Oh Yeon let out a small sigh as he watched Lee Mihyun’s thoroughly delighted expression, then fixed his gaze on the training ground visible beyond the control room.
Ji Gwan-young was strong.
His overwhelming power was so absolute that there wasn’t even room to question it. But if someone were to ask whether he was fully proficient at using that overflowing strength, the answer leaned much closer to “no.” Ever since awakening as an Esper, Ji Gwan-young had likely spent every moment suppressing his own power just to avoid going insane.
The wreckage from the Gangnam terrorist incident—the first time he had fully unleashed his strength—proved it clearly. Everything had been twisted and crushed beyond recognition. There had also been traces of a cruel disposition. The brutally severed buildings and the terrorists lying dead with their limbs bent grotesquely in impossible directions showed not even the slightest hint of hesitation.
“He’s better than I expected?”
“That’s because his baseline abilities are on a completely different level from other Espers.”
“Hoh. As expected of the third unmeasurable Esper?”
Now fully in spectator mode, Park Seungwon wrapped his arms around his Esper from behind and spoke with a lazy grin. Oh Yeon shoved away the Guide’s arms that were clinging to him and answered flatly.
“Back off. I need to check the data.”
Ignoring Seungwon’s whining about how cold-hearted he was and how this much should be fine, Oh Yeon examined the program surrounding the entire spacious training room.
What Ji Gwan-young was facing now was a training program specialized for combat against Espers. Developed by Oh Yeon, it was one of the most notoriously hated systems among physical-type Espers. Calling it a “program” hardly did it justice—it was infamous among Espers at almost the level of a virus. Lee Mihyun, who had cheerfully volunteered to participate in the beta test with a smile, had grabbed Oh Yeon by the collar the instant she exited the training room. That alone said enough.
Frowning slightly, Oh Yeon quietly watched Ji Gwan-young stare at the moving program. Ji Gwan-young’s rough way of using his power wasn’t necessarily bad. There was no conceivable way to stop him anyway, so there was no meaningful standard by which to judge whether it was good or bad.
There was merely one potentially fatal weakness.
Ji Gwan-young knew his own power far too well…
“…Fuck!”
A low curse escaped Gwan-young’s lips. Grinding his teeth, he glared at Mihyun sitting in the control room. Something like a magic mirror blocking his view posed not even the slightest inconvenience to him. Thanks to that, he could see with irritating clarity the relaxed smiles of the people leisurely watching him and his Guide even after hearing his words.
The cracking collision of force against force rang sharply, like metal scraping across steel plating.
Without realizing it, Choi Tae-hoon reflexively squeezed his eyes shut and shrank back. In truth, he had absolutely no awareness of what was happening inside the training room where he stood. With ordinary senses and vision, it was impossible for him to see or feel any of it. The only things he knew were that the moment Mihyun finished speaking, his Esper’s expression had turned terrifyingly sharp—and that an explosive roar loud enough to numb his ears had erupted.
Half dazed, Tae-hoon slowly cracked his eyes open. The only thing he could really see was the face of the man who had consistently kept a few steps’ distance from him over the past several days. He had squeezed his eyelids shut so tightly that the features before him looked slightly blurred.
Pitch-black hair. Dark eyes fixed on him…
And warmth—far too warm.
Only then did Tae-hoon realize that Gwan-young was holding him tightly in his arms, shielding him.
“Choi Tae-hoon. Is training usually done like this?”
Ji Gwan-young asked sharply as he flicked one arm.
At that moment, the steel reinforcements circling the outside of the training room crumpled instantly and slammed loudly into something.
Tae-hoon couldn’t see it, but Gwan-young could.
At the moment, he was in a fairly foul mood. Training where he had to block attacks with no explanation whatsoever? As expected, he disliked the people at The Center every second they existed. Gwan-young irritably distorted one of the white masses attacking him.
But the more he cut, split, and crushed “it,” the faster its numbers multiplied like bacteria reproducing.
Meaning Ji Gwan-young’s response was the wrong answer.
The arm holding Tae-hoon tightened.
At first, he’d assumed they were nothing more than harmless holograms. Watching the rapidly moving clumps of light, he’d even thought they looked laughably unimpressive. Tae-hoon still stood there with a calm expression, looking like he had no idea what was happening.
