← The Resurrected Guide Wants to Live Quietly
Following "Seonyeon"’s two espers out of the safe zone, Seon Yi-yeon sighed inwardly. When Han Yu-geon had suddenly appeared, he’d wondered how to explain himself, but it seemed he’d gotten through it somehow — what a relief.
The trouble had started because he couldn’t stand the malicious words aimed at Han Yu-geon. He’d known espers were pointlessly prideful, but he hadn’t expected them to fly off the handle like that at a carefully offered "please don’t speak ill of others."
At least it hadn’t been this bad when he was an esper.
"Shit. You’re a guide, right? Where does a damn guide get off butting into espers’ business?"
"What guild are you with? A bastard who’d freeze up the second he enters a private room."
"You do look fuckable, though. Did you sleep with Han Yu-geon? Is that bastard your sugar daddy or something? How well did he drill you, for a young punk to act so fearless… Aaaagh!"
The self-defense he’d learned in his esper days still worked. Espers who trusted only in their awakened superior bodies and neglected training could be subdued. In a prolonged fight he’d obviously be at a disadvantage, but with many people around, someone would intervene if things got risky, so he figured it wouldn’t become dangerous.
His prediction wasn’t far off — the esper bastards’ faces flushed crimson and they huffed, but they didn’t lunge. They weren’t stupid enough to trumpet it in front of watching eyes that they’d been subdued by a mere guide as espers, inviting more humiliation.
Anyway, it was a relief he hadn’t shown it in front of Han Yu-geon. Nothing good would come of being caught as skilled at self-defense on top of guns.
"Oh, right, Guide. It was noisy — what happened?"
"Ah, just a petty quarrel."
"A quarrel? Ha. Don’t tell me someone hit on you?"
"…Yes."
In truth, the main cause was him stepping in to tell them not to speak ill of Han — no, of "Seonyeon" — but it was also strictly true that they’d sexually harassed him, babbling about sleeping with him and how well he’d been drilled.
When Seon Yi-yeon nodded, Oh Yeon-seo clenched her fist and fumed.
"I knew it! I knew someone would cause trouble! Some espers do every kind of shit when they see a pretty guide! As if they think being an esper means they can own a guide or something. Guide, do you remember those bastards’ faces? We’ll punish them later."
"It’s fine. I settled it on my end."
"Oh my. Our guide has a heart as kind as his face." There it was again. Another sparkling gaze. As if she adored him. It was very burdensome to Seon Yi-yeon, but he was gradually getting used to the compliments on his looks.
With the burns cleanly healed, his current face resembled his mother a lot. As a child people said he looked half-and-half like his parents, but now he looked a lot like his mother in her youth. The gentle-looking eye shape made of soft lines, the thin but defined, straight nose, the vividly red and full lips even with nothing on them.
So it felt like receiving compliments on his mother’s behalf, which wasn’t bad.
"Oh Yeon-seo. Stop dawdling. They’re coming."
"Ah. Okay. Guide, stay here."
In the middle of a road with nowhere to hide, why stay here — the question was quickly answered. Though nearly invisible for its transparency, it was definitely there around Seon Yi-yeon. A huge, solid barrier.
Did a support-type esper have defensive abilities too? And at quite a high level. Even an A-rank would struggle to break it without a fairly strong attack.
He looked at Oh Yeon-seo in surprise, and feeling his gaze, she turned her head. Then she grinned and raised a thumbs-up.
"Not that it means much, since not a single one will get past over there anyway." But the truly confident expression came not when she looked at the barrier she’d made, but when she looked at Han Yu-geon standing beside her.
"Right, Yu-geon?"
"…"
Han Yu-geon didn’t particularly answer, but both Oh Yeon-seo the speaker and Seon Yi-yeon could tell.
It wasn’t that he didn’t answer from lack of confidence, but that he’d judged the obvious not worth answering. He looked that much at ease.
Oh Yeon-seo had described it as "not dangerous" because the rating was judged more for quantity than quality, but of course that couldn’t be true. It was A++, after all. As an S-rank esper who’d been to many scenes, he knew. Even a plain A-rank, not A++, was dangerous enough that most espers would never take it on alone rather than as a party or guild unit.
So Seon Yi-yeon had tried to act in groups whenever possible. Unless the esper was quite skilled, most got scared, so it was better to accompany them to hold the raid together.
Yet here were just two of them, this relaxed, without even forming a party.
That small, frail little child he could have lifted with one arm had grown this big.
Feeling a strange mix of pride and slight wistfulness, Seon Yi-yeon sensed the monsters’ presence from the front. Precisely, the sound of wingbeats. Enough to make his ears ring.
Monsters in the form of flying insects the size of a human torso. With sharp proboscises.
A++ indeed, one might say. They were quite fast and their numbers were immense. In this body that had become a guide’s, he couldn’t even properly see what they looked like. He could only chase the densely packed pitch-black shadows, or afterimages.
