Whether out of wounded pride or something else, Joo Seolhyeon didn’t stop me, and as soon as I returned to my room, I jumped onto the bed.
“Woo Jeongjae, nice!”
Having escaped from the prison that was Joo Seolhyeon, I savored my freedom, rolling around on the bed while laughing until I eventually tired myself out and lay spread-eagled, breathing heavily.
“You fool, it’s really over now.”
I closed my eyes, letting the tears flow down my cheeks, unsure if they were from laughing or from self-pity over my unrequited love that had ended so emptily.
“It feels so refreshing.”
One thing was certain: I wouldn’t have any more reason to cry.
And just the day after making such a fuss about putting the past behind me, I received my second mission from the Center Director. It was an overseas assignment with a difficulty level of ‘high’ that I normally wouldn’t have received until I was 23.
‘Don’t worry too much. Even though it’s a three-day trip, you’re going as my assistant, so there won’t be much for you to do. Still, you must have at least one Guide accompany you. The departure date is in two days, so arrange your schedule with the temporary Guides in advance.’
Neither the fact that I was going overseas in just two days nor that it was a mission with the Center Director was a big problem for me. Only the words ‘one Guide must accompany’ kept spinning in my head.
‘You can skip training until the mission. You need to manage your condition.’
That was probably meant to be considerate, but it wasn’t helpful to me at all right now.
I had planned to just close my eyes and quickly get the Guiding over with in one day. But this mission meant that regardless of whether I received Guiding or not, I would have to stay together for three days.
I briefly considered other Guides besides Joo Seolhyeon, but Yang Garam had to go to school, and Jeong Seyeon had to go to work. Do Wonjin was still going to the hospital for physical therapy. The only one left was Joo Seolhyeon, but I knew nothing about his private life. When he was a dedicated Guide, he couldn’t have another job, so I was confident he wasn’t working elsewhere, but now he was a temporary Guide. It wouldn’t be strange at all if he had other work.
‘But does it matter what he does?’
I might not know about his private life now, but I did know his behavioral patterns when I had overseas assignments.
‘Even as a dedicated Guide, he never accompanied me, so as a temporary Guide, he probably won’t either. He seems to have made up his mind to do Guiding, but I doubt he’d give up his time for several days to accompany me.’
He’s someone who boldly stated to my face that he disliked me. He’s completely different from the other Guides who try to make time for Guiding.
‘If Joo Seolhyeon refuses, I can tell the Center Director and just go alone this time too, right?’
That’s it, that’s it.
I nodded at the clear answer.
I believed without a doubt that the answer I had come to was correct, at least until then.
<Before Espers and Guides appeared, there was a place where the first dungeon appeared. It existed as an independent country in the distant past but disappeared from the map when the dungeon appeared. Fortunately, since it was an island nation, the dungeon’s influence didn’t extend to the mainland. Later, when Espers with supernatural abilities appeared simultaneously worldwide, this dungeon became the first target for subjugation. However, an unexpected variable occurred—the magical beasts that had been left on the island for a long time succeeded in adapting to Earth. The beasts abandoned the dungeon, nested on the island, and survived independently by integrating with island organisms or breeding on their own. The purpose of destroying dungeons was to cut off the influx of magical beasts, but that meaning was completely lost. The first dungeon was destroyed, but cleaning up the magical beasts that remained on Quardo Island became another task.
Excerpt from “What the First Dungeon Left Us”>
I closed the book I was reading and stretched out on the sofa. Unintentionally following the Center Director’s advice to skip training, I found myself alone at home with no one else around.
‘This book is really boring.’
The place I was going overseas with the Center Director was Quardo Island. Due to the influence of the first dungeon and magical beasts, all the flora and fauna there had mutated and established themselves as completely new species. Quardo, once called the island of misfortune, had now become a hotbed of research material coveted by the entire world.
‘All the dangerous magical beasts have already been dealt with, and there’s nothing more dangerous, so I don’t understand why they’re taking me as an assistant.’
The last time I saw the Center Director was during my first mission, so it had been over a week since I’d seen his face. But I wasn’t happy about it at all. It was especially so because I still hadn’t solved the homework he had given me about Guide accompaniment.
‘I need to talk about it today.’
I heard about the mission yesterday, but I kept missing the timing to inform the Guides about the overseas assignment. Since we were moving to the airport tomorrow morning, I had to tell everyone today, come what may. I was frustrated with myself for dragging this out when it wasn’t even a difficult task, but bringing up mission accompaniment with Joo Seolhyeon was more awkward than I had expected.
