The Villainous Guide’s New Life 39

The Center might’ve been calm enough for people to sit around gossiping about those two, but the people at the center of it all—weren’t calm in the slightest. And just as Lee Tae-rim had feared, the incident he’d been dreading finally happened.

District 4 was as dangerous as it was crowded. With the chaos on-site, everyone had to look out for themselves. But Choi Jiwoon wasn’t used to that kind of environment. So, in the middle of that frantic mess, he got kidnapped. His location was moved all the way into the city, and things spiraled out of control from there.

The Guides stationed in District 4 were all busy with their own responsibilities, so no one even noticed Jiwoon was missing. Time kept slipping by until Kwon Hae-beom came in for Guiding and realized Jiwoon wasn’t there. By then, Jiwoon had already been taken deep into the city.

Thankfully, after the last incident, Choi Jiwoon had started carrying a small GPS device, which made it easy to track him down and rescue him.

According to the novel, the kidnappers immediately removed Jiwoon’s watch when they took him. That was the first thing they did—standard procedure to get rid of the GPS tracker. During the first kidnapping attempt, his location hadn’t even been detectable, but Kwon Hae-beom had found his Guide through sheer instinct, almost like a wild animal tracking its prey.

This time, though, they’d taken Jiwoon farther away, so Kwon Hae-beom had no choice but to chase the signal into the city. Others tried to stop him, saying there was no need—Jiwoon’s GPS was already visible. But Kwon Hae-beom was adamant. Said he had a bad feeling.

And he was right. A few A-rank Espers weren’t enough to rescue Choi Jiwoon—because K was there. Kwon Hae-beom barely managed to defeat K and save Jiwoon. Worn out from the battle, he took Jiwoon to a nearby hotel, where he Guided him with fiery intensity.

But that wasn’t how things played out this time.

Choi Jiwoon was kidnapped, yes—but K never appeared. Kwon Hae-beom subdued the kidnappers without much effort. Yet before even an hour had passed, every one of them was dead. The autopsy revealed they had explosive devices implanted in their brains.

K had gotten his name from the barcode etched into his neck—the first letter had been a K. But even that had changed. The Espers Kwon Hae-beom captured this time all had barcodes that started with J. Every single one of them.

Lee Tae-rim couldn’t help but wonder again: Was Seon Juho actually K? An Esper who’d gone on a Rampage inside Molt’s secret lab. Stronger than Kwon Hae-beom. The clues matched a little too perfectly.

But whether Seon Juho was K or not didn’t really matter anymore. He was just Seon Juho now. What worried Tae-rim was whether they might try to retrieve him.

Dr. Han had once said that among all active S-rank Espers, Seon Juho might be the strongest. Which meant Molt had essentially created a living weapon. Of course they’d want him back. An Esper with that much power would be invaluable.

But someone as powerful as Seon Juho wouldn’t be easy to capture. In fact, it was nearly impossible.

Even so, the reason Tae-rim couldn’t stop worrying about Seon Juho… was because of himself.

An Esper’s greatest vulnerability is their Guide. Which meant the one in danger wasn’t Seon Juho—it was Lee Tae-rim. He could only sigh.

Anyway, now that the story had come this far, the end was right around the corner. The kidnapping incident brought the two even closer, and the emotional climax would hit on Choi Jiwoon’s birthday. That’s when Kwon Hae-beom would give him a ring and propose.

That night, the two of them would share an ecstatic moment—and Imprint. That’s how the novel ended. That’s as far as Tae-rim had read.

And honestly, he was a little hopeful. Now that all the major events had passed, there should only be peace ahead. The Imprinting scene was still to come, but that wasn’t his business. In fact, once they Imprinted, the two would be so wrapped up in each other that they’d leave him alone completely. Perfect.

Tae-rim counted the days, eagerly awaiting Choi Jiwoon’s birthday. He truly believed the ending would play out just like the novel—right up until Jiwoon vanished without a trace before his birthday even arrived, and Kwon Hae-beom started to lose his mind.

Until then, Tae-rim had genuinely been looking forward to the story’s happy ending.

***

I’m running out of meds.

Choi Jiwoon felt like he was going insane. He’d known this day would come, had seen the signs—but now that it was staring him in the face, he had no idea what to do. It wasn’t like he’d ever meant to defy them… But even knowing how foolish it was, he couldn’t help himself.

