* * *

Maybe it started as anger, but it ended as a plea.

Elliot’s voice cracked, on the verge of tears.

Ye Eunsoo, who had been quietly watching him for a while, finally spoke.

His voice was heavy, as though engraving each word into his mind.

“I… hate all of you.”

They were back to square one.

Exhausted, Elliot gave up and closed his mouth.

He ran a hand through his disheveled hair, trying to pull himself together.

He had to go back.

As much as he didn’t want to, he would eventually have to face Ye Eunsoo again, to talk and settle things.

But that day wouldn’t be today.

Rex helped the still-unmoving Cha Junseong to his feet, and the two of them began to leave the hospital room.

—WEEEENG!

The gate alarm blared.

It was louder than usual.

No, more accurately, it was blaring simultaneously across multiple devices.

Elliot, looking worn out, instinctively pulled out his phone.

Then, suddenly, he froze.

“…Unless I’m hearing things, it seems we all got the same alert.”

Ever since Ye Eunsoo joined the team and eliminated the risk of his powers going berserk due to a lack of Guiding, the four of them had rarely worked together as a team.

With their individual abilities, even one of them was enough to handle most threats.

There was no need for all four to act together.

But now, every single member of Special Team A was being summoned.

“…Ye Eunsoo, did you get the alert too?”

Even Ye Eunsoo’s phone was ringing.

For once, even he looked visibly shaken. He might have been recklessly antagonizing S-rank Espers, but he was still a patient—one who had only recently undergone surgery.

Yet the gate mission alarm was summoning him.

“A mission that requires all three of us and a patient?” Rex muttered, his voice laced with disbelief as he looked around at everyone.

---

Fortunately, the Bureau wasn’t heartless enough to include Ye Eunsoo in the assembly orders despite his condition.

Whether gates appeared or not, Ye Eunsoo barely cared.

His wounds had reopened, forcing him to seek treatment again. It wasn’t until the next afternoon that he received detailed information about the mission.

As usual, he woke up to unbearable pain.

With no motivation left, he was met by yet another unwelcome guest.

“A new type of gate?”

“Yes. To avoid inciting public panic, it hasn’t been announced yet, but a new type of gate has appeared.”

“…Hmm.”

Opening the mission file on his device, Ye Eunsoo saw photos and videos of a scorched forest.

He quickly understood why this incident was categorized as a new type of gate.

Conventional gates caused damage that spread outward in a circular pattern from their point of origin, with the severity diminishing the farther one went from the center.

After all, the farther monsters traveled, the fewer of them there were.

But this new gate was different.

The damage was concentrated in a specific area, as if the region had been cut out and then returned.

“This type of gate was first discovered a month ago in South America. Gate detection artifacts didn’t respond, but traces of the gate were still found.”

“It was a horrifying incident. A small village disappeared overnight. No distress calls were made, and no bodies have been recovered.”

“There was no CCTV or dashcam footage either, so it was impossible to determine what had happened—until recently, when a witness finally surfaced.”

Scrolling lazily through the file, Ye Eunsoo saw a photo of the witness: the sole survivor of the village, who had been found much later, suffering from memory loss due to the trauma.

According to the witness, the gate had appeared late at night, swallowing the village and forest.

The gate vanished after a while, but none of the people who had lived in the affected area returned.

“This is the second new type of gate we’ve encountered this year.”

“Is it evolving, even though it’s not a living organism?”

“We’re still struggling to fully handle the nucleated gates, and now we have to deal with this? If the public finds out, it’ll be chaos.”

“The priority will be upgrading the detection systems. Nucleated gates were at least easier to detect…”

While the Espers discussed the situation with grim faces, Ye Eunsoo skimmed the mission file and quickly lost interest.

It was absurd to assign a mission standby order to someone with a literal hole in their stomach.

‘…How much longer do I have to wait for Yang Heewoon?’

He had no idea where Heewoon was hiding.

Ye Eunsoo didn’t even know how long it took to travel abroad.

Would a week of waiting be enough?

Or would it take longer?

The lack of any phone calls made his anxiety worse.

Damn Yang Heewoon.

‘Could it be that Heewoon isn’t staying there willingly, but because Polwel forced him?’

The thought was unintentional but oddly convincing.

After all, Polwel had once imprisoned Ye Eunsoo.

Sure, it was technically the actions of one family member, but a precedent made repetition easier, didn’t it?

‘No, that can’t be it. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have sent those birthday gifts.’

Now that he thought about it, the gifts had Heewoon’s touch written all over them.

While there were plenty of them, they were far from extravagant—simple and quaint.