‘He started staring at me so blatantly after that day.’
He began to glare at me openly now, without even being mindful of the other Guides. For me, who remembered him not even giving me a glance, or at most sending an icy gaze if our eyes met, this was an extremely perplexing situation.
‘Seolhyeon hyung, you’re going to bore a hole in Jeongjae’s face.’
Yesterday, Do Wonjin, who couldn’t bear to watch, covered my face with his hand, and Joo Seolhyeon seemed to soften a bit afterward, but he returned to his original state within a day. No, he had changed a little. His persistent gaze had become even sharper, making me feel like I was being observed like a monkey in a zoo.
“Sigh, let’s not worry about it.”
I have my own problems to deal with.
As I relaxed and sprawled out on the sofa, the book I was holding fell to the floor with a thud. Without bothering to pick it up, I lay flat and stared blankly at the ceiling, then raised my hand. On my 27-year-old hand, red spots had bloomed like dark fungus, a side effect of using my abilities. It was more noticeable since it was a part directly used for abilities. Now my hands were white and clean, making those memories feel like a dream. Finding it fascinating, I would sometimes unconsciously examine them like this.
‘Should I try playing the piano for a while?’
After mindlessly tapping in the air as if playing a piano, I suddenly got up from the sofa.
When I first moved in, I felt nostalgia seeing the piano, but given the passage of time, my skills were ridiculously terrible when I tried to play again. So I had been playing a little bit when all the Guides were out. But even adding up all the time I’d been alone over the past week, it wasn’t even three hours, so it was fair to say I hadn’t practiced much at all.
‘I keep getting stuck on this part.’
After going upstairs and playing the piano while trying to recall the memory, I stopped my fingers. I always stopped at the same measure and couldn’t move on.
‘How did Dad play this?’
The piece I was practicing was my father’s own composition, so there was no sheet music. I had to rely entirely on memory, but unlike other parts, this section was confusingly unclear.
“If I could just hear it once, I’d know right away.”
It was my favorite piece when I was young, so I thought I could play it with my eyes closed, but it wasn’t working out the way I wanted.
Just once. With that regret, I couldn’t easily lower my hand resting on the white keys.
I played it several more times afterward, but I still kept losing the rhythm at the exact same part. Since it was almost time for everyone to return, I had to close the piano lid with regret.
“I’ve received a mission, so I’ll be dispatched overseas for three days starting tomorrow.”
After dinner ended and everyone gathered in the living room, I spoke about what I had been thinking about since the afternoon. Joo Seolhyeon, who had been staring at me intensely, frowned openly. Jeong Seyeon crossed his arms with an unreadable expression, and Yang Garam muttered to himself, “Not two days, but three days?”
“Where are you going?”
“Quardo Island.”
Surprisingly, Do Wonjin showed the most moderate reaction. I answered his question briefly, and the atmosphere immediately became heavy. It was a half-expected result. Although the International Esper Organization had declared that all dangerous magical beasts on Quardo Island had been dealt with, there were still unexplored lands deep on the island that even researchers hadn’t discovered, and rumors occasionally circulated about unknown entities that were neither magical beasts nor humans. Since I was an S-class, I couldn’t sense the danger, but for Guides who were close to ordinary people, it was clearly a place that would make them tense just by hearing its name.
“Joo Seolhyeon agreed to be in charge of Guiding during the mission, but there’s no obligation to accompany me, so it’s okay to refuse. And it’s hard to consider this a formal mission since all I’ll be doing is assisting the Center Director, so there won’t be any dangerous situations requiring the use of abilities.”
I carefully laid the groundwork in case Joo Seolhyeon couldn’t refuse due to pressure from the other Guides.
“…”
But Joo Seolhyeon didn’t say anything one way or the other.
“Hyung, going alone doesn’t seem right. That place is dangerous.”
Yang Garam thoughtlessly interjected. Afraid that Joo Seolhyeon might decide to go after hearing that, I hurried to dissuade him.
“That only applies to a very small region in the center of Quardo Island. The coastal areas are safe. If it were dangerous, they wouldn’t have built a research base there. More than 90% of the researchers are ordinary people.”
“What will you be doing there?”
My head turned toward Jeong Seyeon as his deep voice cut in. Jeong Seyeon was waiting for my answer with a quiet gaze. The Center Director had never told me the exact mission. But as far as I knew, there was only one mission that would dispatch me to Quardo Island.
Collecting research materials.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
