I Possessed a Promiscuous Guide 61

Poong— Poom— Poom—

A series of oddly cute popping sounds echoed through the air, jarringly out of place in such a dire situation. The source? A cluster of slimes.

He remembered seeing one like them when he was little—a character from a game all the kids his age had been obsessed with.

The green-tinted blobs came in all shapes and sizes.

From his vantage point, it was difficult to judge their exact scale, but compared to the surrounding trees, some were massive—larger than the trunks—while most resembled the size of several fruits clumped together and hanging from a branch.

“Wh-what the…?”

Unfortunately, Lee Haru was currently plummeting straight toward the largest of them all—so big that the ground beneath was completely obscured by the sea of slimes.

As he hurtled closer, the creature’s sheer size became undeniable. It was easily the height of a three-story building. Around it, smaller slimes bounced and played atop its gelatinous body like it was some kind of amusement park ride.

“Aaaah! W-wait a sec—!”

His scream drew the slime’s attention. Its pitch-black, round eyes turned upward and sparkled—and in the next instant, Lee Haru crashed directly into its body.

A jelly-like sensation wrapped around him, sticky and clinging. Fortunately, the slime absorbed the impact, sparing him from serious injury.

The creature’s body was semi-transparent. He had sunk deep enough into the mass to see the faint outline of the ground below. He flailed his limbs helplessly.

Just in case, he kept his lips tightly sealed. A faint sting prickled across his skin, and it definitely did not feel good.

C-can’t… breathe…

To make matters worse, he could barely draw air. Strength drained from his limbs little by little. No matter how much he thrashed, he could not escape; he was trapped in place.

The smaller slimes playing nearby clung to the larger one’s surface, crowding around him like spectators, inspecting him with eerie fascination.

They were the same color, but their dark, circular shapes clustered together so densely it looked like something straight out of a nightmare—enough to trigger trypophobia in anyone.

Is this seriously how I die…?

Would anyone even find his body?

A Guide suffocating to death inside a slime—surely that would be a first in all of human history.

As the end approached, the image that surfaced in his mind was a handsome face framed in silver hair.

Esper Yu Je-hyun… please, save me…

He had not even gotten the chance to ask why he had kissed him. Maybe it really was just to boost Guiding efficiency—but it had felt different.

It had not seemed like something done out of necessity. It felt more like it had come from genuine interest.

He had never dated before, so he could not be sure. But it really did feel like Yu Je-hyun was interested in him—not the real Lee Haru, but the soul currently occupying his body.

Strength faded from his fingertips. His eyelids grew heavier, each blink slower than the last.

The fall had only added to his growing sense of suffocation. Though the slime had cushioned the blow, a searing warmth spread from the back of his head.

The colors around him seemed to blur and bleed red. Just as his eyelids began to flutter closed for good, a voice echoed in his mind.

[I will save you.]

What…?

[So in return, avenge me.]

Light burst from the ring on his finger. The voice sounded both foreign and oddly familiar.

As the light radiating from the ring enveloped him entirely, the memory snapped into place.

…Lee Haru.

It was Lee Haru’s voice—the voice that now, in part, belonged to him as well.

***

“This is not what we agreed on.”

“An unexpected variable came up. That is all.”

“And that makes this okay to you?!”

Hong Seong-jun slammed the table in fury, unable to contain his rage. The solid wooden surface shattered under the impact.

Zero frowned, waving the dust away with a casual flick of his hand.

“Can you not see the state I was in? If he had not run into the dungeon, he would have died on the spot. I was completely gone—no control, no reason left. If he had been even a second slower, I would have snapped his neck with my bare hands.”

He never should have made a deal with this man.

Lee Haru had vanished into the dungeon, and yet the bastard remained infuriatingly calm.

A grin spread across the man’s face, unnervingly smooth and practiced, veins bulging along his temples. That was the moment his gaze shifted—cold, dangerous.

“I held up my end. I kidnapped Lee Haru, just like you asked. The fact that you missed the timing? That is on you.”

Zero’s outstretched finger pointed directly at Hong Seong-jun’s face. Hong bit his lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

“So now it is your turn. Bring Ji Yeon-woo here—by midnight tomorrow.”

“…And if I cannot?”

Their deal had been simple: if the man abducted Lee Haru first and delivered him, then Hong Seong-jun would extract Ji Yeon-woo and hand him over in return.

