# Chapter 47
He paused as he looked at the door, then slowly rose to his feet. He had a strange feeling, as if something was gnawing at the back of his mind. Could it be Lee Seungwoo? It had been quite a while since he’d left him outside and gone into the room… Was he still standing there?
No way.
“He can’t be that foolish.”
Muttering to himself—something he rarely did—he opened the door with a dubious expression.
Immediately, he heard people talking.
“I have business with the young master.”
“I’m asking what that business is. Can’t you understand that?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because I’m Professor’s Esper.”
There stood Lee Seungwoo, pressuring Secretary Shim with a slightly amused expression, while Secretary Shim responded with a blank face.
Judging by Secretary Shim’s proximity to the door, it seemed he had rung the doorbell, and Lee Seungwoo, who had been watching nearby, was interrogating him about his intentions.
Ko Eungyo felt all traces of their previous conflict evaporate.
This crazy guy was stalking again…
“Lee Seungwoo. What exactly are you doing?”
“…Professor.”
Lee Seungwoo dropped his eyebrows as if wronged, but Ko Eungyo was too exasperated to pretend to be fooled.
“I’m sorry, Secretary Shim. Please come in.”
Ko Eungyo turned to address Secretary Shim. At that, Lee Seungwoo took a step closer.
“Professor, it’s very dangerous to be in an enclosed space with a stranger who might do anything…”
“Secretary Shim is someone I know. He’s also someone who’s taking time out of his busy schedule to help me. Lee Seungwoo, no, Esper Lee Seungwoo, what are you doing here? Are you monitoring who I meet?”
“…”
“I believe I just said this kind of behavior is unpleasant. I’ve noticed it before, but do my words not sound like words to you?”
“…No, they do.”
He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that Lee Seungwoo denied it, or annoyed that he was just saying so to get out of the current situation.
He felt he needed to properly address this situation.
Normally, a person would have understood rejection and exercised restraint, but Lee Seungwoo had repeatedly pretended not to notice while watching for Ko Eungyo’s reactions.
He knew that Lee Seungwoo hadn’t spent much time with Guides, and that by unfortunate coincidence, the first Guide he could be Guided by happened to be a pair Guide—someone you might only meet once in a lifetime. He knew what kind of person Lee Seungwoo was, and it was in this context that he had decided to become his Guide out of pity.
But while he might be able to tolerate it to some extent if it only affected him, causing inconvenience to others was unacceptable under any circumstances.
“Then leave.”
He glared at Lee Seungwoo with his arms crossed, and after hesitating, Lee Seungwoo slightly bowed his head.
“…I’ll go.”
Secretary Shim silently followed Ko Eungyo into the suite. Before that, he somehow felt a gaze on him, but since Lee Seungwoo had left, there was no one in the corridor, so he dismissed it as his imagination.
“…Is that Esper Lee Seungwoo?”
“Ah, yes.”
“He seems to care for you very much, young master.”
“…Do you think so?”
It was a scene difficult to deny. Ko Eungyo briefly replied while rubbing the back of his neck. Secretary Shim then said with a faint smile:
“I’ve heard that all Espers are peculiar toward their Guides. Even though they’re business partners, they’re actually desperate to take care of them more.”
“Hmm…”
That might be true, but… in the current situation, it was more annoying that he wouldn’t listen. It was infuriating that he had secretly booked a plane ticket to follow him. It was obvious that he had been secretly monitoring around Ko Eungyo’s suite and confronted a stranger who tried to ring the doorbell.
But thinking that saying such things would sound like mere complaints, Ko Eungyo just smiled awkwardly.
“Do you like the room?”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
“I’m glad. I should have arranged a better room…”
“No, a larger room would have been too much.”
It was Ko Eungyo who had initially asked Secretary Shim to book a standard suite. He received a bag from Secretary Shim that would be needed when entering the gate. Though it was called a bag, it was closer to a hiking backpack in weight and size, as it contained a sleeping bag. Secretary Shim handed over the bag with a worried expression and asked Ko Eungyo once more.
