1. I’ll Raise the Cow.

🎵 “I open my eyes and gaze upon you~ Did you really leeeaave~?
That one glance you gave me just once~ Did you loooove!! me!!!” 🎵

I heard what sounded like a pig getting its throat slit while someone tried to sing a Lee Seung-chul song, so I briskly walked toward the source of the noise. What I saw made my jaw drop. Wow… there really is a lunatic proposing in a hospital.

An esper in a hospital gown was kneeling and proposing to one of my coworkers, who was wearing a purple guide nurse uniform. In his hands were a pure white cake and what looked to be at least fifty red roses. The guy proposing was in his sixties—basically entering the twilight of his life—while the “victim” of this grand gesture, my coworker, had just turned 28 and was still basically fresh out of the wrapper. Twilight dude had half his hair missing… and my colleague, who was like a spring sprout, was cute and had a high compatibility rate with espers, so she often got assigned to a lot of work. Well… at this point, it’s unclear whether she’ll even show up tomorrow or not.

“Miss Heeseong, will you make a hundred-year vow with meeeeee!”

Oh, wow. Yeah, she’s definitely quitting. And a “hundred-year vow”? Please, he looks like he’s got maybe 20 years left, tops. These crusty old men really say the darndest things.

“Okay, first of all, let’s all calm down.”

I stepped in front of the crying Heeseong and shielded her from the old esper. She was clearly in shock, leaning on my shoulder and sobbing. Damn it, what the hell is this guy doing wrecking the poor girl’s mental state like this? She already seems like a sensitive one.

🎵 “I’m calming downnn~ I must’ve loved you too much. I’ll probably regret it as much as I miss you~ I really did love you~” 🎵

I pushed down hard on the esper’s shoulder as he struggled to reach Heeseong behind me. Maybe he used to be a big deal esper once, but I’m a guide nurse now. No one can stop this madness, seriously.

I twisted his arm, flipped his pig-like body over, and pinned my knee down on his shoulder blade. A squeal like a pig being slaughtered escaped his lips.

“Take your so-called love home and eat it with rice, grandpa!”

“G-Grandpa?! How dare you! Do you know any espers as fit and vigorous as I am?!”

“Your mind doesn’t seem all that vigorous, though?”

Seriously. Espers will do anything to latch onto someone with even slightly high matching rates… Ugh. I supported Heeseong’s shoulder—she was just silently crying, looking like she’d just received a death sentence.

“You okay?”

I hadn’t known her for long, but she seemed clever and sweet, someone who’d stick around for a while. Guess that ends today.

“This is fucking bullshit…”

Heeseong looked like she’d stab the old esper to death if someone handed her a knife right now.

Honestly, she’s not the only one this has happened to. This care facility has a nasty reputation even among espers. As long as you pay, they’ll accept even senile old espers. The salary is insane, so guides who are strapped for cash end up applying here, only to run for the hills once they realize they’re stuck with actual lunatics.

As for me—I’d done something in the past that pretty much wrecked my career. No other care facility would take me.

This place was the only one that reached out a hand. I was just grateful to be working at all, willing to do anything if they’d just let me stay.

So when I saw Heeseong coming out of HR after a counseling session, I figured she’d made up her mind to quit. Another decent coworker gone. I passed by HR without a thought… until the HR manager crooked a finger at me.

Huh? What’s this? Like lightning out of a clear sky.

“There’s been a complaint filed against you. The rumor’s spreading fast among the patients.”

…No wonder people had been giving me weird looks lately. One bomb after another—just after wrapping up the proposal fiasco, now this?

“Ah…”

I couldn’t say a word. I just bowed my head and waited for the final judgment.

“I’m afraid we have no choice but to fire you.”

Damn it. I hated this world that acted like everything was somehow my fault. Sure, I’d been careless—that part was on me. But still, goddamn it.

I stormed out of HR and kicked at the air. At this point, I had no choice but to go to the ends of the Earth. To a place with an even worse reputation than my last facility—a place that would take anyone, no matter where they were from. Huntsville. Infamous as hell, but at least it looked nice.

Huntsville was a care facility located in a wealthy part of Wellington. I applied thinking there was no way I’d get in, but then—bam—an offer letter landed in my inbox.

