← The Guide Who Hides Their Power is an Otter
It was Heisha’s first time leaving Seoul, so he’d been watching only Park Gang-u as they went, then soon turned his head to the window.
“Wow.”
His mouth fell open on its own. In the midst of his fluster, the scenery of the outskirts of Seoul, which he hadn’t seen, spread out. The only traces of people were the tall, tall buildings where they had lived, the cracked asphalt, and people’s belongings thrown away, showing how hurriedly they had fled.
As human hands grew fewer on the desolate land, birds not seen in the city flew about and small animals appeared. Plants wound vines around the gray-white buildings, and abandoned trees grew more lushly, stretching branches here and there. If a gate had come out this far, it would have been visible right away, but as if concentrated in the metropolitan area, there was no gate or anything to be seen.
By the way, Park Gang-u was extremely quiet. If it stayed like this the whole way it would become uncomfortable, so Heisha finally opened his mouth to speak first, but Park Gang-u spoke first.
“Is your body really all right?”
“Ah. Yes. Really, I’m fine. Look at this. I’m strong.”
Heisha rolled up his forearm to show an invisible bicep and flexed. Not noticing Park Gang-u sighing at the sight of skin much like his white uniform, he smiled brightly.
“Isn’t Esper Park Gang-u’s body worse than mine?”
“Why do you think that?”
“When they say a gate has burst, you’re the first to deploy and the last to come back.”
He’d thought it was just a rumor, but after deploying to a few gates himself, it turned out to be true. It was completely different from other countries, where if you deployed ten times they’d make you rest five of them. If ten came up, he went out on all ten.
“No matter how strong you are, if you go out like that you’ll rampage.”
“I know.”
“You know?
He knew and still went out like that?
“What is the reason? If you go out that much, you know after a rampage comes death.”
“I know that too.”
“Your body will break down before you die. Have you said anything to the Center Director?”
Park Gang-u smiled bitterly, held the steering wheel, put an elbow on the window, and rested his chin. As if he were thinking about something, Heisha quietly watched his profile, then soon shook his head.
‘What on earth is the reason. The Center Director won’t even let him pair, and he acts like a man who goes out again and again knowing he’ll die.’
Heisha rolled his lips in, then twisted his brows.
“Shall I say something for you?”
You’d think he’d think, what would a C-rank guide say, but for some reason Park Gang-u laughed lightly out loud.
“It’s all right.”
Since he wouldn’t tell him the reason, Heisha wondered if there was some circumstance or story, so he couldn’t bring himself to ask further and hesitated, turning his gaze out the window.
No matter what, privacy was in a different place for every person, so he couldn’t carelessly touch it, either.
“What’s its name?”
“Mine?”
“The sea otter, I mean.”
Ah. The name. He hadn’t thought that far. Heisha’s mouth opened and closed blankly, then he quickly said.
“He… Hei!”
“Hei?”
“Yes. Hei.”
It amounted to calling the sea otter ‘hey.’ He’d thought he was being asked his own name and answered, so the only word that came out quickly was something like that.
“So you call the sea otter ‘hey’?”
“Friends call each other Hei when they joke around, too.”
Haha. Heisha cut off the end of his words, answered quickly, and showed an awkward laugh. Park Gang-u snorted and gripped the steering wheel tight with his chin still rested on his hand. Anyway, they drove for about an hour and arrived near the sea. In that hour, all they’d talked about was the sea otter’s name and some even more awkward shallow badmouthing of the Center Director, so the air inside the car was subtly still.
“The sea!
Seeing the sparkling, shining sea visible outside the window, Heisha’s eyes lit up. Goodness. His heart pounded kongdak, as if he were seeing a new comic book he hadn’t seen in a year. He’d always floated idly in a narrow bathtub, and only recently had he finally gotten into a reservoir. Imagining the rough salty water and the sea full of delicious things, his mouth watered on its own.
When they came to what had been used as a port, it felt real. The smell of the sea poured into his nose. Heisha got out of the car and breathed in and out deeply, down to the depths of his lungs. At his hopelessly racing heartbeat, his head felt like it would ring.
“What do you say to make it come?”
“Yes?”
“It’s a country surrounded by sea on all sides, so you wouldn’t know if it’s here or not, would you?”
“Ah. If you call its name, it comes. Hei has good hearing.”
How should he put it. Speaking of himself in the third person was subtly shameful.
“By the way, you were able to come to the sea.”
The Center Director had said absolutely not even if it killed him. If it’s close enough to drive an hour by car, couldn’t he have come alone. He suddenly got angry.