The kind of things Jake wouldn’t have bothered with.

If it had been Polwel, they would’ve sent something far flashier and more elegant.

There was no doubt Heewoon had picked them out himself.

“…Ye Eunsoo, are you even listening?”

“I am.”

Technically, he was.

But nothing was sinking in.

“…You’re not. Tell me where I should start explaining again.”

“……”

He thought he had brushed it off naturally, but he was immediately seen through.

The gazes of the three Espers bore into Ye Eunsoo.

Although they said nothing, their looks clearly criticized his attitude.

Irritated, Ye Eunsoo turned off the terminal.

“Do I really need to know this? Gate suppression is your Espers’ job anyway, isn’t it?”

Though his words sounded like a question, it was obvious what they were aiming for.

Since he had once discovered the countermeasures for what is now called the “nuclear-type” gate, they were hoping he’d pull it off again this time.

Back then, he’d stepped in because he felt suffocated and wanted to establish some standing within the Esper Bureau.

But now, he had little interest.

Just thinking about how to retrieve Yang Heewoon was overwhelming enough.

“It’s urgent. There was a prophecy.”

“……A prophecy?”

Wasn’t that the ability of that damned old man hiding Yang Heewoon?

The one said to be one of a kind?

This might actually be worth listening to.

Ye Eunsoo turned his gaze toward Cha Junseong.

“What did it say?”

“They claim that this new type of gate will appear in Korea, larger than any we’ve ever seen before.”

“……And how reliable is that information?”

“Polwel’s official prophecies have never been wrong before.”

“……”

Ye Eunsoo’s brow furrowed.

If what Cha Junseong said was true, this wasn’t something he could ignore.

Of all times, it had to coincide with provoking Yang Heewoon.

If something happened to Yang Heewoon while he was caught up in a gate incident, it’d be disastrous.

“……Do we at least know the location or timing?”

“No. Only that it’ll be soon and in the metropolitan area.”

A disaster was foretold, yet there was neither a proper countermeasure nor a way to detect it in advance.

Calling him in seemed like a desperate attempt to grasp at straws.

At least now, it made sense.

There was a reason for this.

Still, cooperating to resolve the case left an unpleasant weight in his chest, like something was blocking him.

‘It would be far safer to keep Yang Heewoon by my side than to solve this.’

Why wasn’t he by his side already?

It made him anxious.

If he had known, he would have gone directly to find him…

‘…No.’

Ye Eunsoo shook his head and turned the terminal back on.

He meticulously reviewed the mission file he’d previously skimmed.

Yet, no matter how carefully he examined it, there wasn’t enough to form a solid judgment.

Gates were such unpredictable phenomena that everything remained speculation until experienced firsthand.

Nothing was certain.

“Has the Bureau proposed any plans yet? Surely they’re not just sitting around doing nothing.”

“They’re hesitant to issue a mass evacuation order. Shutting down the economy over a gate that could appear at any time would cause chaos. For now, they’re aiming for minimal disruption, recalling Espers nationwide and leaving only essential personnel behind. Sorry.”

Cha Junseong’s phone rang, interrupting him mid-sentence.

Clicking his tongue, Ye Eunsoo shot a brief glare, and Cha Junseong apologized again before stepping out of the hospital room to take the call.

“What’s going on? If it’s not urgent, call me later—”

But just as he opened the door to leave, his words cut off, and his steps halted.

‘…What’s with him?’

Cha Junseong’s expression froze in shock.

It was as if he’d forgotten how to move, standing there, pale as a sheet, listening silently to the voice on the other end of the line.

After the voice stopped, he slowly covered his face with a trembling hand and let out a long breath.

“…Got it. Let me know immediately. I’ll call back soon.”

“What is it? What happened?”

“It’s not the gate, is it?”

As soon as Cha Junseong hung up, the questions came flooding in.

Even so, he couldn’t hide the turmoil on his face, as though the news had shaken him to his core.

“It’s not about the gate.”

“Then what?”

“There was a bomb threat in a busy district. The caller demanded an evacuation.”

“……That’s it?”

A bomb threat in a busy district was certainly serious, but it wasn’t uncommon.

People often used such threats to garner attention or leverage, holding innocent lives hostage for personal gain.

Because such cases were common, the arrest rate was high, and apprehensions happened swiftly.

It didn’t seem like the kind of thing to drain all color from Cha Junseong’s face.

Sure enough, Cha Junseong shook his head at Rex’s words.

“The problem is, the voice on the call matched a record in the Bureau’s database… it was Yang Heewoon’s.”

* * *