They arrived at a shabby café on the outskirts of the city, far from any crowds. The place had a rusted sign hanging crookedly above it and not a single customer inside. Minji, who had arrived at the meeting place first and was waiting with a pale face, hurriedly rose from her seat when she spotted Yihyun and the others.
“Baek Yihyun…….”
Minji’s gaze passed over Yihyun and Juwon before landing on the youthful face trailing behind them. The instant she saw him, her eyes widened in shock.
“Gasp……! G-Ghost……?”
The subject of the wanted notice that had thrown the entire Ability Bureau into chaos. That very ‘Ghost,’ whose face had been plastered all over the news until just moments ago, was standing right in front of her. Minji covered her mouth and stumbled backward. So these were the people who had broken into the Ability Bureau’s detention block and disappeared.
Only now did Minji truly realize just how dangerous a situation she had gotten herself involved in, and her hands began to tremble violently. As though seeing straight through her thoughts, Yihyun calmly approached and lightly gripped her shoulder.
“Calm down.”
“How, how did you get Ghost…… Yihyun, are you insane? Even Esper Lee Juwon…… If this gets found out, they’ll accuse me of being an accomplice too……!”
“If we get caught, insist you didn’t know anything. Say you were just dragged here.”
Yihyun drew a firm line with his words. It was his way of giving her an escape route before she could even say anything. Minji clasped her trembling hands together and looked at Yihyun. When she saw the unwavering sincerity in his eyes as he worried about her safety, the anxiety surging inside her gradually gave way to relief.
The four of them sat down at a table in the corner and ordered some coffee. Yihyun cautiously pointed at the choker around Minji’s neck.
“Yeonwoo, take a look at this. Juwon says he can tamper with the pins inside the choker, but before that, we need to manipulate the signals it exchanges with the server. Can you do it?”
Clink. As the coffee cup struck its saucer, fluorescent lines of code poured across Yeonwoo’s vision. As he scanned the black choker fastened around Minji’s neck, his brows gradually drew together into a fierce frown.
“Wow……. Baek Seungho, that bastard really is fucking vile. This isn’t just a simple tracking device. There’s even an option that lets the control room press a self-destruct button and fry the Guide’s entire brain.”
“……!”
The moment Yeonwoo finished his analysis, all color drained from Minji’s face. Terrified, she wrapped a trembling hand around her neck.
‘So they’d rather kill them than let DUST take them.’
Yihyun clenched his teeth as well, deep fury erupting inside him at the Ability Bureau’s vileness, which went far beyond anything he had imagined.
Yeonwoo moved his fingers through the air again. The codes floating before his eyes shimmered even more vividly.
“You broke me out because of this self-destruct device, right?”
“Can you do it?”
At Yihyun’s question, Yeonwoo nodded.
“Yeah. I left the self-destruct option on the control room server so it still looks like it’s there. If I delete it completely, it’ll immediately trigger a log. But I’ve already cut off the execution route that actually carries the command to the choker, and I’ll plant a backdoor that keeps sending fake signals saying the choker is ‘operating normally.’ Then even if that big guy physically rips this thing off, those bastards in the control room will never know.”
Yeonwoo jerked his chin toward Juwon and spoke as though it were nothing, making Yihyun’s expression brighten. Juwon, who had been watching, slammed down his coffee cup and shouted.
“Hey, you little shit. What do you mean, ‘big guy’? Call me hyung! Hyung!”
“No. If I call Pretty Boy-Boss, doesn’t that mean you’re younger than me?”
“Hey, I am older than you! There’s a separate reason I call Yihyun boss, so don’t talk down to me.”
Unable to explain that Yihyun was actually Lee Seunghyun, Juwon found himself at a loss for words and could only glare at Yeonwoo in warning.
With their bickering in the background, Yihyun thought about the problem he still had not solved. What were they supposed to do with the Guides once their collars were removed?
All the guilds were under the Ability Bureau’s control, and the Ability Users’ Rights Association was probably nothing more than an empty shell. It was dangerous to simply leave the Guides in the Ability Bureau like this. If the discrepancy between the status of their chokers and the server data was discovered, even harsher surveillance and control would await them.
If they wanted to prevent this from happening again, they would have to overturn the entire system from within.
Or they really could defect to DUST.
But how many people could leave peacefully while abandoning their families behind? There would undoubtedly be people who endured it all by clinging to the promise that as long as they kept their heads down and lived quietly, they wouldn’t be killed.
Leaving their families behind was difficult enough, but defecting together with their families wouldn’t be easy either.
