TDG Ch 3

He’s notorious throughout the Center for having trash-tier skills but a perfect personality^[1]—an S-rank jerk. Of course, since I’ve read the original work, I already know all this.

After a round of conversation, Yoon Soojung glared at Team Leader Park.

“This is a setup.”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

Park Chisu raised an eyebrow like a frog hit by a stone thrown into a stream^[2].

“Why do we only get the problematic ones? From what I see, Team 1 only gets matched with polite Espers.”

“There’s no such thing. Esper call rights are exclusive. How could we possibly interfere?”

“But still, you could sort of nudge things this way or that way, right?”

Park Chisu waved both hands as if to calm her down and took a step back.

“That’s… up to the Guide’s own discretion. What I do is mediation between Espers and Guides, not matchmaking. If the team leader started doing favors for individual team members, everyone would revolt.”

Yoon Soojung let out a sigh deep enough to sink the ground.

“This messed-up world… disgusting business practices. It’s all about connections, wherever you go… Did I really bust my ass to get into the Center for this?”

Just like Team Leader Park said, Esper call requests were an exclusive right of the Espers. Of course, you could refuse. The problem was, once you did, you had to give up any chance of being matched with that same Esper again. It was as if there were some kind of blacklist. Once your refusal count hit a certain number, no Esper would call on you again, as if by unspoken agreement. That made refusal a meaningless right, practically a social death sentence.

“Jaeyoung, want me to decline the match for you? If you say you’re sick—”

“It’s fine. Putting up with this stuff is part of the job, too.”

Yoon Soojung, who had been watching, muttered under her breath.

“As soon as my savings mature, I’m quitting for real.”

“Just talk, huh?”

Her shoe flew at Seon Jaeyoung, who had teased her. Seon Jaeyoung quickly dodged, turning his head, and except for the heel making a small dent in the office wall, nothing happened.

As the youngest in the team, I picked up the shoe and handed it back to her.

“You didn’t have to.” Yoon Soojung accepted it with a sullen look and slipped it back on.

“If you hate it so much, just get an ‘exclusive contract.’”

“Hey! Might as well just tell me to quit.”

Yoon Soojung scoffed. Kim Hojin hadn’t said it seriously; he was just tossing the idea out.

“Exclusive contracts sound nice in theory. Assigned to just one Esper, no need to respond to calls from anyone else, just take care of that one person. But what if it falls apart? You think you can handle that?”

“It’s no joke. I got caught in the middle when an exclusive pair broke up last time, and I honestly wanted to die.”

A rare look of disgust crossed Seon Jaeyoung’s face. It was a comment made with the unspoken understanding that exclusive contracts usually stem from romantic relationships.

“Besides, the appointment and dismissal are at the Esper’s discretion. So it’s really just a choice between being an exclusive slave or a multi-use slave. Sometimes being exclusive is even worse. You go from a vague power imbalance to the worst-case hierarchy of superior and subordinate.”

“It’s so unfair. Espers can’t even survive without us, so why do they get all the authority?”

“Because Guides don’t have ‘rank.’ Simply put, anyone can do it.”

At Kim Hojin’s blunt assessment, everyone but me pulled sour faces.

“Wow, Kim Hojin. Let’s not belittle ourselves. If anyone could do this job, then what’s the point of us?”

“I was just being honest.”

As the mood started to turn tense, Park Chisu stood up to defuse the situation.

“All right, that’s enough. We’re certified Guides who made it through brutal recruitment tests. It’s not like just anyone could make it.”

Only after both of them shut their mouths with sullen looks did the atmosphere finally begin to settle.

It’s true that Espers couldn’t survive without Guides.

But, coincidentally, it’s also true that Guides have absolutely no power beyond that one function.

That was the problem.

Ironically—absurdly—it’s precisely because of the latter that the former wasn’t seen as all that special.

If you look through the vast history of the world, has there ever been a time when the world was on the side of the weak?

On the other hand, what about Espers?

Even a C-rank Esper, whom I’ve criticized so harshly, could easily take a life by abusing their abilities if they set their mind to it. Those with overwhelming power have always ruled.

Add to that the strange admiration people have for those with transcendent abilities, and Espers have become the perfect embodiment of all those traits.

The ideal Guide in this era isn’t someone with exceptional guiding ability, but rather someone who can appease and pacify misbehaving Espers and mold them into halfway decent human beings.

Also, although some Guides complain about how terrible the work is, not everyone thinks that way, and even if someone suddenly quits, their spot is quickly filled by a new Guide.

Some people simply conform to a system that has been hardened and solidified over time, while most others think it’s the same everywhere anyway. It’s all the same in the end, whether it is catering to a clueless boss in an ordinary company or here.

Just like how people want to swim in cleaner waters if they can, Guides would naturally prefer working with an S-rank Esper over dealing with some mediocre C- or D-rank.

Thanks to that, we’ve ended up with a warped structure in which, although Espers are often just idiots with power, Guides are selected for their intelligence and culture, having passed rigorous tests, and lining up to be chosen by those very idiots. Unless the Espers, the ones in power, become dissatisfied with the system, there’s not even a sliver of a chance that the current system will be overturned.

