No Plan Better Than Fighting Alone
"Head there at once."
"Thank you."
Yu Jin-young exchanged a few more words through his earpiece, then murmured something to the driver, who relayed it over the radio. Before long, the security vehicle ahead changed course.
Yu Jin-young called up a hologram and walked them through the situation report that had just come in. Given the circumstances, the bodyguards had taken control of the roads, so the convoy reached its destination without so much as a single stop.
The scene they arrived at was grim.
The perimeter had been drawn at least twice its usual size, and personnel packed the surrounding area shoulder to shoulder. The moment they stepped out of the black sedan, a group of haggard-looking people came toward them.
"Welcome."
The man who appeared to be in charge extended his hand — and Han Yi-hyeon turned his head away as though he hadn't seen it at all. At the snub, the eyes of everyone standing behind the officer sharpened in an instant.
Standing one step behind Han Yi-hyeon, Baek Yeo-eul caught the full force of those fierce stares. Faced with his rudeness, all she could do was wet her dry lips.
Han Yi-hyeon had warned her before they ever got out of the car.
"In this situation, we're the ones with the upper hand. They're hauling us straight to the site without even giving us time to breathe, so we can't be seen walking in meek and obliging. This isn't what we contracted for — which means we have to let them see our displeasure, too. So don't be too shocked by what I do."
Baek Yeo-eul, who knew next to nothing about overseas deployments, was learning this for the first time.
She had braced herself for the trip, but she hadn't imagined Han Yi-hyeon would commit an outright insult the moment he stepped out of the car. Flustered though she was, she forced her back as straight as it would go.
"…Our apologies. Given the circumstances, we ask for your understanding."
In the end, the officer bowed his head — and only then did Han Yi-hyeon, who had been surveying the site, deign to turn his gaze on him.
"Brief me."
Han Yi-hyeon delivered it in fluent English with a slight tilt of his head.
"If you'll come inside, we'll explain everything."
The officer smoothly motioned for Han Yi-hyeon to follow.
But Han Yi-hyeon didn't take a single step. Instead, he looked back at Baek Yeo-eul.
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul, come along."
"Pardon? Me too?"
Baek Yeo-eul, who had been planning to quietly slip away somewhere and meditate, went round-eyed. Guides didn't normally sit in on strategy meetings like that one.
Even if she listened, it wouldn't help, and she wouldn't be joining the fight anyway. There was no reason for her to be there.
"We're partners, aren't we?"
Every partner Baek Yeo-eul had ever worked with had left her waiting outside with the other Guides until the strategy meeting wrapped up. Not one of them had ever said anything like this.
Han Yi-hyeon's voice was firm.
"I have no intention of leaving you alone in an unfamiliar place. I don't want to be alone, either."
Somewhere deep in her chest, a single drop of water fell. The drop sent out a small ripple; the ripple spread into a larger one; the larger one swelled into a wave — a great wave, more than enough to swallow her heart whole.
When Baek Yeo-eul said nothing, Han Yi-hyeon let out a small ah and pressed on.
"If you're not feeling well, you're welcome to rest instead…"
"N-no! Not at all."
Baek Yeo-eul shook her head frantically.
"I want to be part of it too."
"…All right. Come with me."
Baek Yeo-eul followed Han Yi-hyeon into what looked like a makeshift barracks and sat in on the strategy meeting.
Calling it participation would have been generous. She did nothing but listen while enduring a barrage of pointed stares.
The conversation flew back and forth at a blistering pace, but Baek Yeo-eul, who had spent all of high school ranked among the top of her entire school, followed every word without difficulty.
Even with her limited experience of Gates, one casual listen was enough to tell her the situation was bad. Monster appearances had suddenly doubled.
More than five A-rank Espers had already been forced out of the fight — their Guides injured alongside them, the risk of rampage too high to keep them on the field.
Han Yi-hyeon listened in silence. The ones doing the talking were the officer and Yu Jin-young, and every proposal out of the officer's mouth, Yu Jin-young struck down in the name of Han Yi-hyeon's and Baek Yeo-eul's safety.
But the UK wouldn't yield either. With neither side conceding an inch, the standoff showed no sign of ending.
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul."
Han Yi-hyeon leaned in slightly and murmured it.
Baek Yeo-eul's eyes went perfectly round. But the moment her gaze met Han Yi-hyeon's, she faltered.
"…What do you say? Will you trust me, just this once?"
"…I trust you."
The instant her answer left her lips, Han Yi-hyeon stepped forward with a faint smile. A tense war of nerves was underway, so every eye in the room swung to him.
Han Yi-hyeon spoke.
"How does this plan sound?"
To give the conclusion first: the plan Han Yi-hyeon laid out was adopted, successfully. Both sides opposed it at first — but Han Yi-hyeon turned out to be an unexpectedly gifted orator.
Barely fifteen minutes after he presented his proposal, he had won agreement from both sides.
