“Good work, Jaeram. I’ll come by again next time.”
A voice thick with greed and lingering stickiness brushed against Lee Jaeram’s ear.
The nameless Esper leisurely exited her guiding room.
Jaeram accepted the familiar sense of exhaustion and buried her head in her pillow.
Her fox-like eyes were narrowed.
Lately, too many things had been bothering her.
—Jaeram, just guiding today.
Jaeram frowned as she recalled her pair, who had suddenly come by a few days ago and taken her guiding almost by force.
While guiding without physical contact was easier, Jaeram always preferred the intimate kind with Asher Delveron.
It suited her taste whenever he would groan or his face would twist because of her.
If she gave guiding, something should naturally be returned.
The pair contract stated that such things must be respected, and Asher Delveron knew that fact perfectly well.
And yet, demanding guiding as if he were just extracting it was a blatant show of disregard.
Furthermore, the sight of her pair rushing off somewhere as soon as he received the guiding had truly rubbed her the wrong way.
Lately, Asher Delveron hadn’t spent a single moment with her. That wasn’t all.
—I think he even told them to find the Team 1 Leader’s dedicated guide…….
The gate site where Team 1 and Team 2 had rarely operated together.
The conversation she had overheard at that scene—where both Shin Hajin and Asher Delveron had stood her up—had been poking at a corner of her mind ever since.
—Are you sure you mean Esper Shin Hajin?
—Yes, yes. I was surprised too, but…….
—He has a dedicated guide? Really?
—Well, I only heard it in passing…….
‘Shin Hajin has a dedicated guide?’
She had dismissed it once, thinking it was nonsense.
He was a man who wouldn’t let a guide near him, let alone allow them to radiate energy properly.
Everyone who had tried to guide Shin Hajin had come out paralyzed with fear.
To think that the man who looked even more “delicious” because of that coldness had taken a dedicated guide.
It would be more realistic to hear a rumor that Asher Delveron was going to live a life of celibacy or that he was a virgin.
That was how well-known Shin Hajin’s cold-blooded nature was, spawning countless rumors throughout the Association.
Yet, she couldn’t understand why those words she heard back then bothered her so much.
Like ants crawling into her head and gnawing away, the thought asserted its presence every time Jaeram performed guiding.
‘Am I supposed to believe that?’
The person she had been eyeing for years—the one who seemed like he would never do such a thing—had a dedicated guide?
And that was why Asher Delveron was running around right now?
But conversely, if it were true that there was a dedicated guide, it made sense why Asher Delveron’s attention was completely focused elsewhere.
If Shin Hajin’s guide possessed a guiding pulse powerful enough to tempt even Asher Delveron… yes, like the person who caused that unknown guiding outbreak a while ago.
……Or perhaps the guide who caused that outbreak is Shin Hajin’s guide.
“……Ha.”
Reaching that conclusion, Lee Jaeram finally sat up, her face twisting fiercely.
The hypothesis that had flashed through her mind seemed plausible.
And this meant that a guide superior to her might have appeared.
That was something Lee Jaeram could not tolerate.
Having been told she was A-class but should actually aim for S-class, Lee Jaeram was someone who had been raised preciously, surrounded by protection since childhood.
No one was allowed to stand above her.
If it was bothersome, she just had to check. She should have decided sooner. What was she doing, acting so foolish?
The white blanket slid to the floor.
She changed her clothes with a rustling sound and looked into the mirror.
She had maintained a body that anyone would want to hold—whether they were the same or opposite sex—someone she could possess with just a single smile.
A fair face without a single blemish.
She had always thought Shin Hajin was the only one more beautiful than her.
……No, was there someone else?
—Do Yejun.
A memory from a few years ago flickered by, but Jaeram soon snorted and left the guiding room.
Right, there was someone she thought was pretty, but he was just a man who clung to a worthless Esper. He must be dead by now. How tragic.
Putting aside those thoughts with a face that looked anything but tragic, Jaeram headed to the top floor of the administrative department.
The guard at the entrance saw Jaeram’s face and hurried to open the door.
Flashing a habitual smile, Jaeram entered the area where the secretarial staff worked.
“Ah, Guide Lee Jaeram?”
A fairly good-looking man recognized her and approached.
He was one of the secretaries and a man who had received guiding from Jaeram before.
She didn’t remember his name.
Lee Jaeram wore her usual lovely smile.
“Is my sister inside?”
“Ah, yes she is.”
With a bright smile, Jaeram knocked on the door located at the back of the office and threw it open before even hearing an answer.
Inside, a woman in her early 40s who looked very much like Jaeram was handling paperwork.
