Chapter 3
Seo Young-woo, who had narrowed his eyes and fallen into thought, soon placed the tablet on top of the piled documents. Guiding came first for now. Crossing his arms, he took off the top he was wearing and asked.
“Have you requested support from Russia?”
“I did, but there’s no reply. They say it’s chaos there too because of gates. That they have no guide to send all the way here. And we can’t send him back in that state either.”
Humming low, Seo Young-woo nodded. Sending him back to his own country like this was not courteous treatment of a mercenary, after all.
“You called me to try guiding, right? I’ll try, so check his wavelength for me.”
When it was useless even after going through several guides, it was hard to find an answer unless it was an S-rank guide. Seo Young-woo was not the only A+ or S-rank guide in the Republic of Korea, but the one in charge of Seoul Metropolitan City was Seo Young-woo, so the problem created by this gate was work he had to solve.
Seo Young-woo familiarly attached coin-sized devices to the inside of his wrist where the pulse beat, to the nape of his neck, and near his heart, and headed out.
For the safety of the researchers, the entrance was in a different place. Going out into the corridor, he opened the door right beside the lab and entered a space of about three pyeong. When he pressed the round button inside, the blue LED installed on one wall lit up.
– For safety, everything will be recorded from now on. Currently waiting for staff approval.
An announcement flowed from the speaker. The button was only a signal that preparations were complete, and the only person who could open the door of this place was the researcher in charge.
– Approval complete. The door will open.
With a clunk, the lock released. The thick iron door opened automatically.
So that blood and various contamination could be checked easily, the interior was all white. Not only the walls and floor, but also the private bed and facilities. In this place, so white it could give you a mental illness you did not have, there was only one other color.
“We meet again, Mr. Dmitry.”
Just as on that day, the man’s whole body was burned jet black. His face was still hard to recognize, but his wavelength was certainly stable. Was he in a coma? They must have called him because they could not know his exact state.
Guiding was largely divided into two types. Contact guiding and mucous-membrane guiding. In the case of contact guiding, it proceeded simply through skin contact and was accompanied by light physical contact. At the Bureau, you could receive contact guiding in the form of holding hands.
Conversely, mucous-membrane guiding required mucous membranes to touch through a kiss or sex, so it was only possible to receive it from a guide with whom you had a partner contract. Of course, exceptions always existed. For example, when an esper was right before a rampage, or when a partner could not help.
– Guide Seo Young-woo, please start with contact guiding. From now on I will record the wavelength and guiding figures.
At Jin-wook’s voice coming from the speaker, Young-woo’s gaze turned to the mirror installed on the wall. From inside it looked only like a mirror, but from outside the interior could be seen.
Nodding as if to confirm, Young-woo looked down again at the lying man. It was work, but he was also a person. The physical contact he did each time with strangers he did not know well was not pleasant. After a brief time passed and he steadied his mind, he closed his eyes tightly and opened them.
“I will begin guiding.”
Standing close to the edge of the bed, he took the jet-black burned hand. As if the overlapping hands became a passage, the energy that had been floating inside flowed and then bounced back. When he felt it blocked as if there were a wall, he lifted only his eyes and checked the monitor showing the absorption rate. As expected, there was no movement at all. It was a state where he could not accept guiding at all.
“Contact guiding stage one failed. I will try again.”
…Confirmed. If the retry fails, move to stage two.
From the connected speaker came a somewhat disappointed voice.
After worrying for a moment, Seo Young-woo took the mercenary’s two hands. More slowly than before, very leisurely, he searched for a gap to dig into. Like threading a needle through a very small needle hole.
It was an attempt completely outside the standard of the guiding he always did. He concentrated on touching a very small gap, and touching it again, to enlarge its size. At the sensation that when he widened it, it narrowed again, the energy consumption was considerable.
Before he knew it, sweat began to bead on his forehead. Controlling the movement and speed of guiding was a more demanding task than imagined. Was it difficult with contact guiding? Just as he was wondering whether he should move to the next stage, the size of a large blister shrank, and the blackened skin gradually began to find its original color. On the absorption rate monitor as well, the number that had maintained 0% could be seen rising little by little.
– Guiding absorption rate rising. Continue as far as possible.
Time flowed quickly. Because neither the guiding time nor the method was at all ordinary, he gradually became strained.
