Min-hyung was starting to find Seo Won terrifying.
He hadn’t expected him to figure out so much with just a few small pieces of the puzzle.
Just from what had been revealed so far, it was clear that Seo Won knew far more than he had ever imagined. Even if he tried to deny it now, it would be pointless. Everything had already been seen through.
Min-hyung briefly lowered his gaze, as if trying to gather his thoughts, then eventually looked Han-gyeom in the eyes again.
“…Why…?”
Han-gyeom voiced his confusion. His eyes were more clouded and conflicted than ever before.
It was only natural.
Han-gyeom had only learned today that Cha Min-hyung, like himself, was a guide who had come from a research facility. He had just found out that someone had arrived first at the obliterated site of the Fourth Ability Analysis Research Facility and hidden away the data.
Even those facts alone were enough to leave him reeling—but now he was being told that someone he had never even met before had used Seo Won to save him?
Not only for Han-gyeom, but for anyone, this would be a hard pill to swallow.
However, even if his heart couldn’t fully accept it, Seo Won’s mind had already reached a solid conclusion.
Because Cha Min-hyung, who had consistently shown goodwill toward both him and Han-gyeom, had openly mentioned a sense of “kinship” back in the drawing room.
And the unmistakable guilt that had shown in his voice when he spoke to Han-gyeom—that was the answer.
“It was because of my selfishness.”
Min-hyung spoke bitterly, his gaze growing distant as if staring into memories of a faraway past.
Was he remembering a specific day?
“All the experiments related to guides began with me. Before I appeared, the prevailing theory was that ‘guides can only guide at their designated grade level.’”
The “prevailing theory” he referred to was still widely accepted to this day.
Although it was believed that training could enhance a guide’s sensitivity, that didn’t mean a D-grade guide could ever provide A-grade guidance.
A D-grade would guide as a D-grade. An A-grade would guide as an A-grade.
That was all there was to it.
But then, a guide emerged who broke through the limits of A-grade.
An S-grade guide possessing not just guiding ability, but also an automatic defensive shield that nullified and blocked all other abilities—his very existence was a shock to those who had always viewed guides as nothing more than “Esper-exclusive batteries.”
Because of the emergence of the S-grade guide Cha Min-hyung, the Esper Association could no longer ignore the untapped potential that guides might hold.
“The guides in the research facility were dragged in because I introduced a variable to the Association’s established theory. Han-gyeom, you said I was a victim too, but even if I wasn’t the perpetrator, I can’t deny that I was the root cause.”
That had always been his belief, and even now, in this very moment, he still thought so.
Min-hyung recalled the Fourth Ability Analysis Research Facility—the place he had only barely managed to set foot in five years ago.
The ground was gouged out into a wide, crater-like depression, as if a massive bomb had been dropped from above. The research facility had been reduced to unrecognizable rubble and fine dust. All that remained were fragments—no identifiable structures, nothing but the chaotic remnants of what once was. Deep scars in the earth spoke of a monstrous rampage, as if a giant beast had gone berserk.
It seemed the Fourth Ability Analysis Research Facility had intended to use the guides in their possession to annihilate the rampaging Esper. But it must have failed. By the time Min-hyung—who had only been contacted much too late—arrived at the scene, everything was already over.
It hadn’t been long after he arrived at the devastated facility that he spotted it: a mound of black ashes piled high at the center of the blast zone.
The remains of a rampaging S-grade Esper who had unleashed all of his power before dying.
Min-hyung had assumed, of course, that there were no survivors.
At the end of a rampage, once the self has been lost, only a cataclysmic death remains—one that threatens to consume the entire world. Judging from the size of the blast, which had extended well beyond the research facility’s perimeter, it was unthinkable that anyone could have survived.
That’s what he thought—until he got closer and examined the ashes.
And then, he realized he had been wrong.
There were marks in the ash, like someone had clawed into the pile with both hands and desperately scooped it up.
Who could it have been?
He didn’t know the identity, not yet. But one thing was certain.
There had been a survivor at the Fourth Ability Analysis Research Facility—a place believed to have been completely wiped out.
And not just anyone. Someone who had shared such a deep bond with the rampaging S-grade Esper that they had knelt in the ashes of his remains, clutching them with both hands.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Min-hyung began to search the grounds.
According to the intel he had obtained just days before, after expressing his intention to officially cooperate with the Fourth Ability Analysis Research Facility’s experiments, there should be a bunker-style classified archive hidden underground where all of the facility’s core data was stored.
Amidst the ruins, Min-hyung barely managed to find the secret archive and recover all of the data.
Outwardly, he made it look as though everything had been destroyed in the rampage. Burned, shattered—beyond recovery. It was staged so convincingly that the research data from the Fourth Ability Analysis Research Facility was officially recorded as lost.
