← The Guide Who Hides Their Power is an Otter
There was no particular reason. An esper who pushed everyone else away and was always alone, and a guide who was pushed away by everyone and was always alone.
He had thought they were the perfect pair, but….
“Because I found you!”
Seeing the inner side of Park Gang-u, who, among the connections he had met by such chance in Korea, sat in by far the highest place, he made a firm resolve.
“HEISHAAAK!!”
A thunderous voice stuck into his head, pierced through the inside of his body, and scattered to the floor. Heisha, who had been raised like a treasure, afraid he would fall if held and break if he walked, opened his eyes wide at the first scolding he had ever heard in his life.
“The matching rate. You tampered with it, didn’t you? Huh?”
The Center Director flapped the paper he was holding and huffed and puffed. The font, grown large with bold added on top, looked as if it were a phrase saying this absolutely had to be seen.
“I don’t get along with machines, so I can’t do things like that.”
Where he had lived they used radios, and he did not know how much he had sweated coming to Korea until he could use a cell phone he had never used before.
Thud!
The Center Director, huffing and puffing, came up and slammed the paper down on the desk.
[Matching Test Result Sheet Principal Matcher: Heisha (Guide) Matched Party: Kim Jae-seong (Esper) Final Matching Rate: 17.2% Details: During matching, the matched party complained of nausea. Before the matching result came out, the matched party requested a stop twice, saying his consciousness was hazy. After matching, the matched party complained of abnormal health, and a hospital visit was recommended. Principal Matcher: Heisha (Guide) Matched Party: Go Woo-jin (Esper) Final Matching Rate: Impossible Details: During matching, the matched party lost consciousness. Principal Matcher: Heisha (Guide) Matched Party: Go Yi-hyeong (Esper) Final Matching Rate: 21.5% Details: During matching, the matched party complained of nausea, with 4 stops, and complained of headaches.
Principal Matcher: Heisha (Guide) Matched Party: Park Gang-u (Esper) Final Matching Rate: Impossible Details: During matching, the machine refused measurement, and a re-diagnosis is required.]
Heisha twitched his eyebrows, looked at the paper, and then raised his gaze.
“What’s wrong with this?”
“The machine breakdown. Did you do it?”
“How would I?”
“Heisha. By any chance, do you have another ability you haven’t told me about? Is there something you’re hiding?”
Surely he had not been caught. Heisha felt a prick, but he curved his eyes and smiled nonchalantly.
“If I had something like that, it would have come out while measuring.”
“Then why does the machine explode?!”
While the Center Director paced back and forth swallowing his anger, Heisha rested his chin and fell into thought. During matching, he had been sitting side by side with Park Gang-u, and when he had turned his gaze once, the machine had suddenly smashed. That was the question.
An esper who used telekinesis would be able to break down a machine or so with ease.
Behind the paper the Center Director had slammed down, the test sheet with the matching rate graph could be seen. He pushed the paper aside and stared piercingly at the graph, and discovered that one particular graph was especially peculiar.
A matching rate that, from the very start of matching, soared as if to pierce the ceiling. Its shape rose jaggedly, as if struck by lightning, trying to go beyond the maximum. Below it he saw Park Gang-u’s name and his own name, and Heisha covered his mouth.
“Wow.”
If it was this much, it was a connection sent down by heaven, destiny, no….
“Found him.”
He was his perfect mate.
“What?”
The nasty devil of a Center Director would not connect him and Park Gang-u. Heisha slipped the graph sheet out from behind the paper, deliberately clicked a ballpoint pen, and scribbled something to show him.
[Sea otter]
“Sea otter?”
Poof!
Heisha, transformed into a sea otter, bit the paper with the graph in his mouth and fled the office at once. If he fled in this form, he knew he could not be followed. The Center Director chasing after an animal? Seen from outside, it was a story that would cause quite an uproar.
“Hey, you! Where are you going! Hey! Heisha!!”
The machine had exploded and the graph had been written by hand, so if he ran off with this graph the Center Director had not yet seen, it meant that, for now, no one knew except the person who had conducted the test.
“Lucky!”
He had to meet Park Gang-u secretly and talk about this.
He had come out of the office, but if he was caught by someone in this form, it would be big trouble.
Because of his low field of vision, his sense of direction had fallen. On top of that, land. Stepping on land in this form was torture.
‘The floor is hard.’
He spread the webbing visible between his fingers wide, then folded it back.
‘At this rate I’ll dry up and die.’
Anyway, he had to solve the urgent thing first. He turned his head this way and that and looked around. Where would Park Gang-u be? Tuk, tuk. His black eyes, which had been watching the raindrops striking the window, flashed.
“Great!”
