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As the situation became clearer, Ha-gyeom’s heart pounded as if it were about to burst. Unlike his chest, which burned with spreading heat, his head cooled sharply.

Even if surviving the first training had already proven his ability as a guide, it meant nothing if he couldn’t protect Baek Sa.

“I’ll return and come see you.”

“I’ll wait with joy.”

With a light bow, Baek Sa took the lead and boarded the battleship. When Ha-gyeom glanced back, Assemblyman Tak was waving, wearing the jacket a mercenary had handed him. Ha-gyeom’s stomach twisted violently, and he hurried after Baek Sa, keeping his eyes fixed on his back.

Reaching their destination alone would take a full day. As soon as Ha-gyeom stepped onto the battleship and Assemblyman Tak disappeared from view, he grabbed Baek Sa’s arm in panic. His lips moved without forming words, struggling to figure out how to stop him, when Baek Sa met his eyes with ease.

“Are you really going like this?”

“I am. It’s an order.”

It sounded like he was emphasizing that it wasn’t solely for Ha-gyeom’s sake. But Baek Sa had been the one to bring up the idea to Assemblyman Tak in the first place, so Ha-gyeom couldn’t accept that plainly.

“What if you get hurt…?”

His voice visibly trembled. Baek Sa looked down at the hand gripping him and spoke.

“I’m not going without a basis. When an Esper accompanies a guide, they’re protected by the purification wavelength. I’ve judged that repeated exposure proves that protection has meaning—so I decided to go.”

“Even so.”

“Trying the same thing again is pointless. And what Assemblyman Tak said about needing a pioneer….”

Not knowing the full context, Taeseong cleared his throat awkwardly. To someone like him, this might just look like an extension of a lovers’ quarrel, but to Ha-gyeom it was desperate.

Even though he had pushed Baek Sa’s hand away earlier, he now refused to let go of his arm. Baek Sa jerked his chin toward Taeseong, wordlessly telling him to step back.

“I’ll stay out on deck. I have to keep watch anyway…”

Taeseong responded as if waiting for the cue. Only after he left did Baek Sa guide Ha-gyeom to a quiet corner away from the busy crew and ask:

“Are you afraid I’ll get hurt?”

His eyes shone sharply. Regardless of what Baek Sa had done in this place, Ha-gyeom naturally didn’t want him harmed. Pressured by that gaze, he slowly nodded, and Baek Sa continued.

“Then don’t crumble. Protect me. You already proved you can.”

Seeing such unwavering eyes made Ha-gyeom’s heart drop.

…Protect him?

Baek Sa’s voice held no hint of doubt about Ha-gyeom’s abilities. If they spent a night together before reaching the destination, it would bring Ha-gyeom to peak condition—but even then, he still couldn’t fully believe in himself.

Ordinary contamination, he could protect anyone from. But inside the anomaly, he had lost control of himself. How could he possibly protect Baek Sa there?

Would Baek Sa begin seeing that “presence” too? If Baek Sa couldn’t control himself either, wouldn’t that be the same as throwing themselves into hell together?

“Do you trust me?”

When he asked timidly, Baek Sa answered immediately, as if he had been waiting.

“I do.”

Ha-gyeom bit down on his lower lip hard enough to bruise. Thoughts of the worst-case scenario tormented him, and his heartbeat kept stumbling out of rhythm.

Then Baek Sa added, driving the nail in deeper:

“I trust you.”

Eyes filled with neither doubt nor fear.

Only then did something begin to boil up from deep within Ha-gyeom’s chest.

He remembered the mission he had grown and nurtured ever since meeting Baek Sa. The time he had resolved to protect him even if it meant throwing his own body in harm’s way. Recalling that fierce, burning feeling he had carried since he was young helped calm the chills crawling up his neck.

“If we survive.”

“……”

“No matter what pain follows, we can overcome it together now.”

---

Inside the small, windowless ten-pyeong cabin, Baek Sa and Ha-gyeom sat with a table between them. Even with the heavy iron door tightly shut, silence lingered in the room for a long while.

What had happened inside the anomaly, the bizarre experience when he encountered Ah-rang, and the memories of Ah-rang that kept shaking his mind.

