In the summer when I was 22, I awakened as a Guide.
So Won awakened as an A-rank Guide, a rank that made up only 3 percent of the already rare Guides. Still young, immature, and ignorant,
So Won was overwhelmed by the flood of national benefits that poured in the moment he awakened as a Guide.
Money entered his bank account even though he did nothing, and not only did he not have to prepare for employment, he could also avoid the military service he had kept putting off.
So Won never doubted that he would be matched with a female Esper of his ideal type.
[You have been matched with S-rank Esper Kang Tae Woo.]
But on the day he was notified of the matching result, everything collapsed.
S-rank Esper Kang Tae Woo.
Unable to receive Guiding, he suffered a terrible side effect that covered his entire body in dark red veins, and he was one of only three S-rank Espers in the country.
Fitting his nickname of monster, his ability was a physical enhancement type; he was a man who fought barehanded with steel-like hardness and unbelievable strength.
After Kang Tae Woo awakened as an Esper at 10 years old, he achieved the remarkable record of a Matching Rate of less than 5 percent with every Guide, and he was an Esper who always received only Mechanical Guiding and could go Berserk at any time.
Because he could not control his own power, he had once almost killed someone by mistake.
With that monster, So Won achieved a Matching Rate of 65 percent for the first time.
As soon as the matching result came out, So Won went to the department in charge, crying and begging, asking them to please change the Esper.
The employee looked at So Won with pity, but the only thing he could say was that, according to the Guide Duty System, So Won had to become Kang Tae Woo’s Guide.
After that, So Won’s life was the worst.
At his first meeting with Kang Tae Woo, he had an appearance even more terrible than what So Won had seen on the internet. He was about 2 meters tall with a huge body.
The most frightening thing was, naturally, the dark red veins covering his entire body.
The veins bulging as if about to burst through his skin sometimes seemed to writhe, making So Won feel as if he were watching a horror movie.
The moment So Won met Tae Woo’s beast-like eyes looking at him, he nearly fainted.
His body trembled uncontrollably.
His legs lost strength and he nearly collapsed, but the employee barely caught and held him up.
Tae Woo, who had been staring at that, turned his head indifferently.
According to the Guide Duty System, So Won came to live in the same house as Kang Tae Woo, but whenever he encountered him, So Won trembled and hurried to run away.
He sometimes shut himself in his room and refused all food, and sometimes he ran away to hide at his parents’ house, but due to warnings from the Esper Association, he had to return to Tae Woo’s house every time.
So Won even suffered severe depression, causing those around him to worry.
Tae Woo felt sorry for So Won.
His emotions had grown so dull that he could feel nothing, but he could clearly tell that So Won, who looked small and frail at a glance, was afraid of him, a monster.
Tae Woo understood that as well.
He had finally met a Guide, but out of consideration for So Won, he avoided contact with him and received only the bare minimum of Guiding, surviving as before through Mechanical Guiding.
8 years passed like that.
So Won still found Tae Woo terrifying and frightening, but he was able to grow a little used to him.
Even so, their way of life had hardened over time, and except during Contact Guiding, he did not even meet Tae Woo face to face.
It was to the point that there had been no conversation at all between Tae Woo and So Won over those 8 years.
Tae Woo’s condition, naturally, grew worse by the day.
The veins around his eyes had now spread all over his face, the Guiding machines in the house had increased to five, and even those were of no use because he was always hospitalized at the Esper Center.
So Won began to accumulate guilt toward Tae Woo, but that did not mean So Won guided him.
So Won still froze like ice and could not move whenever he saw him, and Tae Woo, seeing that, frowned and avoided him.
The distance between them only grew wider.
But then today, in the middle of the night, a Gate opened in Incheon.
At the Gate that suddenly opened in the heart of Incheon without any precursor phenomena, the entire Republic of Korea trembled with anxiety.
The government declared a state of emergency, and monsters stronger than usual burst out all at once, turning the area near the Gate into a wasteland.
The difficulty estimated by the government was S-rank.
It was a super-large Gate in the history of the Republic of Korea.
Several hours had passed since three S-rank Espers of the Republic of Korea, including Kang Tae Woo, gathered and headed to the Gate.
According to the Guide Duty System, So Won waited in the Esper Association building near the Gate to guide Kang Tae Woo after he returned from the Gate.