I rested my face on my desk and muttered under my breath.

A Guide with proven abilities.

It sounds impressive, but in reality—

We’re just glorified babysitters.

* * *

Over the course of a month, I only got called out for fieldwork three or four times, just to serve as a fill-in.

Just like Yoon Soojung said, being a Guide at the Center didn’t mean the job was handed to you on a silver platter. Unlike Division 7, where you got dragged around nonstop even if you sat still, here you had to hustle, make sales pitches, or whatever it took to get Espers to call for you. And no one ever said it was easy.

“Juwon, if you don’t get enough calls, they’ll reassign you to a dead-end post.”

“You worked so hard to make it up here, so try a little harder.”

“You’ve got the looks, so once you get some word of mouth going, you’ll be flooded with calls.”

My teammates, watching me sit at my desk day after day, took pity and even shared their secret sales techniques.

“Thank you, seniors, for caring about a lacking junior like me…”

Of course, I only made my words sound smooth and still stubbornly kept my current attitude.

Promotion? Word of mouth? That’s a dangerous thing to say. That’s the last thing I want. If I’d wanted that, I wouldn’t have come to a place like this in the first place.

All I want is to sit quietly at my desk where nobody knows me until the day Han Jihyuk shows up. If I get dragged into some pointless field assignment and end up missing the date, it’s over.

While I did my best to dodge this way and that, keeping my head down, the long-awaited day I had been waiting for finally arrived.

When Team Leader Park Chisu saw my vacation request, he approved it immediately and even gave my shoulder a pat. “Rest well.” His eyes and gestures were full of sympathy as he tapped my shoulder.

Unlike someone like Kwon Minwook, he was a good person, no matter when you saw him.

The sky shone a brilliant blue.

It was a little hot, but otherwise the weather was perfectly clear.

Han Jihyuk’s appearance was scheduled around 2 p.m.

I arrived with plenty of time to spare. It was right there, the intersection in the bustling downtown district from the novel.

Every weekend, I’d come out here and memorize everything down to the placement of utility poles and the smallest cracks in the pavement, without missing a detail. Just in case anything had changed from my memory, I made one last careful round of inspection.

As it neared two o’clock, my heart began to pound.

I poured water down my dry throat, parched from the heat, and scanned my surroundings closely.

As expected of a bustling downtown area, the streets were packed with people. Just thinking that Han Jihyuk might be among them made my skin prickle and my pulse surge uncontrollably.

Calm down. Calm down.

I took deep breaths, trying to ease the tension. One small mistake, and I could lose him.

Tick, tock.

The hands of the clock moved mercilessly, and at last, they pointed to exactly two o’clock.

“……”

I quickly turned my head from side to side, scanning the surroundings. I could feel every nerve in my body standing on edge like the tip of a needle.

No matter what, I had to reach him before Kwon Minwook and secure him first.

A height of 188 centimeters, a chiseled face, and a tall, model-like build.

He had the kind of looks that would stand out even from a hundred meters away.

So as long as I stayed calm, I could find him.

“Kyaaah!”

A woman’s piercing scream rang out from somewhere.

It was the first signal announcing the start of the incident.

A loud boom followed by a strange tremor sent people fleeing in panic, running across sidewalks and streets in chaotic confusion.

My instincts guided my feet. I pushed through the crowd of fleeing people rushing toward me and forced my way forward.

Boom—!

“Eek!”

“Run!”

The explosion was followed by a chilling tremor that shook the ground like an earthquake. It was exactly as the novel had described. At the street corner I sprinted toward, someone lay collapsed.

A black T-shirt, a wide jacket, and worn-out jeans. I shuddered with a thrill that passed through my whole body.

It was Han Jihyuk.

“Urgh, ah…”

Curled up on the ground, Han Jihyuk groaned like a wounded beast.

With every twist of his body, an invisible wave, sharp like a blade, swept violently outward. Pavement blocks shattered and flew like gravel, and storefront windows burst like brittle candy. Shards of glass, dust, and loose street debris were lifted into the air, swirling wildly in every direction.

His power was running wild.

I could see craters popping up in the pavement, radiating outward from Han Jihyuk. The road was torn apart effortlessly, deep, jagged fissures spreading rapidly across the surface. As if a water pipe had burst, water gushed fiercely from the cracks.

But the disaster didn’t stop there.

As the ground collapsed, utility poles came crashing down one after another, and nearby buildings and high-rises began to tremble with deep, rumbling groans.

Shattered glass rained from above like a downpour.

Seeing a towering skyscraper visibly sway before my eyes sent chills down my spine.

If a building collapsed, it would result in a massive loss of life.

This was the power of an S-rank on a rampage.

My whole body trembled like a leaf.

It was the moment I finally understood why people called Espers S-rank and above “walking disasters.”

And this was before his final awakening had even happened.

To have to run into the middle of this devastation suddenly felt overwhelming.

I forced my still-trembling hand down with my other hand and swallowed hard.

Calm down, Seo Juwon. Kwon Minwook did it, didn’t he? If even that asshole could pull it off, surely I can too. If I froze up and faltered here, then the past five years of my blood and sweat would all be for nothing.

I couldn’t let that happen. Not ever.