The Only Guide Who Can Stop Him
Seo Joo-hwan knew all too well how badly Baek Yeo-eul suffered from the aftereffects of field deployment.
After all, if she became Han Yi-hyeon's guide, she would be thrown into the field nearly every day—and Baek Yeo-eul would waste away a little more with each passing day. That much, at least, clearly needed shoring up.
"I'll talk it over with the Director."
It was an uncertain answer, but not an outright refusal. Baek Yeo-eul thought of Do Geon, the Director. An S-rank Esper who placed citizen safety above everything else. And a C-rank guide was, strictly speaking, a citizen too—so she could only hope he would look on the request favorably.
Just then the door burst open. For a heartbeat she wondered if Ha Yoon-seo had actually gone and reported something, but the visitor was someone she never expected.
"You little brat!"
It was Lee Mi-so.
"Mi-so?"
Baek Yeo-eul reflexively caught Mi-so as the girl came flying into her arms.
"You had me worried sick! Is Han Yi-hyeon seriously out of his mind? They even blocked visitation from me, your own friend! What a total nutjob! A lunatic!"
Mi-so bawled, black tears streaming down her face. In that state, she never noticed that the handler of the very "nutjob" and "lunatic" she was cursing was standing right there in the room.
"Okay, okay, I get it—now get off. I'm a patient."
One look at Baek Yeo-eul's wan complexion, and Mi-so slid off her lap to claim the spot beside her instead. Ignoring Mi-so as she clung like a leech, Baek Yeo-eul turned back to Seo Joo-hwan.
"I told you. If my conditions are refused, I'm not partnering with that Esper Han Yi-hyeon."
"...Understood."
Only then did Mi-so notice Seo Joo-hwan. She flinched for a split second—then burrowed into Baek Yeo-eul harder than ever, for all the world like a child refusing to give up her favorite doll.
Baek Yeo-eul felt her strength draining all over again from a body that had only just managed to recover, thanks to Mi-so's arrival. It drove home just how frail her once-robust constitution—a body that had never even known anemia—had become.
"Could I... could I maybe rest a little first?"
She asked, her voice trembling, and Seo Joo-hwan left the room with an apology.
"Mi-so, you should—"
Baek Yeo-eul had been about to tell her friend to leave as well, but the words died in her throat.
"Hm? You're not about to kick me out too, are you? It's been a whole week since we've seen each other!"
Big doe eyes glistened while a thick fringe of lashes fluttered. It was a technique Mi-so had perfected through years of exploiting Baek Yeo-eul's weakness for anything pretty and handsome.
"...Fine."
With that, Baek Yeo-eul flopped back onto the bed. Mi-so squealed and plopped down beside her, and Baek Yeo-eul sank into the hospital bed that enveloped her like a warm cocoon.
'This might actually be nicer than my own place?'
Now that she looked, it was a private room. There was even a small side room attached, and a kitchen besides. Even the TV was the newest model, released only a month ago.
"There, there."
Baek Yeo-eul gently stroked the head of Mi-so, who had burrowed into her chest.
"Now tell me everything."
She'd fallen for Mi-so's tricks more than once or twice in the past; they didn't work on her anymore. She let it slide this time only because she had her own purpose.
"Hm?"
"What happened while I was out this past week?"
She wanted to know what had gone on during the seven days she'd been unable to get up.
Grumbling that this must be why she'd been left alive in the first place, Mi-so pouted her lips and chattered away in earnest. And the longer Mi-so's story ran, the more Baek Yeo-eul's complexion slid past pale into ghost-white.
"And that's everything!"
"...Is my life over too?"
Baek Yeo-eul murmured the words under her breath. She couldn't help it.
Apparently Han Yi-hyeon had spent the entire week neither eating nor sleeping, keeping watch at the side of her unconscious body. As if that weren't enough, he had radiated so much killing intent that within just two days, every last person in the hospital knew Han Yi-hyeon was in this room.
Word had spread just as fast about the person hospitalized in that room—about Baek Yeo-eul herself. Who on earth was Baek Yeo-eul? Who was she, that Han Yi-hyeon would carry on like this?
The one mercy was that the person at the center of it all had been in a coma, leaving nothing but speculation to inflate around her—and with Han Yi-hyeon involved, people valued their careers enough to keep their mouths shut on their own. The rumors about Baek Yeo-eul sank without a trace almost as quickly as they'd spread.
A relief, and yet not a relief.
"Oh, right—and Han Yi-hyeon just left to deal with a monster that appeared off-schedule."
Somehow, judging by his conduct over the past week, that explained the empty space where Han Yi-hyeon should have been—the man who surely would have come running the moment she opened her eyes.
Just then, the TV channel she'd left on as background noise switched over, and a news broadcast filled the screen. The footage appeared to be shot from a helicopter; a heavy thud-thud-thud pulsed through the audio as the camera strained to zoom in on something that looked like a mere dot.
"Huh? Isn't that Esper Han Yi-hyeon?"
The figure caught in the zoomed image was none other than Han Yi-hyeon.
"His condition..." Why is he like that?
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul!"
The door burst open and Seo Joo-hwan strode in. Baek Yeo-eul, who had been half-sitting up, found that at some point she was clinging to Seo Joo-hwan like a bundle of luggage, lamenting her lot as she was whisked away at breakneck speed.
Ah, what a fucked-up life.