Eleven hours on a plane later, a fierce wind greeted me at the airport. I’d heard Wellington was windy, so I wore a windbreaker that young people back home would wear… and the wind cut through it like knives.

“Welcome to Windy Welly…”

The airport sign swayed violently in the wind, like it could come crashing down any moment, and my face turned pale. I needed to get out of here fast. At this rate, I’d get hit by a flying sign and be launched straight into the ocean.

As I walked to the taxi stand, a wave of gloom washed over me again. With every step, bad memories from Korea came flooding back, and it felt like I was going to drown in them—like I wouldn’t be able to do anything.

“Hey, gentleman.”

At the taxi stand, one of the drivers picked up my bag and loaded it into the trunk for me. I could’ve done it myself, but this tiny gesture of kindness—so unlike anything back home—somehow made my chest tighten.

“Where to?”

“Huntsville Care Facility.”

The taxi driver said nothing, just turned on the meter and spun the steering wheel with a flick, starting the drive.

Huntsville. It had a reputation as a great place to work, but it was also known as the “last border of the dungeon,” so people avoided it.

But I wanted to disappear—to run away to a place where no one knew me. A place everyone else avoided but always needed more hands… that sounded like the kind of place where I might just survive.

“That’ll be twenty dollars.”

What kind of taxi ride costs twenty bucks? Ridiculous. I pouted and paid in a passive-aggressive bundle of coins instead of bills. The driver looked at the overflowing handful of coins, counted them one by one, then nodded like it checked out.

The taxi had stopped in front of a big, white, bun-shaped building. A sign out front read:

[Welcome to Huntsville Care Facility.]

I stepped onto the grounds of the Huntsville Care Facility. The white building that stood beyond the wind had a full glass front, giving off a distinctly aesthetic vibe. The breeze brushed past the trees and carried the scent of grass to my nose. But then, from the front desk area, someone came running toward me—heels clacking loudly against the floor—and spread her arms wide like she was greeting an old friend.

“You’re Mr. Ae-jun, right?!”

“It’s Baek Ah-jun.”

“Oh, I see. Nice to meet you, Ah-jun!”

There was something oddly familiar about the expression on her face. Ah, right—that look people get when they meet a new recruit they hope will last longer than the last one who quit. That was it, exactly.

The woman greeted me with a smile that clearly had some hidden intentions. She extended her hand like she expected a handshake.

“I’m Emily Rose.”

Feeling a bit awkward, I took her hand and gave it a small up-and-down shake. Then, as if she wanted me to hear her loud and clear, she let out a drawn-out “Wow…”

“Looking forward to working with you. I really hope you don’t run off like the last ones.”

“Looking forward to working with you”—sure. But the part after that? She muttered it under her breath, probably hoping I wouldn’t catch it.

“I’ll be giving you a tour of the Huntsville Care Facility now. But before we get started, do you have any questions?”

“Do special-case espers get separate rooms?”

“Oh, no worries—none of the patients you’ll be assigned to fall into that category. Still, just in case, make sure to check for a necklace before starting any examination.”

She answered casually, and I nodded just as casually.

The Huntsville Care Facility was built in a semi-circular layout. At the center was the main tower—where reception was housed in that stylish, aesthetic building—and behind it, in an arched array, were Wards 1 through 4. Looking at the campus map Emily gave me…

“This looks like half of a pepperoni pizza, doesn’t it? I thought the same thing. Ho ho ho!”

Emily kept chatting nonstop as she took me on a tour of the center tower and Wards 1 to 4. She was… excessively kind. The kind of overbearing kindness that felt like a desperate senior trying to bribe the new recruit with snacks, just begging them not to quit.

And yeah… all those terrible rumors I’d heard about the place? My gut was starting to churn. Still, free dorms, five-minute commute, and three meals a day served right in the center tower? Compared to Korea, this was heaven. Though I wasn’t betting on the food actually tasting good. Knowing the Brits, they might serve something like sardines slapped between slices of sandwich bread.

“This room is yours now, Ah-jun, and here’s your key! We thought about installing a digital door lock, but if a dungeon breaks out, the power goes out almost immediately—so keys are more reliable. Hope that’s not too inconvenient! Ho ho ho!”

