“Cha Han-gyeom, what the hell is going on?”
The atmosphere was anything but ordinary. Seo Won asked in a stiff tone, and Han-gyeom glared back at him with a coldness that couldn’t be erased. His blood-red eyes locked onto Seo Won’s puzzled face.
“You… Did you get guided by that bastard?”
“What?”
Seo Won was clearly caught off guard by Han-gyeom’s aggressiveness. Whatever had provoked him, even the way he addressed Seo Won had shifted—from the formal ‘you’ to the informal, confrontational ‘you’.
“No… No, that can’t be right.”
Even without a reply from Seo Won, Han-gyeom began piecing things together in his head, steadying the surge of emotion that had suddenly rushed up in him.
Seo Won knows better than anyone what kind of state he’s in. He’d never ask someone else—especially not terrorists—for a guiding, knowing it wouldn’t work anyway!
Before meeting him, Seo Won had already encountered countless guides and gone through their guiding attempts. Through those experiences, he’d come to know—painfully so—that no guiding had any effect on him. There’s no way he’d willingly ask for it again.
There was only one possibility.
A guide from the terrorist group had come into direct contact with Seo Won and had forcibly attempted a guiding.
If someone had tried to guide him, Seo Won would’ve sensed it right away. The moment another person’s GP—not that of his Imprinter—entered his system, he would’ve felt an overwhelming sense of dissonance.
And remnants of that dissonance still lingered throughout Seo Won’s body.
Like hidden landmines, they had been lying dormant until Han-gyeom’s energy touched them—and then they exploded, boom.
Thankfully, it had no effect on an Esper. Han-gyeom, as someone marked by an Imprinter, was under exclusive protection. Even if chunks of another guide’s GP burst inside him, he wouldn’t feel anything unusual.
But if Seo Won weren’t an Imprinted Esper, the situation could’ve become much more serious. Those bursts would’ve seeped directly into his ESP pathways and triggered a state of full-blown addiction.
So that’s what happened to Jae-woo?
Han-gyeom had realized that Song Jae-woo hadn’t just been imprinted with a fake mark.
Espers suffering from serious guiding addiction all shared certain traits:
Noticeable aggression, volatile emotional swings, impaired judgment—and a blind, almost fanatical loyalty to the guide who’d addicted them.
And all those signs were now blatantly present in the Song Jae-woo he’d recently encountered.
But that wasn’t how Jae-woo had been just a few days ago.
Even if he had a fake imprint, it didn’t make sense that he could descend into such severe guiding addiction in such a short time. But now, after facing the GP mass embedded in Seo Won’s body, it finally made sense.
This chunk of GP would act like a landmine—detonating the moment it was triggered by another guide, accelerating the addiction process.
Moreover, it was also a ticking time bomb. As time passed, the explosive GP embedded within would detonate one after another, gradually eroding the Esper’s ESP pathways. In the end, the Esper would become a loyal, addicted servant to the guide who had planted it.
The process of addiction, which hadn’t been clear when he’d examined Jae-woo already deep in its clutches, now became perfectly clear.
The moment Han-gyeom realized that the chunk of GP remaining in Seo Won’s body was planted there by a cunning guide with the intent to consume him entirely, rage surged to the top of his head.
It wasn’t enough that they’d manipulated an Esper as precious as family—now they’d even dared to lay their filthy hands on his Imprinter.
Could any guide possibly laugh that off?
So this might be what Seo Won was feeling all along.
He hadn’t meant to, but he found himself understanding Seo Won’s obsessive possessiveness toward him. Whether it stemmed from the Imprint or from the process of casting his web, in the end, it was the same emotion.
Without another word, Han-gyeom suddenly leaned in and kissed Seo Won. The moment their lips met, an unusually dense surge of crimson energy flowed into Seo Won through the contact.
As soon as it entered, the remnants of the other guide’s GP began to burst one by one. Each detonation sent a jolt through Han-gyeom’s body, making him flinch repeatedly, but he never stopped the guiding. It surged forward with the force of something determined to crush every last foreign particle inside.
“Mmph, Cha Han—… Wait… just—”
Han-gyeom’s aggressive guiding sent Seo Won’s senses into overdrive. His breathing quickly became ragged, his heart pounded violently.
Even as a pleasurable wave of guiding swept rapidly through his entire body, Seo Won couldn’t help but worry seeing Han-gyeom flinching again and again.
