← The Resurrected Guide Wants to Live Quietly
Oh Yeon-seo — Yu-geon’s academy classmate and Seonyeon’s vice guild master — didn’t believe Han Yu-geon one bit.
They’d regrouped cleanly and entered the boss room, but by the time the raid ended, it was no exaggeration to say more than half the members were on the verge of going berserk.
It wasn’t as if Yu-geon had held back to protect his own body. He’d outshone everyone; it was no exaggeration to say they’d succeeded because of him.
Even an S-class esper like Han Yu-geon had to have limits.
But… to insist bullheadedly that he clearly wasn’t "getting by" and should get guiding already — well, the damn bastard still looked pretty fine.
He hid his trademark rotten temper well in public and was handling his packed schedule fine. He was definitely not sleeping, but if he asked what could possibly happen just because an esper wasn’t sleeping much, she had no answer.
Insisting without grounds would just go in one ear and out the other.
"Forget it, hand it over. You didn’t come just to nag; you’ve got something to give me."
"I do. I do, but… haa…"
"Give it."
…What a rude brat.
She cursed inwardly, but in the end Oh Yeon-seo couldn’t beat Han Yu-geon today either.
When she took the documents out of her bag and handed them over, Han Yu-geon’s thick black eyebrows shot up.
"…Lee Ha-neul?"
It was the profile of a young man who looked to have just barely become an adult.
Nothing particularly unusual in what was written.
Han Yu-geon’s face quickly fell in disappointment.
"Who’s this?"
"I don’t know much either. An A-class guide, apparently suddenly being assigned to the 5th Western Guiding Center. Probably next week or so."
"What’s with all the hemming and hawing over that…"
"The problem is it was Jo Min-young’s lab that planted him there. Word is he’s someone they sent out."
"…"
At the name "Jo Min-young," Han Yu-geon’s body, half-sprawled in his chair, snapped upright at once. His lips, twisted as if to show he couldn’t care less, stiffened too.
No wonder: it had been three years since he’d learned of Jo Min-young’s lab, but he’d only learned of its "existence" — he’d gotten no closer to anything concrete. He knew only roughly where the lab was, and he’d never met anyone connected to it. Even with Seonyeon tracking it with everything they had.
This was the first time. The first time he’d gotten a real lead like this.
Oh Yeon-seo — who had never met the living Seon Yi-yeon, and was only tracking the lab on Yu-geon’s behalf — had felt a heart-throbbing satisfaction the moment she learned of his existence. How much more so for Yu-geon, the one who’d asked her to.
Wasn’t this the information he’d wanted so badly he’d founded a guild he never wanted and taken the guild master seat?
"…A guide from Jo Min-young’s lab?"
"From what I’ve got so far, yes. But there’s something odd… there’s no way a minor went into that classified lab. So how does a twenty-year-old suddenly come out of it? It was founded less than ten years ago, so he can’t have been born there either."
"Fake identity?"
"Most likely. I’m back-tracing the background written there and asking around for anyone who knows him, but so far not a single person has turned up."
"…Hm."
If it really was a fake identity, why hide it? Someone who worked at Jo Min-young’s lab would be an elite courted not just by this country but by the whole world.
"So, where’s he being assigned?"
Han Yu-geon’s deliberation didn’t last long.
What was the point of agonizing now, when all he had was a single sheet of paper full of lies? He could meet the guy first and think after.
Death has weight.
"Death," an abstract concept like that, couldn’t possibly have weight. Han Yu-geon had thought the same for nearly twenty years — but now he thought differently. Because he’d felt the weight of death himself.
The slower the answers from the Seon Yi-yeon on his back, the heavier he grew — and when he stopped answering entirely, that not-so-big body had become as heavy as a boulder. Too heavy to take another step.
If death had no weight, it couldn’t possibly have happened — so it must be true.
It wasn’t that Yu-geon hadn’t expected Yi-yeon’s death. The wound he’d taken bringing the monster down was never going to heal with a few potions poured in — there’d been a hole in his belly big enough to fit two fists.
The potions were ones Yi-yeon had carefully chosen as gifts, every one top-grade, worth hundreds to thousands — but even they couldn’t reconnect the torn organs and blood vessels in his pierced belly or grow new flesh. At best they’d staved off death from massive bleeding.
He’d insisted out loud that it would be fine, but in truth he’d expected he wouldn’t make it home with him.
But knowing didn’t mean his heart was ready.
His head told him to accept the death that was coming, but his heart denied it. He was an S-class esper, someone everyone unanimously praised as amazing — wasn’t there even a one percent chance of hope? Couldn’t they really welcome his birthday, Christmas, and the new year together?
Wouldn’t he congratulate him on becoming an adult, smiling and clapping his shoulder?
"Mister. Why won’t you answer?"
"Answer me."
"Can’t you hear my voice? You’re… asleep, right…?"
Only when Yi-yeon grew too heavy to take another step did Yu-geon admit it. That Yi-yeon had left his side forever.