Since the time was approaching when he would have to lead Baek Sa into the anomaly, Ha-gyeom told him everything—leaving nothing out. Though Baek Sa occasionally furrowed his brows, he patiently absorbed the truth, and only after some time did he rise from his seat.

As he turned away and rubbed at his temple, Ha-gyeom hid his trembling hands beneath the table.

“Mediator.”

After a short pause, Baek Sa spoke. The unfamiliar word froze the trembling in Ha-gyeom’s eyes.

“If I define it based on everything you’ve told me… that’s what it is. Do you understand what it means?”

Ha-gyeom shook his head. The nuance was there, but no clear picture formed. Seeing that blank look, Baek Sa braced his hands on the table and leaned forward. As their gazes met, his brows creased deliberately.

“I saw it in Ah-rang. That thing—what possessed her.”

“So that means…”

“I know Ah-rang. At least enough to be certain that whatever that is now, it’s not her.”

At the sound of Ah-rang’s name leaving Baek Sa’s lips, sweat dampened Ha-gyeom’s palms. Since he had already confessed seeing Baek Sa in Ah-rang’s memories, his eyes trembled slightly.

Baek Sa seemed to mull over his explanation for a moment before speaking again, calmly as if organizing his own turbulent thoughts.

“For fourteen years since the invasion, only monsters have appeared on Earth, but everyone suspected something. It wasn’t difficult to assume that the gravity holes were a kind of gate—and that something existed beyond them.”

As a guide, Ha-gyeom knew Assemblyman Tak’s exploration mission had begun from such theories. What surprised him more was that Baek Sa had already sensed the presence that consumed Ah-rang—and how calm he remained after hearing Ha-gyeom’s testimony confirming it.

“If the monsters aren’t the real invaders, but something beyond them is…”

“……”

“And if there’s some reason they can’t cross into Earth directly…”

That too made sense. Only Ha-gyeom and Ah-rang—guides who had entered the anomaly—had ever seen that presence; it had never been detected anywhere outside.

“Whatever the reason, if that assumption is correct, then what they want is…”

Since the anomalies, the gravity holes, and the monsters had never disappeared after the invasion, it was highly likely those beings still hadn’t achieved what they came for. Ha-gyeom recalled countless theories and the chilling message he had heard from that presence. At that moment, Baek Sa added:

“A body. One they can survive in.”

At that, Ha-gyeom’s eyes widened. The feeling made sense—because the presence had not been a solid form, but something closer to a ghost, or smoke—and a foreboding shiver ran up his spine.

“That explains Ah-rang’s state too. Since she survived both Earth and the gravity hole, it makes sense they chose her as a host…”

“A host?”

Ha-gyeom blurted out without thinking. Even if he didn’t know the exact dictionary definition, he certainly knew what a host was—something that another creature lives inside. At first, they seem to coexist, but eventually, the host is completely consumed.

Ha-gyeom’s pupils trembled. He naturally recalled Ah-rang’s red energy. The red light that had swallowed the blue in Dr. Cha’s monitors—and the fact that even the edges of his own energy had begun turning red—came to mind one by one, suffocating him.

“A mediator. Someone needed to deliver their will, or a bridge to enter this place themselves.”

If Baek Sa was right, then the reason that presence had appeared before Ha-gyeom inside the anomaly was because it intended to use him as a mediator. His mind was still intact, but because his energy had begun to show red, fear pierced him.

“A mediator…”

“We’ve treated ability manifestation as something inexplicable, but nothing in the world happens without reason. It’s more reasonable to assume someone caused it intentionally.”

“……”

“This world makes scientific explanations pointless. And if the cause isn’t human, then human logic means nothing.”

As he repeated Baek Sa’s words in his head, Ha-gyeom remembered how many guides had participated in operations and training up to now. Then a thought struck him.

“Maybe… not all guides can become mediators.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Even if Ah-rang being the only guide to survive the exploration makes sense… the fact that I’m the only one who saw that presence during training—it’s strange.”

Baek Sa answered with a faintly displeased expression.

“That means they’re selecting mediators. Or that only those capable of enduring it can become one.”

The deeper the conversation sank, the lonelier Ha-gyeom felt. When he was young, Baek Seung-woo had once spoken of “chosen people”—and now that phrase felt like an unavoidable curse.