A tension so dense it sent a chill down the spine hung heavy over the scene. Not a soul dared open their mouth carelessly.
"Haah, damn it all. My throat's so sore I could die."
Team 2 Head, A-rank Esper Hwang Tae-seon, muttered as he kneaded his taut neck.
"Esper Hwang Tae-seon, you need to be focusing."
Team 1 Head, A-rank Esper Se Yeon-ah, quietly rebuked his attitude without taking her eyes off what lay ahead. Ordinarily she would have let it slide with easy familiarity, but with the situation what it was, no one could afford to loosen their grip on their tension.
Se Yeon-ah swallowed drily as she looked at the man responsible for making even the air itself feel heavy: Han Yi-hyeon. Unlike a typical rampage, not the faintest movement could be felt from him; merely looking at Han Yi-hyeon was an ordeal.
Could they truly stop Han Yi-hyeon?
An emergency summons had gone out to every S-rank Esper, but only two S-ranks were currently in Korea besides Han Yi-hyeon. Only a higher rank can stop a rampaging Esper—but Han Yi-hyeon was already the highest rank there was, which meant his rampage would have to be crushed by sheer numbers.
An Esper's rampage does not unfold in a short span of time. Like Han Yi-hyeon now, they lie still, quietly holding their breath—and the instant vigilance slackens, it begins without warning. The higher the rank, the longer they can hold that breath, so fail to keep your guard up for even a single second, and there was no telling when the ambush would come.
"They say Esper Seo Joo-hwan is en route with Guide Baek Yeo-eul."
Timing being what it was, it seemed the guide had just put a period to her long sleep. Only then did Do Geon blink eyes that until this moment had not left Han Yi-hyeon. His parched eyes felt gritty.
"If he's going to rampage, he should hurry up and get on with it. What is this, dragging an old man all the way out here for nothing?"
A disgruntled voice popped out.
The eldest among the S-rank Espers, Na Gi-ho, gave his ramrod-straight back a few idle thumps. For all that he looked to be in his early sixties, Na Gi-ho's true age defied imagination—which was precisely a measure of how strong he was.
"Elder."
"Tsk. I was right in the middle of playing with my great-granddaughter, you know."
"Thank you for coming, sir."
At Do Geon's courteous manner, Na Gi-ho cut off his grumbling and fixed his gaze forward. Complaints aside, he had been the very first to come running. He had watched Han Yi-hyeon since the boy was knee-high; to Na Gi-ho, Yi-hyeon was like yet another grandchild.
"So, Yi-hyeon's guide has finally shown up?"
"Yes."
"And this guide is C-rank...?"
"That's correct."
Live long enough and you see everything. An S-rank and a C-rank, together. Na Gi-ho stroked his magnificently groomed beard.
And then—
"We've arrived!"
Seo Joo-hwan set the woman he'd been hauling over his shoulder like a sack down onto the ground.
"Urk—huerrgh."
The instant her feet touched solid ground, the woman clapped both hands over her mouth and retched. But with nothing in her stomach, nothing came up—there was only the pain of it.
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul."
At Do Geon's call, every gaze converged on Baek Yeo-eul. The attention was burdensome to the point of stinging, but Baek Yeo-eul hadn't the presence of mind to care about that right now.
"The Director is calling for you."
This bastard?
Baek Yeo-eul glared daggers at Seo Joo-hwan as he hustled her along. If he'd carried her here properly in the first place, she wouldn't be dry-heaving in front of people she was meeting for the first time in her life, unable to answer the Director.
Unlike the inconsiderate Seo Joo-hwan, Do Geon had at least had the decency to wait. An A-rank guide had been standing by, but her guiding had no effect on him, rendering her useless.
"Please carry out the guiding."
Baek Yeo-eul, who had been retching until her stomach settled somewhat, lifted her head at Do Geon's words. What the hell is that pitch-black thing? Only when she narrowed her eyes could she barely make out the shape of a person.
"Don't tell me..."
"That's right. It's Esper Han Yi-hyeon."
"That absolute lunatic."
The words slipped out of Baek Yeo-eul's mouth before she could stop them. She wanted to snap quit joking around and wriggle out of this, but everyone present was far too serious for that.
They were saying that that was Han Yi-hyeon. Which meant it was the target Baek Yeo-eul would have to walk up to and guide through physical contact. The prospect was daunting, but having come this far, there was no ground left to retreat to. Gritting her teeth, Baek Yeo-eul staggered up from where she stood.
"...That thing—no. If I stop Esper Han Yi-hyeon's rampage, grant me one wish."
"A wish?"
Baek Yeo-eul spoke without taking her eyes off Han Yi-hyeon. Demanding a favor from the Director himself—unthinkable under ordinary circumstances—and yet Baek Yeo-eul knew it instinctively.
In this situation, right now, I'm the one holding all the cards.
A rampaging Esper draws their power up to its absolute peak. An Esper facing one down, on the other hand, cannot go all-out for fear of triggering their own rampage. And so, even between opponents of equal skill, the one doing the restraining is bound to lose.
She couldn't begin to guess what toll it would exact to hold back an S-rank Esper like Han Yi-hyeon, but it would be staggering. Nations turned into outright war zones by the rampage of a single S-rank Esper were far from rare.
And the only guide in all the world capable of guiding that supremely dangerous S-rank Esper, Han Yi-hyeon, was me. And so Baek Yeo-eul lifted her chin high.