Such thoughts made his breath catch in his throat. It felt like he had swallowed a stone, his chest tightening with discomfort. His mind clattered like loose gears.
“……Wow. Are you seriously worrying about that?”
In the midst of the seriousness, Seo Eui-woo suddenly let out a quiet chuckle.
When Kwon Jae-jin lifted his gaze, he saw Seo Eui-woo looking down at him with an expression as if he found him unbearably adorable. That annoyed him a little.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because, Jae-jin, you really don’t get it.”
“What don’t I get…….”
“Ah, how should I put this?”
Seo Eui-woo continued to chuckle, whispering as if sharing a secret.
“Mm, alright. Let me put it this way. Jae-jin, even if hundreds of Special Forces soldiers came at me all at once, I’d have no trouble overwhelming them.”
“……Yeah, I know that very well.”
Of course, he did.
He had seen it with his own eyes, after all—there was no room for argument.
“Then why are you even worried?”
“……?”
“If I’m like this, then what do you think you are?”
Kwon Jae-jin had always thought Seo Eui-woo’s extraordinariness was dazzling. An existence beyond common sense—unique, exceptional, extraordinary… an extreme yet mesmerizing lifeform. That was Seo Eui-woo.
He was one of a kind, an absolute being. Even if all of humankind were grouped together as a single species, Seo Eui-woo alone seemed worthy of being classified under a special category of his own.
That was why, every time Kwon Jae-jin was with Seo Eui-woo, he couldn’t help but be acutely aware of his own ordinariness. Compared to Seo Eui-woo, he reaffirmed time and again that he was just a normal, average person.
But that was far from the truth.
“Jae-jin, you’re my Guide.”
If Kwon Jae-jin were truly ordinary, he wouldn’t have been able to become Seo Eui-woo’s Guide in the first place.
“Even if you combined hundreds of ordinary Guides, they wouldn’t compare to a single Kwon Jae-jin.”
Seo Eui-woo wasn’t the only one who was unique and absolute.
“Jae-jin, you’ve never once been depleted while guiding, have you?”
……Depleted? What did that even mean…?
When Jae-jin looked up at Seo Eui-woo with eyes full of confusion, a dimple pressed into the man’s handsome cheek as he chuckled.
“Haha, just as I thought.”
“No, seriously, what does ‘depleted’ mean? Does guiding even cause depletion?”
“Well, yeah, but you don’t need to worry about it. It’s something that’ll never happen to you anyway. Let’s just hurry up and get the test over with.”
“Wait… Eui-woo, hey—?”
“Come on, follow me. It’s already a mess outside. Looks like Lieutenant Colonel Jang is really pissed.”
Seo Eui-woo grabbed Kwon Jae-jin’s wrist and pulled him out of the locker room.
The moment they opened the door, they ran straight into Lieutenant Colonel Jang Tae-san.
Jae-jin was momentarily taken aback—Jang Tae-san was already an imposing man with his massive, soldier-hardened physique, but standing there in front of the door like a gatekeeper, he was downright intimidating.
“Captain Seo. What the hell do you think you’re doing? If this continues, I’ll have no choice but to report this to the higher-ups.”
“Do as you please. Isn’t that why you’re here in the first place, Lieutenant Colonel Jang? As a watchdog.”
“…….”
Seo Eui-woo, completely unfazed, brushed past Jang Tae-san and led Kwon Jae-jin toward the precision scanning machine for the test.
One of the researchers operating the machine flinched upon seeing them, then quickly lowered his head and started up the equipment.
“P-please step onto the platform and extend your arms outward. Stay completely still.”
Maybe it was because he had just been on the receiving end of Seo Eui-woo’s wrath, but his voice was noticeably polite.
“Oh, uh, alright.”
“Also, remove your ID badge and take off your shoes.”
Following the instructions, Jae-jin took off the bracelet on his wrist, removed his shoes, and stepped onto the flat circular platform.
The machine let out a low hum and began rotating slowly, completing a full 360-degree turn. The wing-like components on either side of the device also started to spin.
A bright light beamed down from the ceiling, scanning from the top of Jae-jin’s head down to his feet. After that, a few intermittent beeping sounds echoed through the room.
The gathered researchers, their eyes fixed on the large monitor connected to the machine, adjusted various data values.
From inside the machine, Jae-jin couldn’t see the screen, so he had no idea what they were doing.
‘Is it still not over…?’
The test was taking longer than expected.
A creeping sense of nervousness began to set in.
His blinking grew more frequent, and his expression hardened. They had told him not to move, but standing completely still like this was starting to feel like torture.
He wanted to gauge the researchers’ reactions, but the monitor blocked his view. Meanwhile, Seo Eui-woo had been smiling the entire time. The way he stood there, arms crossed, slightly leaning to one side, made him look like a sculpture—like a damn work of art. It was irritating for no reason.
“T-These readings… Wait, is this an error?”
“L-Let’s try again with a different machine.”