Baek Yeo-eul stepped out of the temporary tent and stopped just short of the perimeter. Even outside the barrier, her stomach churned and her head throbbed. She forced her cringing eyes wide open and stared at the Gate.
Where ordinary Gates shimmered in a muddle of gray and black, the Gate inside that perimeter was a deep, saturated black — a color that looked ominous for reasons she couldn't name.
Baek Yeo-eul scrubbed her cold-sweat-soaked palms roughly against her clothes.
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul."
Han Yi-hyeon approached, his battle preparations complete.
Gone was his usual white shirt; today he wore a black shirt and black trousers, and the harness strapped across his solid frame carried a monster-grade gun and loaded rounds.
Seeing Han Yi-hyeon armed to this extent for the first time, Baek Yeo-eul understood anew just how brutal this battle was going to be.
She seized the hand of the man standing beside her and began drawing his energy up. She had already given him ample guiding on the plane, so Han Yi-hyeon turned his head with a flicker of bewilderment.
"That's quite enough."
"Even so."
Baek Yeo-eul tightened her grip on their joined hands.
Guiding was all she could do. She was no brilliant analyst, no master strategist. Guiding — only that.
And once the guiding was done, all that would be left to her was watching from beyond the perimeter.
"You think I can't manage it?"
There was no resentment in the question — it was perfectly calm.
She turned her head and found Han Yi-hyeon gazing at her with his usual expression. Baek Yeo-eul nodded, plain and simple.
"Honestly? Yes."
When she met the eyes behind his blindfold — flustered, unmistakably so — Baek Yeo-eul arched one eyebrow. From where she stood, the whole thing was absurd.
"Think it through. Look at just how reckless the plan Esper Han Yi-hyeon came up with really is."
Han Yi-hyeon's plan was simple. And simple meant dangerous — reckless enough that a single misstep could cost him his life.
"There is no better plan than fighting alone."
"Fifteen Grade 2 monsters surfaced before we even arrived. All at once, no less."
The scent of blood that hadn't yet finished fading drifted through the air.
Every breath pulled the fishy stench deep into her lungs, and each time, a jolt of something sharp bored into her spine and struck Baek Yeo-eul hard.
It felt as though someone were whispering at the very edge of her hearing.
You are not of a level to be here.
This was, above all, a place where the lives of powerless Guides like Baek Yeo-eul could vanish without anyone finding it strange. She knew that better than anyone — and so she nodded, calm and even, at the cruel death someone kept intoning in her ear.
"Esper Han Yi-hyeon."
Baek Yeo-eul tightened her hold on their joined hands and gave a sharp yank.
It was, by any measure, a force he could have shaken off — but he surrendered himself to her pull without a flicker of resistance. Baek Yeo-eul wrapped her arms around the Han Yi-hyeon who had come close and held on tight.
"Not one hair on your head gets hurt."
Hoping to pour even a little more guiding into him, she didn't loosen her grip until her vision went blurry.
When she finally staggered backward, Han Yi-hyeon clutched at her shoulders in sudden alarm. Yu Jin-young, standing a few steps away, hurried over and steadied her.
"I will keep that promise."
"……"
"In return, promise me something."
"……"
"That you won't get hurt, either."
Baek Yeo-eul blinked at him for a moment — then burst out laughing.
"I'm surrounded by bodyguards, so I'll probably be at least safer than you."
Han Yi-hyeon answered with a faint smile and turned away.
Only after watching him pass through the perimeter did Baek Yeo-eul finally move, leaning on Yu Jin-young as she walked.
Yu Jin-young stayed at her side, and the bodyguards closed ranks around the two of them. It felt like being wrapped in a thick shield — except they were all so tall that she couldn't see the site at all.
"Here you are."
Yu Jin-young solved that frustration for her.
Baek Yeo-eul pulled the holographic feed Yu Jin-young had projected in close. There, before a Gate that even at a glance churned with instability, Han Yi-hyeon stood alone.
Her energy drained to the very last dregs, Baek Yeo-eul was one blink away from collapsing. But she chewed the inside of her cheek to shreds if that was what it took to stay conscious.
If something goes wrong for Han Yi-hyeon, I'm the only one who can fix it.
And what if he rampaged while she lay unconscious? People would sooner throw themselves into that Aberrant Gate than stay anywhere near him.
That was how catastrophic an S-rank Esper's rampage was — nothing to be witnessed lightly.
Please.
Let nothing happen. Please, let nothing happen at all.
Baek Yeo-eul squeezed her eyes shut and prayed. But as always, God was not on Baek Yeo-eul's side.
Seoul, South Korea.
Do Geon was gazing out over the city in the late afternoon.
The office occupied a floor so high that it would be no exaggeration to say it took in all of Seoul, and it exuded an uncanny atmosphere.
Every object in the room was extravagantly expensive, and the uniform black palette radiated a quiet, oppressive weight — yet Do Geon simply stood before the enormous window, perfectly at ease, as though the office belonged to him.