"Mister, it was all my fault…"
"I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’ll never worry you again… I won’t think strange thoughts either…"
"Come back, please…"
No — it seemed he’d kept dreaming of hope even after confirming Yi-yeon was no longer breathing, his heart no longer beating.
Setting down the body he’d carried on his back and attempting CPR, Yu-geon begged. The soft-hearted Seon Yi-yeon had raised him — who had never been a "good kid" — with love. Whenever he earnestly asked for something, Yi-yeon had done his best to grant it, as far as he could.
So he expected the same this time. He must have expected Yi-yeon to open his eyes, smile with difficulty, and call his name.
And so… hours passed, until it was far too late an hour to hold Yi-yeon and say goodbye —only then did he accept Yi-yeon’s death.
Because the body was stiffening.
Holding the hand that had always held him back, suppressing the urge to cradle that small head and kiss it, he laid Yi-yeon out straight and could only watch endlessly as the life drained from that body.
If he held Yi-yeon now, the body would stiffen in that shape and couldn’t lie comfortably in the coffin. He wanted him to leave looking his best.
Until then, he thought he could somehow accept the loss. It hurt and grieved him as if the sky were falling, but Yi-yeon, eyes closed, was smiling — so if this was the death he’d wished for, he told himself, don’t grieve too much. Send him off well.
"Mr. Seon agreed while he was alive. He said he’d donate his body to our project!"
He surely would have — if the body hadn’t been snatched away the moment it was transported to the hospital.
Yi-yeon had been Yu-geon’s guardian and protector, but the reverse didn’t hold.
Yu-geon had no rights whatsoever over Yi-yeon. He hadn’t been adopted; he’d only been unilaterally "supported."
He wasn’t Yi-yeon’s bereaved family.
He couldn’t be the chief mourner, and he couldn’t claim any rights over the body. He couldn’t object when they took it for experiments.
"Please! It doesn’t have to be now!"
"We have to hold a funeral!"
"Just a day. No, half a day! Hah, even an hour — just wait. I still have things to say to him."
"Damn it! I’ll kill you someday!"
To be precise, he’d objected — and been ignored.
He hadn’t saved Yi-yeon, and he hadn’t sent him off well either.
Meanwhile, more than half of the property left by the family-less Yi-yeon was inherited by Yu-geon. The other half was donated in Yu-geon’s name, not Yi-yeon’s.
As if he were a machine without feelings, the money Yi-yeon had never spent on himself became Yu-geon’s, all of it.
Miserably, he’d left so much behind.
"If you had this much money, why didn’t you spend some… You only wore worn-out clothes, only ate the cheapest food…"
No — it wasn’t that Yi-yeon never spent money while alive. He did. For Yu-geon. He spent it only for him, and then left the rest. For Yu-geon.
A total stranger, not even sharing his blood. He’d held the hand of a brat who could do nothing but cry alone, hugged him, loved him so much — and then vanished, having only given one-sidedly and taken nothing. Without leaving even his body.
This couldn’t stand. Yu-geon couldn’t accept Yi-yeon’s death. Couldn’t accept the farewell. He had to get him back.
Where had Yi-yeon’s body gone? Who had "used" it, where, how?
He’d thought he’d find it quickly once he was an adult. Yu-geon remembered the face of the person who’d shoved the consent form at him and forcibly taken the body — as vividly as his festering grudge. But things rarely went as he wanted. Everything about the woman who’d taken Yi-yeon’s body was top secret.
Damn it, that psycho son of a bitch was this country’s top scientist. Unmatched in the world when it came to esper research. Security around her was accordingly airtight. Despairingly so.
But he’d finally found a lead.
"’Lee Ha-neul,’ huh…"
Would he know? Where Yi-yeon had gone.
He no longer expected Yi-yeon’s body — supposedly taken for "experiments" — to be intact. Not a month or two, not a year or two, but six whole years had passed.
Still, it mattered. Even if Yi-yeon’s body had been torn apart, Yu-geon wanted to know its end. If he could just know for sure where it had gone, he could put his heart to rest.
If even a lock of hair, a single finger, anything remained, he wanted to find that trace of Yi-yeon and speak to him one last time.
The words that cruel man had left without hearing — this time, he would say them, no matter what. Chapter 2 Twenty Years Old, A-Rank Guide Lee Ha-neul
Say what you would about her, Jo Min-young was this country’s top scientist, and her lab was classified as a key institution with very high policy priority. Perhaps that was why Yi-yeon received his new identity so quickly — it took less than a week.
Everything proceeded smoothly from there: the official guide aptitude test, placement at a guiding center, and moving into the mansion where the center’s guides lived.
…There was a reason it differed somewhat from Yi-yeon’s original plan to live quietly in the countryside.
"Not yet. We have to watch how things go, don’t we? Stay in the capital region for half a year — no, three months. After that I won’t care if you go live on a deserted island."
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