#116
The guard shift time was vacant for about 30 minutes around 11 PM, and CCTV footage captured someone leaving the city during that time. A suicide note was found at home.
Everything seemed like a choice he had made himself. Everyone thought so, believing it was a decision made out of despair, but Ho-woo stared intently at the man wiping the porridge stains off his clothes with water droplets.
A strange premonition rippled down his spine. It resembled the anxiety felt just before something bad happens.
Words take shape the moment they leave your mouth. Ho-woo’s anxiety was the same. Even though it was clear that the moment he voiced this question, it would become real and weigh him down, Ho-woo asked the man who was proudly finishing cleaning the porridge off his clothes.
“By any chance, the person you said you met yesterday…”
Before Ho-woo could finish, Oh-yul intercepted.
“Ho-woo.”
The voice of the seasoned hunter was gentle.
“If you ask, I won’t lie to you. That’s one of the rules I’ve set for myself. Although I might not always tell you everything, I’ve never lied to you so far.”
Click-
The TV that had been chattering away by itself turned off. The black screen clearly reflected Ho-woo sitting in a chair and the monster kneeling in front of him.
“So if you want to ask anything, feel free to do so.”
He would truly answer anything Ho-woo asked. However, after hearing the answer, the choice would be entirely Ho-woo’s. There were many things he wanted to ask, but this was also the reason he couldn’t voice them.
Curiosity is always the beginning of everything. Pandora opened the box out of curiosity and released plague, disaster, jealousy, and hatred into the world.
Then what would his curiosity unleash?
Even though he wasn’t a mental esper, somehow a deep purple color was reflected in Oh-yul’s eyes as Ho-woo faced him. The seductive color of a ruler that stirs people’s hearts. He thought that perhaps this was why mental espers’ eyes were purple.
They arrogantly try to control people’s minds.
Ho-woo cupped Oh-yul’s cheeks with both hands. Oh-yul’s long eyelashes fluttered and lowered. Like a devotee before a revered god, he seemed both relieved and satiated by Ho-woo’s touch.
“I…”
Ho-woo’s lips, which had started to speak, firmly closed. Oh-yul had told him to ask anything, but Ho-woo couldn’t ask anything.
***
Han Seong-won watched Oh-yul carefully. The caring lover who had escorted Ho-woo to the lab was an overbearing boss to Han Seong-won.
And a top boss that would never change throughout his lifetime.
So he did his best to read the situation. The fact that he was older didn’t matter. For espers, age was secondary, and only power was used to establish the hierarchy. In that sense, Oh-yul was the perfect alpha of the pack, one who would never weaken with age.
“Kim Dong-cheol is dead. We found his body half-eaten by monsters about 900 meters from the east gate.”
He was concerned as he made this report. Oh-yul had said it was fine to leave Kim Dong-cheol alone. If he had planned to keep him alive and use him, this news would be unwelcome and might upset him, so Han Seong-won was prepared to be scolded. But Oh-yul only made a small “Hmm” sound at Han Seong-won’s report, showing no anger or displeasure. Rather, the water droplets floating around him indicated that the alpha was in a good mood.
“I’m sorry. You said to keep him alive. Due to our poor management…”
Allowing suicide? Han Seong-won mumbled the end of his sentence. Oh-yul was looking at the documents in his hand.
“What should we do about Kim Seon-young?”
He recalled the girl who, unlike other guides or espers, was essentially imprisoned in the training center. Parents are mirrors for their children, and she would have only had Kim Dong-cheol to look up to. Her mother had died long ago.
Humanly speaking, one might feel sympathy, but they were espers. Human emotions were a luxury for them. There were rare emotional espers, but the boss in front of him wasn’t one of them. Oh-yul was too cold to be seen as human.
‘I’m not sure if “cold” is the right word to describe this.’
Han Seong-won swallowed dryly. Even if the order came to quietly kill Kim Seon-young, there was nothing he could do. Sending her off with as little pain as possible would be the best he could do.
“Ah yes, there was that child.”
Oh-yul acted as if he had just remembered something he had forgotten, but Han Seong-won wasn’t fooled. He probably already had a direction in mind, but acting ambiguous was Oh-yul’s habit. Offering his opinion here wouldn’t improve anything, and would only worsen the evaluation of himself. So he kept quiet.