“Yes, that’s probably best. Whew… I had a feeling something was off.”
After fiddling with the settings, the researchers suddenly began murmuring amongst themselves, hastily preparing another machine.
“Um, it seems there’s a malfunction with this equipment. We’ll need to conduct the test again over there. Please step onto the platform once more.”
Jae-jin stepped down, crushing the back of his shoes as he put them on, and moved to the next machine. But the results were the same.
The researchers, now visibly troubled, exchanged uneasy glances while staring at the monitor before hesitantly calling him over again.
“Uh… It looks like there might be a defect in the new model itself. We’ll have to test you with an older machine. Over here.”
“Alright, I understand.”
Just how many times were they going to retest him?
Regardless, he followed their instructions.
This time, the test required him to lie down. The setup was similar to an MRI machine—once he was lying still, the platform beneath him slid into a tunnel-like chamber and then moved back out.
One of the researchers hurried over and handed him a pair of earplugs.
“Put these in and lie down. Keep your eyes closed.”
He did as he was told.
With his ears blocked and his eyes shut, the thought crossed his mind that this was probably the final test.
A low hum vibrated through the machine as his body was slowly drawn into the enclosed space. Light and frequency waves flickered across him, scanning him from head to toe.
‘…Is it over now?’
By the time the test finished and he was brought back out, he couldn’t hear a thing because of the earplugs.
The researchers were speaking in frantic, excited tones, chattering amongst themselves. One of them had already started making a call.
What the hell is going on?
Jae-jin turned his head to look around, only to find Seo Eui-woo standing unusually close—so close that he hadn’t even noticed when he had approached. Seo Eui-woo reached out and removed the earplugs for him.
At that moment, the voices of the researchers flooded in.
“We need to report this to the higher-ups immediately!”
“These readings… Is this even possible? This is supposed to be a single person’s data? And a mutant at that…?”
“Unmeasurable. S-rank. S-rank Guide.”
Seo Eui-woo’s perfectly shaped lips parted slightly. It looked like he was whispering, See? Told you so.
Only then did Jae-jin feel the blood return to his fingertips. The relief hit him all at once, and his strength drained from his body.
‘Ah….’
Thank god.
‘So I am an S-rank after all.’
There was no anomaly. Kwon Jae-jin was officially the first S-rank Guide. And he was a mutant.
A mutant’s core was small and incomplete—fragile, easily shattered by impact. But functionally, there was nothing wrong with it. Kwon Jae-jin was living proof of that.
He had demonstrated that, even as a mutant, his abilities were no different from those of a standard Awakened individual. In fact, he might even surpass them.
The military had long upheld the logic of culling mutants, prioritizing efficiency above all else. But Kwon Jae-jin, by his very existence, was an exception that shattered that reasoning.
Could they dare to label someone like Kwon Jae-jin—an innate S-rank—as inefficient?
Was an S-rank mutant truly inefficient? Or was it, in fact, the ultimate efficiency?
“It looks like the results are out. So you really were an S-rank. Congratulations.”
Lieutenant Colonel Jang Tae-san, who had been observing from a distance, finally approached to offer his congratulations.
“……Thank you.”
Unlike the researchers, he didn’t seem particularly surprised by Kwon Jae-jin’s test results. And it made sense—after all, Jang Tae-san had seen it for himself.
“Now, let’s move on to the next test.”
“There’s another test after the ranking assessment?”
“Yes. This time, it’s Captain Seo who will be tested.”
Ability Enhancement.
An S-rank Guide’s guiding was said to exponentially enhance an Esper’s abilities.
Having witnessed Seo Eui-woo’s overwhelming power firsthand, Lieutenant Colonel Jang had never once doubted it. His true interest had never been in Kwon Jae-jin’s rank—it was whether his guiding could truly enhance an Esper’s abilities.
“Major Mateo—no, Captain Mateo testified that Kwon Jae-jin’s guiding caused a significant leap in his abilities. The same should apply to Captain Seo.”
“……”
“If guiding can amplify an Esper’s power… If that’s true, the world will be turned upside down.”
Kwon Jae-jin’s eyes widened.
When he turned to look at Seo Eui-woo, his expression was anything but calm. His sharp, predatory gaze burned with intensity.
‘Come to think of it, Supreme Commander Choi Yul mentioned something similar before.’
At the time, the situation had been too chaotic for Jae-jin to dwell on it. But now, it seemed like it was time to clear up the misunderstanding.
“That’s not true. Seo Eui-woo’s power is something he was born with. It has nothing to do with my guiding.”
“Is that so? Then how do you explain Captain Mateo’s case?”
“There must have been some mistake…”
“Whether it was a mistake or not, the test will determine the truth.”
Kwon Jae-jin frowned.
He had no idea how this situation had escalated to this point.
Ability enhancement?
Mateo—no, Captain Mateo—had supposedly grown stronger after receiving Jae-jin’s guiding?
Was that even possible…?
