“You dare! How could you do this! Do you really think you’ll get away with it?”
It had been four days since Cha Seong-ju had gone missing. Now, he was trapped inside a remote warehouse.
Cha Jae-woo, who hadn’t seen him at all since putting his plan into action, finally stepped into the warehouse and almost burst into laughter at the sound of Seong-ju’s furious yelling. It was so typical of Cha Seong-ju to still look perfectly fine, despite being locked up for so long. One could hardly believe he was a man in his late seventies.
Without any notable change in his expression, Cha Jae-woo stood in front of Cha Seong-ju. His face said plainly that he had no interest whatsoever in anything Seong-ju might spout. Just a few days ago, Cha Seong-ju had faced him with a false smile tugging at his lips—now, that mask was nowhere to be found. It seemed he had finally realized that things were not going his way.
“I hadn’t planned to clean things up this quickly,” Cha Jae-woo said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. It was clear from his tone that this had always been inevitable, and at that, Cha Seong-ju’s face twisted with rage.
“I took you in and raised you! It’s one thing to be ungrateful, but this—!”
“What are you talking about? Strange. I don’t recall anyone taking me in or showing me any kind of kindness.”
“Cha Jae-woo!”
“No conscience at all, huh? Let’s call it what it is. You kept me around because I was useful. You needed me, didn’t you? The image of an S-Rank Esper obediently serving under you.”
Cha Seong-ju’s face grew increasingly vicious, but Cha Jae-woo remained completely unmoved. Whether the man before him looked pitiful or not, whether he lived or died, Jae-woo showed no interest—he wore the face of someone who already knew exactly how this would end.
Before Cha Seong-ju could even open his mouth to say something, the door to the warehouse burst open, and four people stormed in. At that moment, a visible light returned to Cha Seong-ju’s face.
They were faces familiar to both Cha Seong-ju and Cha Jae-woo. These were Espers Cha Seong-ju had personally hired, aiming to one day fully seize the Ability Association for himself—Espers brought in with the goal of bypassing the government and using ability users purely for profit.
Any sense of vengeance toward his son vanished from Cha Seong-ju’s mind almost instantly. To begin with, he had never harbored much affection for those who defied him. Since Jae-woo had already betrayed him, Cha Seong-ju had quickly come to terms with his downfall.
Of course, for a brief moment, he had felt the sting of betrayal by his own blood. But Cha Seong-ju, a businessman to his core, soon shifted his gaze toward the broader opportunity: Espers. He set his sights on transforming the entire process of clearing gates into a money-making operation.
Currently, the Ability Association was tied to the government. When a gate appeared, Espers were obligated to be dispatched for subjugation, essentially rendering them no different from public servants.
However, if Cha Seong-ju’s plans succeeded, it would become a system where citizens and even the government would have to pay out of pocket to hire Espers. In such a world, whoever controlled the Espers would reap unimaginable profits.
Cha Seong-ju had invested years of careful preparation to bring about that result. He had secretly recruited Espers, pouring massive sums of money into turning them to his side.
He even leveraged the fact that Cha Jae-woo was his grandson. If Cha Jae-woo, a renowned Esper, stood with him rather than the Association, it was obvious who would hold the upper hand when the inevitable conflict erupted. He had been utterly convinced Jae-woo would join him—or at the very least, would never side with the Association.
In short, the Espers under Cha Seong-ju now were mostly those driven by profit and harboring resentment toward the Association. Under Cha Seong-ju’s orders, they would find gates faster than the Association, clear them, and get paid handsomely for it. Compared to the paltry sums offered by the Association, the money from Cha Seong-ju was astronomical. Betraying him simply wasn’t an option they had considered.
“Untie me. Now.”
Thus, the moment the Espers burst in, Cha Seong-ju couldn’t help but smile. Even trapped and humiliated as he was, he naively believed they had come to rescue him.
Although, even if that were the case, it was foolish to think that these few could actually defeat Cha Jae-woo. Apparently, four days of confinement had dulled his senses after all.
“Didn’t you hear me? I said UNTIE ME!”
Cha Seong-ju’s voice grew louder, anxiety creeping into his tone as the Espers, instead of rushing to his side, stood still with their hands clasped behind their backs. Yet not a single one of them responded.
Cha Jae-woo tilted his head to the side and smiled. In that instant, the air shifted. A chill so palpable that even an ordinary person could sense it flooded the entire warehouse.
Cha Seong-ju instinctively flinched from the cold. Yet Cha Jae-woo kept smiling.
“Why is someone so clever failing to grasp the situation?”
“…Cha Jae-woo.”
“These people… they’re not yours anymore. Can’t you tell just by looking?”
