As soon as he returned from the Gate, Park Se-yul made a beeline for the Central Center.
He couldn’t even remember how he’d gotten there. The moment he heard that Yeo Eun-jo and Lee Sang-heon had been sucked into a Gate—one with no identifiable origin—his mind went completely blank. Totally unlike him.
The second he stepped into the Center, all eyes turned to him. The Security Team stationed at the entrance to check IDs sucked in a sharp breath.
“T-Team Leader Park Se-yul…?”
He looked nothing like his usual composed self in a spotless uniform. Instead, he wore a shirt splattered with blood—clearly from a monster. But with the veins on his face bulging and tense, he looked like someone who’d just killed a man—and no one would’ve doubted it.
Without a word, he headed for the elevator. As soon as the doors opened, the Espers inside froze, eyes wide with shock.
“Move.”
One word—and they all rushed out without hesitation. Park Se-yul canceled the buttons for B1 and B2, then hit the one for the 7th floor—where the Center Director’s office was.
Only after the doors slid shut did the others begin to murmur.
“…Did he kill someone?”
“I’ve never seen Team Leader Park like that before…”
They stared up at the rising elevator, voices low. The topic quickly shifted to Team A’s tragedy.
Yeo Eun-jo and Lee Sang-heon. Missing for a week now.
“When did he ever care that much about Team A’s Guide? Didn’t he used to just keep him stashed away somewhere?”
“You haven’t heard the rumors?”
“What rumors?”
“They say Team A’s Espers are all obsessed with him. His Guiding’s supposed to be something else.”
“Wait, I thought that was about Team B’s leader?”
Everyone chimed in with their own version of the story.
Some claimed the Team B leader was pulling strings to steal Yeo Eun-jo away. Others said Yeo Eun-jo was dating Team A’s youngest member. No two stories matched, but every one of them was dripping with dopamine, and more staff started joining in as the gossip spread.
“So which one’s actually true?”
The first employee tilted their head, skeptical.
“Come on, not all of this can be real…”
Tentacles and monsters? Seriously? They laughed, brushing off the most ridiculous rumors. But it didn’t take long before the truth started surfacing.
***
The door slammed open without so much as a knock—Park Se-yul burst into the Center Director’s office. Startled, Park Joo-hee, the Esper Center Director, quickly asked the person on the other end of her call for a moment.
“I’ll have to call you back. Yes.”
She ended the call and looked up at him.
“You look like you’ve been through hell.”
“……”
“So, the Gate went well?”
“……”
She knew exactly why he was there—but still, she danced around it.
Park Se-yul didn’t answer. He just stared at her. He stood tall and still, but the pressure rolling off him made the entire room feel like it was about to crack.
“No one was hurt, right? I mean, the Team A leader went in himself.”
She tapped her pen against the desk, keeping her tone light.
“As if.”
“…I warned you.”
His voice was low, his tone flat—but the heat in his eyes said otherwise. Park Se-yul stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and looked down at her with a cold, arrogant glare—far from the deference one would expect toward the Center Director.
“So what, ripping through your Security Team wasn’t warning enough?”
“……”
“Scattering A-Team across the map like disposable pawns wasn’t a good look, either.”
The orders never made sense to begin with.
That so-called emergency Gate had plenty of backup. It didn’t need him there at all.
The Gate Jung Tae-seok was sent to? Not even A-rank—it was B-rank.
The other Espers who joined halfway in kept stalling for time, dragging things out. What should’ve been a one-day operation on an A-rank Gate got delayed by an entire week. And in that week— Yeo Eun-jo disappeared.
The fury bubbled up, thick and sharp.
Park Se-yul grabbed the top of the pen still in Park Joo-hee’s hand and clenched it tightly. The veins in his wrist bulged, blue and rigid.
“If Team A’s growth makes you that anxious, you should’ve just kept them off the field.”
“…They’re too damn useful to bench.”
“Huh. Guess the news hasn’t reached you yet.”
Crack.
The pen snapped in his grip. Ink oozed from the broken shell, the bent barrel dangling like a snapped neck.
“If Yeo Eun-jo dies, three Espers go down with him.”
“What are you talking abou—”
He flung the broken pen aside. It rolled across the floor, mangled beyond recognition.
If Yeo Eun-jo died… He’d follow. Torn apart. Shattered. Just like that pen.
With a bitter, almost mocking smile, Park Se-yul locked eyes with her. This time, Park Joo-hee’s confident facade was gone—her face had gone pale with alarm.
“Me, Jung Tae-seok, Jin Mu-seong—we’ve all Imprinted on him.”
“What?!”
Park Joo-hee shot to her feet, eyes wide at the word Imprint.
“You’re telling me three of you Imprinted with him?!”
“That’s exactly why you need to stop interfering.”
“Who the hell do you think you are? You know damn well any Imprint has to be reported to the Center first!”
“You’re the one who disabled the system. Or did you forget?”
Just for Team A, at that. Park Se-yul added the line dryly, and Park Joo-hee shut her mouth tight.
According to what the regional Center had uncovered, the trail led straight to her. She’d been planning to use the Guide to clip Team A’s wings— No matter how high-flying they were, they still couldn’t function without Guiding.
“If Yeo Eun-jo dies—and three of our top Espers go down with him—you’re going to have a hell of a time cleaning up the mess. It won’t just be one or two places calling for your head.”
“……”
“From this point on, stay out of it.”
It wasn’t a request. It was the last warning. His eyes locked with hers through the thin silver rims of her glasses, voice low and deliberate.
“Unless you want to break like that pen.”
The oppressive weight of his stare finally lifted. Without another word, Park Se-yul turned and left the office like the matter was settled.
As the door clicked shut behind him, he pulled out his communicator and made a call.
—“Team Leader?”
A familiar voice answered on the other end.
“Get back here. To Korea. Now.”
There was no more time.
He curled his empty hand into a fist— As if he were gripping Yeo Eun-jo’s throat with everything he had.
