Baek Hye-seong had only been stationed at the Yeouido Center for a month, yet he still took a deep breath before entering the building. Anyone could tell at a glance that he was a newly assigned rookie.
Located in the same complex as the headquarters of the Ability Management and Security Department, the Yeouido Center was practically a fortress. Even after passing the heavily guarded iron gates, it took a while to reach the building where Espers and Guides reported for work.
Hye-seong, standing among the crowd, held his wrist to the entrance sensor at the main building. The pager, worn like a smartwatch, was issued to every employee and doubled as an ID pass.
Once the sensor recognized the device, the screen displayed his ID photo and basic personal details.
[Baek Hye-seong / Guide]
Grade: [B]
Team: [ ]
Since he was still in his probationary period, his team field remained blank.
After passing a simple security check, the Espers and Guides were free to head to their respective departments.
The emergence of mysterious gates and the monstrous beings that poured out of them had caused global upheaval. Espers had begun to appear around the world in response, stabilizing the chaos. But that was before Hye-seong was even born—nothing more than childhood stories beyond his memory.
I can’t believe I actually work here.
It still felt like a dream. As the top graduate of his class, Hye-seong had been assigned to the central Yeouido headquarters right out of training—a place everyone wanted.
Yeouido was where Yoo Ji-ho worked. And for Hye-seong, that wasn’t just a minor detail.
After barely squeezing his way out of a packed elevator, he arrived at the office of Guide Team 6, the team he’d been temporarily assigned to.
“Good morning, everyone!”
“You’re here?”
Hye-seong greeted his senior teammates politely as always and placed his bag at his desk. For some reason, the others were all gathered in the center of the office that morning.
“Hye-seong, did you see it? Yoo Ji-ho’s in the spotlight again.”
“Huh? What happened?”
“Somebody uploaded something online.”
“……!”
His already-large eyes went even wider. Someone, clearly enjoying his reaction, handed over a phone.
“It’s deleted now, but I got this screenshot from a senior I know.”
“Oh—thank you. I’ll take a quick look.”
Holding the phone in both hands, he focused on the bolded title at the top of the screen.
With the neutrality of a fair and impartial judge, Hye-seong began reading through the post.
[The Truth About S-Class Esper Yoo XX’s Personality]
Okay, this is already ridiculous.
The title alone was malicious. And what was the point of censoring only two characters in his name after blatantly dropping the “S-Class” hint?
As he read more carefully, Hye-seong’s expression grew increasingly grim.
The writer made one-sided accusations with no evidence, and by the end, launched into straight-up personal attacks that had nothing to do with their original claims.
Saying “he looks even more like an asshole in real life than in pictures”—what kind of unnecessary, low-blow comment was that?
Unable to hide his disapproval, Hye-seong kept reading, maintaining the detached stance of an outsider unrelated to the incident. Then, his direct supervisor, Choi Yoon-sol—who had handed him the screenshot—suddenly spoke.
“Hye-seong, this is about him, right?”
“Sorry—what?”
“You know. The guy who inspired you to become a Guide.”
At that direct hit, Hye-seong froze like a statue. Judging by her exaggeratedly playful tone and gestures, Yoon-sol already seemed pretty confident in her assumption.
“H-How did you know…?”
“It’s so obvious whenever we talk about Yoo Ji-ho. Your eyes literally start sparkling.”
“They do…?”
“Don’t worry, it’s not weird. There are tons of Espers, Guides, and Inspectors here who feel the same way.”
“Oh… I guess you’re right. Yeah, I’m a fan of Yoo Ji-ho.”
“Knew it.”
As she said that, Hye-seong nodded slowly, as if he’d come to some grand realization.
His admiration was purely distant and respectful, so it wasn’t something he felt the need to hide—but hearing it was noticeable still came as a surprise.
Biting his lip in thought, Hye-seong hesitated for a moment before carefully asking Yoon-sol:
“Do you think he’s okay, even with posts like this going up?”