Only then did the smile vanish from Cha Seong-ju’s face. He turned toward the Espers with an expression of disbelief. But just as Cha Jae-woo had said, none of them showed any intention of moving.
Emotionless faces. As if under some kind of trance, hollow and unresponsive—faces so devoid of life that they looked hypnotized. Cha Seong-ju licked his dry lips, panic rising in his chest.
“…How…?”
“Hmm? Even this surprises you?”
Cha Seong-ju’s gaze slowly returned to Cha Jae-woo. In that short span, fear steadily flooded his eyes.
“Why are you so surprised? Didn’t you already know?”
The faint smile vanished from Cha Jae-woo’s face. The cold air pressing down on the room grew sharper, and his expression hardened like a sheet of ice.
“So you didn’t know after all. Here I thought you were blocking me all this time to make sure I couldn’t use any of my powers.”
“…”
“I’m talking about the Guides. If a Guide showed even a slightly high matching rate with me, you tampered with the results and hid them away, didn’t you?”
Cha Seong-ju opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He should have roared in anger, shouting about how ridiculous that accusation was—but no voice would emerge. It finally dawned on him that this was no bluff. That Cha Jae-woo truly intended to end things.
“You knew. You just pretended not to.”
“Hh- hhk…!”
The chill that had engulfed the room vanished all at once. However, instead of feeling relief, Cha Seong-ju felt even more suffocated. It was as if his skin was being flayed by invisible knives. He tried to curl up against the sensation, but bound as he was, even that was impossible.
“Still, thanks to you, I did meet a pretty decent Guide.”
“Jae, Jae-woo… I-I had no choice… You didn’t trust me, so I got scared too…! I was just… I was just trying to wait until the right time!”
Cornered, Cha Seong-ju’s tone shifted dramatically. He was quick at reading the room—but sadly for him, it was already too late.
Cha Jae-woo, ignoring him, continued in the same flat tone.
“No matter how high the matching rate was, they were just D-Rank Guides, after all. You figured they’d be barely good enough to keep me breathing. You and the Association president sure had a lot in common when it came to things like that.”
“That’s not it—!”
“You’re noisy.”
Cha Jae-woo blinked slowly. His long, jet-black eyelashes lowered, then rose again—and at that moment, Cha Seong-ju’s voice was completely cut off.
Cha Seong-ju opened and closed his mouth in a panic, but no sound came out. A cold sweat drenched his back. Trembling overtook him as the truth sank in: Cha Jae-woo was using a psychic ability.
He was supposed to be a Physical Esper—someone capable only of manipulating matter, not minds. It was known that psychic Espers could sometimes wield minor physical powers, but the reverse had never been documented.
And yet, Cha Jae-woo was handling mental abilities with terrifying mastery. He had silenced Cha Seong-ju’s voice without effort, and completely seized control over the four Espers’ minds.
“As you can see, if I had wanted a Guide, I could have found one at any time. But that’s not what I was waiting for.”
Indeed, had Cha Jae-woo truly needed a Guide, he could have easily found one, no matter how much Cha Seong-ju tried to manipulate the situation. Yet he hadn’t. All those years, Cha Jae-woo had let things be. Seong-ju had thought he had suppressed Jae-woo’s power, but he had been mistaken. Had Jae-woo simply been watching and waiting all along? Belated questions piled up in Cha Seong-ju’s mind—but he could not voice any of them.
Cha Jae-woo stepped back a single pace. As if that had been a signal, the other Espers began to approach Cha Seong-ju.
Now that he looked closely, it seemed they were the very individuals Cha Seong-ju had kept closest—those who had shown the most loyalty and possessed the highest Ranks.
“I was just thinking it over. When would be the best time? What would be the most satisfying way to erase you? It was surprisingly fun to ponder.”
“…”
“To be honest, I even forgot about you for a while. Pathetically so. But thanks to that, I came back to my senses. All thanks to that D-Rank Guide the Association sent, thinking everything was fine.”
“…”
“I let you stay comfortable for too long. It’s about time you disappeared, don’t you think?”
His tone was light, almost playful—but there wasn’t a trace of humor in it.
Cha Jae-woo gave a slight nod. At the same time, Cha Seong-ju’s voice burst forth again.
“Y-You can’t do this! You can’t treat me this way! Is this about revenge? If it’s revenge you want, there are others you should deal with first! J-Jo Gyeong-hoon! Jo Gyeong-hoon is still alive, isn’t he!”
Despite the loud voice, Cha Jae-woo didn’t flinch. It was laughable to expect surprise from the very person who had taken away his voice moments earlier.