“Then how do we explain Ah-rang’s memories overwhelming me? It wasn’t inside the anomaly or the gravity hole, yet it happened. If I felt connected to her somehow…”

Could a mediator communicate with another mediator? If so, wasn’t his fate already decided?

His thoughts spiraled deeper into a dark, endless pit. To pull him out of it, Baek Sa spoke in a low voice.

“What you saw in Ah-rang’s memories.”

Those memories had not only brought Ah-rang’s pain, but Ha-gyeom’s own. His family’s death, Baek Sa’s past, and even the truth that Assemblyman Tak had been at the root of it all.

Around the time District 0 was first built, Assemblyman Tak had been one of the leaders who agreed to abduct manifested gifted people—and ruthlessly eliminate their families. He even commanded the executions himself. The evils that began then had continued for more than a decade without ever stopping.

As a core leader, his survival meant the suffering hidden behind District 0’s massive walls would also never end. Director Kim Hye-jeong had sent Baek Sa undercover to destroy him from within. If they could reach the seat of power, the cycle of evil could be broken.

Ha-gyeom recalled the horrors he had seen in the western sector. Ah-rang, who had suffered like him during the chaotic era, and the anger and tears of countless others she had witnessed. Only one word remained in Ha-gyeom’s mind.

“…Pain.”

From across the room, Ha-gyeom murmured. Though bringing up Ah-rang’s memories must have felt unpleasant, Baek Sa still approached him and leaned in.

“And your weakness.”

“……”

“To make you vulnerable. To rule over you.”

He couldn’t be certain the theories filling the room were all true. But Ha-gyeom listened more intently to Baek Sa than anyone else could have. Because Baek Sa already knew—everything that happened here, every cruelty and injustice, and all the miseries Ha-gyeom had endured.

The unease in his pitch-black eyes, the shadow over his face, made it impossible to think he was saying these things to soften responsibility for his own past.

He was merely explaining.

“Just as it ruled over Ah-rang…”

A suffocating silence settled. From that one comparison—becoming like Ah-rang—Ha-gyeom could already picture what might await him.

He licked his burning lips and stared at the subtle crease forming in Baek Sa’s brow. Among all the things he had confessed, there was one he had not yet said.

“Ah-rang hasn’t been completely consumed. That day I met her—I saw it. Only for a moment, but… even though I barely know her, I could feel it. She’s still alive in there.”

Baek Sa didn’t fully believe him, but because Ha-gyeom said it, he nodded with a grave face.

“So… isn’t there still a way to save her?”

Baek Sa’s eyes flickered unexpectedly. Ha-gyeom had asked the question even as he remembered the deeply corrupted red of Ah-rang’s energy, even as hopelessness gnawed at him. He already sensed the answer would be despair.

Baek Sa’s face hardened coldly. He lowered himself beside Ha-gyeom, hand on the armrest of his chair, meeting him eye to eye.

“Ha-gyeom. What do you think salvation is?”

“Saving a precious life.”

He answered without the slightest doubt. As a child, he had learned that from Baek Seung-woo sitting before him now. And he remembered vividly how happy—how thrilled—he had been to know he held the power to save others.

But Baek Sa asked again, more bleakly:

“Then what if it’s too late to save Ah-rang’s life? How would you save her then?”

He remained terrifyingly calm, yet Ha-gyeom felt as though the weight of the world had been dropped onto his shoulders.

He had never once considered that. If you couldn’t save someone’s life, then there was no salvation. Failing to save them was simply failure, nothing more.

“You can’t save her.”

“No. You can.”

“…How?”

Baek Sa inhaled softly before answering.

“Death.”

At the same time, warmth pressed against Ha-gyeom’s lowered hands, creating a stark contrast to the cruel word. Ha-gyeom looked at Baek Sa with trembling eyes, unable to understand. Death should be a tragedy; how could it be salvation?

“What did you see in Ah-rang for that moment?”

Baek Sa asked with calm eyes. Ha-gyeom’s mind felt chaotic, but he could answer immediately.

“…Pain.”

As the clear word left him, the vague intuition inside him sharpened. And at last, he felt he understood the meaning of that hopeless look in Ah-rang’s eyes.

If she had already fallen into the state of a host—beyond any possibility of return—

Then, before he could finish the thought, Baek Sa said:

“Then ending that pain is the only way to save her.”