“What’s Han Seong-won esper’s opinion?”
‘Don’t ask me. Please don’t ask!’
Han Seong-won cursed inwardly. Asking when the answer was already decided was also in bad taste. He swallowed. When Han Seong-won didn’t answer, Oh-yul continued speaking indifferently while signing papers, as if he had expected this.
“I don’t lie, right?”
“Th…at’s… right…”
Surprisingly, Oh-yul doesn’t lie. There were no lies in his smooth, oily words. He just didn’t say everything. Debating which is worse between lying and not speaking would only result in a sore mouth. Han Seong-won was of the opinion that both were equally vicious.
“I said I’d give her a chance, so I should. It’s a chance earned with a life, so she should use it well.”
“……”
Han Seong-won, who had spent a long time with Oh-yul, understood the meaning of these significant words perfectly.
‘He’s saying Kim Dong-cheol’s suicide was his work, and he’s giving Kim Seon-young a chance earned with her father’s life.’
He nodded. From now on, she would be treated the same as other guides. The same support and treatment. Guides who had found freedom were no longer confined to just the training center. They still lived in dormitories, but during their free time, they could leave the training center to meet family or spend time with friends. They would naturally blend in as members of the city, like other children their age.
It was essentially giving Kim Seon-young the same opportunity.
The chance earned with her father’s life was as precious as gold, but how she would accept it was up to her.
“Understood.”
Han Seong-won replied calmly. Once a decision was made, the execution should be swift. He left the office without delay to handle the matter. Oh-yul watched Han Seong-won’s retreating figure for a moment before turning on his laptop to examine the real-time records coming in.
His hand lightly tapped the laptop.
The hypothesis that Ho-woo was turning into an esper was confirmed by the incident with Bae Gi-hong, but Oh-yul had been suspicious for a while. Even Ho-woo himself had overlooked it without a second thought, but Oh-yul, who was always observing him, had noticed sensitively.
Ho-woo was an unremarkable person. His personality was pure and upright, without any particular edges. His physical strength and athletic ability were the same. Just one of many ordinary people. Ho-woo was an ordinary person with nothing special about him, except perhaps his pretty face.
The first suspicion about Ho-woo’s abnormal symptoms began during his rampage.
‘Ho-woo opened and entered the tightly closed door of the management corporation.’
When the sentence is laid out like this, there’s nothing strange about it, but there were other words missing in between.
‘Ho-woo smashed the mechanical device controlling the door of the management corporation, opened it, and entered.’
The door to a restricted area wouldn’t be flimsy, would it? To break it down purely with strength and enter… It was impossible even for low-ranking espers.
However, Ho-woo showed no abnormalities after that. Just an ordinary man, albeit with extremely sensitive hearing since childhood. That was all there was to Ho-woo.
Oh-yul kept a close eye on Ho-woo. There shouldn’t be any other side of Ho-woo that he didn’t know about. He needed to know and control everything, and possess him.
After all, his entire life had existed solely for this purpose.
He had no intention of killing Ho-woo, the only one of his kind, for the sake of this observation. As long as he didn’t die, whether his mind or body was broken, it could be fixed, so he cast the fishing line with Ho-woo as bait without hesitation. Attaching Moon Jin-hyuk was merely a minimal safety measure.
No matter who took the bait, he believed he would get satisfactory results, and it turned out that way.
Is this really a good thing?
He still wasn’t sure. No one knows how the changing body will affect Ho-woo. Although it was described as becoming an esper, even that wasn’t normal.
He still can’t sense energy, and can’t consciously use energy. He was just changing.
Today a little more than yesterday. Slightly, but gradually becoming more special.
“That doesn’t mean he can escape, though.”
Clap-
Oh-yul closed the laptop. Just because he’s changing doesn’t mean guiding can stop. If the prey becomes special, you just need to prepare a stronger snare. Isn’t that what this position is for?
From today, Ho-woo could freely move around not only the lab but also within the corporation. A bit of conversation and goodwill from passing people. Even just that much would make Ho-woo hesitate in the future.
He won’t be able to be ruthless, and that will become Oh-yul’s sharp weapon to cut Ho-woo’s ankles. At that moment, the monster was ready to smile gleefully.
