← The Resurrected Guide Wants to Live Quietly
Had he looked suspicious? He swallowed dryly, tense — but there was no sign she found him suspicious. Her sparkling eyes were transparently close to expecting, "You’d suit the field better than the Center — isn’t it a waste of your talent?"
"Ah, I really tried to hold it in…! Ee, ooowah!"
Vrooom. The quiet engine sound suddenly grew louder, then screeched to a stop with a squeal.
They had arrived at the destination, but it was unmistakably rough. Nothing special had happened, so it was clearly deliberate.
Oh Yeon-seo, subjected to two kinds of inertia, front and back, in a short moment, shrieked.
"What the hell. Hey! Why the sudden reckless driving!"
"Get out."
"Aht…"
But her bravado lasted only a moment. The second she met Han Yu-geon’s eyes as he turned around after killing the engine, her tail tucked.
No wonder — Han Yu-geon’s atmosphere was frigid. A bleak gaze, a cold expression. His voice was more subdued than ever. Like a pitch-black swamp.
Sensing the ominous mood, Oh Yeon-seo gave an awkward laugh and looked back at Seon Yi-yeon.
"Just a moment. We need to go to HQ to hear about the situation and the operation."
"I have somewhere to stop by too."
"Oh, right. You need to report your field participation? Then shall we meet in front of HQ later? If anything, my number’s on the card, so call me."
"Yes. I’ll do that."
He nodded, but for some reason Oh Yeon-seo kept staring at Seon Yi-yeon.
He waited, thinking she had more to say, but she showed no sign of speaking first, so Seon Yi-yeon had no choice but to ask.
"Is something wrong?"
"Hmm… just come with us? Watching you, I don’t feel right leaving Guide Ha-neul alone."
"It’s fine. This isn’t a danger zone."
"No, it’s not the monsters that are the problem… There are just too many espers in this world who go crazy over a guide who guides well, and you’re even pretty on top of that, so what if some perv— you bastard— I mean. What if some creep latches on…"
"…?"
"Hey. Oh Yeon-seo."
"Okay, okay. If anything happens, scream! I’ll come running!" For some unclear reason, Oh Yeon-seo really did seem worried; after several earnest reminders, she finally started walking.
Left feeling bewildered, Seon Yi-yeon watched the two of them heading toward the tent that served as temporary HQ, and only let out a long breath after confirming that the two of them — specifically Han Yu-geon — had left his line of sight.
He’d tried to act calm, but his whole body’s muscles ached from unconsciously tensing.
"…Maybe I shouldn’t have come." No. That wasn’t it.
He could be sure it was better than not coming. He couldn’t just send Han Yu-geon off in that condition. Coming along was unconditionally the right thing to do.
It just bothered him a little. It probably didn’t mean anything special, but Han Yu-geon seemed to have looked his way several times.
…Had he made some mistake?
"You did it. Teaching me how to maintain your gun, Mister."
"You looked tired, Mister… ah, no. Just! Just practicing what I learned before."
"I did it exactly like you did, Mister. I didn’t break it, so don’t worry."
Thinking back over his actions, Seon Yi-yeon suddenly remembered that he’d taught Han Yu-geon how to handle a gun. Afraid a monster might attack Han Yu-geon while he wasn’t around, he’d wanted to give him some means of fighting back rather than just being helplessly overpowered.
But Seon Yi-yeon hadn’t learned it formally either, so his teaching had been far from orthodox. Full of his own bad habits, it must have been crude. Even so, the boy was so smart he’d copied it exactly after just a few demonstrations.
A child that quick — he might have felt something familiar watching "Lee Ha-neul" handle a gun.
"…That can’t be."
Seon Yi-yeon quickly found his own imaginings funny. No matter how sharp Han Yu-geon’s eye or memory, that was years ago — would he remember?
The odds of him remembering some trivial habit of a person he didn’t even like, who died six years ago, were lower than the odds that he’d completely forgotten Seon Yi-yeon, his guardian.
He’d indulged in a pointless fantasy. Embarrassed, he quickened his steps — then suddenly realized the surroundings were noisy.
"Isn’t that Han Yu-geon?"
Tall and handsome, Han Yu-geon stood out even in nondescript clothes. Before he knew it, people around them were making them the topic of conversation.
"Next to him looks like Oh Yeon-seo? What’s going on?"
"Yeah. Why is Seonyeon here?"
"Blaze must be fuming. They were already pissed about losing the number-one ranking."
"Ahh. No wonder someone went into HQ all red-faced a bit ago."
"Here to pick a fight?"
"Crazy. Popcorn time."
Most of it was curiosity-driven gossip rather than friendly talk.
Seon Yi-yeon found their whispering, giggling selves distasteful.
When he was living as the "revenge-crazed esper," he too had often been consumed as gossip like that. He wasn’t big, but he wore a mask so he drew eyes; he was one of the country’s few S-rank espers; and with his unusually striking story and conduct, he had exceptional name recognition — it was no exaggeration to say people whispered about him wherever he went.