From Emily, I could feel the unhinged enthusiasm of a retriever silently screaming with her eyes: “So? Isn’t our place amazing?! So come play with me forever!” I avoided her gaze, pretending not to notice.

“Well then, get some good rest. I’ll see you at work tomorrow!”

Emily firmly shut my dorm room door, waving at me repeatedly through the crack as it closed. I gave a sheepish wave back, awkward expression and all.

---

I had a dream for the first time in a long while. I usually toss and turn so much that I wake up in the middle of my dreams, but not today. My father used to tell me old folktales and explain things about dungeons. He said there was nothing to be afraid of, that they were just part of the ecosystem—but I still find them terrifying.

He used to say there were even secret dungeons in the world—ones no one could find, just crouching in the darkness. He’d say they might even be hiding under my bed, and then grin lazily while tickling my waist and hips to scare me. I loved him so much. Now that he’s gone, every time I see him in a dream, my pillow ends up soaked through.

Dreams of my father always leave me feeling sad. If I still lived in Korea, I could at least visit his grave every year and hold memorial rites. But I was careless, and I caused a huge accident. That’s what landed me here, fleeing to New Zealand.

I entered the medical wing Emily told me about, changed into the purple uniform for guides, and sat down in a chair. Then someone opened the door and walked in. A large Hawaiian man. His name tag read “Z. Samuelson.”

“Nice to meet you. You’re Ae-jun, right? I’m the head guide here—name’s Zekiel Samuelson. If you’ve got questions, bring ’em all to me. Now then, it’s your first day, so I’ve got a lot to show you. Let’s get going.”

People often mistake it as “Ae-jun,” so I casually corrected him to “Ah-jun.” He smiled and apologized.

Zekiel was… quite a talker. He carried several charts in one hand and handed them to me. It was the list of espers I’d be in charge of, along with their medical records. One was an old man, another a young girl, and the last a man about my age.

“Whoa, five percent? That’s impressive. I’m sitting at four percent myself.”

The head guide’s only at four percent. Now that I think about it, I can kind of understand why Emily was so desperate not to let me run away.

“So, is it true that Koreans eat kimchi stew with extra kimchi on top? That’s a thing, right?”

He was the first foreigner I’d met who knew about that. I wondered if I should also tell him that Koreans dip chili peppers into gochujang, but decided to just quietly listen to Zekiel’s rambling instead.

He went on and on about how “all sorts of crazy stuff happens around here,” but all his stories were so cute and silly it made me want to laugh out loud.

The buffet at the center tower was… well, average. It’s not like they were serving lobster. But then again—wait, sardines? Oh yeah. There they were. These people are insane.

As I sat down to eat, I finally started to take in the other people around me. It suddenly hit me that I was really overseas. So many different ethnicities, and all the languages I heard were English—except for the occasional rapid-fire bursts of Chinese here and there…

“……”

Then, all at once, someone caught my eye. Since Zekiel was sitting directly across from me, he couldn’t see where I was looking. He was still chattering on—complaining that modern espers always want to hold hands even for the tiniest bit of pain, asking for this and that, yada yada—but none of it registered with me.

What caught my attention was a man sitting far away, completely alone. From the look of it, he seemed to be an esper. He was wearing a patient’s gown, so he was obviously someone staying at the facility.

His eyes had these deep dark circles, almost like bruises, but they oddly suited him—as if they were part of his makeup, enhancing his features.

His hair was a deep, glossy black, and it shimmered in the sunlight like lacquerware—so striking that I couldn’t look away.

In some ways he looked Western, in others, Eastern. He seemed to be about my age… Then, all of a sudden, he lifted his head and locked eyes with me.

“……!”

There was clear curiosity in his expression. I quickly looked away, but I could feel his gaze lingering on my face for a long time.

When I sneaked another glance, he was looking at me with a slightly puzzled expression.

Zekiel followed my gaze, turning his head to look back—then immediately turned it forward again.

“Oh, that guy’s one of your patients. Name’s Cassian. He’s probably American, I think?”

“Huh… I see…”

But he really didn’t look American at all.

“Oh right. His last name’s Liu. Guess he’s Chinese-American or something.”

As he said that, Zekiel hurriedly tore a piece of bread and dunked it into his soup. In his other hand was an apple with a big bite taken out of it.

