← The Guide Who Hides Their Power is an Otter
“Anyway, that Heisha or Hei-nom, a confinement order fell on him. It was barely a week. For disobeying orders, a week, not even detention, just confinement, isn’t that going too easy on him?”
“They say they let it pass because he’s a foreigner and couldn’t understand what was said. And they say they let it pass because he protected the captain beside him, who broke his nose and lost consciousness.”
“Why did the captain collapse there?”
I don’t know. The guide shrugged his shoulders. Heisha, for no reason, submerged even his nose and breathed bubbles, bubbling.
Watching the bubbles come up above the water, he glared steadily at the two guides with narrowed eyes.
They were humans who badmouthed others as if it were nothing. He did not know why they hated him, but concluding and judging a person without even seeing him up close was too wrong.
Heisha boldly went into the water.
“They said a lot comes out here because they released them. Why isn’t a single one coming out?”
One guide’s words came buzzing into the water. Heisha swam, turned direction toward where the fishing hooks were, and advanced quickly.
“Hey, hey. Yours bit.”
“Huh? Huh?”
The fishing rod plunged deep into the water, and the line unwound in a line. Heisha pulled the fishing hook, stuck it hard into a large rock nearby and hung it there, and then came up above the water.
“Hey, what’s that?”
“What? Don’t talk to me. I think a big one bit, the power is no joke.”
“That… isn’t that a river otter?”
Heisha submerged to just below his nose and slowly approached the two people.
“It’s a sea otter. A river otter doesn’t look like that. That one’s cuter.”
Right. I’m a sea otter. Have you contributed anything to me!
Heisha went into the water again, found the remaining fishing hook, pulled it just as it was, and came up to the surface again.
“That looks like yours?”
“…That crazy sea otter bastard!”
Heisha, smirking, bit the front of the fishing hook in his mouth and cut it off, and bared his teeth.
“Hey! This crazy! Why is a sea otter coming out here! Kill that thing!”
The two people kicked the ground pat pat with their feet, shook their fishing rods, and raged. Heisha let out a ping of derision, then disappeared into the water again.
From where a fence had been put up above the reservoir, Park Gang-u, who had been watching this sight, shook his head in the pouring rain.
Why would an animal that should be in a foreign country be here? His eyes stared blankly at the ripples in the water the sea otter had left as it disappeared.
Heisha paddled in the water for a long time, then came up to the surface again. As was natural, he lay down, grabbed his tail, and was grooming the end of it, when someone was standing above.
A face deep in thought. The person standing leaning against the fence was Park Gang-u.
…..!
Should he flee? Would he recognize him?
In preparation for being caught, he decided to stay calm and not panic, and paddle away to escape. As he slowly kicked his feet and tried to get farther away, someone appeared beside Park Gang-u.
‘That’s the Center Director, isn’t it?’
As if they were deliberately meeting outside, he gradually grew curious. The feet that had been paddling in the opposite direction naturally turned direction again.
“Did I make you wait?”
“I just arrived.”
Park Gang-u shook his thoroughly wet hair in the downpour again and again, and glanced toward where Heisha was.
“Uht!”
It seemed their eyes had met!
Heisha, startled, closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, flowed leisurely, then swam back upstream. The voice of the Center Director, who had appeared holding an umbrella, was buried in the rain and could not be heard well.
If I go closer, I think I’ll get caught….
‘I can’t stand being curious.’
Heisha changed direction, making splashes below. It seemed not bad to listen from between the rocks.
Giving up swimming on his back, Heisha went into the water and swam straight to the rocks.
“Why are you stubborn when people are lined up saying they’ll match? You won’t receive guiding, you won’t pair. Are you planning to die?”
The Center Director’s voice resounded loudly. He was probably raising his voice because he was aware there were no people, but for Heisha, that was a good thing. He could hear incredibly well.
Heisha belatedly realized there were no large rocks in the reservoir, and grabbed a bulging rock at the edge with his hand. He thought about bringing the fishing rod he had just stuck, but that was too far, so he decided to give up.
“You know too, Director-nim.”
“What?”
“That on the day I was carried in, someone guided me.”
The Center Director’s expression subtly contorted.
“Well, how do you know that?”
“You know I rampaged. If I had been there one more hour, I would have either died there, or come all the way here rampaging and been shot to death.”
The Center Director irritably gripped the umbrella handle tightly and looked up at the sky.
“So?”
“That person who guided me. No, please let me find that guide.”