“The Center Director said absolutely not….”
“The gates originally came out all the way here, so that’s probably why.”
“Here… here?”
“They came out in the provinces too, and there isn’t the personnel to subdue even those, is there.”
Which meant that some provinces might still have gates that hadn’t closed, still open and ongoing. That was its own kind of horror. The reason gates were subdued was that if left alone creatures came out and it was dangerous, but also because if gates occurred all at once nearby, they combined and changed into an even larger gate.
“So there was a reason you don’t go down to the provinces.”
“Please be careful of your surroundings.”
“Where are you going?”
Park Gang-u wasn’t even wearing tactical gear, only plain-colored pants and a white shirt.
“What if something big happens while you’re walking around alone?”
“That sounds like something I should say.”
Park Gang-u squinted his eyes and snorted. Since he couldn’t reveal his identity, that was how it went. Heisha awkwardly shot back.
“That’s true.”
Still, if he ran into a gate alone in a guide’s body, it would be a bit of a bother. Heisha smiled brightly.
“Still, I’ll try walking around alone.”
Since he was laying out the board for him, it wouldn’t be bad to quickly transform, swim in the sea a bit, and go.
“If anything happens, please call me right away.”
“You too, over there.”
It sounded similar to what Park Gap-cheol had said, so Heisha went ping, laughing.
No sooner had Heisha waved his hand than Park Gang-u turned his body and walked in the opposite direction. After confirming he’d turned away, Heisha picked up his phone. He went into messages, wrote out content so it could be sent at a set time, and quickly scheduled it.
For now, Heisha and Hei could not be together.
Since it had come to this, he’d go as the sea otter!
Heisha balled his fist tight and looked around. Park Gang-u walked so fast that he was already far out of sight. Looking at Park Gang-u’s retreating back, which looked like a dot, he headed behind the car.
‘What about the uniform?’
After a brief worry, he got back into the jeep with its door open. Was there somewhere to hide the uniform? He looked around inside the car, but it was so neat there was nowhere to hide it at all. He’d prepared several uniforms knowing this would happen, but he’d already lost a few before, so at this rate he’d have to buy another uniform out of his own money.
“What a waste of money….”
He hadn’t even bought a spare clam and only had exactly one companion clam, and he was clutching only a very small amount out of the money he sent to his family, so even this was precious.
He looked around inside the car again and soon found a big black box. He opened the box without thinking and looked inside, and there was tactical gear. Looking at the gear, it wasn’t Park Gang-u’s. Seeing that it had been neatly washed, it was new gear from not long ago.
If this car wasn’t Park Gang-u’s property, he could hide it well enough.
“What do I do.”
His suspicion said so, but he didn’t know for sure… should he throw it away? But it really was a bit of a waste.
‘Let whatever happens happen!’
For now, Heisha stripped off his uniform in a rush and stuffed it into the box. He wondered if he should check the name, but he’d confirmed it wasn’t Park Gang-u’s, so whoever caught him, it didn’t much matter.
He could just show them the brazen face of, why is it there? Acting was his specialty.
“That’s done too!”
He put his phone in the glove box and stretched hugely. He hadn’t had time to bring his clam, so he decided to be satisfied with getting into the sea.
Heisha got lightly out of the car and looked around again. Park Gang-u had already been gone for a long time. He raised his arms high to the sky and stretched hugely. He went to a shady spot out of sight beside the car, did a somersault, and turned into a sea otter.
His blunt, jet-black nose twitched and twitched.
The sea scent was full, and his heart pounded kong-kong again.
‘The sea!’
Heisha ran with a patter and leapt straight into the sea. A cold sensation settled between his rippling fur.
He swam frantically, as if wearing clothes that fit his body perfectly. He went deep into the sea, saw the stones laid on the bottom, and wandered here and there.
‘There are no clams?’
He searched everywhere as if hunting for lice, but let alone clams, he couldn’t see a single living thing. Not even the common fish were there, and his puzzlement grew. Wondering if he should go a little further down, he moved his hind feet.
Only kelp grew lushly, so thick the bottom couldn’t be seen. It was reminiscent of a pitch-black underwater prison. In an instant, goosebumps rose all over his body. He’d thought the sea, untouched by human hands, would be more vigorously active than the land, but that wasn’t the case.
‘What is this. This place is strange.’
Heisha changed direction and swam up. The excitement from a moment ago had completely faded. He’d imagined a beautiful sea and gone in, only to come out having seen nothing but kelp. As he surfaced and reflexively lay on his back, his ears drooped.
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