“He’s probably going to be the hardest one for you to manage. He’s our most severe case, and it’s not uncommon for him to be rushed to the ER out of the blue. And on top of that…”

Zekiel leaned in and whispered in my ear.

“Psychometry—you ever heard of it?”

His voice brushing my ear made me shiver, but I forced myself to ignore it.

“You mean like… reading the memories of things he touches to find clues or whatever? That kind of thing actually exists?”

Zekiel pointed toward Cassian and said,

“He’s the type who reads his guides’ weaknesses and uses them to get what he wants. Real nasty piece of work. No one who’s handled him has come out clean. Most of the time it was the guides’ fault, though.”

“Didn’t see anything like that in his chart.”

“It’s just one of the many abilities Cassian has. We couldn’t really categorize it properly, so we kept it simple.”

“How the hell does an esper have that many powers?”

“He just does.”

“Yeah, right…”

I asked half-jokingly, but Zekiel nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I felt kind of awkward.

“Told you—he’s the biggest problem child here.”

Just then, I felt a shift. A wave of something rippled through the air. The atmosphere grew heavy in an instant. It was the crushing weight of gravity from an esper’s rampage.

“Uwaaaagh!”

A young man’s scream rang out, and all eyes turned in that direction. A blond man clutched his chest and suddenly began attacking people around him. Crimson flames, almost electric-blue in intensity, erupted from his hands. The other espers nearby stood frozen, visibly alarmed, just watching him spiral out of control.

It seemed like everyone was still trying to assess the situation. Then the man flipped a table and launched into a full-on assault. Thankfully, since this was an esper care facility, most people managed to dodge pretty well.

‘Wait, weren’t they supposed to be too weak to even move around in a place like this?’

I shot a disbelieving look at Zekiel—but he had already left to call for help.

Flames surged through the air, spreading chaos. Amidst the screaming and shouting, a small child wailed, calling out for her mom. The rampaging blonde, eyes blank and wild, stormed toward her and grabbed her by the back of the neck, lifting her off the ground.

“You sick son of a—!”

Even among espers, there’s a vast difference in ability between adults and children. Attacking a kid first? That was beyond cowardly. Just as I started moving toward him, Cassian hurled a cafeteria tray straight at the blonde’s head.

“You think you’re the only one who can rampage?”

As soon as he said that, Cassian launched into a spinning roundhouse kick, lifting himself off the ground with one leg. And in that instant, I witnessed something like magic. His movement was subtle, almost lazy. Or at least, that’s how it looked.

CRACK!
A horrible noise followed. The blond’s head spun a full 360 degrees like it had been struck by a ten-ton concrete pillar, and he crashed to the ground. The wave of power was instantly snuffed out—cleanly, like scissors cutting through paper. People recoiled in shock.

Cassian, calm as ever, picked the unconscious blond man up with one hand. Then his eyes met mine.

“You can heal, right? This guy…”

He looked down at me with a smug expression, clearly demanding a guiding session. Sure, guiding was my job—but being ordered to do it like that really rubbed me the wrong way.

“Yes, I can do it. But what the hell were you thinking, what if his skull’s fractured?”

I asked, flustered. Cassian gave me a look that said, “Seriously? From a guide?”

To check on the fallen man, I gently touched his head. Thankfully, nothing felt soft or sunken—seemed like Cassian had held back just enough.

“I didn’t kick him hard enough to break his skull. I didn’t even use my powers.”

Cassian scolded me like I was being ridiculous. As if just having power gave him the right to do whatever he wanted. I felt something rise inside me—my inner rebel flaring up. I grabbed his wrist and tried to pull him, but he didn’t budge. In fact, I was the one who got dragged toward him.

“Oh? You gonna guide me first?”

Cassian gave a sly, cold smile, then suddenly pulled me by the nape of my neck. And before I could react, his cold lips touched mine. In that moment, our mouths connected—and with it, a guide’s power was activated. Mucous membrane to mucous membrane was the most efficient form of contact for healing. I ended up practically holding his pale face… and kissing him.

“Not bad. It’s fast and effective.”

Cassian broke the kiss and licked his lips slowly as he looked down at me.

“You should probably guide him now, though. Guide Baek Ah-jun.”

“Please… Please, Guide Baek Ah-jun… save me…!”