Ji Gwan-young had been the same.
Until “it” charged toward the Guide instead of him.
The target of this training was not him. It was Choi Tae-hoon.
The Esper realized it. And from that instant onward—he became deeply, unbearably displeased.
KWAANG, BANG. SCREEEECH.
Tae-hoon’s body stiffened at the deafening crashes hammering his ears.
He needed to stand firm.
His head, blinking red like a warning light, screamed that at him, yet strangely enough, strength wouldn’t go into his legs. The only thing Tae-hoon could do was lower his head against the shoulder of the man holding him protectively.
The hand clutching Gwan-young’s collar trembled faintly.
His hazy mind drifted as though submerged underwater, fragments of his remaining reason floating aimlessly.
What’s wrong with me? I need to answer him. It’s my first time training too, so I don’t know either.
To Tae-hoon, whose tightly shut eyes saw only darkness, a low voice fell softly.
“…Choi Tae-hoon?”
The man’s quiet voice brushed against his ear.
Only then did Tae-hoon finally realize the name of the thing gnawing at his heart.
The memory of that day was blurry.
Just thinking about what he’d do with a friend he hadn’t seen in a long time had made him genuinely happy. It was his first proper outing after finally putting an end to a job search where he’d failed countless document screenings. He’d planned to eat expensive food for once, drink noisily, and have fun. Without even trying to suppress the corners of his rising lips, Tae-hoon stood lazily checking his phone near the large language academy building where they always met.
Then suddenly, someone shouted in alarm.
“Huh?!”
That day had been chilly. Why isn’t this bastard here yet?
Thinking idly to himself, Tae-hoon casually lifted his head. He thought there might simply be something interesting happening while he waited for his friend.
Unfortunately, Choi Tae-hoon’s expectations were catastrophically wrong.
The horrific, extraordinary scene unfolding in the middle of ordinary daily life approached with terrifying normalcy. Watching a building several stories tall split diagonally apart before his eyes felt almost like watching a movie.
Creeeeak.
For a moment, Choi Tae-hoon couldn’t properly process what he was seeing and simply stood there blankly. It was only when he saw it slowly collapsing toward him that he finally tried to scream and ran with the crowd in panic.
But even that wasn’t easy.
Gray fog began filling the streets as though pale smoke had suddenly spread over a world that had been perfectly clear just moments before.
KWAANG. SCREEECH.
The sound of cars slamming into one another after abrupt stops pierced his ears. People who had been laughing and chatting only minutes earlier were now screaming in terror. Something struck his head as it passed by, but Tae-hoon didn’t even have the spare awareness to feel pain.
His teeth chattered violently.
Amid the cries that sounded almost like dying screams, someone’s giggling laughter drifted through the fog.
Am I going to die?
The thought surfaced involuntarily, making every hair on his body stand on end. It was a fear of death he had never once felt in his life.
But there was no one he could ask for help.
All he could see through the fog were people sprawled on the ground, bleeding.
…Then. It was then.
Amid the thunderous chaos, strong arms and warm heat approached him.
Choi Tae-hoon had instinctively clung to the warmth of the person pulling him into an embrace. A man’s voice whispered softly in his ear. When Tae-hoon asked who he was, the man merely laughed quietly and told him not to be afraid.
His vision had been blocked then, so he couldn’t see who the voice belonged to. But now was different.
Choi Tae-hoon opened his eyes.
This time, the beautiful man looking down at him came into clear focus. The face that was always relaxed now held a trace of bewilderment. The arms supporting him unwaveringly and that body heat no longer felt unfamiliar.
The low voice speaking quietly began to overlap slowly with the memories of that hellish day.
Only then did the Guide fully realize the Esper’s name for the first time.
In the brief moment the monster’s attention wandered, one of the light masses grazed Ji Gwan-young’s smooth cheek directly.
Several drops of blood formed there, but Gwan-young paid it no attention whatsoever, continuing to stare at the Guide looking back at him.
The ones truly startled were the researchers inside the control room.
“Isn’t Ji Gwan-young injured?! What’s wrong with him all of a sudden? Oh Yeon-ssi!”