This was Lee Nahyeon, one of the Association’s directors and the older sister of the Lee family’s late-born child, Jaeram.
Nahyeon glanced at the trespassing Jaeram and looked away from her monitor.
“Why is our youngest so grumpy?”
Lee Jaeram was wearing her usual lovely smile, but Lee Nahyeon was one of the few who could see through it.
Jaeram stared at Nahyeon for a moment before asking bluntly.
“Does Shin Hajin have a dedicated guide, sister?”
Nahyeon raised an eyebrow.
“For Esper Shin Hajin?”
“Yeah.”
Lee Nahyeon was a woman who practically held all the Association’s information in her hands.
There wasn’t a single one among the Lee siblings who didn’t hold a position in the Association.
Seeing that Nahyeon didn’t seem to know anything specific, Jaeram briefly thought she might be wrong, but that only lasted a moment.
“……Was that a guide?”
Nahyeon frowned and muttered something to herself as if she had realized something.
“What?”
“No, let’s just look it up. That’ll be faster.”
Nahyeon stood up and gave her seat to Jaeram, as if telling her to do it herself.
The “gnawing ant” sensation returned.
An unknown white window popped up a few times, and after Nahyeon clicked the screen several times next to Jaeram, a blank search bar appeared.
Normally, this information wouldn’t be so easily accessible, but Lee Nahyeon was one of the highest-ranking administrators in the Association.
‘Shin Hajin.’
The three characters of his name were entered into the search bar with the clattering sound of the keyboard.
The loading screen spun.
“……Tsk.”
Jaeram turned her gaze at the sound of Nahyeon clicking her tongue, and then—.
Shin Hajin (S) – Paired: O
She fixed a cold gaze on the screen.
There was a green circle drawn under the pairing status.
“Haha…….”
In an instant, Jaeram let out a hollow laugh.
Her obsidian eyes remained fixed on the screen.
“I didn’t know. For that Shin Hajin?”
Right. She had reacted the same way when she first heard it.
Nahyeon, muttering as if it were impossible, placed her hand over Jaeram’s, which was gripping the mouse.
And the moment the mouse hovered over the “O” symbol, supplementary information appeared: Suhyeon (S).
“……S?”
Nahyeon whispered as if she couldn’t believe it.
There was no way Lee Jaeram didn’t know what that letter meant.
“Ha!”
Jaeram burst into a sharp laugh.
There was no one in this room for whom she had to put on a pretty face.
Her lovely face twisted into a mess. Nahyeon’s face was much the same.
“An S-class has appeared?”
The family of Jaeram and Nahyeon had produced countless high-ranking Association officials, Espers, and Guides.
The current generation was no different.
Their parents were retired but still influential Espers.
The eldest, Nahyeon, wasn’t a strong ability user but was a director who held the Association in one hand; the second sibling was an Esper who inherited their parents’ abilities.
The youngest, Jaeram, was the beloved baby and the Lee family’s most precious and powerful guide.
And yet, an S-class had appeared?
A guide with a rank that even Lee Jaeram—who had applied for rank adjustments several times with the weight of the Lee family behind her—couldn’t attain?
And that person had snatched Shin Hajin right under her nose?
That fact splattered black ink over the Lee family’s sky-high pride.
“Youngest—”
Slam!
Lee Jaeram ignored Nahyeon’s call and stormed out of the room.
It was only after running to a shadowed, chilly hallway where no one could see her that she could calm down a bit.
Jaeram’s eyes, which looked like embedded obsidian, sank coldly.
Her overheated mind was suppressed by reason.
Catching her breath slowly, the thought that appeared in her mind once again was the guiding outbreak that had gripped the entire Association months ago.
Unless there were two S-classes, it had to be the same person.
Right, she had asked Nahyeon back then, but they couldn’t find them.
The media and the Association were all quiet. She should have noticed something strange then.
If even a guide could feel it, it would have naturally caused an uproar among the Espers.
But what happened after that?
Had reporters ever swarmed?
Had the news ever covered this anomaly?
The special-ability reporters who would dig into anything regarding the Association?
No, nothing happened.
To the point where even Lee Jaeram herself had forgotten and moved on.
There was only one conclusion: a cover-up.
“Ha, haha……, so that’s how it is.”
Exhaling a soulless laugh, Jaeram slowly closed and opened her eyes.
The pieces of the puzzle that had been gnawing at her were all coming together.
The cause of everything was this guide.
Before she knew it, Jaeram’s face was filled with malice.
Her fine lips twisted naturally.
Right now, she needed to know where Asher Delveron was.
As she began to walk slowly into the sunlit hallway, her face wore its usual bewitching smile.
Except it was filled with poison.