“You just want me to take this off now, right? Keep your promise that once this is done, you’ll send me to DUST.”
At Yeonwoo’s words, Minji, who had been nervously watching the others, bit down hard on her lip. Clutching the choker around her neck, she forced the words out.
“I…… I also…… want to go to DUST once this comes off.”
“…You won’t regret it?”
At Yihyun’s question, Minji nodded without the slightest hesitation.
“I don’t want to live in constant fear, never knowing when I might die. I’m taking my family with me. None of them are ability users except me, so there shouldn’t be much trouble moving them. So…… send me too.”
“There’s one thing I want to make absolutely clear.”
Yihyun looked Minji directly in the eyes.
“I can’t tell you that DUST is a place where Guides are treated better. I’ve never been there myself.”
Even so, there was only one reason Yihyun had considered DUST as an option.
His faith in the fundamental nature of the man named Han Taeyun whom he had known before his death.
“Juwon, do you have anyone trustworthy inside the Ability Bureau?”
At Yihyun’s question, Juwon puffed out his chest and answered.
“Yes, boss. The guys under me can be trusted. I’ll contact those bastards. I’ll tell them to escort Yeonwoo and Guide Minji all the way to the border without letting a single hair on their heads get hurt.”
“Good. Contact them right now.”
With a solemn expression, Juwon turned on his terminal and connected to a secure line.
Yeonwoo, who had been resting his chin on the table while observing Yihyun, rose to his feet and asked,
“Then I’m starting?”
Yihyun gave a short nod. Code once again appeared across Yeonwoo’s eyes, strings of zeros and ones flowing past like water.
A faint beep sounded from the choker fastened around Minji’s neck.
[Security code bypass complete. Spoofing normal-operation signal to control room server initiated.]
“Done. Now, big guy hyung. Try ripping it off.”
The instant Yeonwoo gave the order, Juwon reached toward the back of Minji’s neck. Metal-type mana gently melted the locking pins inside the choker, forcibly releasing its fastening mechanism.
Clunk-
The pitch-black metal collar dropped to the floor.
The horrific time bomb that could have fried a Guide’s brain at any moment had been completely neutralized.
“Ah…….”
Minji touched her bare neck, and at the raw freedom she had finally regained, the tears she had been holding back burst from her eyes.
“Juwon. You got a perfect read on the structure of the internal locking pins while you were taking that thing off just now, right?”
“Of course, boss. My mana swept through every nook and cranny inside it. How could I not know?”
Juwon grinned confidently. As though he had been waiting for that answer, Yihyun nodded.
“Good. Then make a few master keys that perfectly fit that structure. Make it so we can stick one into any other choker, turn it, and unlock it immediately.”
“That much is a piece of cake.”
The choker in Juwon’s hand melted like soft clay, slowly flowing between his fingers. Along with the faint ripples of metallic mana, the molten steel began reconstructing itself into intricate shapes.
A moment later, three metallic master keys with a silvery sheen appeared on Juwon’s palm.
“Yeonwoo, you can do the same thing with the other Guides’ chokers, right?”
“Yeah. I just need to cut off all the execution routes on the server side and overwrite them with normal-operation signals.”
At Ho Yeonwoo’s confident answer, Yihyun nodded, took the master keys Juwon had made, and placed them in Minji’s hand.
“Minji. Listen carefully. The moment you run, the Ability Bureau will realize these chokers have been hacked. So while we’re doing this, anyone who wants to leave should leave. Give these only to Guides you can truly trust—people who can keep their mouths shut and genuinely want to escape this hell.”
Yihyun’s voice rang in Minji’s ears.
Minji stared at the cold metal resting against her palm and silently wiped away her tears.
These weren’t merely keys.
They were the spark of a counterattack from the oppressed Guides against the Ability Bureau.
“……I’ll make sure, I’ll make sure they get them. Thank you. And Esper Juwon too…….”
“And even if Juwon’s team members say they’ll take you all the way to the border, don’t let your guard down.”
Yihyun tapped his index finger against the table, once, twice, setting a strict time limit.
“At most, it’ll take the Ability Bureau two days to figure out what happened. Once the pursuit teams start moving, it’ll be too late. You need to get out of this sector by tomorrow night at the latest.”
“……Okay. I’ll remember.”
Minji nodded firmly despite her bloodless face. Yeonwoo clicked his tongue but obediently answered as well.
“Don’t worry. Unless my brain explodes, I’ll keep the control room bastards completely blind. But you’re not coming with us?”
“I still have something left to finish here. You go meet Han Taeyun. That was your goal in the first place.”