“Hey, Juwon. There’s something you need to go find out right now.”
“Just say the word, Boss!”
“Dig up the entire roster of the support teams from the Gehenna Gate incident five years ago, along with all the communications logs from the command room. Support was definitely supposed to come back then, but it never did. And... find out what that bastard Baek Seungho, the Ability Bureau Director, has been secretly plotting lately. If there’s anything suspicious going on, like him gathering Espers, report it to me no matter what.”
Juwon’s expression instantly turned serious.
“Understood. I’ll get it even if I have to tear through the Ability Bureau’s entire internal network. Get some rest.”
“Oh, right. One more errand before I go.”
“Yes? What is it? Just say the word!”
“There’s a guy named Lee Changhun on Special Gate Search Team 1. A-Rank, fire-type.”
Yihyun’s eyes turned cold as he spoke Lee Changhun’s name.
“That bastard seems to think he’s untouchable now that he’s gotten good at sucking up to the right people, so go beat the dust out of him in the training hall. You can beat him up legally, right?”
There was no way Lee Juwon, the Tosa fighting dog, wouldn’t understand what his superior meant when he ordered him to ‘legally beat the shit out of someone.’ Juwon’s lips twisted into a vicious grin as he answered.
“Ah, breaking a few bones during a spar is an everyday occurrence. Boss, did that bastard do something wrong?”
“He’s one of the people responsible for turning this Baek Yihyun body into a damn sunfish.”
Real murderous intent flared in Juwon’s eyes at those words.
“I’ll fuck him up good today.”
Juwon answered in a voice taut with military discipline, then carefully bowed at the waist as though leaving an audience chamber after meeting the emperor and closed the door behind him. The jaws of the security personnel waiting in the hallway practically hit the floor.
“Did... Esper Lee Juwon just bow to Guide Baek?”
The hallway fell silent at the bizarre sight of the infamous S-Rank bomber, notorious throughout the Ability Bureau for doing whatever the hell he pleased, acting like a docile lamb in front of an illegitimate Guide.
Left alone, Yihyun looked down at the people bustling around outside the window.
A hundred years ago, when enormous fissures known as ‘Gates’ first appeared across the Earth, humanity had faced an unprecedented catastrophe. The monsters pouring through those fissures knew no mercy, and in just a few years, half of the world’s population was brutally slaughtered. Humanity’s scientific technology and militaries desperately struggled to stop the Gates, but they were simply no match for the destructive power of those unknown life-forms.
In that dark age, when extinction had drawn right up to humanity’s doorstep, what saved mankind was, paradoxically, the mana of the very Gates that had engulfed the Earth and driven it to the brink of destruction.
The strange energy saturating the atmosphere forcibly mutated the genes of the survivors. Some awakened transcendent powers capable of fighting the monsters, while others developed special wavelengths capable of calming those rampaging powers.
That was the origin of Espers and Guides.
Afterward, every country established organizations to manage ability users, and the World Alliance Organization was created to confront humanity’s common enemy, the Gates. As the joint deployment of high-ranking Espers and the sharing of Gate raid information became more widespread, more countries began joining the World Alliance Organization.
That was how humanity learned to coexist with the Gates. Espers became humanity’s sharpest swords, slaughtering everything inside the Gates, while Guides became the shields that absorbed the heat with their own bodies so those swords would not burn away in the flames of mana.
A century had passed since the Esper and Guide system became firmly established. Now, under the pretext of managing Espers, the Ability Bureau controlled Guides, and by holding those Guides hostage, it forced Espers into obedience. The bonds once forged for survival had transformed into greed for maintaining power.
‘If the Guides are ever going to be free, we need to cut off those fucking leashes first.’
But the forces within the Ability Bureau alone were nowhere near enough. If he wanted to cut those leashes and keep the Guides safe afterward, he needed powerful allies outside the Bureau to back him up. Yihyun naturally thought of the guilds he had allied himself with in the past.
He switched on the dedicated terminal lying on the desk and brought up a current world map. The screen that appeared was covered from end to end in red and blue dots.
‘Where... the hell did all the guilds go?’
With some hope, Yihyun searched for ‘Ironblood,’ once one of the Five Great Guilds. The result that came back was cold and merciless.
[Ironblood Guild -> Forcibly incorporated into the 3rd Mobile Division of the World Allied Forces (2022)]
With a growing sense of dread, he next searched for Britain’s prestigious ‘Round’ Guild, only to find a horrific article stating that its entire leadership had been branded traitors and massacred.
“This is fucking insane.”
Even if they were at war, this was going too far.
[Notice: Enhanced Punishment Measures for Those Affiliated with the Rebel Faction ‘DUST’]
Recent cases have been discovered of Guides and Espers sympathizing with the rebel faction ‘DUST’ or attempting illegal defection. These acts constitute clear treason that threatens the survival of humanity.
