← The Guide Who Hides Their Power is an Otter
Heisha finished preparing for deployment and pressed his hair, which had popped up again, firmly down with his palm.
“Hair. Help me out here.”
If Park Gang-u came to harm because he was a few minutes late over this, he’d cut it all off. Muttering that strange threat to himself, Heisha took his hand away and checked the mirror again.
‘Good!’
Once he went out near a gate it would all get messed up by fog or wind blowing from inside the gate anyway, but good was good.
Before leaving the house, Heisha fiddled with the yellow clam on the shelf he’d installed above the bathtub. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth.
“Please let today pass safely too.”
It was the prayer spell his mother always recited. She was far away, and busy, so they didn’t talk often, but reciting the spell she said every day now and then made him feel as if she were close.
“I’m heading out.”
It wasn’t as if he was talking to a toy clam, and there was no one at home, but the greeting he let out by habit echoed hollowly through the house.
As he rode the elevator down to the underground parking garage, the last jeep was waiting. When Heisha, who had arrived by a hair’s breadth, raised a hand, the agent holding the steering wheel hit the brakes in annoyance.
“What if you’re late?”
“Sorry!”
When Heisha showed his characteristic innocent smile, the man pointed to the back. Heisha hurriedly opened the rear seat door and climbed in.
“Is there anyone else coming?”
“Probably not.”
“Guide Heisha. Did you receive deployment orders today?”
“No — yes.”
His answer got tangled at the sudden question.
“Can’t you answer properly?”
“I didn’t receive any, I’m just going. The Captain asked me specially.”
The agent in the passenger seat frowned.
“The Captain asked you?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t a lie, was it? He’d come all the way to his home and asked him to come out to the scene if his body was all right. The deployment orders hadn’t come down, but it was his request all the same.
“Is there an order to stay confined indoors?”
“No.”
“Have you received any other orders?”
“No.”
“Fasten your belt.”
Heisha meekly did as the man in the passenger seat said and obediently fastened his seatbelt.
“We’ll depart now. Today’s standby team is all guides except for two espers, so we’ll park at the very rear. Guides, please devote yourselves to guiding, and espers, please protect the guides.”
“Yes.”
“Yes!”
The answers finished in order, and the car departed.
On the way to the scene, Heisha looked out the window. Most deployments were over long distances, so people traveled in groups by bus and were busy catching up on sleep.
Even if you didn’t pay attention until the outskirts, once you went out, there were times you’d go to the west end and then move to the east end. Once you were out, it was common to wipe out not one gate but three or four before going back.
Maybe that was why he never had time to look outside. He’d arrive at the scene and watch the backs of espers fighting busily, or carry guides who had collapsed from exhaustion while guiding.
Sometimes, when the Captain shouted something, he’d go alone into a nearby alley and look around a ruined building.
He rarely got to see the scenery. Or maybe he had no interest at all. An abandoned city like this wasn’t unique to this country.
Other countries with large territories sometimes built iron walls like castle walls and protected only a single capital, like Seoul. So there was an element of numbness to it, too.
‘Guide Heisha?’
After moving for a little under an hour, the scene they arrived at was chaotic, with two gates yawning open on either side. Heisha spotted Captain Park Gap-cheol and trotted after him like a puppy.
“Captain. Good morning!”
He deliberately raised his voice higher and smiled innocently. Now that he’d come this far, they couldn’t send him back anyway. Captain Park Gap-cheol furrowed his brow.
“Why did you come out when no deployment orders even came down for you?” “You said you’re short on people. I should come out even without orders. You asked me to.”
“No. I said I’d contact you if needed, not on a day like today.”
“That’s the same thing. But I didn’t hear anything about there being two gates, are my eyes wrong right now?” “The one on the right just burst open.”
It seemed the standby team wouldn’t get to rest easy either. Heisha looked around for Park Gang-u. Had he gone into a gate? He was always at the front lines, so probably so.
“Heisha.”
Park Gap-cheol narrowed his eyes as if he’d noticed something, then thumped Heisha’s back as Heisha stared intently into the gate on the left.
“Interested?”
“In what?”
“In Esper Park Gang-u?”
Yes and no nearly came out at the same time. Heisha looked a little bewildered, then turned his body toward Park Gap-cheol.
“Why?”
“Because you might get hurt.”
He shot back in a gruff voice, then yelled at the top of his lungs at the scattering agents.
“Hey! Not that way, this way! Where did Team B go earlier? If you entered the gate, you have to report it! Aren’t you using your radios properly?”
“Sorry!”
