I Became a Foreign Element in the Guideverse 8

Chapter 8

‘No. Even in the novel, there were times when they were nice like this. It was just one-sided, that’s all.’

“Ah… I’m full,” Lee Ha-min said, looking at the remaining kimbap, and Kyun In used his telekinesis to push it toward him again.

“I’m full. I can’t eat anymore.”

This time, he even packed everything into a bag for him.

Byun Tae-young, as if seizing the moment he’d been waiting for, stuck a lollipop into Lee Ha-min’s mouth.

Just as I was thinking it was time to leave, Lee Ha-min’s device rang.

“Ah…!”

Lee Ha-min got up from his seat without being able to say a word and ran off immediately.

It seemed like an extremely urgent matter for him to leave without explaining to the people he was with.

“Is Shim Woo-jin in bad condition?”

Kyun In mumbled as if talking to himself.

“We let him receive Guiding alone this time, but it seems that wasn’t enough.”

Byun Tae-young clicked his tongue and muttered, “Tsk.”

Then he looked at me.

I hurried before he could speak.

“Then I’ll be going now.”

“Why such a hurry? There’s plenty of time until the next deployment order.”

Byun Tae-young is two years older than me, but he’s never given me permission to speak casually, and it didn’t feel good to be addressed informally by someone I’d barely seen.

“I have something to do.”

“What is it?”

“…Training.”

“Would you like me to help? Want to train with me?”

I stood up from my seat and shook my head at Byun Tae-young’s suggestion.

“No, thank you.”

“Hey, Tae-young. Don’t bother Esper Seo Eunwoo. He has a bad temper, so next time he might not play along at all.”

When Kyun In said this, Byun Tae-young snickered.

“He’s just a low-ranking Esper anyway.”

“Being a high-ranking Esper only gives you bragging rights within the center. He said if we keep messing with him, he’ll leave the center.”

Kyun In was truly an amazing person.

The saying goes “different strokes for different folks,” but that person never seemed to get anything right.

Byun Tae-young glanced at me and then made a resigned expression.

“Eat this.”

He held out three lollipops.

“I don’t like candy.”

“Wow, this is truly a day that will go down in history. Byun Tae-young offered candy and was rejected!”

Kyun In said this, then used telekinesis to move the candy in front of me.

I wish I could get a chance to teach him a lesson about not listening to what others say.

“Then I’ll be going first.”

With that, I left the place as quickly as possible.

Though I’m a physical enhancement type, I tend not to reveal my abilities in daily life, but I decided to make an exception this time since being with those people would drain all my energy.

***

An announcement rang out at the center.

When they can’t reach someone they need to find, an announcement is made, and if the person being called is a Guide, it’s a very bad sign.

It meant they had tried to call them on their device but there was no response, and inevitably severe punishment would be waiting.

For us, a salary cut wouldn’t matter, but Guides often face physical punishment.

It’s not permitted by regulations, but in reality, it’s carried out with people’s tacit consent.

Unfortunately, the person being searched for by announcement was Lee Ha-min.

‘Didn’t he go to do Guiding? Why are they looking for him?’

Finding it strange, I first went to Lee Ha-min’s quarters.

Since it had been quite a while since we parted after eating, I thought the Guiding would be over by now, and maybe Lee Ha-min had fallen asleep exhausted after consecutive difficult Guidings and didn’t hear the call.

When I quickly went to Lee Ha-min’s quarters and was about to knock on the door, I stopped at the sound of groaning coming from inside.

‘…!’

I shouldn’t have come.

It seemed he was still doing Guiding.

Though I couldn’t understand why they were doing Guiding in the Guide’s room rather than in the Guiding room.

‘Or is it not? Is it just a private meeting?’

Suddenly, the content of the novel came to mind, and I felt my face flush with embarrassment.

My crazy Noona had forced me to listen to those parts too, insisting she needed to evaluate them in detail, which made me leave home for three days.

But I still had to listen when I returned home.

I was about to hurriedly turn away, but then I stopped, thinking that I should at least let Lee Ha-min know that they were looking for him by announcement.

‘What should I do?’

The person with Lee Ha-min right now would be Shim Woo-jin, and I didn’t think Shim Woo-jin would explain that Lee Ha-min hadn’t responded to the call because he was busy Guiding him.

Then only Lee Ha-min would be severely punished, and he might be beaten or confined to solitary.

‘Well… let’s at least tell him.’

Although external intervention during Guiding could cause wavelength confusion, I knew that Lee Ha-min could control it in such situations, so I decided to go ahead.

