“Of course he will be safe. I haven’t done anything grand, and besides, how could I ever kill that child? He is my biological son—a child I created. I cannot kill him, nor do I have any desire to.”
Madness.
That was the only word that fit.
Shin Seojun’s voice was steeped in it.
Yet, hearing those crazed words, Suhyeon couldn’t help but let out a breath of relief.
At least it meant Hajin wasn’t in immediate mortal danger.
His mind, which had gone white with shock, began to slowly, agonizingly restart.
But that was only the beginning. Shin Seojun clapped his hands.
Clap!
The sharp sound echoed through the room.
Suhyeon flinched and looked up, his light brown eyes trembling.
“Unfortunately, Suhyeon, the child you should be worried about right now isn’t Hajin.”
The dread that had momentarily subsided surged back.
;What is he going to do now?’
Suhyeon swallowed hard.
His mouth was so dry it felt like sandpaper.
Shin Seojun crooked a finger with a smiling face.
Immediately, the foreigner—who stood so still it was hard to believe he was the same man writhing in pain moments ago—spread his palms.
Within seconds, glowing white threads began to ripple and coil around the man’s fingers.
He was an Esper.
Suhyeon had no idea what the man intended to do, and his body went rigid again.
He felt the fluff-ball in his hoodie pocket twitching restlessly.
The thin threads shimmering in the man’s hands suddenly pulled taut.
A flash of white light burst forth, and when Suhyeon blinked his eyes open, a child was there.
“He, ugh……”
There was no time to be surprised by the sudden appearance.
Suhyeon’s eyes shook violently as he took in the child’s form.
The boy looked to be about ten years old, but his body was… wrong.
The child wore only shorts, and his bare upper body was covered in black spots.
As Suhyeon watched, these spots rippled and multiplied, spreading across the boy’s skin.
“Ugh, uuuuh……”
Tears streamed down the child’s cheeks.
It seemed the areas covered by the black spots were no longer functioning properly; one eye, consumed by the marks, wouldn’t even close, leaking tears continuously.
“Uuu, ahhh……”
The child couldn’t even speak properly.
It was another horrific sight, different from the last.
Suhyeon sat frozen as if nailed to his chair.
His hands, resting weakly on the armrests, shook fine tremors.
“……What is this.”
At Suhyeon’s moan-like question, Shin Seojun smiled warmly again.
It was a smile that had become utterly chilling.
“A child undergoing a rampage. F-rank. Despite being F-rank, he is a rare case—extremely sensitive to guiding.”
‘He was quite difficult to acquire,’ Shin Seojun added casually before tilting his head.
“Aren’t you going to do anything?”
“……What?”
Suhyeon managed to ask, struggling to steady his trembling hands.
The sound was closer to a faint whimper than a word.
“I told you, he’s undergoing a rampage. With your guiding, that child can find peace again. He’s a rare specimen, but an Esper nonetheless. ……Ah, or are you indifferent to seeing someone die before your eyes? That would be unexpected.”
Suhyeon’s eyes widened.
The moment he understood those words, he forgot his terror for a second.
He forced his strengthless legs to stand.
The child was rampaging.
That meant guiding could save him.
His legs shook at the sight of something he never imagined he’d see in his lifetime.
Keeping his face from contorting in horror was the limit of the composure he could muster.
“Ah, uuuuu……”
“Are you doing this… just because you want to see my guiding?”
His voice was thin and broken.
Shin Seojun didn’t take his eyes off Suhyeon as the Guide staggered toward the child. He narrowed his eyes pleasantly.
“Well, you are such an interesting child. Since I had to bring you here anyway, I kept this one locked up until his guiding levels dropped. My, how he struggled…… It was a relief he was only F-rank and lacked significant power.”
Suhyeon’s skin crawled. He bit his trembling lip hard.
A metallic taste bloomed—the dry skin must have split.
“Ugh, uuuu……!”
Suhyeon reached out a trembling hand to the child.
