“Starting today, you’re done with the abandoned dungeons. You’ll be working at the guiding establishment I run.”
Kim Minsu had come for Nabin at dawn. When he found the boy curled up, sleepless through the night, he muttered a curse under his breath and wrapped the room’s thin blanket tightly around Nabin’s frail body like a cocoon.
Nabin could only gasp, unable to breathe as the words shattered the last fragile piece of hope he’d been clinging to. He’d had a vague sense this day would come, ever since the test results had confirmed him as a D-rank Guide. But now that it was real, it was unbearable.
“Please… let me keep working in the abandoned dungeons…”
His voice was raw from crying all night. He whispered the plea with trembling fingers clasped tight, his tear-stained eyes searching Kim Minsu’s face for mercy.
“I’ll pay back the principal… I swear I will…”
Working at an illegal guiding house was no different from selling himself to strangers. That was the one line Nabin had never crossed, no matter how many times temptation dangled before him.
With his delicate features and tragic circumstances, predators had always hovered nearby—Kim Minsu, the adults he’d met during part-time jobs, even some of the miners. They all wore the same mask of kindness, their gentleness only skin-deep. Kim Minsu, especially, didn’t look like someone involved in shady dealings.
But their eyes… the subtle, lingering touches on his shoulders… there was something dark beneath it all. Something lewd. Something no decent adult should have.
If he’d given in, maybe his body would’ve had it easier for a while. But even with his limited life experience, Nabin understood—there would be no happy ending down that path. Better to work in abandoned dungeons, even if monsters tore him apart or the tunnels collapsed on top of him. The mere thought of a stranger’s hands made his skin crawl.
Guiding didn’t always involve physical contact—but that was only true for high-ranking Guides. A D-rank like him couldn’t get by with just holding hands or a comforting hug. Illegal establishments catered to Espers who couldn’t use the official Center for one reason or another, and no high-rank Guide would ever step foot in a place like that. The ones who worked there were always D-ranks.
For someone like Nabin, guiding meant full-body contact—intimate and inescapable. The moment he set foot in that place, strangers would touch him every single day.
He couldn’t do it. Even if it meant being buried alive in a collapsing dungeon or shredded by a monster’s claws, that would be better.
“Please… I don’t want to go there…”
He begged. But Kim Minsu’s expression remained cold, unmoved. He had seen too many faces like Nabin’s to be swayed by pleading. If he’d had even a shred of compassion, he wouldn’t be in this line of work.
“Nabin, you don’t have a choice. I’ve gone easy on you because you’re a minor, kept your interest low.”
Low? The debt had ballooned out of control every year. Nabin had already repaid more than double the amount his stepfather had borrowed, yet the principal hadn’t budged an inch. In the world of underground loans, Kim Minsu’s word was law.
“You’ll never pay off the interest just by mining. You don’t want to see your mom’s head get bashed in, do you?”
His voice vanished into the silence. But the memories surged: Kim Minsu dragging his mother by the hair, threatening her with his hunting dog. That helpless terror came rushing back.
Kim Minsu felt a thrill watching the color drain from Nabin’s face, the boy’s cold sweat beading on his pale skin. It was time to unwrap the gift he’d waited so long to claim.
Tears welled in Nabin’s wide eyes, spilling over as his hollow gaze locked onto the man in front of him.
“There are a few things you’ll need to prepare before you start working there.”
The sharp sting of cologne and faint tobacco burned Nabin’s senses. Instinctively, he recoiled, still wrapped in the thin blanket.
“Our Nabin hasn’t even had a real kiss yet, has he?”
But he couldn’t retreat far. A rough hand seized his face. He wanted to speak—anything—but no sound came out. Only ragged breaths escaped his trembling lips.
He should be begging—pleading not to be thrown into a deeper hell—but he was like a moth caught in a spider’s web. His voice wouldn’t come.
Kim Minsu pressed his thumb against Nabin’s lips. They were cold from the morning chill, but still warmer than his frozen cheeks. The boy’s lips were cracked from fatigue and hunger, but to Kim Minsu, they looked riper than any fruit he’d ever seen.
And now, the fruit was finally in his hands.
Everything Kim Minsu had said was a lie. In the world of black-market lenders, he was infamous for his ruthlessness. He never offered breaks for minors. The moment he found out Nabin was a D-rank Guide, he had all the justification he needed.
The boy had worked like a dog for five years, scraping together every coin just to cover the interest—his body fragile, but his will surprisingly unyielding.
Now that Nabin had officially turned twenty, Kim Minsu had grown anxious. What if someone else got to him first? Even among his own men, there were those who eyed the boy hungrily every time he came to pay.
There was something about Nabin that stirred twisted desires. Maybe it was his large, naive eyes. Or maybe it was his translucent, almost ghostly pale skin. Whatever it was, it made men want to break him.
Kim Minsu had kept his hands off until now. Nabin’s parents had been B-rank Ability Users—if he’d awakened as a C-rank, he might have escaped. But fate had been kind. A D-rank Guide. Practically useless. Easily replaced. And exactly what Kim Minsu had been hoping for.
Most of the Guides in illegal establishments were D-ranks—rejected by the Center, pushed into the shadows. Their clients were Espers who operated outside the law: criminals, fugitives, the ones too dangerous for official channels.
Ever since Kim Minsu took over the place, he’d been waiting for Nabin to turn twenty. He’d worried, briefly, that the boy might awaken as something more—but in his heart, he’d hoped for this. A D-rank.
Yesterday, when the test results came in, he’d made up his mind. He’d lost a Guide just last week. The timing couldn’t be more perfect.
Nabin’s despair meant nothing to him. If anything, it made him feel alive. Once the boy realized just how deep this pit went, he would understand how merciful Kim Minsu had been. He would beg. He would reach out. And Kim Minsu would play the part of savior, pretending to hesitate before extending his hand—so Nabin would know that he was the only one who could save him.
He grabbed Nabin’s frozen face and kissed him, tasting the metallic tang of blood as he forced his way in past the boy’s resistance. The gift he’d waited so long to unwrap was sweeter than he’d imagined.
His restraint shattered. Reason slipped away as he consumed Nabin’s shallow, desperate breaths. Their bodies twisted on the dusty floor, leaving behind dark, tangled impressions like creeping vines. The creak of the floorboards echoed Nabin’s final, futile struggles.
The cold air was meaningless in the heat that followed. But as time dragged on, the light in Nabin’s eyes faded—swallowed by the flames.
It happened not long after his twentieth birthday.