So Won had already been waiting in the waiting room for several hours with the Guides of the Espers dispatched to the Incheon Gate, waiting for the Gate to close.
Just when his body grew stiff from sitting too long, news came from the TV hanging on the Association wall that the Gate had barely closed.
The many Guides sitting in the waiting room let out long breaths of relief.
So Won envied them for being able to worry about their own Espers.
To So Won, the Gate closing meant that he would soon have to guide Tae Woo, and he was afraid of using his ability and facing Tae Woo, whose condition would be worse than usual.
“Guide Lee So Won?”
An employee who had run over urgently was breathing heavily as he looked for So Won.
So Won, who had been trembling with fear among the many Guides, raised his head.
“Esper Kang Tae Woo is in critical condition. Hurry and guide him….”
The employee’s expression was serious.
But even after seeing his face, So Won was not worried about Tae Woo’s condition at all.
He was merely terrified at the thought of meeting Tae Woo.
The employee guiding So Won walked urgently.
The more they walked, the stronger the smell of blood became.
Strangely, So Won’s heart began to tremble with unease.
The place the employee brought So Won to was an operating room.
As So Won opened the door and entered, he was startled by the stench of blood that rushed into his nose.
Soon after, what appeared before his eyes was an unbelievable situation.
Something large lay on the operating room bed, and the doctors could do nothing but stand still in a circle around it.
The large something was soaked bright red and tattered, making it hard to tell that it was Tae Woo.
Blood dripped steadily from beneath the bed.
When he lowered his gaze, blood had already pooled all the way to So Won’s feet.
‘Is that all from Mr. Tae Woo’s body?’
It was an unreal situation.
Tae Woo’s condition, checked belatedly, was critical.
His tough skin, which was said to never be pierced, seemed to have been run through by a giant horn; blood poured endlessly from the large hole in his stomach.
Blood also flowed steadily from the large and small wounds that were not regenerating.
Tae Woo’s condition was so critical that it was hard to believe he was even alive.
While the doctors could not even begin to figure out how to reconnect the completely vanished torso, So Won knelt on the blood-pooled floor and grasped Tae Woo’s hand with trembling hands.
It was cold. It was so cold and hard that it did not seem like a human hand.
Tae Woo’s wavelength, which had tormented So Won by running wild, was unusually quiet, unlike usual.
Only then did So Won gradually realize that this situation was real.
Tae Woo, feeling all his senses slowly fading, sensed warmth from one hand.
Realizing that his Guide had come, he laboriously opened his eyes and looked at So Won.
The Guide, who always froze completely and could not say a word whenever he saw him, was staring blankly at him and shedding tears.
He had lost a lot of weight compared to when Tae Woo first saw him 8 years ago.
He had briefly thought that his rabbit-like plump cheeks and round eyes were cute.
The innocent Guide had become unhappy after meeting him.
Because he was a terrible monster, he had made a person who would have been happy without him unhappy.
Tae Woo barely forced out the apology that had piled up all this time and that he had never been able to say.
“I am sorry.”
His voice, heard for the first time, was cracked and helplessly hoarse.
Hearing that thin sound leaking out wretchedly and meeting his faint gaze, So Won’s heart dropped with a thud to the floor.
Guilt crushed So Won. Unable to do anything, So Won could only hold Tae Woo’s hand and sob.
Cough.
With a heavy cough, Tae Woo vomited dark red blood.
The blood that surged up soaked his face messily.
Tae Woo’s eyes seemed to stare blankly into empty space. So Won grew frantic.
It seemed as if he was going to die.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Don’t die…. Please, I’m sorry….”
He hurriedly opened his mouth, but all that came out were simple, repeated apologies.
‘This, this is not it.’
S-rank Esper, monster, steel-like skin that nothing could pierce.
He had never even imagined that Tae Woo, who had such splendid titles, would die.
That was why he had suffered over his own life, bound to him for a lifetime, and resented him.
But what about reality?
He had never even properly guided him, had looked at him as if he were a monster, and had not even treated him as a person.
On the other hand, instead of forcing So Won to guide him, Tae Woo endured the pain that drove him mad, and whenever he encountered So Won, who could not move after seeing him, he quietly left the room.
So Won realized. The truth was that the worst person was So Won, himself. The real monster was him.
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