The skin regenerated very slowly. Compared to the power he poured in, the change was slow.
In the end, a drop of sweat beaded on his forehead fell along the line of his face. Breathing out hard, Young-woo checked the man’s state. Both arms had completely grown new skin, and past the shoulders, change had begun to occur at the neck and chest as well.
– Guiding absorption rate 32%, blood pressure and pulse all normal. Moving on to attempt guiding stage two.
“I think you need to check my blood pressure and pulse, sunbae.”
Seo Young-woo tilted his head back and let out a breath, hu, as he spoke. Since awakening as S-rank, this was the first guiding this hard. What on earth was this guy.
At that moment, he felt a faint movement in the mercenary’s fist he was holding, and then, at the force that pulled in an instant, Young-woo’s body tilted sharply forward. Quickly bracing himself by stepping on the bed with his foot, he climbed on top of the awakened mercenary.
He struggled with his unsound body, trying somehow to get away. Seo Young-woo pressed his thigh down with his knee to subdue him, and at the same time continued guiding without letting go of the hand gripped in his grasp.
From the neck to the jaw, the shape of his face began to return. At the youthful face and features, completely different from the photo, Seo Young-woo’s brow twisted completely.
“Who are you?”
Seo Young-woo’s figure was reflected in the mercenary’s two eyes, steeped in anger and fear.
***
“Does this look like the same person to you?”
Park Jin-wook stared alternately at the lying mercenary and the chart with empty eyes. In the meantime, Young-woo, who had washed up simply in the shower room inside the lab, shook out his wet hair.
“If he looks like the same person, you need to go to the hospital.”
“…”
“This has gotten complicated.”
As soon as the words ended, a thick sigh was heard. As if a sigh was not enough to relieve him, he chewed and chewed the paper cup he had mixed instant coffee in and drunk from.
“Where did this bastard pop out from? I’m really going crazy.”
Saying he was going home early today, Jin-wook rubbed his face roughly in irritation at the unexpected overtime. Leaving him behind, Seo Young-woo scanned the mercenary’s personal details again.
The man whose face had recovered was not ‘Dmitry Orlov.’ His eyes, which were said to be blue, were close to dark brown, and his youthful face was hard to judge as being in his thirties. Except for the fire attribute and his build, everything was different. To a degree where you could not even suspect he was the same person.
Thanks to that, the Bureau was on emergency footing again. Currently, a confidential document stamped with a bright red seal had gone up to the Director’s office without going through the upper levels.
Seo Young-woo checked his throbbing arm. It had bruised blue where he had been grabbed while subduing the man.
Surely he could not have fully recovered his stamina. He had not given up even though sleeping pills in a syringe had been stabbed into his thigh three times. The look in his eyes as he glared at him had been so savage that an afterimage remained in his head.
“A spy?”
Seo Young-woo, picking up a glucose candy lying carelessly on the table, said as he peeled the wrapper.
“He was too good at dealing with variants for that. In these days, it won’t be terrorism or anything like that.”
Humming low, he began to infer about the man, recalling the situation at the time of the rampage. There had been civilian damage, but there were many ambiguous parts to judge it as terrorism. What was ambiguous to call an adolescent was likewise the same. A being who was not on the mercenary list Russia had sent, in a state where there were no survivors and thus no witnesses. And the guiding that did not work…
“Then is it unauthorized dumping?”
Park Jin-wook, startled by the words he was muttering to himself, shouted out loud.
“At this level, guiding would have been difficult in his own country too, wouldn’t it!”
Even at the scolding asking if that made sense, Seo Young-woo was calm. When all the circumstances were considered, it was the most persuasive inference.
Unauthorized esper dumping. Literally, dumping an esper anywhere. In the past, when there was no ability to properly manage an esper at risk of rampage, or when control was impossible, there were many incidents of dumping them in a desert or on an uninhabited island.
Now, not only had a matching partner system and sedatives been developed to prevent rampages, but the human rights of awakened had risen so much that the culture had almost disappeared. Dumping someone in the middle of another country, not even an uninhabited island, did not make sense, but…
“The higher-ups will judge on their own. Sunbae, you said you were leaving early. I’ll stay.”
“…Really?”
“I don’t have anyone waiting for me either.”
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