“We can’t get an accurate scan, but there don’t appear to be any major external injuries.”
The Center’s machines could not properly analyze Ji Gwan-young’s body.
Oh Yeon enlarged the CCTV footage from inside the training room and examined the frozen-still Ji Gwan-young like a statue as he spoke. But no matter how closely he looked, he couldn’t determine why Gwan-young—who had been reacting instantly to the program—had suddenly stopped moving.
Oh Yeon moved his hands quickly and intentionally redirected several attacks away from the two of them. Since Ji Gwan-young showed no intention of defending himself, there was a real possibility they could get hurt.
The program Oh Yeon had created was designed to target only the Guide in a Pair. Of course, it didn’t truly attack Guides who lacked defensive capabilities. It merely pretended to.
That alone was enough to make Espers serious.
This was also why physical-type Espers hated Oh Yeon’s program so viciously despite him being an Esper himself.
“—Fuck, that guy…!”
While the two Espers in the room were distracted by their exchange, Guide Park Seungwon’s voice suddenly turned urgent. Oh Yeon and Lee Mihyun reflexively whipped their heads around.
But something else moved even faster than they did.
—KWAANG!
Oh Yeon’s eyes widened.
The five-centimeter-thick magic mirror made from specially reinforced material wouldn’t budge from ordinary physical impacts. That also meant that even several support beams flying from inside the training room wouldn’t leave a scratch on it.
But if every support pillar inside the training room were torn free, gathered together, and smashed down with overwhelming force—that was a different story.
“Fuck, that crazy bastard! What the hell is wrong with him?!”
Even Lee Mihyun, who was usually easygoing and rarely cursed, finally spat out an explosive swear.
Instead of panicking, Oh Yeon immediately manipulated several buttons.
It was an emergency alarm that echoed throughout The Center.
The massive lump of steel, so enormous that the training room itself was no longer visible behind it, slammed violently into the control room mirror once more. Mihyun bit her lip repeatedly as she clenched and unclenched her fists.
[This is Sector C-21. An abnormality has been detected in Training Room A-1.]
“Esper Ji Gwan-young is refusing training compliance and attacking the control room. We need backup.”
[…Understood. We’ll prepare immediately. How much time can you buy?]
BANG. KWAANG. BANG.
Each monstrous crash loud enough to shake the entire training facility caused deeper cracks to spread across the mirror.
Ji Gwan-young wasn’t merely issuing a warning or making a display. He intended to kill everyone inside this control room.
Speaking calmly, Oh Yeon rose from his seat.
“…As long as Researcher Lee Mihyun can hold out.”
Lee Mihyun’s power was ignition. She could burn anything her body touched.
Mihyun stood closest to the mirror. Behind her stood Oh Yeon, and furthest back—where any potential damage would be least severe—stood Guide Park Seungwon.
“Haha. Dying on the same day as Yeon-i was always my dream.”
“…Oh Yeon-ssi, can’t you make your Guide shut up with the unlucky comments?”
“Park Seungwon. Be quiet.”
Seungwon laughed softly at his Esper’s words. But his eyes were cold.
He knew perfectly well that he himself could not stand there protecting his lover. No matter how much Oh Yeon was an intelligence-type Esper, he was still a being incomparable to an ordinary person.
Lee Mihyun quietly made the sign of the cross.
At this point, all they could do was leave it to heaven.
Outside the mirror, the enormous mass of steel pulled far back as though preparing for one final strike before hurtling forward at tremendous speed.
Mihyun tightened her fist.
One, two, three—
The magic mirror separating the training room from the control room shattered violently, and half the machinery inside the control room was crushed beyond recognition in an instant.
At the exact same time, Lee Mihyun moved.
She didn’t need any ignition point to set Ji Gwan-young’s steel ablaze.
Ji Gwan-young was strong.
His power was so absolute that moral judgment itself became meaningless.
But the monster still could not control his strength with the extreme delicacy that Lee Mihyun possessed. When it came to manipulating abilities, she had a flexibility bordering on genius.
As Ji Gwan-young’s mass of steel was pulled backward once more to gain momentum, Lee Mihyun lashed onto it with a whip made of fire and launched herself forward alongside it.