The pouring rain struck the window and flowed down. Heisha did not miss it and started running to get outside. The red sky, when dusk fell, suddenly hid its form in darkness, and then around dawn came out again sleekly, as if lying.
‘It’s setting early because of the rain.’
The half-set sky was black and red.
Flap, flap.
The paper held in his mouth flapped and got in the way every time he ran. Having no choice, he lifted the paper with his hand, banged it against the wall to crumple it, and bit it in his mouth again. Just as he was about to move much more easily, someone’s voice was heard.
“It’s chaos, chaos.”
“Ah. If a deployment drops, we’re really dead. Look at the time now.”
“Why? Isn’t it Code A?”
“They say it’s Code C.”
Heisha rolled his confused eyes. The code words used inside the Center, from Code A to D, indicated the grade of a gate, and the further back the alphabet went, the stronger the creature that came out was, and the more people were deployed.
‘Code C?’
Beep. Beep.
Before the announcement was given, a signal sound rang and resounded through the ceiling speakers.
“Announcement. Code C. All members who have received a deployment order, please gather in the underground parking lot and wait.”
Beep. Beep.
“Announcement. Code C. All members who have received a deployment order, please gather in the underground parking lot as soon as possible and wait.”
Several more announcements followed as if something big had happened. After the announcements, espers and guides came out of the offices and tangled together in disorder.
Caught in the sudden crowd, Heisha flattened himself down and stayed still, pretending to be a stone, and then, at the sound of feet running past beside him, he quickly crawled to the wall and stuck to it.
‘Why now!’
He was sticking his back to the wall, breaking into a cold sweat, when he raised his chin at someone’s footsteps.
“…….?”
“…….”
The Center Director, forcing a smile with his eyes curved, grabbed Heisha by the scruff of the neck. Lifted dangling with the paper in his mouth, he bit the paper even harder with his molars.
“What could this paper be?”
What could it be? Unable to answer with the paper bitten in his mouth like a gag, Heisha’s eyes curved along with the Director’s.
When the Center Director raised his hand toward the paper in his mouth, Heisha stuffed the paper into his mouth, chomping and chomping it down.
“Heisha….”
When the Center Director, holding back his anger, called his name laboriously, Heisha pushed the paper in halfway to his throat, gagged, and smiled with his eyes.
“I’m go-ing on depwoyment!”
Holding back his retching, Heisha, saying he was going on deployment, escaped the Center Director, slipped through the half-open emergency exit, and fled.
“HEISHAAAK!!”
Now he wondered if his own name was not Heisha but Heishaak. Ignoring even the Center Director’s shout, as he went chattering down the stairs he opened his eyes even wider.
‘If it’s Code C, Park Gang-u would have gone there too.’
Even if no order had come to him, if he joined in there anyway, they would just think he had been deployed. The red sky, being eaten by the black storm clouds, grew blacker and blacker.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Heisha returned to human form, and frowned at the thought that he had left all his belongings in his dorm room.
The paper he had crumpled into his mouth could no longer do its job; it hung limply, wet, as if begging to be thrown away.
“My mistake….”
It was a perfect mistake. He should have shown this graph to Park Gang-u and then dealt with it. Still, there was no going back to the Center Director. Being able to hide this fact, even for a little while, was a relief in its own way.
“Heisha Guide. Did you receive the order?”
It was the guide Captain.
“Ah, yes. That’s right.”
“Did that confinement end this quickly?”
He mumbled something like a monologue in front of the person looking at him, then tossed him an earphone.
“Put it in for now. I’ll explain again, so listen well. If you hear words like ‘run, flee, retreat, go back,’ return to the Center without looking back. Got it?”
“Run, flee, retreat, go back. Okay. Yes!”
Perhaps thinking of course he would not have brought an earphone, he did not even get angry. Since the body-slam incident the other time, he had been treating him a little carefully. He was a big-built, hot-tempered person who always deployed together with him in the field and, if Heisha hung around, would only say things like ‘go be over there, stay still.’
“When you enter the gate, check the colleagues around you well, and if you discover an esper who needs guiding, radio it in. That’s your job.”
In fact, he had come to the field only to find Park Gang-u, so being told to enter the gate was unexpected too.
“Anyway, lucky!”
Heisha grinned, showing his white teeth. Maybe he would get to see something even more fun. Like using some of his power after a long time… well, there was no guarantee such a thing would happen.
“Heisha Guide.”
“Yes?”
“Can you guide right now?”
Guiding. He turned his bloodshot eyes toward the target the Captain was talking about, but the esper’s badge that could be seen was B-rank, so it was blue. A-rank was red, B-rank was blue, C-rank was yellow. S-rank existed for only one person in the Republic of Korea, so it was white. In other words, colorless.
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