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Surprisingly, even Tae-seong obediently stood guard over Gi Suh-hyun, so Ha-gyeom spoke firmly. If anything were to happen to her now, he felt he wouldn’t even be able to protest when the Kang sisters beat him half to death later.

“Fine. I’ll do what you say. Shit… I’ll treat her like some sacred relic, so quit yapping and get back to your position already, yeah?”

Apparently, the Parrot didn’t care about Ha-gyeom’s opinion, but he did care about what the higher-ups thought. In the end, he backed off with a grumble. Ha-gyeom shot Tae-seong a meaningful look, just to be sure, then returned to the portal in front of him.

Thanks to the activity that had lasted all the way till dawn, the energy coursing through his body was solid, and there was nothing off physically. It was the perfect condition to dive into training. His mind had been prepared long ago, and yet a sickening unease kept clenching around his chest like a vice.

Wuuuuuung—!

As if on cue, a monster crawled its way out of the portal. A chill ran down Ha-gyeom’s scalp, his hair standing on end with static, and goosebumps rippled down his neck.

“Ugh.”

Bang! Tak! Bang!

Tae-seong and Park Ha immediately opened fire on the creature, riddling it with bullets. With a pig-like shriek, the monster writhed in agony. Its wart-covered skin split and ruptured, and the blue blood that gushed from it rained down all over Ha-gyeom, who happened to be standing just below.

“Ugh!”

As if he wasn’t already miserable, the warm, sticky monster blood made him gag. When he turned to glare at the Parrot, the man only tilted his chin lazily—his version of telling him to hurry up and get inside.

“Go. Just get in already.”

He muttered the words aloud as if to seal his resolve once more. Climbing up the jagged rock face, Ha-gyeom squeezed his eyes shut. To be honest, he was trembling like he was facing death itself. And after seeing the bloodless pallor on Gi Suh-hyun’s face, cold sweat soaked him from head to toe.

Tap—!

Just as the flailing monster collapsed from the air, Ha-gyeom jumped down onto its hulking body. Using it as a springboard, he propelled himself straight into the gaping, pitch-black hole.

Shhhhiiick—!

It sounded like a violent gust was tearing at his eardrums, but the air brushing past his skin wasn’t nearly as strong or fast as the sound suggested.

He wasn’t sucked in like a black hole, nor was he plummeting endlessly into some abyss. The inside of the portal was simply consumed by an intense darkness and silence. It felt almost surreal, how steady his landing was—almost like stepping onto a cloud.

Even when he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see a single inch ahead.

And as the realization hit—that he had no idea where he was—fear, pushed aside until now, surged back into him like a crashing wave.

---

Baek Sa quietly clicked his tongue as he saw Dr. Cha clutching at his hair in the lab. Thanks to Dr. Kim’s death, Dr. Cha had taken over as Ah-rang’s next handler. He had seemed so pleased to be handed the troublesome case overnight without complaint, so Baek Sa couldn’t help but wonder why he was now looking so miserable.

Ah-rang was on the other side of the glass. She was sitting alone in the wide space, and upon closer inspection, she was clearly conscious, her eyes focused.

“What’s the problem?”

Dr. Cha didn’t even notice Baek Sa enter. Only when Baek Sa asked did he finally turn around, sending a brief look of welcome before his expression twisted.

“The field team just came back.”

Dr. Cha rubbed both his arms like he had goosebumps.

“There’s no sign that Ah-rang left the room. No physical evidence at all that she came into contact with Dr. Kim!”

“The weapon?”

“It’d be a relief if there was one. But there’s nothing—no weapon at all. Even my own guess is that Dr. Kim didn’t die by Ah-rang’s hand. No, actually… from the look of it, it seems like he took his own life.”

“What’s your take?”

“Honestly, I think it was suicide, too… not murder.”

“How did it happen?”

“He slammed his head into a stainless steel table hard enough to crush his skull. Does that make any sense? Dr. Kim might’ve been out of his mind, but he was waiting desperately for Ah-rang to wake up. Are we saying that same man would kill himself?”

Baek Sa recalled how Ah-rang had been sitting quietly when he first arrived at Dr. Kim’s lab. Though the worker who found her also died later, even he never said Ah-rang had left the bed. She wasn’t even an Esper, just a guide—it was hard to believe she could overpower an adult man.

And that wasn’t the only strange thing.

Temporarily, she had emitted radiation strong enough to breach the purification system, and afterward, Yeo Jin-joo couldn’t even endure her energy and ended up vomiting. Guides could sense each other’s energy, but it had never been reported that one guide could have such an overwhelming effect on another.