There wasn’t even a breeze in the air, but memories of Korea swept over me like a gust of wind. Psychometry. The moment our lips touched, Cassian had read my past. The one I was desperate to bury.

Psychometry. I was screwed.

For a second, I tried to convince myself he must’ve just read my name tag—but he hadn’t called me Ae-jun, he said Ah-jun exactly right. That meant he had stolen the memory directly. I was definitely screwed.

I stepped back instinctively, shaken by his unnervingly gentle threat—just as Zekiel arrived and had the blond esper loaded onto a stretcher and rushed off to the emergency room.

Zekiel and I followed into the ER, where we joined the other guides in treating the injured man. I took his hand, and Zekiel placed both hands near his head, focusing with everything he had. But… the concentration wasn’t sticking.

---

The situation was finally under control. I hadn’t even had a proper meal, but there was no time to dwell on that. Following Zekiel’s lead, I headed to Ward 1 to meet my assigned patient. When I opened the private room door, I saw an elderly gentleman with white hair reclining against a half-raised hospital bed.

Zekiel had warned me in advance that this old man had a nasty temper, but there was no sign of that on his face. A few lovely artificial flowers sat beside his bed, the TV was on, and everything seemed fairly peaceful… but there was a quiet loneliness to the room.

‘Is this one of those cases where they never found a matching guide?’

Finding someone with the right connection rate was like plucking stars from the sky. Even if an esper managed to marry a non-esper or someone with a moderately good connection rate, they’d often end up here by the end of their lives. Espers were essentially swirling vortexes of endlessly regenerating mana. Without a companion to manage that flow over time, they had to rely on guides at a facility like this.

The chart said he’d married a civilian and never had children. Just before retiring as an esper, he adopted a young child abandoned near a dungeon. It also noted they had formed a strong emotional bond.

Now that I looked closer, there was a photo frame on the wide windowsill showing a young boy with a bright smile. Another photo showed the old man holding the child tightly, both of them beaming at the camera.

‘God… that’s heartbreaking.’

“Michael, I’m Baek Ah-jun, your new guide starting today~ I’ve got a better match rate than the last ones, so you’ll be in less pain from now on!”

Zekiel walked over and sat comfortably by Michael’s bedside.

Michael gave me a quick glance before frowning.

“Same as the last, I bet.”

He turned his head away coldly. For someone with a supposedly foul temper, he seemed surprisingly mild. Maybe I was just too used to grumpy patients in Korean wards.

Zekiel beckoned me over with a hand gesture—like calling a puppy. Once I got to him, he had me take the old man’s hands. At first, the unstable aura waves were faint and scattered, but they gradually began to settle. I knelt slightly and held his hands tightly, pouring all my focus into the process.

Michael looked stunned. His eyes widened as if he were feeling a major shift, scanning me up and down. Then, just as suddenly, he yanked his hands away from mine and turned his head in the opposite direction.

“Feeling a bit better now?”

“…Yeah. Looks like we’ve finally got someone decent.”

Michael shot Zekiel a sarcastic jab. Zekiel chuckled with a lighthearted laugh. I scratched the back of my neck, feeling awkward.

“Looking forward to working with you. I’ll come by again soon.”

Next up was Ward 2—where a young girl, an esper aged just seven, awaited. She suffered from constant side effects, unable to handle the flow of mana. When Zekiel and I arrived, her symptoms had already started to show.

Cough… cough…

The little girl, Dorothy, was coughing up blood in her mother’s arms. Before we stepped into the room, Zekiel gave me a warning: the mom was a bit… intense, so I’d need to grit my teeth and bear with it.

“Why are you only showing up now?!”

Dorothy’s mother, Bella Smith, held her daughter tightly, catching the blood she coughed up against her chest. It was something espers often went through. Without regular guiding, the constant coughing eventually led to vomiting blood, and the internal pressure would burst the capillaries in their eyes, turning them bloodshot. The technical term for it was “Four-Eyed Syndrome,” but saying that in front of an esper was strictly taboo. With nosebleeds and ruptured vessels, they ended up looking like some crimson-eyed being—and understandably, no esper took that kind of joke lightly.

“I’m sorry. Let me hold Dorothy for a moment. Could you please step aside?”