“Do you even know where he is? And you. It’s not as if that guide, if you find him, is going to pair with you either. It’s not too late to look at the people who are saying they’ll match now, one by one, and make a decision.”
“No.”
Park Gang-u looked at the Center Director and shook his rain-wet head again.
“I don’t need any other guide.”
“You, again!”
“I’m going to catch that bastard.”
…That bastard?
Heisha stiffened and put strength into his ears.
“Let me ask. Listening to you talk, it doesn’t seem like you’re looking for him to pair with him. What’s your purpose?”
“I’ll make him take responsibility, since he saved me.”
Why, why, why do I have to take responsibility?
Heisha blinked his roundly opened eyes, then, feeling somehow empty, squirmed his cute palm.
“…..?”
What!
Where did my clam go?
Heisha hurriedly dived deep into the water. Whether that was an important story or a story he was curious about, first he had to find the clam.
Because of the downpour, the water was gradually swelling, and the current was starting to get faster. What if he couldn’t find it like this?
That can’t happen!
If he had neither the bathtub nor the clam, his only pleasures in life in a foreign country, it was obvious he would soon become depressed. Heisha swam quickly and looked here and there.
Fortunately, he saw the clam, which had weight so it had not been swept away and was holding out at the bottom, and he hurriedly picked it up.
‘Thank goodness.’
Heisha clutched the clam preciously and popped out of the water.
“Even if you don’t want to pair, starting today, you start matching. It’s a superior’s order, so know that.”
“I refuse.”
“Are you saying you’ll disobey orders?”
Heisha lay down and was trying to listen to the conversation again, when he felt someone’s gaze.
“I’m sorry, but I think it will be difficult to talk about this now.”
“Esper Park Gang-u.”
An angry voice followed, but Park Gang-u did not care at all and stared blankly at Heisha, who had come up to the surface.
“It seems someone is listening.”
At those words, the Center Director turned his head following Park Gang-u’s gaze.
“…….”
The Center Director turned his body, avoided Park Gang-u’s gaze, and covered his own face with the umbrella.
‘I told you to stay still, what are you doing?’
That was the shape of his mouth. Heisha watched and rolled his pupils here and there.
‘Heishak!’
Seeing the Center Director baring his teeth like a shark and lowering his mouth fiercely, Heisha pretended not to know, flipped his body over, and dived just like that.
Now he would be scolded. It wasn’t as if disobeying orders would increase his confinement period again, was it?
In the confusion, he swam diligently to return to the dormitory.
Park Gang-u felt the ripples in the water in full and turned his head at the presence moving away.
“Isn’t there something you’re hiding?”
“Don’t change the subject, and receive matching.”
“Director-nim.”
Park Gang-u no longer shook off the rainwater, and stared at the Center Director through the raindrops falling from his eyelids.
“Then please let me decide just one thing. The matching order, may I decide it?”
“Ah, of course….”
“Then, the guide who came with me.”
“…….”
“Heisha. I want to match with that guide first.”
Oops. The Center Director, struck at the vital point, opened his mouth blankly, then crumpled it shut.
“Ha, well. Yes. Do that, then.”
He would have to try matching to know, but no matter how good both of their abilities were, there was no way that probability would be good.
Anyway, he had foreseen an incident like this once or so.
“I’ll start right away tomorrow, so know that.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going.”
Park Gang-u bowed lightly. He watched the back of the Center Director walking away, twirling his umbrella nervously, then turned his body toward the reservoir.
The sea otter he had just seen.
“I think it is that guide.”
The yellow clam he had seen when he had visited the dormitory. When the Center Director hid his face and seemed to say something toward the reservoir, he had turned his gaze, and there was a sea otter. Seeing it go holding a yellow clam, he became even more certain.
But he had only ever heard rumors that beast-types existed; he had never seen one himself, so doubt crept in.
Perhaps it was a pet someone had secretly brought in.
‘Or did someone throw the toy away on purpose?’
He had dropped it, worried someone might find out, but perhaps by chance the sea otter had slipped out while on a walk and gotten into the reservoir.
“Unbelievable.”
Who would believe that a sea otter, an animal that lived in cold regions, was in a reservoir, not even the sea?
Even thinking such a thing was shameful, so Park Gang-u clicked his tongue and roughly wiped down his face, where rainwater was running.
The rain showed no sign of stopping at all. Ripples spread again over the spot where the sea otter had been only moments before.
Then he clenched his fist tight and rested his arm on the fence.
“My head hurts.”
He had thought the ringing in his head every time he used his power had gotten better, but every time he sensed something, it stung so much his mind shook.
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