There are only enough S-Rank Espers in the
entire world to count on one hand. Because
of that, Cha Jae-woo, an S-Rank Esper,
carried an overwhelming presence-so
much so that he alone could elevate South
Korea to the ranks of advanced nations.
Espers were national power.
Cha Jae-woo's existence made a
tremendous contribution to strengthening
South Korea's global standing.
It was said with absolute certainty that no
Esper could defeat Cha Jae-woo. Even if a
group of S-Rank Espers joined forces
against him, people agreed it would still be
nearly impossible to bring him down.
The real problem, however, lay in the fact
that since his awakening, Cha Jae-woo had
yet to meet a Guide with a matching rate
exceeding 20%.
An Esper without a high-matching Guide
was destined to run rampant-it was
practically a foregone conclusion. Everyone
knew this, and the Korean government
faced relentless pressure because of it.
The dominant opinion was that Cha Jae-
WOo should seek asylum. If a suitable
Guide couldn't be found within Korea, then
one had to be secured from abroad and
paired with him.
Truthfully, it was only in South Korea and a
handful of other countries that Guides were
still poorly regarded. Elsewhere, Guides
were considered as rare and vital a
resource as Espers themselves.
Governments were scrambling to locate
and recruit newly awakened Guides,
treating them as national treasures. They
had come to recognize that Guides were, in
essence, national power as well.
But South Korea remained stubbornly
conservative. The fact that guiding required
physical contact-and that the more sexual
and intimate the contact, the more quickly it
stabilized the Esper-did nothing to move
public sentiment.
Because of this societal attitude, the
number of Guides was woefully insufficient
compared to Espers. Except for a few
oddballs who volunteered, most citizens
didn't even bother to get tested.
And I was no different.
I had never once thought about becoming a
Guide, nor did I want to. The idea of having
to engage in physical contact with total
strangers made me sick, no matter how
much I tried to rationalize it.
But life is unpredictable.
Who could have seen it coming? One day,
what had always been a voluntary test for
those interested suddenly became
mandatory for the entire population.
Figuring l might as well get it over with
quickly, I went in for the test-only to be hit
with the utterly unwelcome news that not
only was I a Guide, but I had an extremely
high matching rate with Cha Jae-woo.
Because of that, I even ended up meeting
the President of the Guide Association
himself.
They say that when you're trapped ina
situation too absurd to process, your mind
goes blank. Honestly, I could hardly
remember what I said at the time. I was
completely out of it.
Guide... Cha Jae-woo... 97.8% matching
rate... and D-Rank.
Those four things were the only facts that
embedded themselves firmly in my mind,
despite the Guide Association President's
honey-tongued persuasion. But really, that
was more than enough.
..ARGH! I'm seriously going insane!"
Just those facts alone were enough to drive
me to madness, so maybe it was a blessing
that I didn't remember anything else. My
vision blurred, and it felt like tears were
about to spill from my eyes.
Wiping my eyes in frustration, I realized
there was no real wetness. The haze in
front of me wasn't tearsit was dust. Dust
kicked up by my own meltdown in my
perpetually unclean apartment.
"Seriously, what a mess...."
Who had let the place get this bad? Who
else could it have been? Obviously, me.
Given the circumstances, even trivial things
sent me into a rage. I threw aside the few
clothes l'd been trying to stuff into a bag
and collapsed flat onto the floor.
..Maybe I should just slit my belly open."
Maybe if I staged some dramatic meltdown,
they'd let me off the hook. Honestly, this
was beyond absurd. Fine, matching rates.
They cal it "matching" for a reason, right?
Let's say, for argument's sake, that it made
sense. Maybe it was just my rotten luck
that I ended up being the Guide with a high
matching rate to Cha Jae-woo. Physical
contact? Between two men... Ugh.
Even just thinking about it made my skin crawl, but okay. I could grit my teeth and endure it.
If we're calling something as minor as a
friendly arm-around-shoulder move "physical contact" surely I could manage that much.
That part-l could handle. I truly could have
endured all of that.
But the real issue was my Rank. I was a D-
Rank. D-Rank. The other party was an S-
Rank Esper, and here I was, a pathetic D-
Rank Guide.
No matter how | looked at it, the math just
didn't add up. It was like they were sending
me in to get my life drained dry and end up
a mummified corpse. I was no different
from some hapless sacrifice being thrown
into a vampire's mansion.
"It's like a noob who just learned basic skills
being sent to fight a boss monster.."
Strictly speaking, it was like a noob healer,
fresh off character creation, being thrown
straight into a max-level dungeon. Either
way, the outcome was the same-sacrificed
to the boss monster in a single blow.
"Haaah....
Sighs kept slipping out of him, one after
another. It felt like the floor should cave in
from the weight of it all, but his tiny
apartment remained perfectly still.
Normally, the noise from next door or the
street made it unbearable, but today, it was
so quiet and cozy it could have passed for a
sanctuary.
It's just your imagination, obviously. Of
course you'd feel like this.
Guide rankings were determined by how
much stamina they consumed while
guiding.