There was clearly some change in Ah-rang’s energy. But no one knew why Yeo Jin-joo couldn’t withstand it while Ha-gyeom could.

“It’s definitely strange…”

Baek Sa, stroking his chin in thought, suddenly froze. As soon as his thoughts landed on Ha-gyeom, a dull ache throbbed near his heart. The realization that one must keep their heart beating to stay alive—he felt that more acutely now than ever, and it was all because of that boy.

I wonder if he arrived safely.

But that wasn’t going to solve anything, and a sharp pain bloomed at his temples. His blood felt like it was rushing, and soon his fingertips were tingling.

It was one thing that the lingering sensations still remained in his body—but he couldn’t shake the choking anxiety that gripped his throat. It made his former numbness, back when he had adapted to this place and felt nothing at all, feel like a lie.

“……”

Dr. Cha, oblivious to the tension, seized the moment to speak.

“It’s already been two days. No word from Guide Shin Ha-gyeom?”

“None.”

It sounded almost like he was asking how it felt to be the one who sent Ha-gyeom into danger. The preliminary training for the exploration mission had no fixed timeline. Sometimes it took three days, sometimes up to two weeks. And sometimes, there was never any word at all.

“You must be worried sick.”

Dr. Cha glanced at him, probing. He was clearly trying to feel Baek Sa out. But Baek Sa didn’t want to explain why he had chosen Ha-gyeom for such a cruel mission under the guise of training.

He was enduring only because he had some conviction that Ha-gyeom, at least, wouldn’t meet the worst-case outcome.

“Right.”

He replied flatly and turned his gaze back to Ah-rang. She looked clean and well-fed, clearly taken care of these past few days. The gauntness from when she first woke was completely gone, and there was no sign of emotional instability.

But something about her expression unsettled him—it wasn’t the Ah-rang from before the exploration mission. Her wide eyes and faint smile gave her the look of a child, a stark contrast to her usual mature, composed, and leader-like personality.

“Any basis for the memory loss? Did you find one?”

During the interrogation after the scene was secured, Ah-rang kept dozing off. She couldn’t remember anything—not the mission, not her previous life. She could utter simple, intuitive words like “I don’t like this,” “It’s hot,” or “It’s cold,” but proper communication was out of the question.

Dr. Cha answered in a bitter tone.

“How are we supposed to find anything if we can’t even talk to her? She doesn’t even remember her name. What can we possibly get from her?”

But she had clearly reacted differently when she first woke up. She had looked at him with resentful eyes and even cried. If she remembered nothing at all, there would’ve been no reason to behave like that.

“Her energy?”

“It seemed weak at first, but she’s slowly recovering. But as you know, for a full recovery, she’ll need guiding…”

Baek Sa frowned. His compatibility rate with Ah-rang wasn’t particularly high. Now that Ha-gyeom, with a 99% match, was here, there was no need for him to receive guiding from her.

But it wasn’t only Espers who recovered through guiding. Guides also needed Espers to use their energy to the fullest. That wasn’t news to him.

Still…

As soon as Dr. Cha mentioned guiding, Baek Sa was hit with a fresh pang of guilt. Right now, he couldn’t imagine sharing his body with anyone other than Ha-gyeom.

“Obviously, the Esper with the highest match rate for Ah-rang is still you.”

Until Ha-gyeom arrived here, she had been the only one who could rein in Baek Sa’s outbursts. Even if for Ah-rang it had always been forced guiding.

Any Esper entering District 0 was injected with drugs to amplify their energy. But those drugs affected match rates—and few had that side effect, like him. Baek Sa called it a curse. A curse he feared might also affect Kang Hana and Kang Duna, who were currently unconscious.

‘I’m cursed. I can’t take just anyone.’

That’s what he had told Ha-gyeom when they first met—when Ha-gyeom had faced him not as Baek Seung-woo but as Baek Sa. He still didn’t know why the side effect didn’t apply to Ha-gyeom, or whether that made their connection fate. But he knew one thing: he would never hold anyone else in his arms again.

“When Guide Shin Ha-gyeom comes back, you’ll need his permission first, right?”

Dr. Cha asked slyly, like someone more aware of that truth than even Baek Sa himself.

“Probably.”

Baek Sa didn’t want to be hounded by more intrusive questions. He gave a deliberately vague answer and stepped closer to the glass.

“She must resent me.”