I bowed my head politely as I spoke. Bella Smith, whose eyes had looked as venomous as a snake’s, seemed to calm a little. She passed the child into my arms.

I pressed a kiss to Dorothy’s forehead, gently patted her head, and held her hands in mine.

The flow of mana inside her felt like a twisted stomach after eating something spoiled—it made my knees ache. The younger the esper, the harder it was to manage their overflowing power, and Dorothy was no exception. I tried my best to read and soothe her mana, but I could only heal about 5% at most, just enough to stem the nosebleed. My uniform was already soaked through with sweat, trailing down my spine.

When Dorothy had finally calmed down, I handed her back to Bella. Though visibly awkward, Bella still fired back at me with her usual coldness.

“I told you to bring someone with a higher connection rate!”

Bella was spouting nonsense. Dorothy had just been peacefully guided in my arms. I had gently reduced the chaotic swirl of mana surrounding her, and now she blinked slowly, catching her breath—and immediately launched into a barrage of questions. She looked much better, and I finally felt a bit of relief. The guiding had worked.

“Mom, what’s a connection rate?”

“Dorothy, it’s too complicated for you to understand.”

Bella softly patted Dorothy’s cheeks as she answered.

“Dorothy’s a grown-up too! I wanna know!”

I was still holding Dorothy tightly, but my awkward English wasn’t up to the task of explaining this. I turned to Zekiel for help. He got a nod of permission from Bella before beginning to explain.

“You know how we usually say things like 4% or 5%? That’s the matching rate—it’s a way to measure how well a guide can heal an esper, kind of like a score. But the connection rate is different. That one’s about a deep, personal bond. It’s about one specific guide and one specific esper being truly connected. People with high connection rates often fall in love, get married—they’re like fated princes and princesses.”

“Does Dorothy not have someone like that yet?”

Dorothy asked, looking up at her mother. Bella pointed to a cute yellow poster stuck on the wall.

[What Are Espers and Guides?]

The poster explained that espers were people born to stop dungeons—heroes who save others. Guides, it said, were like friendly companions who helped them from the sidelines.

Zekiel and I looked at the poster and sighed deeply.
‘Companion, my ass…’
We both turned away from it, exhaling with a frustrated sigh.

My father used to talk about the relationship between espers and guides sometimes. He always tried to make me laugh while doing it, usually by tickling my stomach mid-story.

‘Without a guide, an esper will slowly wither away… and eventually die.’

He said it so softly that I could barely make out the words. The fan was blowing… and I was lying on the cold floor, so I didn’t really catch anything he was trying to explain.

‘I hope Ah-jun never becomes a guide or an esper.’

‘I’m not doing any of that stuff!’

I rubbed my eyes and said that to Dad, nuzzling closer into his arms and shaking my head.

‘You’re an esper, Dad. You’re sick. I don’t want to be sick like you. I just want you to get better soon!’

My father was an esper. His ability was “Indestructible Body”—though I didn’t learn that until I was in middle school. My mother was a civilian. Dad slowly wasted away over the years…
‘Damn it. Thinking about this is going to make him show up in my dreams again.’

I remember staring at his memorial photo once and muttering:

‘Being a guide is nothing but a shackle. How the hell are we supposed to find a “perfect match” in this damn world?’

The price of great power being a shortened life… it’s not like you get to choose to be an esper, or choose to become the guide someone else needs.

The face of my younger sibling, crying their eyes out, flashed through my mind, too. We’d been such a good pair.

Zekiel and I finished treating Dorothy and stepped out of the room. With all the chaos since morning, I hadn’t even had time to rest. Thanks to Cassian, more than a few memories had been stirred up—and the workload was overwhelming. He really did seem like Huntsville’s number one troublemaker. But in the patient chart Zekiel handed me, there were only three names: Michael, Dorothy, and Cassian.

I wanted to ask why I had to be the one to handle him.

“No one wants to treat Cassian. You saw it yourself.”

Zekiel spoke first, clearly having picked up on the look in my eyes.

“You can’t just dump him on the newbie like that.”

He claimed he hadn’t even used his powers. And yet, he’d taken down an esper on the verge of rampaging with ease, like it was nothing.

“Everyone gets assigned to him at least once, so don’t take it too personally.”

There was a lot I wanted to argue back, but I didn’t want to make trouble here too, so I bit my tongue.