To put it simply, if an S-Rank Guide
and a C-Rank Guide both tried to guide an
Esper with the same matching rate, the C-
Rank's stamina would deplete much faster.
The rate of stamina drain accelerated the
higher the Esper's rank and the greater the
gap between the Guide's and the Esper's
ranks. Ideally, an S-Class Esper needed an
S-Class Guide.
Of course, for guiding to even work
properly, the matching rate had to be high
to begin with. Even if the Guide was S-Rank
and the Esper was D-Rank, if the matching
rate was low, that S-Rank Guide would be
less effective than an F-Rank Guide for that
Esper.
In that sense, he was seriously unlucky.
High matching rate, low rank. He had to
become Cha Jae-woo's Guide, and that was
precisely why it felt like his insides were
burning to ash.
The day after his guide test, the president
of the Guide Association, who had
personally come to see him, claimed that
the drop in stamina would only be a slight
inconvenience and wouldn't harm his health
-but that was a blatant lie.
There were already countless Guides out there whose lives had become completely
unmanageable due to the toll of reckless
guiding. A simple internet search would tell
you as much. Did they think he was an
idiot?
"i.... am an idiot. A complete moron."
He slammed his hand against his own
head, which had been sitting still and
obediently. The pain in his hand was
sharper than in his skull.
How could he be so brainless? Was he
trying to be some kind of hero? Why--why
had he signed that contract agreeing to
become Cha Jae-woo's Guide and move
into his house?
He must have been possessed. Maybe he'd
been brainwashed by the honeyed words of
the Guide Association President.
But what was the point of regretting it now?
The ink was dry on the contract. He had
already agreed to become Cha Jae-woo's
Guide-and to live with him, no less!
"You goddamn lunatic. Are you insane? Why
the hell would you move into that house?"
He remembered Kim Geon-ung blowing up
at him when he drunkenly blurted it out.
But when he muttered that he had already
signed the contract and even taken the
money, Kim Geon-ung yelled at him to
return it immediately. If he wanted to cash
in a life insurance payout so badly, he
should just take out another policy-one
that wouldn't get him killed. He even joked
that Haeyul should list him as the
beneficiary.
Honestly, that didn't sound like such a bad
idea. Half-crying, he mumbled that if he
died, whatever money was left should go to
Kim Geon-ung.
Not that he actually cried. It wasn't like he'd
been forced to sign-it had been his
decision too.
"That's why being a good person is a
goddamn curse..."
It wasn't because he had some grand
patriotic dream about saving the only S-
Class Esper in Korea.
All that talk about national strength,
diplomacy, and whatever else had gone in
one ear and out the other. As stupid as it
sounded, he barely had enough energy to
manage his own miserable life, let alone
think about the country.
No-the real reason was money. The
insurance payout would come after he died,
sure, but the salary he'd receive for being a
Guide was money he could spend while he
was still alive. Life was already miserable
enough with how strapped he was for cash.
If he could get some money out of this,
wasn't that better than nothing?
Besides, the Guide Association President
had said he could continue attending
school. He also promised to keep the whole
thing a secret-unless Haeyul himself
talked about it, nobody outside of the
immediate circle would know he was a
Guide.
Still, none of that would have been enough
to make him sign if not for one specific
thing. If the President hadn't added just one
more line, Lim Haeyul would have surely
refused, no matter how much money they
dangled in front of him.
"Ifa suitable Guide doesn't appear for Esper
Cha Jae-woo, he will eventually be executed."
They wouldn't just let Cha Jae-woo run
rampant unchecked.
All over platforms like YouTube, people
were claiming that Cha Jae-woo would end
up moving to another country-that once
abroad, he would surely find a matching
Guide.
Haeyul had believed that too. But no-rather
than sending him away, they were planning
to kill him. It wasn't just a joke; the threat
was chillingly real.
"The Korean government has no intention of
handing over Esper Cha Jae-woo to another
nation. They believe that if he's going to
bolster another country's power, it's better to
eliminate him instead."
"No way.."
"Other governments are surely aware of this
as well. If a matching Guide doesn't appear,
South Korea will execute him-and no one
will intervene. They might even help."
"That's insane!"
"Better to have nothing at all than to let him
belong to someone else, don't you think?"
Lunatics. They were all goddamn lunatics.
In the end, the Guide Association President
had blackmailed him-if Haeyul didn't
become his Guide, Cha Jae-woo would be
killed.
"Aaargh! Goddamn it!"
That cursed sympathy of his. What the hell
was he feeling sorry for? He should be
Worrying about his own life, not someone
else's, damn it! Even if Cha Jae-woo was
going to be executed-! No, not even that...
How could he just turn a blind eye when
someone's life was on the line?
He scrubbed his already burning-red eyes
even harder. The sighs wouldn't stop
pouring out of him.
Sprawled out on the floor, Lim Haeyul didn't
move an inch.
Right next to him sat a modest pile of
belongings-just enough to bring with him
when he moved into Cha Jae-woo's house.