“He’ll be fine. It’s not the first time. Whenever something like this surfaces, people brush it off. The guy saves hundreds of lives on his own—nobody cares about personality rumors when you’re that good. Even if any of it were true, who cares as long as he saves people?”
The other senior teammates chimed in as well.
“Sure, he seems a little prickly, but this post is seriously over the line.”
“Really? I didn’t think he was prickly at all.”
“Wow, this person’s nuts. Saying he deliberately damaged civilian property during a rescue? That’s enough for a disciplinary report. No way anyone who understands fieldwork would believe that.”
“So he saves someone, and then destroys their stuff on purpose, knowing he’ll have to file a report? That’d make any Esper a lunatic.”
“Exactly. Espers are public officials, too—this just doesn’t make sense. Who would actually believe this?”
At that moment, Hye-seong, who had been quietly listening, spoke up.
“Do you think even someone like Yoo Ji-ho has to write those incident reports?”
“Of course! I mean, we don’t know everything about how Espers work, but I’ve heard even A-ranks and team leaders have to write reports pretty often. Yoo Ji-ho is a team leader.”
“Still, I bet he gets a ton of leeway. I doubt they make him write them unless it’s something big.”
“Yeah, probably only when he’s assigned to really large-scale ops. They must account for that. But yeah, this post is total crap.”
“I see…”
Nodding, Hye-seong handed the phone back to Yoon-sol with a much lighter expression.
That’s a relief.
He thought that if someone as vital as Yoo Ji-ho were bogged down writing incident reports all the time, it would be a waste of national resources.
He’s probably busy risking his life for civilians as it is. Better he uses that time to recover, get some proper Guiding…
The Center must be looking out for him.
If the Yeouido Center mistreated someone like Yoo Ji-ho, Hye-seong never would’ve dreamed of joining in the first place.
Clearing away the unnecessary worry that had briefly clouded his thoughts, Hye-seong returned to his desk with a now-relaxed expression.
Yes—Yoo Ji-ho, hero to the entire nation, was also Hye-seong’s personal hero.
***
“You act like you’ve got a team to worry about! You’re a team leader with no team! Would it kill you to be just a little more careful?!”
Shin Hyung-cheol, director of the Yeouido Central Headquarters, was on the verge of begging.
All he wanted—his only wish—was for Yoo Ji-ho to just once consider how things worked around the Center.
And there he was: Yoo Ji-ho, South Korea’s only S-class Esper, with that annoyingly perfect face, lounging with one leg crossed over the other, spouting off deflections like a slippery eel.
He was Shin’s burden, his stress incarnate, the root of every problem. The conversation had been going in frustrating circles for a while now.
“You’re saying this again? You told me to just save lives, no matter what.”
“……”
“You even said you’d handle everything else as long as I did that. I distinctly remember.”
Shin clamped his mouth shut. That was true. He’d made that promise back when he brought in a much younger, newly awakened S-class Yoo Ji-ho.
Still, Shin felt a bit wronged. That version of the truth was heavily distorted.
If anything, it was Yoo Ji-ho who had gradually trained the entire Center to work around him. Made it so no one couldn’t accommodate him.
Thinking about it again made Shin’s blood boil, but he took a deep breath and forced himself to speak calmly.
“Ji-ho… but still. Come on. Couldn’t you try just a little?”
“Try what, exactly?”
“Every time you go out, the damage compensation costs spike like crazy. You know my office ends up writing all your incident reports, right? Could you maybe—just maybe—save people a little more gently? Treat them with a bit more care?”
“……”
“And what about that post online?! Because of that, we got another official warning! Public opinion’s not great right now. People are joking that if they meet you in person, they’ll need to get an herbal tonic from the acupuncturist just to recover—”
“Director.”
Suddenly, Yoo Ji-ho unfolded his crossed legs and leaned forward slightly. His expression was innocent, but his voice carried a blade.
“Would you prefer a light concussion… or having your guts torn out by a tentacle?”
