‘A community…… They had things like that back then too.’
Even when Seunghyun had been ranked No. 2, the Guides had operated secret message boards where they shared gossip about Espers and information about dangerous Gates. Seunghyun had never wanted to invade their privacy, so he had pretended not to know about them, but he had at least figured out how to access them.
Yihyun skillfully set up a bypass route and logged into ‘UnderArk,’ the Guides’ secret sanctuary.
[Currently Online: 1,402]
The board was more active than he had expected.
[Gate C-14 zone is fucking awful today. Mana contamination is over 40%. Better be careful.]
[Rank 5 YJ that bastard twisted another Guide’s wrist. Watch yourselves.]
[Rumor from the rebel side: Is guiding pay really double over there?]
└ Yeah.
[[Long Post/GIFs] Our leader working hard today is insanely gorgeous… (Heart Attack Warning)]
Yihyun frowned.
In the middle of all the grim information was a completely out-of-place post gushing over someone’s looks. When he clicked on it, he found a whole string of high-resolution stills and GIFs of Han Taeyun, seemingly taken by someone who had risked their life to photograph him inside rebel-occupied territory.
[Wow, is that seriously a human face? Why the hell did he have to become the rebel leader? Come back. No, actually, I’ll go to you.]
└ Our leader is even more insane in person.
[He looks like that AND treats Guides well… I’m packing my bags and surrendering tomorrow.]
[If you were going, you should’ve taken me too. Taeyun, why did you leave without saying anything?]
└ Why the hell would he take you?
[Even one second would be enough, please just let me guide our leader once. I’d give up ten years of my lifespan.]
└ Get in line. I’m first.
“Ha, fuck. Same as ever.”
Yihyun let out a disbelieving laugh and pressed a hand to his forehead.
It had been the same back at the Ability Bureau. Whenever Han Taeyun showed up at the training grounds, the Guide Wing practically turned into a festival. Some Guides openly formed fan clubs for him, and more than one or two had been caught trying to steal his ID photo.
Yet Han Taeyun himself, the center of all that commotion, had remained utterly indifferent.
Countless Guides had flirted with him, hoping to become his exclusive Guide, but he had never accepted a single one. He always kept his distance, received only remote guiding, and left.
Back then, Seunghyun used to tease him.
“Hey, are you planning to become a priest or something? Why the hell are you so uptight?”
Whenever he did, Taeyun would merely give Seunghyun an icy glare instead of answering. He would furrow his handsome brow as hard as he could and walk away, while Seunghyun clicked his tongue at his retreating back and muttered, “What a prickly bastard.”
“Could you stop making such a damn fuss just because you’re handsome? Same dramatic bastard as ever.”
Among all the miscellaneous chatter, one post caught Yihyun’s attention.
[Map of Currently Occupied and Destroyed Areas]
It was a map marking in red the regions that the rebels—Han Taeyun’s forces—had swept through.
“……?”
Yihyun’s eyes narrowed sharply.
To Guides who knew nothing about warfare, it would simply look like the trail of destruction left behind by a tyrant.
But to Seunghyun, who had commanded thousands of operations, the map told an entirely different story.
‘This is strange. Why would he go all the way out here just to destroy it?’
Resource transportation routes, military bases, and research institutes directly controlled by the Allied Nations’ governments, scattered between them like deliberately placed dots.
In his mind, Yihyun connected the coordinates of the red points on the map in three dimensions.
There was a chilling commonality running straight through the center of those locations.
‘These places all…… had high-rank Gates managed by the World Allied Forces.’
Han Taeyun wasn’t simply destroying cities.
He was clearing specific Gates.
Once a Gate disappeared, the surrounding mana field would naturally collapse as well. It appeared that he was destroying entire cities so that not even traces of that collapse would remain.
Han Taeyun seemed to be trying to tear apart the world’s current mana system.
As though he were desperately picking out incorrectly placed pieces from an enormous puzzle.
“What the hell are you thinking?”
Yihyun fixed his gaze on Han Taeyun on the screen once again.
Han Taeyun stood beyond the collapsed Gate entrance and the pale, crumbling ash. Without even looking back at the wreckage he had just destroyed, he stared toward the distant sky.
The same emptiness Yihyun had seen in the news clip was unmistakable even through the screen.
“Han Taeyun. What are you trying to erase? Or…… are you looking for something?”
Those red dots marking the places he had destroyed seemed to be speaking directly to Yihyun.
Han Taeyun wasn’t insane.
***
The bell signaling the beginning of the afternoon guiding session rang.
Yihyun idly tapped the tablet on his desk. The names and faces of the Espers he was supposed to handle that afternoon appeared on the screen.
[14:00 - C-Rank Esper Kim Idan]
[14:30 - B-Rank Esper Song Youngcheol]
Two Espers assigned to a single Guide every hour.
A murderous schedule.
Yihyun frowned as he read through the small system log displayed at the bottom of the tablet.
