Three days had passed since the yacht party terror incident.
Seo Won made his way to the VIP ward of the large general hospital under the Esper Association.
“How are you feeling?”
Cha Min-hyung, seated on an immaculate white bed that looked far too luxurious to belong in a hospital room, gave him a faint smile.
“As you can see, not great.”
He placed the book he’d been reading on his legs, which were covered by a blanket, and glanced down at himself.
Even in a hospital gown, the tightly wrapped bandages visible at various spots betrayed the severity of his injuries. His left arm—shattered from the impact when he’d crashed through the lobby entrance holding the capsule—was now resting in a sling with a cast. Underneath the blanket, his legs had also been torn up badly in several places, barely stitched together.
A bitter smile tugged at his lips, and a bandage was wrapped around his forehead. Back during the incident, he’d bled so much it had been terrifying, but judging by the clean look of the bandage now, he had improved quite a bit.
It wasn’t that the Association lacked healing-type Espers.
The Esper Association maintained a 24/7 rotation of healing Espers at their headquarters to ensure timely treatment of injured agents. In addition, there were medical-type Espers always on standby, ready to be summoned at a moment’s notice.
But no matter how exceptional their abilities were, they couldn’t heal Cha Min-hyung.
Because of the barrier that nullified all Esper powers.
So a power that cancels out other abilities isn’t always a blessing…
As Seo Won silently examined Min-hyung’s condition, he glanced back at the bodyguards who had followed him in. They were busy stacking a small mountain of gifts—including an extravagant variety of fruits—in the corner of the room.
Reading Seo Won’s subtle cue, the bodyguards quickly set down the rest of the gifts and exited the room without a sound, closing the door behind them. Then they stood guard outside to ensure no one else could enter.
Now alone in the hospital room, Min-hyung looked at the excessive pile of gifts—far too much for a single hospital visit—with an awkward expression.
“You really didn’t have to go this far.”
“It’s not just a gesture of gratitude for what happened that day.”
Seo Won glanced over Min-hyung’s injuries for a moment before speaking.
“How exactly do you generate that barrier around your body, Mr. Cha Min-hyung?”
“…Excuse me?”
Min-hyung looked genuinely puzzled.
His body was surrounded by a naturally formed barrier of GP, created even without conscious effort. This shield dismantled and nullified any ESP that came into contact with him.
The only reason they’d managed to breach the ESP-neutralizing field during the incident was because Seo Won had poured an immense concentration of GP from his prototype into it, overwhelming the shield that was protecting Min-hyung.
But ultimately, Cha Min-hyung’s barrier belonged to a Guide.
No matter how powerful an Esper might be, they couldn’t harness the power of a Guide.
“It’s not a power Espers would typically be interested in.”
“I know. I’m still asking because I need to understand.”
Seo Won’s expression was more serious than ever.
Min-hyung silently studied him. He was dressed as impeccably as usual in an expensive, tailored suit. However, unlike the black dress shirt he’d worn during the yacht party, he now wore a crisp white one.
Min-hyung immediately realized that the man standing before him was a projection, not the original. The real Seo Won would never wear a white shirt that might expose the spread of the Black Vein.
“Come to think of it, you used quite a bit of power on the deck that day.”
“That was nothing.”
“Of course it was—if you’d been in perfect condition.”
Despite his own injuries, Min-hyung had gone out to the deck that day to assess the situation. What he saw had left him awestruck—countless towering, transparent ice pillars crashing down from the sky with terrifying force and crystalline beauty.
What was even more astonishing was that, despite the sheer weight they must have carried when they landed, the cruise ship had suffered no significant damage aside from a few cracks in the flooring. Dozens of those pillars had pierced through, and yet the vessel remained stable and level, continuing to sail smoothly without listing to one side.
Seo Won had meticulously adjusted the weight of each ice pillar in real-time. At the moment of impact, he had applied just enough weight to avoid capsizing the ship, and then immediately reduced it to a bare minimum once the deck had absorbed the hit. In the end, the pressure each pillar placed on the ship was equivalent to that of just one or two people.
And that wasn’t all—the melting process of the ice had also been curious.
Normally, as the ice melted into water, the added weight would’ve further burdened the deck. But strangely, the pillars left no water behind; they simply evaporated. Thanks to this, the deck remained perfectly dry, never even touching seawater as the pillars vanished.