The reason he had taken Lee Haru first was straightforward. His compatibility with Ji Yeon-woo had deteriorated to the point of being unusable.

He was teetering on the edge of a rampage. His body was falling apart, and he needed Guiding—immediately. That was why he had targeted Lee Haru first.

But now, the chances of Lee Haru being dead were dangerously high.

Maybe if the dungeon was still open. But the gate had already closed—the one that swallowed Lee Haru whole.

Even after driving Lee Haru to his death, Zero remained brazen to the point of arrogance.

A vein pulsed sharply at Hong Seong-jun’s temple. That bastard needed to die. Only then might this harrowing sense of loss dull, even if just a little.

His emotions ignited a storm of magic inside his body. Instead of suppressing it, Hong Seong-jun condensed the volatile energy into his fist.

KWAANG—!

His fist ballooned to twice its normal size and came crashing toward Zero’s face. A thunderous boom exploded through the air like a detonated charge.

“Ghhk…”

Instead of the satisfying crunch of impact, pain radiated up Hong’s arm. His massive fist had stopped mere centimeters from Zero’s face.

Zero had caught it.

Holding Hong’s fist in one hand, his eyes gleamed ominously. Despite the stark difference in size, his expression was disturbingly composed.

His eyes curved, brimming with unconcealed amusement.

“Throwing a punch at me right now is basically begging a live bomb to go off. You sure you can handle what comes next?”

When magic tangled uncontrollably within him, Zero could no longer restrain his murderous urges. All the patience he had trained and refined over the years would crumble into dust.

Each time he lost control, he needed someone to take the fall. More often than not, it was Espers from Black.

But none of them had ever managed to withstand even a single hit.

If he let his bloodlust run its course until it burned out naturally, his entire squad would be wiped out. That was why he had resorted to inhaling Guiding magic like a drug, using it as a tranquilizer.

After all, the tangled magic stemmed from severe Guiding deficiency in the first place. The catch was, even Guiding magic could only suppress the madness for so long.

In that sense, an S-rank Esper was the perfect toy—someone strong enough to actually handle his strength.

Zero’s eyes instantly turned pitch black. So black they swallowed even the whites of his eyes, leaving behind nothing but pure void.

“Been feeling a mess inside all day anyway…”

It was the side effect of his power.

The price of wielding such strength was grotesque. Every time he used his ability, toxic remnants of magic accumulated inside him like poison, slowly ruining his body from within.

At first, only his veins had started to thicken slightly. But now, they looked like they would burst through his skin, and his body had begun to mutate.

The corruption had even reached his brain. Once the urge to kill surfaced, it would not go away until blood had been spilled—like he had been born solely for murder.

Just earlier, before going to check on the container holding Lee Haru, he had stopped by a nearby island and razed it to the ground.

If he had not, he might have driven his hand straight through Haru’s chest the moment he saw him.

“Looks like you’ll have to keep me company.”

The bloodlust that had momentarily died down flared up again with frightening ease at the slightest provocation—growing until he could feel the end bearing down on him.

Ji Yeon-woo—the last piece keeping him in check—had been taken. Those bastards had snatched him away. The Association President and his cronies—each one deserved to be torn limb from limb.

He could not die until he had slaughtered them all.

Whether by receiving Guiding or by spilling blood, he had to douse this inferno of rage before it completely consumed him.

“Aaargh…!”

Roaring, Hong Seong-jun twisted and smashed his left fist into Zero’s face.

THWACK—!

This time, the punch landed clean. Zero’s head snapped violently to the side.

But the grip on Hong Seong-jun’s right hand remained unrelenting. As he tried to pull free, Zero crushed his hand first.

“Khghh…”

Hong Seong-jun stumbled back, retreating quickly. Zero stuck out his tongue and licked a bead of blood from the corner of his lips.

When those pitch-black eyes turned back to him, Hong Seong-jun finally grasped the terror Lee Haru must have felt.

Even he—an S-rank Esper—felt goosebumps crawling across his skin from the sheer weight of that murderous aura.

Now it made sense why Haru had thrown himself into the dungeon to escape him.

His fists, though untransformed, were already swollen from damage. Though his twisted bones and torn muscles were starting to mend, Zero moved faster.

Too fast to dodge.

Hong Seong-jun crossed his arms to block.

CRACK—!

Bones shattered. The impact sent his body flying until it slammed into the wall with a heavy crash.

Author: Levia