‘……?’
Without warning, a red error message began flashing across the screen, and the assignment list went completely blank.
Someone had used the central control room’s authority to forcibly reset Yihyun’s guiding schedule.
He didn’t even need to check to know who was behind it.
It was obvious what kind of revenge Jung Yura had chosen after being humiliated in the cafeteria earlier.
Bang―!
The waiting room door flew open so violently that it seemed ready to break off its hinges.
An unofficial guest whose name and rank appeared nowhere on the tablet stepped inside.
The man’s enormous build and vicious expression made it obvious at a glance that he was a strength-type Esper. But what made Yihyun frown wasn’t his appearance—it was the savage wave of power pouring from his body.
Judging by the cold pressure prickling against Yihyun’s skin, he was at least S-Rank.
If Jung Yura had sent him, there was no way he was an ordinary bastard.
He looked less like someone who had come for guiding and more like a beast that had come to devour someone whole. Reading the vulgar lust in the man’s eyes, Yihyun clicked his tongue inwardly.
“Hey, Baek Yihyun. Heard you’re pretty damn good today?”
The man, Kang Jindu, swaggered over, his grotesquely muscular body shifting with every step. He reached toward Yihyun’s chin as Yihyun stood with one hand braced against the desk.
“Heard you came back from the dead and your guiding suddenly feels fucking incredible, so I came to check for myself. Why don’t you start by taking off your clothes? Gotta warm your body up first if you want the guiding to go in properly, right?”
With a phlegmy rasp, Kang Jindu’s huge hand seized Yihyun’s chin.
Yihyun’s eyes flashed coldly.
‘Big bastard, but stupid.’
Espers tended to let their guard down in front of Guides.
Instead of retreating, Yihyun slipped further into the man’s reach and sprayed the pepper spray from Baek Yihyun’s inventory directly into Kang Jindu’s eyes.
Hiss―!
“Aaaaaagh!”
Kang Jindu screamed.
The irritating liquid struck his eyes before he even had time to close them. His enormous body staggered as both hands flew up to cover his face.
Yihyun didn’t miss the opening.
He compressed guiding energy around two slender fingers until it became as sharp and solid as a blade.
Pak, papak―!
Using the close-combat techniques he had learned from facing countless fighters during his life as Lee Seunghyun, Yihyun struck the mana nodes beneath Kang Jindu’s collarbone, under his armpit, and near his solar plexus with perfect precision.
“Uh……?”
Kang Jindu’s bloodshot eyes widened in shock.
Before his arm could even reach Yihyun’s collar, it froze in midair.
His body became paralyzed. Then the enormous S-Rank mana boiling inside him became completely blocked at several specific points and began flowing backward.
“Kuh, ghk! Wh-what the……!”
“You won’t be able to move so much as a finger for a day. Don’t try to force your mana to circulate. You could permanently burn out your circuits.”
Yihyun lightly pushed Kang Jindu’s rigid chest.
The giant, over two meters tall, toppled backward like a log and crashed heavily onto the floor.
Yihyun casually dusted off his hands and pressed the emergency bell.
Click.
The door opened, and the security team rushed inside.
Their expressions were a sight to behold.
The instant they took in the disaster inside the room, every single one of them turned toward Yihyun with the exact same look in their eyes.
‘Again?’
The shock from the string of Espers being carried off to the medical room that morning hadn’t even faded yet.
And now S-Rank Kang Jindu was sprawled across the floor like an overturned frog.
The security team leader’s eyelid twitched.
“……Guide Baek Yihyun, what happened this time?”
“As you can see. His mana got a little tangled too. It’s self-induced paralysis, so please hurry up and get him out of here.”
The security team members went pale at Yihyun’s shameless answer.
They looked down at Kang Jindu’s massive body, rigid as a log on the floor, then reached for their radios almost simultaneously.
“Requesting additional personnel. The subject is Esper Kang Jindu. A stretcher won’t be enough.”
More personnel arrived shortly afterward.
Two burly security team members grabbed each of Kang Jindu’s arms, four men in total, and began dragging him away like a piece of cargo.
“Heave—one, two!”
With their synchronized grunts, the S-Rank Esper was hauled out with the back of his head scraping along the floor.
Yihyun watched the spectacle with interest before calling after the security team leader as he was about to leave.
“Ah, Team Leader. Please close the door gently on your way out. Everyone who comes in today keeps taking their anger out on it. I’m worried it’s going to break.”
The security team leader couldn’t even answer.
He glanced back at Yihyun with fear in his eyes before hurriedly leaving the room.
Click.
The heavy door closed, and silence settled over the room.
“Ugh……!”
Yihyun’s knees, which had held him upright so confidently, buckled beneath him.
It was the price of forcibly channeling a Guide’s energy through combat techniques remembered by the soul.
His vision flashed white.
His rapidly cooling fingertips spasmed uncontrollably, crumpling the papers scattered across the desk.