Effective immediately, not only those affiliated with rebel forces, but also participants in unauthorized gatherings organized through illegal guilds and private organizations, as well as individuals distributing subversive propaganda, will be punished under martial law. Depending on the severity of the offense, offenders shall be subject to permanent revocation of their qualifications as ability-user agents or immediate execution.
-Supreme Governing Council, World Allied Forces Command -
The comment section beneath the article had already descended into chaos, with people who supported the government’s control and those who opposed it locked in a vicious argument.
└ ㅇㅇ: Honestly, defecting to DUST is way better than wearing a leash and working like a dog for the Allied Forces. It’s way easier to get guiding there too. They don’t even have the rating system.
└ Choi Deokhwan: You fucking traitors, stop praising the rebels. Ever since that lunatic Han Taeyun became the rebel leader, our country hasn’t been able to hold its head up among the allied nations. Our ranking is at rock bottom and he’s humiliating the entire country. Do you idiots seriously not know that? The government is nationalizing the guilds to keep things under control because those bastards keep causing trouble. Who do you think caused this mess in the first place? Tsk, tsk.
└ Fact Bomber: The idiot above me is brain-dead lololol. If the government had treated Espers and Guides properly in the first place, do you think they’d be crazy enough to risk their lives defecting to the rebels? You seriously think Han Taeyun blew up the Ability Bureau just because he went insane? Have you never even wondered why the world’s No. 1 turned his back on the world?
└ Ability Bureau Slave: Yeah, yeah, exactly. There’s a reason people keep spreading the conspiracy theory that the government deliberately provoked Han Taeyun because they needed an excuse to nationalize the guilds. I knew something was fucked up the moment they started putting leashes on Guides. The Ability Bureau’s gone to shit ever since Director Baek Seungho took over.
└ Ability Bureau Native: Ugh, you conspiracy-theory freaks sucking off the rebels need to check yourselves into a mental hospital. The fact is, Han Taeyun is a mass murderer and the government is maintaining public order. Hope all you assholes above get arrested. I reported you.
Yihyun bit his lip.
The guild system, which had once represented the free alliance of Espers, had been crushed under the coercion of the Allied Forces. In the end, the guilds had become government-controlled units with nothing but different names, thrown into bloody wars of attrition against the rebels.
While Yihyun was lost in thought, idly fiddling with the terminal, a faint buzz vibrated against his palm. Lee Juwon’s name appeared on the screen. He had only just left the Guide room.
[Lee Juwon: Boss, I called that bastard out to the sparring hall. If you come to Training Building, Sparring Hall No. 3 right now, you’ll get front-row seats to one hell of a show.]
When it came to taking action, that bastard really was as fast as a Tosa fighting dog. Yihyun suppressed the grin tugging at his lips and shoved the terminal into his pocket.
Going over the complicated state of affairs had left him thirsty. Yihyun got to his feet and headed for the café on the first floor of the Ability Bureau.
‘If I’m going to watch a good show, I should at least bring an Americano instead of popcorn.’
He had just picked up a refreshing iced Americano to go and was leaving the café when the terminal in his pocket vibrated once more.
[Lee Juwon: Boss, are you at the café by any chance? Could you buy one for me too? I miss the way it used to taste when you bought it for me, hehe.]
The bastard was built like a mountain, yet his tastes were still those of an elementary school kid. Back when he had still been Seunghyun, Juwon would whine after every all-night operation that his blood sugar was low and beg him to buy something sweet. The obnoxious memory made Yihyun let out a helpless laugh.
“One vanilla latte with an extra shot, please. Make it really sweet.”
With a coffee in each hand, Yihyun headed toward the Esper Training Building. Now that he had acquired an S-Rank helper, it was time to see just how thoroughly that helper could get things done.
On the second floor of Sparring Hall No. 3, Yihyun leisurely settled into the seat with the best view beside the enormous floor-to-ceiling observation window. He put the straw of his own coffee between his lips and looked down.
Sure enough, the scene unfolding in the middle of the vast sparring hall was quite a sight.
“…….”
Lee Changhun.
The A-Rank fire-type Esper assigned to Special Gate Search Team 1, and one of the men who had driven Baek Yihyun to his death.
Right now, he wore the most uncomfortable and anxious expression imaginable.
Standing opposite him was the S-Rank Tosa fighting dog Lee Juwon, his massive frame poised as though he might tear his prey apart at any moment. Juwon’s lips were twisted into a vicious grin, while the ferocious mana waves unique to an S-Rank poured from his entire body, pressing heavily down on the air inside the sparring hall.
Lee Changhun had no idea why the enormous S-Rank Esper standing before him had suddenly challenged him to an official spar.
Cold sweat trickled down his skin as he swallowed nervously.