Why do something to be sorry for at the scene? If we slip up here, this is a front line where we high-five the grim reaper. Everyone, get your heads on straight. Guide Heisha. Your radio?
“Ah. I brought it.”
Just in case, he had an emergency in-ear in his pocket. Heisha quickly took it out, put it in his ear, and listened toward the crackling sound.
“If the difference in ability is big, it can be hard, you probably already know, but that guy doesn’t take guiding well, either.”
They weren’t the C-rank and S-rank he knew of, but anyway, since he had a guiding ability too great to be measured, Heisha was a little worried about that part.
“I know. If he says he won’t take guiding, I can put him to sleep and force it.”
What a strange kid. Captain Park Gap-cheol’s expression seemed to soften a little. The white face, smiling slyly, was suddenly doused with splattered liquid and stained purple.
“Huh?”
“What the.”
Heisha frowned at the sticky liquid that had suddenly hit him. No matter how he looked at it, it was creature bodily fluid. Over there, Park Gang-u was coming out of the gate, grinning.
‘Did he throw that here on purpose?’
Park Gang-u let out a rough breath and exhaled long and deep.
“Guide Heisha.”
“Yes?”
“Let’s talk for a moment.”
Feeling offended, Heisha looked at him with sparrow eyes and moved as if entranced. Seeing things like this, his character did seem a bit problematic. The gap between when he was a sea otter and when he was human was so big there was no way to explain it.
Heisha trotted after Park Gang-u, who was walking with wide strides. Unless he’d torn it open and thrown it deliberately, there was no way Heisha, who had been standing well outside the gate, would have been hit by bodily fluid.
“Why did you throw it?”
“Because this way, we can be alone together.”
Park Gang-u exhaled heavily, looking visibly exhausted.
—Esper Park Gang-u. Code B is cleaned up.
—Confirmed.
Radio sound came through the in-ear. Park Gang-u, who had already taken his in-ear out, wouldn’t hear it, of course.
“Did you go into the gate alone?”
He didn’t answer, and instead opened a plastic bottle of water and poured it over his head. His body was so hot that steam seemed to rise from above his head.
‘If I turned into a sea otter, I could guide him right away.’
Park Gang-u brushed the bodily fluid off Heisha’s shoulder with a large, rough hand, carelessly, thump thump.
“My apologies. It was a small creature, so I didn’t know it would spray this far.”
“Is there something you want to ask me?”
“Did you notice?”
With a dry chuckle, Park Gang-u poured the rest of the water over his head too and exhaled.
“If I go out looking like this, morale will drop. I’ve already given the Captain a heads-up, so would you take me out of here?”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
He could clearly feel his condition getting worse and worse.
“Please.”
His pleading tone seemed so urgent that Heisha forgot he’d been hit by creature fluid.
“The days are getting colder.”
Not long ago the blazing sun had beaten down so hard he’d thought he’d die of direct sunlight, but the weather had changed like a ghost, the temperature had dropped below freezing, and it looked as if snow could fall at any moment. It had been a long time since the seasons of this country, which was said to have four of them, had changed.
‘If a woman nurses a grudge, frost falls even in May and June.’ There was a proverb like that in Korea, but now frost falling in May and June even when a woman didn’t nurse a grudge was nothing strange at all.
“Brr, cold.”
His hands, reddened by the cold wind, were frozen stiff. It had been a full fortnight now. A fortnight of living as a shadow that watched Captain Park Gap-cheol standing proudly outside the gate, then suddenly vanished behind a ruined building.
Rustle, rustle.
Heisha put the in-ear in his ear, set a junk scooter beside him, who knew how long it had been abandoned, and yawned widely.
‘Esper Park Gang-u. Did he go in alone again?’
A time bomb that could go off at any moment. People had never tried to learn anything about Park Gang-u, who was called that. Since he’d had no interest in other people either, even after entering Korea and going out on deployments he’d never known who went into what kind of gate and how they fought. That said it all.
So how could he have not known about a person struggling this hard? He regretted the year he’d let slip by so carelessly.
—Esper Park Gang-u. How is your condition?
—No reinforcements needed, everyone get out.
—Don’t overdo it alone.
—I said get out, you’re in the way if you’re with me.
Refusing guiding, abusive language, disobeying orders: various rumors and scandals followed him, but overall, he was a person who sacrificed himself alone to protect people.
—Watch your mouth a little.
It was Captain Park Gap-cheol’s voice.
Rustle, rustle.
He was fully prepared so he could go to Park Gang-u at any time. Not long ago, he’d heard that when Park Gang-u had been helped into a car for transport, he’d risen to just before the rampage stage and had received inpatient treatment for several days.
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