Chapter 2: An Annoying Colleague
It was the familiar sound of chaos that forced me to wake up from the bed. I looked toward the window and realized that it was only the early afternoon. I had not slept for very long at all.
"Kim Jun Hyung!"
Lee Do Yeon's voice outside the door was extremely hurried and urgent. He was even panting.
"What is it, Lee Do Yeon? You are so noisy…"
I opened the door and stepped outside with an irritated look after being disturbed.
"There are some Espers from Team 3 and Team 5 outside who need primary Guiding before heading out on a mission. A rift suddenly erupted at a high school. Many students and teachers fell inside."
A rift erupting at a school?
My memories were stirred once again.
Classmates dying right before my eyes. Teachers using their own bodies to lure monsters away. Everything submerged in fresh blood, the stench of rotting monster flesh and human corpses lingering for days on end.
If Jae Hyo had not awakened as an SS-rank Esper, and if I had not coincidentally awakened as an S-rank Guide, no one would have escaped that rift.
Primary Guiding was very simple. It was only to confirm that the Espers were all in their best condition. I only needed fifteen minutes to finish this task.
"Lee Do Yeon, are you not going with them?"
Lee Do Yeon shook his head.
"Zero said that the priority for those staying behind at our team's base is to ensure Hyung's safety. That is why I will stay behind."
I clicked my tongue. I could not imagine what danger I could possibly face in a headquarters filled with Espers. Zero always liked to make everything overly serious.
Lee Do Yeon and I stood on the building and looked down as the vehicles carrying Team 3 and Team 5 left the headquarters, heading toward the distant area where the sky was gray from the appearance of the rift.
The sky quickly darkened. I cheerfully packed my belongings into my bag, preparing to return to the apartment rented near the headquarters to end another lazy workday. Suddenly, the alarm siren rang out.
"Damn it!"
I threw the bag onto the table and ran at full speed toward the emergency crisis response room.
Sure enough, just as I had guessed, people were lying everywhere on stretchers, suffering from injuries of varying severity.
"What the hell happened!?"
I grabbed an Esper who looked familiar and was currently being treated with Guiding, while asking the nurse who was giving him first aid beside him.
The nurse trembled as she stuffed something red back into Esper's abdomen, which had a pitch-black hole in it. After seeing the Guiding energy help the hole gradually close, she finally regained enough composure to realize that the Guide beside her was asking a question.
"The rift at that school was an S-plus rank rift. Because we misjudged the level of the rift, we did not dispatch enough S-rank Espers for support. Only two S-rank Espers were not enough to protect everyone."
"What?"
I was startled.
Clearly, before I packed up to go home, the sky there had already returned to normal. The rift had been closed, which meant the Boss had been killed. Yet Team 3 and Team 5 had suffered damage of this magnitude?
And only two S-rank Espers were actually able to kill the Boss of an S-plus rank rift?
Perhaps they had been lucky and encountered a slightly weaker Boss.
No matter what had happened, I knew that my comfortable evening of rest was completely ruined.
Even Lee Do Yeon was not idle anymore. He fully assisted the medical team in rescuing Espers who had not yet reached their turn for Guiding. All Guides without assignments were mobilized to the headquarters to help with treatment.
I no longer knew how many people I had guided. Some of them were so severely injured that, in order to save time, I even had to perform deep Guiding through large-area skin contact.
"Where is the next one?"
I asked the nurse assisting with patient transfers beside me. She opened her tablet to check, then led me to the room where the Esper needing treatment was lying.
"It is this person. He is an A-rank Esper with quite serious injuries."
I opened the door to the room, and I immediately wanted to slam it shut again.
"Oh my, Kim Jun Hyung. I really am lucky today!"
That punchable face broke into a smile that made me want to slap his face into the floor.
In a small headquarters like this, no bigger than a miniature company, there would always be annoying colleagues that you never wanted to see, yet could never avoid encountering every single day at work.
Min Ha Dong was exactly that kind of bastard.
Geon Do might have grown up ugly, but at least his soul was clean. Min Ha Dong, on the other hand, was a genuine piece of trash. All day long, he only thought about exploiting Guiding to force timid Guides to sleep with him.
He had harassed me to such an extent that even the headquarters director, Jena, agreed to my request to prohibit him from approaching me or receiving routine Guiding from me.
But Min Ha Dong's brain was probably truly broken. The more he was forbidden, the more eager he became to harass me.
"Min Ha Dong, if you do not want to be beaten to death, then shut your mouth."
I said softly, then signaled for the nurse to leave the room and tightly closed the door.