TDG Ch 2

Exactly five years had passed since then.

Fieldwork.

Guide.

A name that came out with a deep, seething sigh.

Division 7 Field Guide.

It was the path I chose to bypass the exam and head straight to the Center, but if asked to do it again, I absolutely wouldn’t.

“This job is seriously fucking hell, right? Just total dogshit. I wish in tomorrow’s newspaper it’d say those fucking Espers drank all night, choked on their liquor bottles and died of a ruptured esophagus. Then I wouldn’t have to see their ugly faces yapping ever again. So just die, you fucking bastards!”

“Juwon sunbae, think about it. They all went through interviews, too, right? That means even the interviewers were no good from the start. Here’s my idea. When those guys go on a rampage, we just show up about thirty seconds late. Then they’ll go into kill-each-other mode, and if they all die, we could wipe out Espers from this world without lifting a finger. Isn’t that awesome?”

“Guides need to go on a general strike. Once those damn Esper bastards all blow their heads off and die, the world would be peaceful, so why do we keep doing this shit? But really, when you think about it, the ones ranked C or lower don’t even go on rampages, right? So let’s stop calling those bugs Espers and just tell those damn bastards to hurry up and kill themselves.”

To express how I felt, I’ll borrow for a moment some of the treasured, resentment-filled lines from my junior Guide, Park Hanseung, whose nickname was “Kill Them All.”

He might seem like a special case, but he wasn’t. He just had a gift for expressing it. Honestly, every Guide in Division 7 was about this unhinged.

A Field Guide… was just a gofer. Even among gofers, the royal gofer of gofers. The King Gofer.

In this world, there are Espers who cause trouble and Espers who clean up after them. At least the monsters crawling out of the gates have their reasons. No matter what, no monster was as shitty as a human Esper.

At least the Espers only have to clean up external messes. But Guides have to deal with the messes made by Espers from their own department as well. That is the most fucked-up thing about this job. You could call us the lowest of the low in the caste system.

Working in Division 7, I finally understood why my father called Espers “bastards” with such venom.

“Bastard” is actually a pretty refined word. When it comes to Espers, the most fitting description is “utterly irredeemable radioactive waste bastards.”

They say your brainwaves change when you awaken as an Esper. Maybe that’s why they keep coming up with new and increasingly disgusting ways to cause trouble. Getting called out in the middle of sleeping, eating, and even showering—it never ends. Being on standby 24/7 was the baseline. Who wouldn’t lose their mind?

I never had a proper rest, not on holidays, not even on New Year’s. If I weren’t Han Jihyuk, I probably would’ve snapped already, taken out a few Espers, and ended up in prison.

Damn bastards. I wish the rotten sons of bitches would die miserably.

They barely use any power, but they’d wail like they were dying, and every time I saw them throwing tantrums like they had handed over their guiding to me, I was burning with the urge to deliver a 43-meter-per-second hectopascal kick^[1] of guidance.

The only reason those Esper bastards are still alive is because the Constitution says kicking someone is assault.

Even the most good-natured person would start cursing the world after a month in Division 7. Actually, no. One month is generous. It was common for people who proudly started the day saying they were now civil servants with job security to disappear by lunchtime.

It was a hellish department where that sort of vanishing act was routine.

Even while I was getting completely worn down, I couldn’t bring myself to tell my father, afraid he’d make me quit.

Maybe that’s why. No matter what kind of psycho Esper bares his fangs and barks at me now, even if the Bifrost Bridge^[2] descended over the Han River connecting Seoul to Jotunheim^[3], I wouldn’t even flinch. I’d earned a steel mental fortitude and a level of experience that nothing could shake.

I’d grown so used to living in this body that memories of my previous life often faded into a blur.

It started when I realized that reminding myself this world was from a novel only exhausted me and served no real purpose. I made peace with myself and decided to accept that wherever I lived and breathed was the “real world.”

Because the original “Seo Juwon” was such a colorless and bland person, it was easier for me to imprint my own color on him.

That doesn’t mean I forgot what I had to do.

Even in the midst of a hellishly busy life, I made time whenever I could to steadily seek out the characters from the original novel and remind myself that they really existed.

Especially Kwon Minwook.

According to my research, just like in the novel, he was well-liked and had a good reputation. Tall, well-built, with strikingly handsome features, his smile and manner of speech were polished and refined. There was no way someone like that wouldn’t be popular.

With that charming face, he had secretly founded a shell guild, carried out all kinds of dirty deals, and used brainwashed Espers to commit various evils. The fact that, just by his appearance, you’d never imagine him to do such things made it all the more infuriating.

Ironically, it was because of Kwon Minwook that I managed to push through with more grit and stubbornness. I even considered ways I might be able to punish him somehow, but he handled things too cleanly, and there was nothing I could use against him. And as an ordinary civilian, there were limits to what I could even attempt.

I couldn’t breathe a word of it to my father, who already felt guilty enough just for having me work as a Guide.

Worrying about unnecessary things only distracted me from my work in Division 7 and from Han Jihyuk.

I couldn’t save everyone.

In any case, after five grueling years of surviving hell, I finally succeeded in entering the “Center” that I had dreamed of so much.

I was placed in Guide Team 2. The successful and popular team was Team 1, where Kwon Minwook was, but I had no reason to go there just to make gruel for the dog^[4].

More importantly, it mattered that I joined the team that the female lead, Jung Ahyoon, would later become part of.

“Hello. I’m Seo Juwon, newly assigned to Guide Team 2 as of today.”

