Churu for the Angry Guide – Chapter 128

128

Crash! The sound of a glass shattering against the wall echoed throughout the room. It was Kwak Seokjin, the leader of the Seowol Guild, smashing a glass.

“Leader, please calm down.”

“You’ll hurt yourself more.”

The Seowol Guild members tried to calm him down. Seokjin brushed off their hands and made his office even messier.

“Hurt myself? Me?”

Seokjin stomped on a broken frame and let out a bitter laugh. A strong smell of alcohol, along with the pungent scent of blood and disinfectant, emanated from him.

“Should I, Kwak Seokjin, be afraid of mere glass shards?”

He grabbed everything on the desk and threw it while clutching his stomach and laughing. The wound on his side, which had burst open when a monster attacked him a few days ago, seemed to have reopened, causing pain.

Seokjin staggered, touching his blood-stained clothes. There wasn’t a single part of his body that wasn’t injured. Injuries that should have healed long ago were getting worse.

“Hoil.”

“Yes, Leader.”

A man who had been picking up glass shards from the floor stood up quickly. He was the youngest in Seowol and the most devoted follower of the leader.

“Do I look like a has-been to you too?”

“Don’t say such nonsense. No one thinks you’re a has-been.”

The man called Hoil shook his head vigorously, his eyes shining brightly. Even seeing his leader staggering drunk, his respect didn’t waver.

“Everyone has a period when they become weaker. We’ll work harder. Leader, please just rest a bit.”

Although everyone’s words were for the leader’s sake, all that came back was a sharp sneer.

“That’s treating me like a has-been right there. What you’re all doing to me, that’s treating me like a has-been!”

Seokjin screamed at the top of his lungs and thrashed about wildly. The guild members could no longer stop him. Whatever words of comfort they offered only became arrows that provoked him. In the end, no one could calm the leader down, and they left the office, just picking up the broken glass pieces.

They seemed used to dealing with Seokjin when he lost his reason. Such incidents of him breaking things and raising his voice had become quite frequent.

Unlike in the past, Seokjin now was like a volcano about to erupt. Even the slightest provocation would cause him to lose control of the lava-like anger building up inside him. Generally, what provoked him were matters related to the Baekya Guild. Today was no exception.

“How impressive.”

He shook a bottle of alcohol and poured the strong liquor down his throat. Even though there was no one to hear, he mumbled to himself in slurred speech.

“Two SS-grade guides in one guild. As expected of the special Baekya Guild.”

He reached for alcohol as soon as he heard the news about the grade of Baekya Guild’s exclusive guide. He couldn’t bear it with a sober mind.

“How good it must feel to have luck stick to you like a magnet. Our great Guild Master Kang Taebeom!”

His hand, raised high towards the empty air, was still wrapped in bandages. Due to overexerting his unhealed hand, pus and blood had accumulated under the bandage.

“Must feel like you’re on top of the world. Nothing to fear at all.”

After throwing another empty bottle at the wall, he picked up a new one. At that moment, the heavy bottle slipped weakly from his hand.

Crash! With a loud noise, the shattered glass fragments left new wounds on Seokjin’s cheek and the back of his hand. It was strange. An ordinary high-grade esper wouldn’t bleed from mere glass shards. But Seokjin’s body was different.

His body’s regenerative ability was slowly declining, and even his senses were dulling. This was why his injuries were increasing. There were many times when he couldn’t even sense the approach of monsters.

These were all precursor symptoms. Precursor symptoms of ability loss.

Day by day, his functions as an esper were disappearing. His physical body was like a dying ember.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

An esper facing the fate of ability loss. Kwak Seokjin was one of them. And he was denying his approaching fate more desperately than anyone else.

“I’m the leader of Seowol. I… I protected this country. I’m the leader of Seowol.”

His large, staggering body collapsed to the floor. He had lost even the strength to maintain his balance.

In Seokjin’s eyes, all sorts of emotions rose and fell repeatedly. His cold, snake-like gaze last fell on a broken frame.

Inside the frame he had smashed himself was an old photograph. It was the first picture taken with his guild members when they formed the guild.

Young and fearless times. Back then, it felt like they could climb to the top of the world. They wanted to protect the country by eliminating all the swarming gates and monsters with their own hands. Everyone believed they could do it and shouted ‘Seowol’ in unison. Seowol, not Baekya.

