Chapter 10
“Hyung, hyung, can we transfer schools together later?”
“You have to manifest first.”
“Yoon Cheong hyung hasn’t manifested yet either.”
“Since I’m older, I’ll probably manifest around the same time as him.”
“That’s not how it works.”
Throughout lunch, Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon bickered while my soul was half gone.
I watched the researchers eagerly wanting to bring a contract for exclusive rights, while my parents smiled gently but firmly refused, saying it wouldn’t happen until the child grew up.
I wasn’t worried since my parents always considered my wishes first, but if my manifestation truly becomes C-class or higher, things will go in a different direction than I expected.
Originally, I manifested as a Guide in middle school, but unlike before my regression, if I become a high-ranking Guide, I’ll be sent to an Esper-Guide school instead of a regular one.
But wait, this is strange.
How can there be two different rank measurements?
In all my time working at the Association, I’ve met many Espers and Guides, but I’ve never seen or heard of such a case.
“This is getting too complicated…”
“Huh? Hyung, this pasta isn’t tangled.”
I shook my head at Ji Yeohoon who was staring at the pasta.
No, that’s not what I meant, you little kid.
I pushed his plate a bit closer to him, encouraging him to eat more.
Espers are rare.
If we consider our country’s population to be 50 million, even at just 0.1%, that’s about 50,000 people, which seems like a lot.
However, only D-class and above Espers can actually enter gates and fight monsters, so the meaningful number is much smaller.
E to F-class Espers, who make up more than half of all Espers, can enter gates but can’t fight, so they typically care for the injured or move byproducts in areas inaccessible to ordinary people. Plus, the number of Espers drastically decreases with each rank increase.
S-class? You could count them on your fingers.
“What’s wrong? Should I give some to Yoon Cheong hyung too?”
“No. You eat it.”
These little Esper kids are among the rare few who manifest or rise to S-class among the already scarce Esper population, so you can imagine how exceptional they are.
Gates appear all over our country, and since Espers can’t always be stationed where gates form, a nation’s power is measured by how quickly they process gates. In this world, the image of these Espers represents national prestige.
Moreover, Espers can’t tackle gates alone—they need to form teams, which puts an unimaginable burden on each individual Esper.
If gates aren’t cleared, they burst, and when they burst, casualties inevitably follow.
The problem is that Espers’ ability containers are more unpredictable than expected.
To use a gaming example, a game character’s health is represented by HP, and skills consume MP. However, Espers strangely use HP—their life force—when using abilities.
This means that as they use their abilities and deplete their HP, not only can they no longer use their powers, but their physical bodies are affected too.
Guides help recover Espers’ HP, usually through physical contact. In a way, Guides are like healing potions or recovery items.
Guides receive special protection partly because they’re physically not much different from ordinary people, but also because their numbers are overwhelmingly small.
This is why Guides often don’t enter gates, and most low-ranking Guides work at the Association caring for multiple Espers.
Fortunately, even F-class Guides can perform guiding as long as their matching rate isn’t critically low.
Conversely, even high-ranking Guides struggle with guiding if they have low matching rates with Espers.
For example, a certain A-class Guide entered a famous guild with good conditions immediately after manifesting, but had low matching rates with all Espers and eventually had their contract terminated.
“What do you want to do, Soo-young? If you become a high-ranking Guide.”
I was only thinking about working at the Association, honestly.
I had no intention of living exactly as I did before my regression.
I already have an adult’s memories, so I can’t have the same personality, and I had no plans to leave Yoon Cheong or Ji Yeohoon, whom I’ve grown quite attached to.
In my youth, I simply understood that Guides recover Espers’ HP, but the reality for Espers without guiding was far worse than just depleted energy.
It begins with pain like headaches, then progresses to fever, chills, and bloodshot eyes.
Their bodies tense excessively, veins bulge, capillaries burst, nosebleeds occur, and in severe cases, they shed bloody tears.
When guiding deficiency makes it difficult to control their abilities and overloads begin, the best outcome is losing consciousness, but typically they lose control and go berserk.
The worst outcome after going berserk is death, which is why Guides do their utmost to prevent Espers from going berserk.
“First, I want to keep Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon from going berserk. I don’t like seeing them struggle after using too much of their abilities.”
When an Esper goes berserk, other Espers and Guides are deployed to stop them.
Since berserking involves power beyond their normal capabilities, Espers struggle to contain it, and Guides attempting to guide berserk Espers face tremendous difficulty.
When control becomes impossible and damage from berserking becomes severe, the Association steps in to attack and eliminate the Esper.
That’s why even Guides with low matching rates try to provide even minimal guiding to struggling Espers to prevent them from going berserk.
Strangely enough, when I see struggling Espers, some Guide instinct makes me feel I need to help them.
So even with extremely few Guides, the system somehow manages to maintain balance.
“Please take good care of our Yeohoon.”
“Our Cheong too.”
Both parents were looking at me with gratitude in their eyes, making me awkwardly poke at my pasta with my fork before turning away.
