stabilize an Esper.
A guide could Mark only one Esper. Once Marked, the Esper would stabilize, and guiding consumption would drop significantly.
From the surface, it sounded like a must-do. But in truth, it was more like shackling oneself.
If a guide Marked someone, their resonance with all other Espers would drop, lowering the effectiveness of any guiding outside that bond. In essence, it made the guide less valuable and tied them permanently to the Marked Esper.
“People think guides take field roles for some noble reason, right? Nah. It’s all about the money. Field assignments pay bonuses.”
Even the base guide salary was 8 million won after taxes. He remembered getting a 10 million won bonus for the 63 Square mission, so it made sense that people were doing it for the cash.
“But once people get a few years in, they start looking for ways to switch to desk jobs. Know why? Because you can feel your body breaking down.”
A story too rich for a gukbap joint. Ho-eun took a small sip of broth.
“You said it feels rewarding? Pfft. Sure, maybe. But have you noticed anything weird lately when you’re guiding?”
“Weird? Actually, the first few times I guided, it felt like static shocks. Now even that’s mostly gone. It feels fine.”
Bae Yeon-woo picked up a piece of kimchi and laid it gently on top of Ho-eun’s rice.
“Exactly. That’s the problem. You don’t feel anything anymore. So like a damn pushover, you’ll keep pouring yourself out, not even realizing your body’s falling apart.”
Watching Ho-eun finally start eating now that the soup had cooled to the perfect temperature, Bae Yeon-woo rested his chin on one hand.
Even after hearing all this, newbie guides always had that misplaced sense of duty. It’d go in one ear and out the other.
He thought back to Kwon Ho-eun’s profile from a week ago.
Guiding score: D-grade.
But his physical fitness test results were far above average. Physically, he was a perfect fit for the field. But the guiding grade… was just too low.
“What on earth is he thinking?”
If he could, Bae Yeon-woo would pry open Assistant Manager Hosoo’s head and peek inside. It made no logical sense.
Do In-ho’s guiding consumption was the equivalent of two S-class Espers.
Bae Yeon-woo recalled how he once tried to guide Do In-ho to help Hosoo and ended up coughing up blood. He shook his head at the memory.
“You’ll be moving around this afternoon, so eat up.”
“Eat up? Ma’am! One extra-large order over here, please!”
Bae Yeon-woo’s question would answer itself by the afternoon.
Ho-eun, now cheerfully eating even the broth with the bowl tilted, seemed to have finally regained his appetite and went straight into a second order.
At first, he’d seemed like a rude newbie who didn’t even say hello. But now that some time had passed, Ho-eun was actually fairly polite. One by one, the bad impressions began to fade.
“By the way, Assistant Manager, can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Why did you plan the promotional video like that?”
Ho-eun was thinking of Team 1’s PR video. Considering how meticulous Bae Yeon-woo was at work today, it was hard to believe such a half-assed video had been his idea.
“Because we need to catch the anti-government Espers.”
His voice was calm.
“The bait is newbies like you. This time… we’re catching him. Tiger.”
His voice cut through the air—resolute and sharp.
“So just play your supporting role well.”
Without realizing it, Ho-eun nodded.
He gripped his spoon tightly.
Next time he ran into an anti-government Esper… he wasn’t going to just stand there and take a beating.