In the end, I went back and knocked on the door, then opened it just a little and spoke through the gap.

“Hey, Ha-min. They’re looking for you by announcement.”

The groaning grew louder during that time.

“Eunwoo?”

A cheerful voice was heard through the door crack.

All the while, the groaning continued to flow out.

‘The one groaning wasn’t Lee Ha-min?’

“Is that you, Eunwoo?”

As he kept calling me, I ended up answering reflexively.

“Yeah… yeah…”

“Eunwoo, I didn’t hear well. Could you come in and say it again? I can’t move right now.”

Wow, Ha-min. You’re being too bold?

“They’re looking for you. It’s being announced.”

“Eunwoo, I can’t hear you.”

Alright. If you’re going to say that much, I might as well go in.

Somehow feeling like he was teasing me, I pushed the door open and entered, and wow…

Below, a man was lying face down with his upper body bare, and Lee Ha-min, mounted on top of him, was covered in sweat while pressing firmly on his back.

Guiding…

Is this how he does it?

What is this…

Did Noona adjust the intensity drastically to make it all-ages when she received an offer to publish?

Does this make sense?

Even the first scene was clearly extremely explicit…

But now, though soaked in sweat, Lee Ha-min was clearly wearing a shirt and pants.

‘What is this? Do other Guides do Guiding like this too? No, from what Kyun In said, it wasn’t that kind of atmosphere. He asked if it wasn’t embarrassing to talk about receiving Guiding.’

The man beneath Lee Ha-min was facing the other way, so his face wasn’t visible, but his hair was certainly remarkable.

His long hair was tied in a ponytail, and I almost mistook him for a woman.

Even without seeing him, I could tell it was Shim Woo-jin, and what I heard as groaning was apparently crying, and Lee Ha-min continued to press down firmly with both hands overlapped, without stopping.

So this is this child’s Guiding…

“Eunwoo, what did you say?”

Lee Ha-min asked, his hair so drenched with sweat that a few strands were stuck to his face.

Even soaked in sweat, Lee Ha-min gave off a pure and wholesome vibe.

The feeling that he was engaged in purely sacred labor.

If the person there had been Kyun In, the atmosphere would have been completely different.

“Ah… they’re looking for you. It’s being announced.”

“Oh, really? What should I do? I can’t stop Guiding because the wavelength readings are too bad.”

“Then I’ll tell them you’re in the middle of Guiding.”

“Would you do that for me? Thank you so much, Eunwoo.”

“Sure… good luck.”

Even until then, Shim Woo-jin was making “urgh, urgh” sounds and groaning.

When I went to the broadcast room and told the staff there that Lee Ha-min was in the middle of Guiding, they said they hadn’t heard about that.

So what were they trying to say?

Were they going to make an issue of the fact that Lee Ha-min had performed Guiding without reporting it?

If so, they should take it up with Shim Woo-jin, but they were definitely not the type of people to do that.

It would have been Shim Woo-jin who requested the Guiding, but they would only blame Lee Ha-min for not reporting it and not responding to the call on time.

“Should I go tell Lee Ha-min? That the broadcast room said to stop Guiding Esper Shim Woo-jin immediately and come?”

They glared at me in response.

When put that way, they would realize how stupid that sounded.

“And the reporting should be done by the Esper, not demanded from the Guide. Isn’t it the Esper who calls for the Guide?”

They no longer responded to what I was saying, and they weren’t even looking at me.

I left the broadcast room, realizing there was no point in talking alone when no one was replying.

It seemed like I was continuing to draw a lot of attention to myself, following yesterday.

I really couldn’t understand why I was behaving like this.

***

It seemed quite a few people had experienced erratic wavelength readings after dealing with dungeons.

I heard frequent talk about accidents happening during Guiding.

Runaway Espers had harmed Guides.

Although I was adapting to this place, I was disgusted by how long such incidents would be tolerated.

Perhaps because of that incident, Lee Ha-min, who was eating across from me, was also silent.

“Was it a Guide you knew well?”

When I asked, Lee Ha-min shook his head.

“That’s what makes it more regrettable. There was a chance to get to know them, but now that chance is gone.”

“Thinking like that makes it hard to endure. More dangerous dungeons will appear in the future. The risk level will increase, and there will be more and more Espers going into runaway states. More Espers will die in dungeons. When that time comes, it will become even more difficult overall.”

What I said was based on the novel, so it was close to a prophecy, and Lee Ha-min looked at me.