Seo Won pushed him back slightly and asked,
“Cha Han-gyeom, explain first.”
He knew Han-gyeom wasn’t the type to act like he was in heat without reason. There had to be something only he could sense.
But Han-gyeom had no intention of offering some long-winded explanation. It would be too hard to make him understand anyway, and honestly, he didn’t want to waste the time—it was more urgent to tear out the foreign filth clinging to Seo Won’s body.
“That bastard guide you met left a little gift inside you. Just like he did with Jae-woo.”
That was all the explanation he needed to give.
Seo Won frowned, recalling the moment Kang Woo-chan had attempted a guiding on him.
“If you get it, then shut up and lie down.”
With anger written all over his face, Han-gyeom yanked off his top and shoved Seo Won down onto the bed.
“I’m going to chew up every last bit.”
***
Seo Won, who had arrived at the mansion in the early morning, wasn’t able to come out of the room until evening.
“Finally decided to show yourself, huh.”
At that moment, Jung Ah-young, who had been standing guard outside with two other bodyguards, shot a sideways glance at Seo Won.
Unlike the office, Seo Won’s bedroom was far better soundproofed, so they hadn’t been subjected to any embarrassing noises during their watch. Still, from time to time, faint cries—ones that sounded eerily like Han-gyeom screaming—had caught Ah-young’s attention and made her ears perk up.
Casting Seo Won a quick look as if she were sizing up a beast, Ah-young’s gaze suddenly locked onto the open collar of his shirt. Through the gap between the loosened buttons of the black collar, the curve of his neck was fully exposed—along with vivid bite marks etched across the skin.
Eyes widening, Ah-young stared intently at the neat, red marks.
No way he bit himself to make those…
No matter how flexible or long his neck might be, there was no way anyone could sink their teeth into that spot on their own. Which meant someone else had left them there.
Just as she stood there, startled and staring at the firmly shut bedroom door, Seo Won brushed past her and said,
“Jung Ah-young, follow me.”
“Ah, yes!”
Ah-young, looking oddly disappointed for some reason, gave a quick signal to the two guards in front of the bedroom door—an unspoken message to keep watch while she was gone.
As she followed Seo Won with brisk steps, she noticed that he seemed to be in a remarkably good mood. His expression hadn’t changed much from usual, but the aura surrounding him was unusually soft and mellow.
He seems… in an especially good mood today.
Given the strange and troubling events that had been piling up lately, he had every reason to be tense or in a bad mood. And yet, Seo Won now appeared almost radiant with vitality.
“What about Song Jae-woo?”
Seo Won’s question came as they walked down the corridor, and Ah-young answered immediately.
“He went on three more rampages while you were in your room, so we’ve put him to sleep for now. Should I wake him?”
“No, leave him. If he starts acting up again when he wakes, just put him back to sleep.”
“Understood.”
They could try waking Jae-woo for interrogation, but it didn’t seem worth the effort.
According to Han-gyeom, Song Jae-woo was already in a state of extreme guiding addiction and self-induced brainwashing from the “fake Imprint.” At this point, he would do absolutely anything for the terrorist who had guided him. Even if they questioned him, nothing he said could be trusted.
It doesn’t matter.
Seo Won had never expected to get valuable intel out of Song Jae-woo to begin with.
He already had someone far more reliable to provide the information he needed.
“Contact Cha Min-hyung on his personal phone.”
“You mean that S-rank guide from the Association?”
“Yeah. Make sure the number doesn’t get exposed.”
Hearing that, Ah-young’s expression stiffened slightly.
If they had to make contact without revealing their number to a senior Association official, it meant this had to be done in absolute secrecy—so covert that even the Association itself couldn’t know.
Lowering her voice, Ah-young whispered,
“Understood. Where should I tell him to meet you?”
“Right here.”
“Huh? Here?”
Ah-young flinched and asked again, startled.
Seo Won had always kept the mansion strictly off-limits to anyone except a select few. No outsiders were allowed in—especially not those with ties to the Esper Association. No matter what the circumstances, he never permitted anyone from the Association to set foot inside.
And yet now, he was saying he’d allow Cha Min-hyung to enter.
Seo Won came to a halt and turned around. But his gaze wasn’t on Ah-young—it was fixed on the door to his bedroom behind her.
“If I want to hear the truth properly, I don’t have much choice. I have to let them meet.”
Looking at the door where Han-gyeom lay unconscious, passed out as if he’d collapsed, Seo Won turned and continued walking.
