Still, this was Vasily, after all. True to the monster who cleared dozens of Gates overnight the moment he was recruited to Korea, the Gate was subdued in no time. I peeked at my smartphone to check the time. Barely a little over an hour had passed……
Quietly, I checked the situation outside. It seemed Vasily hadn’t come out yet.
With an S-class Esper like Vasily inside, he would’ve handled most of the monsters on his own. That meant no casualties and no one requesting temporary guiding.
Which meant that once I guided Vasily, today’s work would be over. I’d hold him for a moment, send him off quickly. Then I’d go home.
“P-please, guide me……”
While I clenched my fist and made up my mind, an Esper came into the waiting tent asking for guiding. I glanced over, thinking it was Vasily, but it was a face I’d never seen before.
I quickly looked away. I’d have to guide Vasily soon anyway, so it was better to save my strength.
“Um…… I think my match rate is low. Is anyone able to guide me?”
But the temporary guide who first volunteered didn’t seem to match well. I snuck a look at the other guides, who were clearly reluctant, and let out a deep sigh.
I’d wanted to conserve my stamina…… but Vasily hadn’t come out of the Gate yet anyway, and I was the junior here—so I should do it.
“I’ll try.”
Resigning myself, I stood up.
Up close, the Esper was panting hard. He wasn’t injured, but he really did look like he needed guiding.
At this level, he must’ve been unwell even before entering the Gate…… Impressive that he held out until the end of the raid. I tested by holding his hand for a moment, and thankfully, guiding seemed possible.
“The match rate seems fine. I’ll guide you.”
I sent off the temporary guide hovering nearby and held the Esper for a bit. Judging from how quickly his waves were settling, a short session before Vasily arrived would probably calm him down fast.
Or so I thought……
‘……This bastard.’
The hand around my waist started groping me, lingering and sticky. Then he even tried to slip his hand under my clothes.
Sometimes, when guiding an Esper in bad shape, there are idiots who lose their minds like this. I held it in and held it in, then finally turned my head to warn him—only to see his lips pushing toward me. My fist flew before I knew it.
Thud!
Crash!
With a crisp impact, the Esper toppled backward. The loud commotion drew every eye.
The moment I caused a scene, a wave of regret crashed in. What if the Esper, enraged to his core, leapt up and rushed me? Instinctively, I set my stance, braced for the next attack—but the Esper on the ground didn’t move.
Looking closer, he’d passed out. Great—did I hit a bad spot.
“Ha……”
Must’ve landed square on the face. Damn……
This was already a headache. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t my fault, so it shouldn’t blow up into a big problem, but the thought of getting dragged into complaints made my head throb.
Then a voice spoke behind me.
“I was going to help……”
Startled by the sunken, icy tone, I spun around.
“Seems my help wasn’t needed.”
Vasily.
He lifted the corner of his mouth. Despite the smile, his eyes on the unconscious Esper splayed on the floor were so cold they could’ve frozen the air by gaze alone.
I froze at the sight of Vasily’s expression gone frigid, and in that moment he brushed past me, grabbed the Esper’s hair, and hauled his head up. Limp and out cold, the Esper dangled as he was lifted.
Blood streamed from the Esper’s nose; I averted my eyes.
“So, what shall I do with him?”
“Sorry? What……”
“Shall I freeze his head as is? Or break it?”
For a second, my brain shorted at how casually he asked. Exactly three seconds later, I processed what I’d heard and recoiled in horror.
“W-what are you even……”
Face stiff, I hastily looked around. Luckily, the ruckus from the Esper I’d floored had made the area noisy enough that no one seemed to have heard what Vasily said.
I hurried up to him and lowered my voice to stop him.
“Are you insane? With this many eyes on us, are you planning to kill him?”
“Ah, is it because of the people? Don’t worry. Nothing that happened here will leak anywhere. We’ll handle it as a death inside the Gate.”
Watching him speak so calmly—treating a person like an object—kicked up old memories for a moment.
He wasn’t wrong. Vasily had committed countless murders, but not once had those deeds surfaced. The Association and the state themselves covered it all up, thoroughly.
Just as he’d said now, most victims he killed were disguised as Gate fatalities. With Gate mortality rates rising every year, no one questioned an Esper killed by a monster.
At this rate, someone was going to die. No—he might kill this Esper and then silence the rest of the witnesses by killing every temporary guide here.
I grabbed Vasily’s arm in a panic and tried to stop him.
“That’s enough! Nothing happened, so let’s leave it at that!”
“Nothing happened? From what I saw alone……”
“Put him down! Now!”
“How cold.”
Thud.
Vasily let go. The Esper, freed from his grip, dropped helplessly to the floor.
Haa……
I exhaled, relieved that I’d at least stopped a murder, then caught sight of Vasily staring down at the Esper as if he were an insect. His silver-gray eyes were glacial.
Right—this was who Vasily was. A walking killing machine who regarded human lives like ants. I’d briefly forgotten that because of the normal conversations we’d had recently. He wasn’t the same kind as me. He was no different from a monster in a Gate.
That was why I’d avoided him so desperately. Even I, his guide, had been nothing more than a cheap, disposable tool.
“Well, we can deal with this later…… Want to go have dinner together?”
Tap.
Without thinking, I knocked Vasily’s hand away. For an instant, the present him overlapped with the him from the past. The moment his hand reached toward me, goosebumps rippled over my skin, and my body moved on its own.
“……Guide Kwon Gidam?”
He looked a little surprised that I’d slapped his hand aside. But I had no room to read him, busy forcing my trembling body to settle.
I barely managed to speak.
“Don’t touch me.”
My voice shook pathetically. If the Vasily from six years later heard this, he’d have sneered at me with an icy face.
“I would also appreciate it if you stopped coming to get guiding from now on.”
I continued, unable to meet his eyes.
Silence fell, tension circling me like a noose. I felt cold begin to seep from Vasily. My whole body stiffened as I swallowed. It was the sign his mood was sinking.
After a long silence, he asked,
“Why are you angry?”
“……”
“I don’t know why Guide Kwon Gidam is angry with me.”
Of course he didn’t. He’d probably never possessed human feelings to begin with.
Six years as Vasily’s guide had taught me: no matter how I tried to change him, his cruel nature would never vanish.
As merciless as his power that froze everything, Vasily’s temperament was cold and brutal. He felt neither pity nor compassion, and he couldn’t empathize with others’ grief. As if he lived entirely alone in this world, he drew a line between himself and everyone else.
After returning to the past, hearing him speak with me like a normal person planted a faint, foolish hope. Since I’d already gone through him once, maybe I could change the Vasily before we matched? That’s what I thought……
Only now did I realize it had all been a vain expectation.
The man standing before me was someone who could take a life without blinking. I saw the vision of him six years later, freezing anyone who annoyed him, anyone who got in his way. I wanted to deny it, but that was Vasily’s true face.
Unable to look straight at him, I forced a veneer of calm and opened my mouth.
“You’ll never understand. Not even for the rest of your life.”
And with difficulty, I added one more line.
“So please, never appear in front of me again.”
I barely finished and turned away. A sharp gaze speared into my back, but I didn’t look back and walked out of the tent.
Cold wind brushed my face; the chill seeped into my lungs. And then, belatedly, I realized—my body was trembling pathetically.
I wrapped my arms tight around myself to quell the shaking and looked up at the sky. For some reason, it was especially clear today, not a single cloud in sight.
I quietly closed my eyes.
An inexplicable disappointment wrapped around me, head to toe.