The team leader who greeted me was a man in his mid-forties with a warm, smiling face. His sturdy build gave the impression that he may have once been an athlete.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Park Chisu, the team leader. I heard you specifically requested Team 2. Any reason for that?”

He was asking why I hadn’t gone to Team 1. I smoothly delivered the explanation I had prepared.

“Personally, I’ve always respected Team Leader Park Chisu. That’s why I really wanted to be part of Team 2.”

We weren’t acquainted, but the sentiment was genuine.

Park Chisu was a good person in the novel, and he helped the female lead a lot during her early adjustment.

Also, he was known to be susceptible to flattery.

As I laid on the compliments, his expression visibly melted into a beaming smile.

“Ha ha, you sure know how to talk.”

Well, I am something of a seasoned rookie.

“You joined a good team. I heard you were with Division 7 before? That must’ve been tough.”

With those routine words, he guided me into the office.

“Alright, attention everyone. Meet our new recruit. His name is Seo Juwon, and he’s twenty-four.”

“Hello, seniors.” As I greeted them politely, a woman with short hair stood up with a surprised look on her face.

“Oh! You’re a guy? I thought you were a girl.”

At her comment, a man sitting in the corner, scribbling something, stretched his neck like a crane to get a look at me.

“I’m Yoon Soojung. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Kim Hojin.”

Last night, I again went over what I’d written about the novel five years ago. It felt surreal to meet, in person, characters that had existed only in print. They weren’t all that different from how they’d been described in the novel. After five years of silently building a one-sided sense of familiarity, I had to be careful not to act too familiar without realizing it.

“But for a new male recruit, he’s really pretty. So cute. Right, Hojin?”

Yoon Soojung gave a friendly smile and jabbed Kim Hojin in the side.

Kim Hojin, who had been indifferent, gave me a quick once-over and then muttered bluntly, “You must get a lot of calls.”

“Do you have to say everything like that?”

Yoon Soojung glared at him, but Kim Hojin couldn’t care less.

I smiled politely and spoke up.

“Thank you for the compliment. I look forward to your guidance and support.”

Team Leader Park Chisu waited for the mood to settle down, then continued speaking.

“Soojung, want to be Juwon’s mentor?”

“Me? Oh my, I’ve never done that before… Will I be able to do it well?”

Despite her words, Yoon Soojung didn’t look displeased. And just like that, my mentor was decided, and Team Leader Park Chisu raised his hand and pointed inside.

“That empty desk over there is yours, Juwon. The rest of the team is out on fieldwork right now. I’ll introduce them to you later.”

I set my bag down at the desk I was shown.

For a first day, this wasn’t bad at all.

The Center was incredible.

If Division 7 was like a Neolithic pit house, this place was like a monument to modern civilization, built on a luxurious 180,000-pyeong^[5] estate. The facilities for staff convenience were overwhelming, and the employee benefits seemed endless.

By “benefits,” I don’t mean basics like a microwave or separate restrooms for men and women, which are a matter of basic human rights. Here, “benefits” meant actual support aimed at improving the quality of life for employees. 

Even though both were government positions, in one place, C-rank and lower Espers, reeking of alcohol and wriggling in like salt-sprinkled earthworms, would clock in for work, while here, well-groomed people in sleek uniforms checked in through iris recognition systems.

This is heaven… Yeah, definitely heaven.

Most Espers at the Center, excluding a few in special departments, were ranked A or B.

S-rank was rare enough to be excluded from the comparison.

But as the ranks made clear, the Center’s Espers were naturally more composed and dignified.

For Espers, whose abilities are the top priority for promotion, personality screenings aren’t part of the evaluation, but it follows the same principle as how people, once successful, naturally become more conscious of their behavior because of the way others perceive them.

From my perspective, having crawled up from the bottom and dealt with all kinds of trash, the Center’s Espers could practically be called gentlemen… Or so I thought—

It seemed opinions differed depending on the person.

“Do Jongsoo, that son of a bitch! He’s always making me come in. That bastard’s not worth a pile of dog crap! Strutting around like he’s hot shit just because he barely made it to A-rank. I want to grab his head and shove it in a toilet.” 

That rapid-fire rant made me think of Park Hanseung, my junior from Division 7, as Yoon Soojung returned to Team 2, spitting out words like a machine gun. She’d been out on a mission since the morning after being requested by an Esper.

The colorful scarf she’d worn around her neck was tossed onto her desk in frustration.

“Espers are all crazy anyway. They call you more just because they know you hate it.”

“Don’t do that, just submit a complaint. File a petition.”

Following Kim Hojin, Seon Jaeyoung, who had been playing a mobile game in the corner, chimed in with a half-hearted suggestion.

He was the last team member who’d been out in the field when I first arrived.

“If only he’d try something actually inappropriate, I’d stab him right away, but that bastard never crosses the line.”

Yoon Soojung slammed down the spoon she’d been using to stir her coffee with a loud clatter, fuming.

“You’re still better off. I’ve got Im Seongjun.”

At Seon Jaeyoung’s sighing words, the fury momentarily faded from Yoon Soojung’s eyes and was replaced with a wave of sympathy and pity.

Still glued to his phone, Kim Hojin spoke without looking up.

“That bastard still hasn’t had a re-evaluation?”

“Would he dare? It’d expose that he’s not even A-rank.”

“That idiot, he’s got no real ability but way too much ambition.”

“He is just strapping a thorn-studded iron plate to his butt^[6] and won’t leave. Who knows when he’ll use ‘guiding’ as an excuse to get touchy.”

Im Seongjun was an Esper rumored to have been incorrectly rated as S-rank due to a machine error.