A tricky opponent, as expected.
Normally with bug-type monsters like these, the best approach was to burn them all at once with a wide-range fire ability. Try to handle them one by one and you’d be minced meat in an instant, overwhelmed by their sheer numbers.
But if his memory wasn’t wrong, Han Yu-geon’s ability had nothing to do with fire. If anything, it was close to the opposite.
How was he planning to handle it? Seon Yi-yeon’s lips parted as he turned to Han Yu-geon with half worry, half anticipation.
Keeeek! Kieeeeek!
Something glittered in the air around Han Yu-geon, and the monsters shrieked sharply.
Green bodily fluid splattered through the air, and the bodies flying in dropped to the floor with a patter. In an instant, monster corpses piled so thickly the ground was invisible.
Ice.
Countless well-honed shards of ice formed in midair and rained down like a storm, piercing the monsters’ bodies.
Each was no bigger than a bullet — never large — but they struck the monsters’ vital points precisely, punching holes, and the monsters died with short death cries.
No matter how many monsters swarmed, it was overwhelming force enough to be certain they could never get past the wall that was Han Yu-geon.
Seon Yi-yeon, who had been fully tensed to join in however inadequately if needed, felt the strength drain from his body.
"Amazing…"
"Seonyeon" was close to secretive, so its members’ abilities weren’t public. Only rumors from eyewitness accounts, "something like this," circulated.
Han Yu-geon especially was a very strong ability user, and his wavelength was strong too, so he was rarely caught properly on camera — his exploits were especially hard to see.
Good thing he came along.
Since around the time Han Yu-geon awakened, their relationship had grown rapidly distant, so he’d only heard that his manifested ability was ice-type and his talent extraordinary — he’d never seen it directly. He was truly glad for this opportunity.
The proudly glittering ice suited Han Yu-geon. The lowered eyes and tightly closed lips, as if this tremendous display of force were no big deal, were so like him. A pleased smile crept onto his face without him realizing.
"Yu-geon. Looks like they’re struggling over there? Want to go help?"
"Move? …It’s not just the two of us here."
"It’s fine, it’s fine. My barrier’s here. Don’t you trust me?"
"…Why did you bring him to this dangerous place if you’re going to leave him alone?"
"Why. Looks like he’s enjoying it."
Had she caught his excitement? Feeling awkward for no reason, Seon Yi-yeon managed his expression and gestured. Go ahead and leave him behind. Han Yu-geon’s unstable wavelength still worried him, but despite using his ability on a fairly large scale, it hadn’t changed much. It probably wouldn’t suddenly worsen; likely fine.
He’d like them to take him along, but the barrier apparently wasn’t mobile, so it couldn’t be helped.
"It’s not far anyway. Guide, we’ll be right back!" Oh Yeon-seo waved her hands, but even that was excessive — they barely moved. They stopped after just two blocks.
Han Yu-geon’s ability was long-range anyway, so he just needed his target in sight. With Oh Yeon-seo’s support ability lifting him into the air, he’d already secured a wide enough range.
His vision was worse than in his esper days, so it was a shame it wasn’t sharp — but he could still take in their exploits. Enough.
He could feel the wavelength too, and it wasn’t problematic. At this rate they could finish up and come back soon. He’d have to advise him to get guiding from a guild-affiliated guide on the way back. He was a smart kid; he wouldn’t brush it off lightly.
He was sinking into thoughts like — he’d like to confirm his wavelength had stabilized after guiding, but he was a stranger to "Ha-neul," so he shouldn’t hope for that much — when suddenly Han Yu-geon looked back at Seon Yi-yeon. Had he felt the stare from being watched so intently?
Han Yu-geon’s lidless eyes widened. It was the first agitation on his face, which had looked peaceful to the point of boredom while dealing with the monsters.
"Ah."
Almost simultaneously, Seon Yi-yeon felt a chill. The moment he twisted his body instinctively, a sharp presence grazed past him.
A proboscis. A monster’s.
He’d dodged by a hair’s breadth. Had he been even one second late, there might have been a hole in his belly.
But how? How had it gotten through Oh Yeon-seo’s barrier?
And a monster with swarming habits, alone — could a flying-insect monster, whose wingbeats were deafening, kill its presence and approach? The moment the question arose, before he could reach any conclusion, Seon Yi-yeon’s gaze swept the surroundings.
And he found them. A group watching him and smiling. The esper group that had said "just you wait."
They did this. Seon Yi-yeon was certain.
Whether they’d used a restraint ability or knocked one out, they’d smuggled out one monster by some method, then nullified Oh Yeon-seo’s barrier in secret before sending the monster. A barrier made against monsters would ordinarily be vulnerable to nullification abilities.
Then again, who would imagine someone doing such a rotten thing? Even an A-rank esper’s barrier, however unprepared, would never be easy to remove.
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