The view outside the window was, honestly, nothing but ruins. Before the gates began opening, people had lived across every inch of land, so the scattered remains of old buildings made the landscape feel even more desolate.
Monsters occasionally appeared, but they were swiftly dealt with and ignored. From what Tae-rim had heard, the current shield technology could barely hold off an S-rank threat.
As the same scenery kept repeating, Lee Tae-rim started nodding off. He hadn’t slept properly the night before due to nerves. Eventually, when he opened his eyes, he found himself dozing against Seon Juho’s shoulder.
“Hyung, did you sleep well?”
Seon Juho asked, wiping away a bit of drool from Tae-rim’s lips. Tae-rim smiled, slightly embarrassed.
“First checkpoint reached.”
A glance at the clock showed that four hours had passed. As the vehicle came to a stop, the Espers began climbing out one by one to set up the base camp.
Tae-rim stepped out and stretched, arching his back with a yawn. The ruins around them were the same, but unlike before, there were no monsters in sight. Because of that, unfamiliar plants had grown thick and wild across the terrain. The Espers cleared the vegetation around the vehicle before setting up camp.
Curiously, gates only ever opened where people were present. So out in the wilderness, far from any city, gates rarely appeared. Even if they did, the monsters would scatter and eventually find their way to populated areas.
No one knew why monsters were so relentlessly drawn to signs of human presence.
Some speculated that they were monsters sent from somewhere in the universe, with the sole purpose of exterminating humanity on this planet. Watching how they always managed to track people down, even through shields, made the theory seem disturbingly plausible—and Tae-rim thought it made a lot of sense.
Once the base camp was ready, the S-rank and A-rank Espers split into teams to scout the area. The three remaining A-ranks stayed behind to assess the immediate surroundings.
Tae-rim, deemed safest near the vehicle, was left alone. He idly watched the Espers in the distance before tilting his head back to stare up at the sky. It was bright and blue. The air was so clear. It felt like such a waste—so many beautiful places like this, and humans couldn’t live in any of them.
He sat there for a long while, doing absolutely nothing. The Espers were busy, but there was nothing for a Guide to do. All Tae-rim could do was sit still and serve as a living totem or backup battery.
Watching movies or playing games was forbidden when alone. If something happened while his attention was elsewhere, there’d be no way to react in time. Maybe that was part of why Tae-rim hated external expeditions so much.
And sometimes, when one of the patrolling Espers disappeared from sight, his heart would drop in panic. The exploration vehicles, made from monster byproducts, were sturdy enough to hold out for a while even without the shield, but the fear never really went away.
No matter how much training he’d had or how good he was with a gun, it didn’t matter. All of it was just a way to stall until an Esper came to save him. Only an Esper could fight a monster.
As the sky began to turn red with the setting sun, the Espers returned to camp. The moment Seon Juho came back, he tossed his tablet to Jung Jae-heon and made a beeline for Tae-rim.
“Hyung, you were bored, right?”
“A little.”
“Want me to stay with you starting tomorrow?”
“You know you can’t.”
Seon Juho plopped down in front of him, curling up his large frame, and took Tae-rim’s hands, placing them gently on his cheeks.
“Work’s no fun.”
He rubbed his cheeks against Tae-rim’s palms, pouting like a sulky puppy. If work were fun, it wouldn’t be called work, Tae-rim thought, but he only smiled in response.
“I just like being around you.”
If Seon Juho had a tail, it would’ve been wagging so hard it might’ve flown off. Tae-rim couldn’t help but laugh at how endearing he was.
The Espers watching from a distance all inwardly clicked their tongues. Young or not, an Esper was still an Esper. Out on the field, Seon Juho moved like the grim reaper—dark, swift, and overwhelming. But in front of Tae-rim, he turned into a happy little mutt.
Among Espers, there was an unspoken rule not to point this out to the Guides. Because truthfully, they were all the same. The moment a Guide showed up, every one of them turned into a tail-wagging pup.
But Choi Dong-ha wasn’t the type to let things slide. While Tae-rim briefly checked his phone, Seon Juho shot him a sharp glare, cold enough to send a chill down Dong-ha’s spine. He flinched and looked away.
Having seen Seon Juho’s power up close, Choi Dong-ha was honestly terrified of him. And the fact that this kind of monster stuck so close to Tae-rim only made him feel worse for Choi Jiwoon. Not long ago, Tae-rim had publicly apologized with just a few words for everything he’d done, and Dong-ha hadn’t liked that one bit.