“Will you be able to carry it?”
“This much is no problem.”
But it was a problem.
Ko Eungyo’s face froze as he tried to pick up the backpack lightly and put it on. His arms trembled embarrassingly because it was much heavier than expected.
“…Are you sure you’ll be alright?”
“…”
He hadn’t realized that Ko Eungyo’s strength would be so much worse than Jang Iju’s.
“Maybe we should call the gate team now?”
“…I’m fine.”
He gritted his teeth and forcibly put on the backpack, but Secretary Shim’s worried expression didn’t change.
‘Come to think of it, when I was Jang Iju, I never carried a backpack myself.’
Since he hadn’t gone to clear gates alone, there were naturally operation teams, medical teams, and support teams. Of course, things like backpacks were handled by the support team. When they expected to stay in a gate for an extended period, they would even build temporary houses using container boxes rather than just setting up tents.
Of course, that wasn’t often the case. Generally, one had to enter gates carrying this backpack. However, in Jang Iju’s case, he had many Espers in his ‘my’ list. The reason he could enter all kinds of gates and achieve results without worrying about his reputation was because of the large number of Espers in his ‘my’ list.
Jang Iju had personally managed the Espers’ gate schedules and cleared gates with them. Of course, there were gates he could enter as a Center Guide. Even on the rare occasions when he entered gates with no Espers from his ‘my’ list, he still didn’t have to carry a backpack.
Jang Iju was a Guide who knew how to play the “rhythm game,” so there were many Espers trying to win his favor. Rather, they were eager to become Jang Iju’s new Espers during those opportunities. Back then, more Espers loitered around Jang Iju.
So he had never carried his own backpack with his own hands…
“Well then.”
Secretary Shim was a very neat person. Without asking one more time in a clingy manner, he handed over the items that would be helpful for the gate and immediately left the suite.
‘I suppose they take the absence of gate signals to mean there’s no gate.’
It wasn’t that Ko Eungyo wasn’t on Secretary Shim’s mind, but rather that he likely judged Ko Eungyo wouldn’t need to use the backpack he’d provided. That’s why the ability user team that Ko Eunso had assembled had also withdrawn from Jeju Island. Even if a Jeju Island gate really did appear, Ko Eungyo wouldn’t enter alone, so this wasn’t a problem either.
Ko Eungyo thought so too.
He believed the probability of the Jeju Island gate opening was slim, but he had come to Jeju Island clutching at straws. If there were signs that a gate might open, he planned to contact Secretary Shim to recall the ability user team.
He would wait for the ability user team to arrive and then enter the gate with them. From what he’d heard, the ability user team had a separate support team, so he wouldn’t need to bring the backpack.
So this was just a precautionary item. It would be strange to enter a gate without a backpack, so it was more of a habit to have one ready.
Ko Eungyo, lost in thought, placed the heavy backpack in a corner of the hotel room.
The next morning.
After waking up and washing quickly, Ko Eungyo took out his tablet and carefully rechecked the locations where gate signals had been detected. It seemed he needed to determine which areas to check first. His eyes quickly scanned the geography of Jeju Island. It seemed far more economical to create a route starting from places close to the hotel rather than from places with a high possibility of gate occurrence.
As he moved to have breakfast, he suddenly thought of Lee Seungwoo. He wondered why the guy who always lurked nearby like a stalker wasn’t around for once.
‘No…’
He might be secretly watching from somewhere out of sight. But looking around, there was no sign of Lee Seungwoo, not even a shadow.
“Hmm…”
Even Lee Seungwoo, with his tremendous pride, would have been upset by the public rebuke in front of Secretary Shim. Perhaps he had gone back to Seoul.
Thinking about it left a bad taste in his mouth. He wondered if it was right to send him back to Seoul with both of them red-faced like this.
‘He’s not a child; he’ll make his own judgment.’
Lee Seungwoo must be starting to realize that his behavior was abnormal. He must be bewildered, wondering why he was acting this way. Of course, Ko Eungyo had a pretty good idea why Lee Seungwoo was behaving like this.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