With no real choice, I knocked on his door and stepped into his room. The TV was on low, but there was no sign of life. Zekiel nudged my shoulder and said, “Wow, lucky you.” Normally, if a patient wasn’t in their room, protocol dictated that we search the entire ward—but Zekiel waved it off, saying there was no need to go hunting for Cassian and urged me to move along. It was… suspicious. Almost like he was afraid something bad would happen if Cassian showed up out of nowhere.

‘Well… if he really does have psychometry, no one would want to get too close to him. Especially not anyone with something shameful to hide.’

“Cassian’s hardly ever in his room. He’s usually hauled into the ER now and then. As long as you treat him when he shows up, that’s good enough. Don’t stress.”

Zekiel said this while linking arms with me. His ridiculous biceps squished into my face, and I exhaled sharply, struggling to breathe. “Oof—” I let out, and Zekiel quickly pulled his arm away, laughing, “Oh, sorry!”

Later, after changing out of my uniform in the guide locker room, I headed out—only to spot Cassian stumbling from a distance before flopping down onto the sofa in front of the reception desk. Maybe it was the guilt of not guiding him today, but I found myself walking toward him, though carefully—just close enough to stay out of his reach.

His eyes were closed, and he looked absolutely exhausted. His hands lay loosely over the armrest, fingers limp, like he had no energy left in him.

“…You’re my assigned guide, right?”

“Yes. That’s… how it ended up.”

While Cassian and I exchanged words, Zekiel slipped away with a wide arc, deliberately avoiding us.
‘Seriously? This is exactly the time he should butt in…’

“You’ve probably heard a lot about me.”

“Yeah. Kinda.”

“Baek Ah-jun… Blacklisted in Korea, no one would take you, so you ended up here in Huntsville—”

“Aaaaagh…!”

I lunged forward and clamped both hands over his mouth.

‘He figured that out with psychometry? Already?!’

Panic hit me like a punch. I looked around to make sure no one had heard. Thankfully, everyone else had already gone home—the only thing left on was the dim hallway lighting.

“Let’s not say things like that, okay? Let’s just… try to get along, yeah?”

I pulled my hands away from Cassian’s face. He just shrugged like it was no big deal.

“I’m just observant. You’re just… dumb.”

“Oh, great. So I’ll take that as a no on the guiding, then!”

I stormed out of the ward, fuming all the way back to the dorms.

---

“I’m starving…”

Yeah. The dorm itself was nice. But the problem was that it was in the middle of nowhere. If you wanted to get to a grocery store, you had to take a bus. If you craved a late-night snack, your options were either making a trek to the store or heading all the way out to that one pizza joint near the bus stop—Hell Pizza.

Today had been mentally exhausting thanks to Cassian. I wanted a drink too, but there was nothing in the dorm but water, so I swallowed my pride and went to bed hungry.

‘Guess I’ll just eat a solid breakfast tomorrow.’

That was the plan—but thanks to that bastard Cassian, I was too pissed to sleep. Just as I started to drift off, the anger flared up again. Over and over.

‘Who the hell gave him the right to dig through someone’s past like that?’

“This isn’t working.”

Even though it was late, I figured a walk might help. I threw on a jacket, laced up my sneakers, and started walking slowly around the Huntsville grounds. At night, the lack of working streetlights made everything feel a bit eerie.

“…?!”

That’s when I saw something shift, slithering silently in the shadows behind the facility.

‘A… ghost? Is that a ghost?! Wait… do they even have ghosts in New Zealand?’

I found myself following it, almost like I was in a trance.

Normally, I’d be the first to bolt at even the mention of ghosts. But I’d heard there were a lot of petty thieves in New Zealand. With most of the patients in the care facility being frail, a single blow to the head could easily send someone to the afterlife. Half out of a sense of duty, I gave chase.

‘Please let it be a ghost… No, wait—I mean, I guess it doesn’t have to be a ghost… ugh, whatever, I just don’t want to die…’

The blurry figure ahead creaked open a wooden panel at the back of the facility. A chilling, high-pitched screeeech rang out as they stepped inside.

‘Huh…? But that’s supposed to be sealed with concrete.’

I hurried after them. But when I got there— All that greeted me… was a solid concrete wall.