Chapter 4: Jo Hyun, you are a true hero
Director Jena only needed a brief glance at the situation inside the room to understand what had happened. She let out a sigh, then turned toward the hallway and waved to a nurse.
"Come here, take Min Ha Dong away. He has already finished Guiding. He just needs to lie down in the resting room for a while."
The nurse entered, startled when she saw Min Ha Dong's swollen face, but she did not dare to ask much and quickly took him away.
After the trouble was dealt with, Jena turned back into the room and closed the door.
She looked toward me and Jo Hyun, then began to explain her purpose.
"All right, Kim Jun, get acquainted with Jo Hyun. While you are at it, do a bit of Guiding for Jo Hyun as well. Jo Hyun's compatibility rate with other Guides does not seem very good. I have taken him to see many Guides already, but his condition still has not improved."
Jena spoke with a worried expression.
"That low?"
I was startled and glanced at the teenager standing beside me with those innocent eyes.
While pulling Jo Hyun over to sit on the hospital bed, I looked toward Jena to ask about the situation.
"Even Cha Cha was the same? I remember there has never been an Esper with compatibility below thirty percent with her, right?"
Jena shook her head.
"No. With Cha Cha it was even worse. The moment she touched Jo Hyun's hand, she screamed. But in any case, Jo Hyun might be an Esper rank S, so having some difficulty with Guiding is understandable."
I was extremely shocked by what Jena said.
Turning my head to look at the well-behaved young man sitting beside me, I never would have guessed that he was actually a newly awakened Esper rank S.
Espers from rank S and above possessed an overwhelmingly high power threshold, and they often had issues accepting energy from Guides. Lower-rank Guides usually had compatibility of no more than ten percent with rank S Espers.
"Jo Hyun, right?"
I placed my hand on Jo Hyun's hand. Immediately, countless invisible particles of light appeared before my eyes.
So it turned out that Jo Hyun's condition had been extremely dangerous this whole time and required urgent Guiding.
"Are you feeling very uncomfortable? Yet you did not show even the slightest impatience. You are really well-behaved."
In order to soothe Jo Hyun's mental state, I tried to appear as friendly and harmless as possible, while simultaneously beginning to transmit energy through skin contact via my palm.
"Wow…"
I could not help but let out an exclamation.
The energy transmission was incredibly easy and smooth. If I had to compare, Guiding Min Ha Dong felt like trying to thread a needle through a tiny eye, but Guiding Jo Hyun felt like turning on a water hose, with water gushing out endlessly without any sign of stopping.
The sensation was so wonderful that I suddenly felt a bit embarrassed. I turned to look at Jo Hyun and asked him about what had happened when he awakened.
"I am a senior in high school. I will graduate in just a few months."
Jo Hyun said this while slightly narrowing his eyes, probably trying to recall what had happened earlier.
"While I was in class, a rift slashed through the space inside the classroom. Two classmates died instantly right in front of my eyes. After that, everyone was sucked into the rift."
My hand trembled slightly.
It really was not much different from what I had experienced.
Those who stood at the exact point where space fractured died instantly, and the remaining people were sucked into the rift space without any ability to resist. After that came the process of being attacked by monsters, with people dying one by one.
However, what Jo Hyun said next was different from my own experience.
"We were sucked into the rift. Monsters appeared and rushed at us. At that time, I and those with better physiques tried to fight them off, and then suddenly…"
Jo Hyun opened his palm and stared at it intently.
"I released flames from my palm."
I was shocked.
A lucky child.
Jo Hyun awakened immediately after entering the rift. Unlike me and Jae Sin, we only awakened at the moment we faced death, and by then we had already spent several days inside the rift.
Back then, it was the early stage of the chaotic era. There were no Guide and Esper management headquarters in each safe zone yet, so no one came to rescue us at that time.
But just a few years later, the moment the rift at Jo Hyun's school appeared, dozens of Espers and Guides arrived to help and close it.
"I did my best to protect everyone. Luckily, no one died!"
Jo Hyun said with a bright smile on his face.
I truly felt fortunate for this child.
If he had not awakened, he would probably have been one of the first students to die. But if Jo Hyun had awakened too late, he would have been haunted by the deaths of his friends simply because he awakened too slowly.
"You did very well. There is nothing to worry about."
I gently stroked Jo Hyun's soft hair, slightly stained with mud, and smiled sincerely at this underage teenager.
"You saved everyone. You are a true hero. You did great, Jo Hyun."