“I know. Jo Gyeong-hoon, Jang Gijun… Plenty of other vermin are still crawling around.”
“Then why—why am I the first…!”
“So, why did you make the first move?”
“…W-What…?”
“You fed me Feleil’s blood and tested my Guide.”
“T-That was…”
“And I found out. That my Guide… is just like me. A monster.”
His voice dropped to a whisper, oozing an eerie chill.
“You should’ve pretended not to know. You should’ve stayed still. If you had kept your head down when you realized I was regaining my strength, you could’ve lived a little longer.”
“J-Jae-woo…”
“But now you know, right? That my Guide, despite being a D-Rank, can suppress my wavelength, calm a berserk Esper, and even purify all of Feleil’s blood in a single night… a monster just like me.”
“…”
“You were the one who taught me to stay quiet and keep my head down. Why couldn’t you follow your own advice this time?”
“…”
Cha Seong-ju couldn’t say a word. It had been his idea to force-feed Cha Jae-woo Feleil’s blood. It had seemed suspicious, after all—a D-Rank Guide wielding such strange abilities. And because Cha Jae-woo’s condition had been improving, fear took hold.
He had wanted Jae-woo to barely survive—nothing more than a powerless, hollowed-out S-Rank Esper like before. So he tested the Guide’s abilities, wanting to confirm not only the strange improvements but also whether Jae-woo’s complaints about his erratic wavelength were true or not—whether he should trust him at all.
The next day, informants planted inside Cha Jae-woo’s home reported back that he was in perfect condition. It left Cha Seong-ju no choice but to believe something was different about the Guide.
He had been arrogant. He had thought that, once he uncovered the truth, Cha Jae-woo would come crawling back, begging him for trust. He believed Cha Jae-woo was still under his thumb. And so—
“Now you’re a threat to my Guide, Chairman. So you have to go. I’m really fond of my Guide, you see.”
Cha Seong-ju hadn’t anticipated this outcome. He had been focused only on prying the Guide away from Cha Jae-woo.
He had thought it would be easy enough to swap in another Guide—the one Jang Gijun had recommended, with a matching rate of 36 percent. Even if that didn’t work, there were others with over 50 percent matching rates he could use.
It was a plan built on the certainty that Cha Jae-woo would do exactly as he was told.
But Cha Seong-ju had been wrong. Cha Jae-woo had no intention of following anyone’s orders. Instead, he was now trying to erase the very man who dared threaten his Guide.
Terror flooded Cha Seong-ju’s body. Looking at Cha Jae-woo’s indifferent face, he felt his legs buckle under him.
“I won’t tell anyone—so please—!”
“Still, you should be grateful. Thanks to you, I’ll be able to handle things more easily. Jo Gyeong-hoon and Jang Gijun… they won’t have the luxury of such a peaceful death.”
“…You’re going to kill me? How could you say something so cruel! I’m your grandfather!”
Before Cha Seong-ju’s words even finished echoing, Cha Jae-woo let out a small, hollow laugh. His empty eyes stared straight through him, his twisted smile still lingering.
“How strange. You never saw me as a human being, yet now you act like we’re family.”
“O-Of course we’re family—!”
“You think I’m a monster, don’t you? How can a monster and a human be family?”
“No—that’s not what I thought—!”
“You lie so easily without even blinking.”
Cha Jae-woo took another step back. At the same time, the Espers surrounding Cha Seong-ju closed in.
“Cha Jae-woo!”
“Well… if you see me as a person, you can still change your mind.”
“Spare me, Jae-woo! I was wrong! I’ll never breathe a word—no, you can even erase my memories—!”
“I’m a monster, after all.”
“AAARGH!”
Without another word, Cha Jae-woo turned his back and exited the warehouse. At the same time, a wretched scream rang out behind him.
It was almost amusing—how the man couldn’t even recognize that dying quickly and easily was an act of mercy.
Cha Jae-woo mused indifferently as he walked out of the rundown building. One by one, he began recalling the names of those who would meet an even more miserable end.
However, after a moment, Cha Jae-woo’s thoughts shifted—not to those people, but to Lim Haeyul.
Though he could wield psychic powers freely, it exhausted him quickly. What he craved now was to receive some guiding from Haeyul.
By tomorrow, the news would break: Cha Seong-ju, who had been secretly gathering Espers and Guides for personal gain, had been killed by those very Espers over money disputes.
The public would curse Cha Seong-ju for his greed. Cha Jae-woo’s name might get mixed into the scandal too, but that was nothing new.
It was almost funny, how he felt neither guilt nor pity.
But what was truly absurd was the thought that overpowered everything else—the simple desire to rest peacefully, being pampered by Lim Haeyul’s guiding.