“Ha…”

Seokjin burst into forced laughter, unable to believe his reflection in the broken frame. Amidst his cracked laughter, Taebeom’s terrifyingly clear voice mixed in.

[This is the final warning.]

He had said that if Seokjin approached his guide one more time, he would have to step down from his position as guild leader. It was an outrageous warning, but Seokjin couldn’t even refute it on the spot.

[I noticed your gate elimination time has doubled.]

Along with the monotone voice, pitch-black eyes stared at Seokjin’s bandaged hand. The gaze pointing at his slowly healing hand conveyed unspoken pressure.

He had been found out. The changes appearing in his body.

“No…”

Shaking his head, covered in cold sweat, he reached for another bottle of alcohol. But the heavy bottle kept slipping away from his blood-soaked hand.

The sound of a bottle breaking echoed once more.

* * *

Crack. The sound of a screen cracking came from a phone hitting the ground. The phone belonged to Taebeom.

He picked up the slipped phone indifferently and put it in his pocket. Fine cracks had spread like a spider web across his phone screen.

“Leader, what about the search team?”

The secretary, who had just arrived at the scene, approached Taebeom. They were at the B10 area where the first beastkin outburst had occurred.

After Hwayeon Guild leader’s first outburst, the B10 area had calmed down again. This area originally had few gates and low danger levels. Only on that day did the number of gates abnormally surge and giant monsters pour out.

The secretary looked around, gauging Taebeom’s reaction. The search team was nowhere to be seen, perhaps they had already left. Judging by Taebeom’s reaction, it seemed they hadn’t achieved any special results today either.

“Secretary Nam.”

The secretary, shoulders slumped, immediately responded with a “Yes.”

“Find out when the last gate interior entry was.”

“Why… that?”

Gate interior entry was a project banned decades ago. In the distant past, there were specialized teams that forcibly entered gates for elimination. Teams of capable barrier casters and teleporters attempted to enter gates, but not a single person returned alive. All went missing.

“Gather the data and prepare it by tomorrow morning.”

The secretary, mouth agape, asked the reason again. Why suddenly look for old data? Even as he asked, a feeling of not wanting to know rose within him.

“If there’s no problem outside, we need to search inside.”

“No, wait. Leader. That’s not allowed. It’s too dangerous.”

The secretary, realizing Taebeom’s intention, shook his head hurriedly.

“Just because you enter the gate doesn’t mean you’ll find a solution! There’s no evidence the culprit is in there either!”

“They all had gates opening nearby.”

“What…?”

Taebeom repeated for the dumbfounded secretary. All three who had outbursts had gates open nearby.

This was information obtained through the search team’s abilities. Recreating the situations showed that high-risk gates were near the outburst victims. Among the gates open at the time, they emitted the most active light. It couldn’t be dismissed as mere coincidence.

“Even so… Leader, please reconsider. So many people in the past never returned after entering gates—”

Taebeom raised his fist, signaling the secretary to shut up. The secretary swallowed his words, seeing the fist in front of his mouth, and only sighed through his nose. He hoped Taebeom would change his mind after seeing the past data.

The secretary, mulling over his sincere wish, brought up the real reason for his visit.

“The barrier stone you mentioned should be available by tomorrow.”

The barrier stone was for Siwoo. Even in his busy schedule without time to sleep, Taebeom had managed to obtain this barrier stone, which was only traded overseas.

“Will you give it to him personally?”

There was no immediate answer to this casually asked question. Taebeom stood with his back to the secretary.

“Since you obtained it with difficulty, please give it to him yourself. The Guide will be pleased too.”

“You can go now.”

Before the secretary could finish speaking, Taebeom dismissed him. Once again cut off mid-sentence, the secretary left with a gloomy face.

After the secretary left, Taebeom touched his ear briefly, then stared at a gate starting to take shape in the sky.

His pitch-black eyes, unreadable in emotion, moved slowly as if gauging the size of the gate. And then, a small vibration sounded from his pocket.

Reflexively putting his hand in his pocket, Taebeom took out his phone. The vibration ended with one buzz. It was a text message alert, not a call.

Taebeom just looked down at the screen without pressing the notification. Even without pressing it, the entire message content was visible on the screen.

Come for guiding

Author: Hyacinthus B

Hyacinthus