But as he combed through the recovered documents, Min-hyung learned of the facility’s only guide—Cha Han-gyeom.
Buried within reports so cruel and brutal they made him want to curse aloud, Min-hyung discovered that Cha Han-gyeom was in a condition so fragile he could die at any moment. And the only reason he was still alive was because of the ESP infused into him by the rampaging S-grade Esper.
Min-hyung began to suspect that this guide might be the survivor.
There were past cases where rampaging Espers, even in a berserk state, never touched objects imbued with their ESP. Whether or not that could apply to people was uncertain. But if it was possible, then Cha Han-gyeom could very well have survived the heart of the storm.
‘You lived…’
If he had escaped alive, that was enough.
Min-hyung was prepared to bury every piece of incriminating evidence with his own hands, so long as Han-gyeom had survived.
Still, a part of him was anxious. With the owner of the ESP now gone, Cha Han-gyeom’s condition could collapse at any moment. Just how long could he hold on?
‘It’s my fault.’
That thought weighed down on him, crushing his entire being.
The guilt had returned—heavier than ever.
But even so, there was nothing Min-hyung could do to find Cha Han-gyeom.
From the moment Han-gyeom and the other test subjects were taken into the research facility, they ceased to exist in this world. Even Min-hyung, who had access to every classified document from the labs, couldn’t easily locate someone who officially didn’t exist.
All he could do was hope.
Hope that he was still alive somewhere. Hope that even if he’d died soon after, he’d at least tasted a moment of freedom.
And so, five years passed.
Then, one day, an unexpected man appeared.
A man named Seo Won, who had received the heart of the dead S-grade Esper.
Min-hyung could never forget that moment.
Seo Won had never been Imprinted with anyone, and ever since the heart transplant, he had refused any form of guiding. That could only mean one thing—the heart extracted from the rampaging S-grade Esper at the Fourth Ability Analysis Research Facility had already been Imprinted.
It was an opportunity.
If Seo Won now carried the heart of that S-grade Esper, then it might be possible to find Cha Han-gyeom through guiding. If Han-gyeom were still alive, just being near the person who bore the heart of his Imprinter might be enough for him to endure and survive.
To Min-hyung, who had been drowning in guilt, finding out whether Cha Han-gyeom was alive mattered more than guiding that might save Seo Won’s life.
As Min-hyung returned from the memories of the past, a starkly different air surrounded him.
“I’ll be honest.”
Gone was the soft, wistful demeanor. In its place was a cold, resolute tone—like the public image of Cha Min-hyung as seen through the media.
“I don’t care what Ability Users from the research facilities think, what emotions they carry, or what kind of lives they live. That applies to the guides who were dragged in because of me, too.”
Cha Min-hyung, confessing his selfishness, had never sounded colder.
“Whatever form it takes—I just want them to survive. No… they have to survive.”
His unwavering gaze locked onto Han-gyeom, surrounding him, enveloping him.
“Because that’s the only way I can keep going.”
Faced with Min-hyung like this, Han-gyeom couldn’t bring himself to say anything in return.
***
Left alone in the break room, Han-gyeom sat in utter silence.
He’d said he was going to walk Min-hyung out, but it seemed like he and Seo Won had more to discuss privately—Seo Won still hadn’t come back.
Han-gyeom sat on the sofa, blankly staring up at the ceiling.
“I’ve lived under the crushing weight of guilt for sixteen years now. If there’s a way—any way—to ease that burden, I’ll take it.”
Remembering Min-hyung’s words, Han-gyeom felt a tightness swell in his chest, a suffocating pressure that made it hard to breathe.
Is this what happens to someone who lives too long beneath a guilt that feels like it might kill them?
He couldn’t fully understand it, but he couldn’t reject it either.
Cha Min-hyung was undoubtedly selfish—but so profoundly human that Han-gyeom couldn’t bring himself to lash out with harsh words.
What would have happened to him if Min-hyung hadn’t been there?
And what about Seo Won, who had yet to find his Imprinter?
The answer was painfully simple.
‘He would’ve died, most likely.’
A life sustained by what little ESP remained would’ve burned out by now. Without an Imprinter, Seo Won would’ve been unable to receive guiding, and like Song Yeon-woo, he would have turned into a rampaging black beast, lost to madness within this very mansion.
Han-gyeom curled into himself, wrapping his arms around his own body.
‘You’re mistaken, Cha Min-hyung.’
Thinking of him, Han-gyeom closed his eyes and let out a faint smile.
Cha Min-hyung seemed so certain—so convinced—that with his Imprinter now at his side, Han-gyeom was no longer on the edge of collapse, that he would live for a long, long time. That was why he’d chosen to help Seo Won.
‘But I…’
Click—
Just then, Seo Won finally returned to the break room. Han-gyeom looked up at him and pressed his trembling lips shut.