Even if their Matching Rate was high, Dong-ha just couldn’t bring himself to like someone like that. Jung Jae-heon, watching Dong-ha, could only sigh at how pathetic he was being.
“You don’t need Guiding?”
“Nope. But I’d still like it if you did.”
Grinning at Seon Juho’s shameless cuteness, Tae-rim chuckled and began the Guiding. Juho had barely used any energy—just enough to move around. Any other Esper would’ve just taken a supplement and called it a day.
Whether or not something dangerous would happen was anyone’s guess. But Tae-rim’s presence made a big difference. Just having an S-rank Guide on the expedition team brought the Espers peace of mind, and that boost in morale directly improved their overall efficiency.
That was why the branch insisted on sending Lee Tae-rim along—no matter how much he protested.
Meals consisted of simple rations. Although the vehicle was equipped with a refrigerator, cooking outside was strictly off-limits. The shield only blocked monsters; it let everything else—any ordinary living creature—pass through. If animals caught the scent of food and came swarming, it would become a serious issue.
After dinner, everyone handled their assigned tasks before drifting off to sleep. That marked the end of the day. This dull routine stretched on for six days.
Normally, Guides were assigned their own tents, but Seon Juho shamelessly followed Tae-rim into his. Upon spotting there was only one bed, he immediately sprawled across it and held out a hand to Tae-rim.
“Hyung!”
“You’ll break the bed.”
A single cot clearly couldn’t handle the weight of two grown men. Sighing, Tae-rim stepped back out and brought in another one.
After setting up the extra bed and lying down, Tae-rim watched as Seon Juho quietly got up, dragged his cot over, and pushed it up against Tae-rim’s. When Tae-rim glanced over, he saw Seon Juho pouting again.
“If only it were a one-and-a-half size…”
“Still a no. Think about how big you are.”
“Tch.”
Thanks to the saggy center of the fold-out cots, Seon Juho couldn’t cuddle up to Tae-rim the way he wanted—and that left him in a foul mood. He couldn’t fall asleep without breathing in his hyung’s scent…
Resigned, he brought Tae-rim’s hand to his nose and pressed it to his wrist. The scent wasn’t as strong as his nape, but it was there. Better than nothing. Still, the thought of having to sleep like this for five more days grated on his nerves.
If he’d known it would turn out like this, he would’ve flat-out refused to go on the expedition—and made sure Tae-rim couldn’t go either by clinging to him until the last minute.
The world was currently groaning under the pressure of a growing population. The rise in numbers was triggering a worsening food crisis.
Fortunately, flying-type monsters hadn’t yet appeared, so countries could still rely on air routes for trade. But air transport alone wasn’t enough to solve the problem.
As a result, many governments were making plans to establish farmland far from major cities. If everything was automated, farming in the outer zones wouldn’t be impossible.
But there was a complication—refugees. People who had risked their lives fleeing dangerous homelands were now scattered throughout these outer zones. No one could predict when they might show up, and if they happened to settle near farmlands, it could trigger a gate. If that happened, the fallout would land squarely on the shoulders of the nation’s citizens.
Because of that, governments around the world were urgently working on countermeasures to manage the refugee situation.
On the fourth day of the tedious expedition, Seon Juho brought back a strange machine. It was about the size of a human torso. From the scorch marks, it looked like it had partially detonated or misfired—but no one could tell exactly what it was.
Jung Jae-heon inspected the components and concluded that while it was covered in dust, it had been built recently. The fact that such a new piece of tech had been abandoned out in the wild was bizarre. And judging by its unknown function, it didn’t seem like something refugees would have left behind either. Jung Jae-heon carefully loaded the device into the vehicle.
By the sixth day, Tae-rim was in high spirits—it was finally time to head back. All he’d done was follow the team as they moved from one survey point to the next, but he was exhausted. Just sitting around all day, doing absolutely nothing, was draining in its own way.
The Espers, with their superior stamina, were still energetic, but Tae-rim was not. He’d thought he’d been sleeping well at night, but clearly, that wasn’t the case. On the way back, he passed out with his head resting on Seon Juho’s thigh. Both his body and mind were completely spent. He never wanted to go on another expedition again.
As soon as they returned to the dorm, Tae-rim sprawled out on the living room sofa without even changing. Seon Juho, looking thoroughly annoyed at having to report the discovery of the machine, reluctantly headed off to file it. Tae-rim knew he should shower—but the exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he drifted off to sleep right there.