Because he’d fallen in love with Kwon Hae-beom.

Choi Jiwoon was a manufactured Guide—created for one purpose: to capture Kwon Hae-beom, one of the top five most powerful Espers alive. That was his reason for existing.

He’d been one of Molt’s test subjects, taken from an orphanage. Small and frail, Jiwoon had Awakened as a Guide, but only at C-rank. A failed experiment.

But even with a weak body, Jiwoon survived. While other test subjects died from the overwhelming drug injections, unable to withstand the side effects, Jiwoon endured. That alone was enough for Molt to keep him alive.

So he kept living—barely, day by day, clinging to life like something that refused to die. And then one day, a miracle: a chance to go outside.

It had been a day like any other. He’d received his usual injections—enduring the pain if there was any, and the numbness if there wasn’t. The researcher assigned to him had injected the drug without a second glance, and Jiwoon had endured a splitting headache.

It lasted three hours. But once again, Jiwoon survived.

The next day brought another injection, another three-hour headache. And he endured that too.

He couldn’t say how many times the pattern repeated. But one day, the researcher suddenly asked, “Don’t you want to go outside?”

Jiwoon nodded, dazed. It was an instinctive response. The idea of leaving that hellhole… He would’ve done anything. The researcher said there were more painful experiments to come, but if Jiwoon could withstand them, he’d be allowed out. Jiwoon nodded desperately.

And the researcher hadn’t been lying. The experiments were agony. Countless drug injections, pain that tore through his entire body like it was being shredded apart. But Jiwoon endured it all, driven by one belief: I have to get out of here. He wanted to see the world beyond. He wanted to live like a real person.

The researchers running the experiments hurled cruel insults at him the entire time.

“After all those S-rank Guides, and the best we get is a damn B-rank?”

“He’s useless—should’ve been thrown out with the rest.”

They ranted about his Matching Rate not even breaking 90%. Said he should’ve been an A-rank or higher, especially since they’d used Kwon Hae-beom’s blood directly. Instead, they called him trash.

But Jiwoon didn’t care. If it meant he could go outside—if there was even the slightest chance—none of that mattered.

And in the end, he survived it all. The researcher told him he was the only one left alive from the experiment. “You’re lucky,” he’d said. “You’re still trash compared to the effort we put in—but at least you’re usable.”

Once he was chosen as the final subject, Jiwoon began learning about the outside world. It was a massive flood of information, but he shoved it all into his head, no matter how overwhelming it was. And finally—he was allowed out.

The world outside was everything he’d dreamed of. Even with constant surveillance and lessons on how to behave like an ordinary citizen, he was happy. He still had to take regular medication, but he could endure that too.

About six months passed like that—blissful. Then the researcher told him the time had come. He was ordered to register as a Guide at the Center and seduce an Esper named Kwon Hae-beom.

They even taught him how to do it, step by step. Jiwoon had no say in the matter. As long as he could keep living in the outside world, he would do anything. So, just as instructed, he went to the Center, registered, and approached Kwon Hae-beom. And it worked.

There was a moment when things nearly fell apart—an S-rank Guide unexpectedly appeared, threatening to ruin the plan. But they took care of that too. Jiwoon had simply followed their instructions.

That S-rank Guide, Lee Tae-rim, had his reputation utterly destroyed thanks to two mental-type Espers who’d been planted as spies. Just like that, he was easily cast aside.

Guides, after all, were physically just ordinary humans. Even low-grade mental-type Espers could overpower them. Lee Tae-rim had no chance—he was always the one left beaten and discarded. Even though he was technically a superior S-rank Guide, he was powerless against Esper abilities. Jiwoon had felt genuinely relieved.

Everything had gone so smoothly. He wanted to keep living like this. Forever.

Then, on the one-year mark, Jiwoon suddenly noticed his Guiding wasn’t working properly. Concerned, he reported it—and they sent him medication. After taking it, things stabilized again. Jiwoon breathed a sigh of relief.

But as time passed, the medicine stopped working. So they sent another. And before long, that one stopped working too. Jiwoon began to panic.

Even after reporting the issue, all they did was switch out the drug without explanation. Not a single word of concern. No reassurance.

Just more pills.

Author: Levia