I just don’t like hassle, and I’ve grown somewhat attached to these kids after spending time together, so I dislike seeing them in pain.
I might have reached a point of no return now.
2.
“I’m going to win today.”
“Nonsense.”
Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon were glaring at each other with their smartphones in hand.
It’s been three years since I started hanging out with these guys.
I don’t know how time passed so quickly.
A game matching three animal characters for points was released, and it became wildly popular when it connected to smartphone messaging apps.
Yoon Cheong bought a smartphone, and Ji Yeohoon, who also got one around the same time, promptly downloaded the game after seeing others play it. Since then, they’ve been obsessively exchanging hearts and trying to beat each other’s scores.
Their scores had been neck and neck, but Yoon Cheong won last week and was still winning in the new week.
“Seriously! But how did Soo-young hyung get over 150,000 points?!”
“He’s really…”
Of course, having played this game before, I knew how the scoring system worked and had a much higher score than the two kids.
When someone scores over 100,000, they usually rank first among friends, so when I exceeded 150,000, Yoon Cheong and Ji Yeohoon, who initially challenged me, became more fixated on competing with each other’s similar scores.
While rolling around in Ji Yeohoon’s air-conditioned room during summer vacation, doing homework, playing games, and traveling together, something strange suddenly happened.
“…Huh?”
Yoon Cheong stood dumbfounded, holding his now-black smartphone screen.
Ji Yeohoon was tapping Yoon Cheong asking, “Hyung, is your phone broken?” But noticing something wasn’t right, he immediately ran to me as I was lying on his bed enjoying the air conditioning.
“Hyung, something’s wrong with Yoon Cheong hyung.”
Yoon Cheong seemed to be sensing something around him, unable to move or react.
He’s manifesting.
Recognizing Yoon Cheong’s condition, I quickly instructed Ji Yeohoon.
“Call your mom and dad right now. If not both, at least get your dad to come immediately. Hurry.”
“O-okay!”
I was relieved that Yoon Cheong wasn’t alone when he manifested.
As someone who hadn’t manifested as a Guide yet, all I could do was watch over Yoon Cheong, but if he had been alone, he wouldn’t have known what to do.
Yoon Cheong’s face was full of confusion and fear, but when he realized we were beside him, he relaxed his grip on the phone.
The black-screened phone fell from his hand.
I expected to hear it hit the floor, but it stopped mid-air near Yoon Cheong’s knee before slowly sinking to the ground.
Telekinesis.
“It’s okay.”
Yoon Cheong, who had been biting his lip tightly, nodded when he heard my voice.
He was sweating, seemingly unfamiliar with and unable to control whatever was happening to him.
Before my regression, Yoon Cheong was an Esper who never mingled with ordinary people.
When his ability awakened, he couldn’t control the explosive power that surged through him, damaging his surroundings and injuring people who tried to approach him. This trauma led him to start wandering alone.
Of course, Yoon Cheong didn’t tell me this directly. I heard it during a Guide class after high school graduation, referred to as “a certain high-ranking Esper Y,” but most Guides knew it was Yoon Cheong.
If that pre-regression story was true, what Yoon Cheong needed now was a Guide who could soothe his power.
“Yeohoon! Soo-young! Is Cheong okay? Are you in the room?”
The person who rushed in after flinging open the front door was Guide Oh Chan-seok, Ji Yeohoon’s father.
“Uncle! In Ji Yeohoon’s room!”
The door opened, and Uncle immediately grabbed Yoon Cheong’s hand. Yoon Cheong, whose power had been flowing out against his will, blinked with wide eyes at the contact guiding.
Still unstable, Yoon Cheong clung tightly to Uncle’s hand, seemingly afraid his power might leak out again.
Only after Uncle stroked his back several times did Yoon Cheong fully relax. Leaving the broken phone behind, Yoon Cheong leaned against Uncle as we followed them to the guild.
If we hadn’t been affiliated even temporarily, we would have gone to the Association, but having received examinations at the guild for about two and a half years from ages 8 to 10, this was the natural route.
While they were conducting measurements, Yoon Cheong’s mother, who had rushed over after receiving Uncle’s call, immediately embraced her anxious-looking son and listened to the researcher.
“Hmm… B-class, but, uh, I should say B-plus-alpha.”
“Plus-alpha?”
“Yes. The minimum readings here and here show B-class values, so it’s definitely B-class, but the peak values are irregular. As his body grows and his ability stabilizes, his rank will likely increase. For now, we’ll report his manifestation to the Association as B-class with unstable readings, and he’ll need regular check-ups for a while. Until he stabilizes, we’ll need to request a dedicated Guide at school as well.”
Having manifested, Yoon Cheong had to pack his things and go straight to the dormitory of Esper-Guide Seoul Branch School No. 3.
“Do I have to… go right away?”
“Do you need to pack anything?”
“No…”
As if reluctant to leave, and as if this was all unwanted, Yoon Cheong bit his lip tightly and stared intensely at my face from inside the car window. His expression lingered in my memory for a long time, making me feel strange.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