This too had to be a unique property of the ice Seo Won had created.
His ability to not only manifest a power but manipulate it in real-time with such surgical precision—down to its very properties—was extraordinary. Even without the symbolic weight of being an S-rank Esper, it was easy to see why the Association was constantly licking its lips at the thought of acquiring him.
The display on the cruise ship may have looked simple on the surface, but it was a highly advanced application of ESP, infused with layer upon layer of refined control.
And that’s precisely why Min-hyung couldn’t help but wonder.
How has he not lost control yet?
Min-hyung had been overseas during the product demonstration, so he’d been unable to attend. That meant the last time he saw Seo Won before the yacht party had been nearly a month ago.
Back then, he had seen the Black Vein crawling up to Seo Won’s neck. When Min-hyung asked how long he could last, Seo Won himself had said that even if he limited his abilities to using only projections, he could hang on for a month or two at most. He’d even warned against trying to use any other abilities, saying it was out of the question.
That was precisely why Min-hyung had urgently postponed his schedule to attend this meeting in person.
He was deeply concerned about the risk of Seo Won going berserk—something the world had learned to fear since five years ago. After all, the prototype Seo Won was using fundamentally relied on his own ESP.
Yet, there was no sign of an impending breakdown. No visible spread of the Black Vein, not even to his face or the backs of his hands, despite the immense power he had used.
To Min-hyung, there could be only one explanation for this bizarre phenomenon.
“You found them.”
A flicker of complex emotions passed over Min-hyung’s face. Relief. Curiosity. And a tinge of bitterness.
The only person who knew there was an imprint on the heart transplanted into Seo Won—other than Seo Won himself—was Cha Min-hyung.
He still remembered it vividly. Even after pouring in an abundance of GP, the heart had rejected the guiding of an S-rank Guide.
When someone who isn’t imprinted attempts to Guide an Esper, it triggers a severe rejection. The sensation is so repulsive that it can make the recipient never want to be Guided again—an unbearable touch that seems to crawl across the entire body. For some Espers, it’s a pain akin to electric shock.
Seo Won had reacted just the same back then—violently shoving Min-hyung’s hand away, trembling in sheer revulsion. The Guidance delivered through a projection had done nothing at all, but the direct Guidance had been a completely different story.
For someone like Seo Won, who had been incapable of receiving Guidance from anyone… to now be standing here unscathed after using such high-level abilities—there was only one possible explanation.
He had found the Guide imprinted onto the heart.
Seo Won’s heart came from the S-rank immortal Esper of the destroyed Fourth Ability Analysis Research Facility. To match the resonance between the transplant recipient—Seo Won—and the heart’s ESP signature, the heart had undergone a four-year refinement process. This ensured that even if the original body was destroyed, the heart would not disintegrate into black ash.
Before that immortal Esper went berserk, they had accepted Guidance from only one person. The sole Guide of the Fourth Ability Analysis Research Facility.
Min-hyung, realizing the one who had now poured enough Guidance into Seo Won to keep him stable even while using high-level abilities, let a faint smile play at the corners of his mouth.
“Good. I’m glad to see you’re finally receiving proper Guidance.”
His face, oddly enough, looked softer than it had ever been.
“Are you going to report this to the Association?”
Seo Won’s voice was cold.
Min-hyung looked up at him, then shook his head with a quiet chuckle.
“Of course not.”
His gaze dropped, heavy with weariness. The way his eyes darkened while recalling the past spoke volumes.
“How could I possibly sell out someone who came from there?”
Just as Min-hyung knew about the imprinted heart and the Black Vein, Seo Won also knew certain things about Min-hyung’s origins—such as how he had managed to climb his way up to an executive seat within the Association.
And because of that, he also understood what kind of emotions Min-hyung harbored toward those who had once been part of the Ability Analysis Research Facility.
That was part of the reason he had come to him.
Because if there was anyone who might be willing to help someone with an imprinted heart from the Research Facility… it was him.
When Min-hyung looked up again, his gaze was composed, steady, just like always.
“The reason you’re asking about my barrier… It’s for that imprinted one, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
Seo Won nodded, thinking of Han-gyeom.
“Mr. Cha Min-hyung, help me make sure my Imprinted can create that same barrier you possess.”