He knew better than anyone how tiring and annoying it was to be the subject of malicious talk, so he didn’t like Han Yu-geon getting the same treatment.
"…Endure it."
Right now he wasn’t "S-rank esper Seon Yi-yeon" but "rookie guide Lee Ha-neul, new to society." How much could stepping in change this atmosphere? He might just blow things up and cause trouble.
Do the job at hand. He steeled himself and focused on heading to his destination.
"Actually, this is good. A chance to score points."
"What points?"
"If we screw those bastards over, Blaze might give us some reward."
"How? Han Yu-geon’s S-rank. Oh Yeon-seo’s A-rank too."
"What’s an S-rank esper against a backstab? We don’t even have to step in ourselves — just send the monsters and we’ll get a good show."
"Ooh…"
Seon Yi-yeon, who had been walking on, pretending not to hear the voices around him, came to an abrupt stop.
He squeezed his eyes shut. His small chest swelled and fell, over and over — but in the end, he turned on his heel.
Meanwhile, Oh Yeon-seo had to fight the ominous feeling creeping up as she watched Han Yu-geon’s retreating back.
Han Yu-geon was pissed.
They were closer to classmates and business partners than friends, but she’d known him seven years by count, so she couldn’t not know. Thanks to the eyes around them, he was still just keeping his face coldly set — but a thunderbolt was about to fall.
Sure enough, the moment they reached a secluded spot, Han Yu-geon showed his true colors.
"What are you thinking?"
His eyes gleamed fiercely down at Oh Yeon-seo. His voice boiled up as if from a burning chest.
Oh Yeon-seo was honestly dumbfounded. They’d known each other nearly ten years, and this was only the second time she’d seen Han Yu-geon this angry. The first was when Seon Yi-yeon’s body was taken from him; this time it was because he was on edge about losing "Lee Ha-neul," who’d come out of Jo Min-young’s lab. In the end, both were about Seon Yi-yeon.
Whether in the training center or after graduation when they built the guild together, the guy who’d been utterly indifferent — not giving a shred of attention to the crowds trying to slander and harass the conspicuously talented esper unless they bothered him directly —reacted with strange excess whenever it involved Seon Yi-yeon.
"What do you mean, what am I thinking? Our guild’s short on guides. When talent shows up, you grab it."
"So why are you doing that to that person?"
Lee Ha-neul. A guide of unknown identity who came out of Jo Min-young’s lab — one of the country’s most top-secret facilities.
Han Yu-geon’s original plan had apparently been just to quietly watch Ha-neul. A hard-won link to Jo Min-young, so move carefully.
In other words, everything from showing up as his first client the moment Ha-neul started working at the Center, to suggesting they go to the suddenly-broken-out gate scene together while they were with him — all of it was Oh Yeon-seo acting on her own.
"Why? It’s fine. If he joins our guild, it’ll be even easier to watch him, won’t it?"
"…He clearly doesn’t want to join. If you act conspicuously, you’ll only make him more wary — what’s ‘fine’ about that?"
"He seems troubled, but not wary? And it’s not easy to recruit a guide of Ha-neul’s caliber. Better we move first before someone else snatches him."
"Since when does ‘Seonyeon’ snap up people whose identities we don’t even know?"
"Someone who was in a top-secret national facility — what problems could there be? And you can tell when you talk to him. He feels oddly mature for his age, but he seems like a gentle, honest person." She prided herself on her eye for people.
Back at the training center, she’d set her sights on Han Yu-geon, coaxed the guy who hated people and hated group activities, and made him guild master, building the guild up to rank one. Of course she’d had her moments of sobriety and near-regret, but she’d scouted him expecting even his rotten personality to some degree — so she deserved extra credit, didn’t she?
"Han Yu-geon. I know you’re being careful because this is your first lead, but if you dither, you could lose everything. I have my own plan, so just trust me a little…"
"…Careful?"
Ha. Han Yu-geon suddenly burst out laughing.
Then his face turned back to an ice-cold blank, and his fist clenched tight. So tight it looked like bones would shatter inside his grip.
"Of course I have to be careful. Do you know how much I’m holding back?"
The voice that followed was low and carried a dark emotion so chilling it changed even Oh Yeon-seo’s expression, who’d been calmly retorting until then.
"If I’m not careful, isn’t that worse for you? Do you know what I’d do?"
Oh Yeon-seo swallowed dryly without realizing it at his jeering words. Her wavering eyebrows drew down.
"What do you want to do?"
"I want to drag that thing somewhere deserted, tie him up completely, and ask: where is that psychopath, what happened to the body, where is the lab. If he keeps his mouth shut, I’d torture him if I had to. If I could get what I want that way, I’d have done it already. I’m holding back because I can’t."
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