The boy, whose throat was too hoarse to even scream, seemed to realize there was warmth touching him and instinctively squirmed.
Suhyeon’s face finally crumbled. It was too cruel.
He immediately released his guiding wavelength.
He unleashed a flood of energy so sudden it made him gasp for air.
“Ooh……!”
The sound of admiration from behind was grotesquely out of place.
Suhyeon wanted to block his ears, but his hands were busy resting on the child’s body, pouring out his wavelength.
“It’s okay……”
Suhyeon whispered—not knowing if he was talking to himself or the boy—as he stroked the child’s skin.
His face had turned deathly pale.
The F-rank child inhaled the guiding greedily.
Yet, compared to handling Hajin or other powerful Espers, the “pull” was incredibly weak.
Even though Suhyeon had barely done anything and the child had only absorbed a fraction of the wavelength, the black spots covering his body began to fade and shrink.
To think this man deliberately triggered a rampage in a child who improved with so little guiding… just for this.
Suhyeon bit his lip, overwhelmed by guilt and the urge to flee.
“Uuu……”
As he continued to release the wavelength, the spots grew faint.
The child’s pale, translucent skin returned in an instant.
Focus returned to the boy’s eyes, and the screams that had filled the room subsided.
The suction of the wavelength stopped.
The child, still wet with tears, painfully lifted his head to look at Suhyeon.
Suhyeon flinched.
The boy’s pale lips moved as if he wanted to say something.
But in the end, no voice came out, and his head slumped forward.
“!”
Terrified by the worst possible thought, Suhyeon leaned down quickly, but fortunately, the child was still breathing faintly.
He tried to pour in more energy just in case, but the boy’s body would no longer accept it—guiding levels were no longer the issue.
“……Haha!”
Then, the laughter came.
“Haha, hahahahaha!”
Suhyeon forced his neck to turn.
Through his creaking vision, he saw Shin Seojun laughing, covering his eyes with one hand.
The laughter boomed through the room.
Suhyeon’s lips trembled.
It was hideous.
He felt like he had dropped into the middle of a horror movie.
The only difference was that movies were fiction, and this was actually happening to him.
After laughing for a long time as if sobbing, Shin Seojun stopped.
He leaned down toward Suhyeon, who was kneeling powerlessly in front of the child.
“Ah, Suhyeon……. You truly are qualified to be my ‘child.’ You are overflowing with interest, truly. Such a sweet scent, and this level of guiding……”
His blue eyes shimmered with an eerie glint.
“Even your guiding is somehow different from other Guides. I don’t know how to describe it. But it’s different. The feeling is different! You can trust me—I’ve faced hundreds, thousands of gifted individuals. You are more than worth researching. Suhyeon, won’t you become my child?”
“……!”
Muttering like a madman, Shin Seojun grabbed Suhyeon’s chin.
Suhyeon’s face finally twisted in pain. His body shook uncontrollably.
“Let…… go……!”
Suhyeon let out a scream-like sound and tried to pull his chin back, but Shin Seojun’s grip was immense.
He squeezed Suhyeon’s jaw as if to crush it and laughed.
“Hahaha, you don’t need to be so scared. I won’t harm you. How could I kill a child as interesting as you just by existing? Instead, we will begin the first step of making you my child.”
‘The process of becoming a child?’
A wave of inexplicable horror and dread washed over him.
As Suhyeon’s pupils shook, Shin Seojun suddenly let go of his chin.
Suhyeon’s upper body wobbled as he tried to recoil away from the sudden release.
In that moment, Suhyeon felt a sharp sting as something coiled around his arms and legs.
When he whipped his head around, his lips parted in a silent tremor.
From the ceiling, from the walls—from places that were clearly empty—white threads stretched out like a giant spiderweb, instantly seizing his limbs and binding him.
“……!”
He thrashed, but it was useless.
The more he resisted, the tighter the mysterious threads bound him.
He felt the fluff-ball in his pocket, which had been quiet until now, begin to surge.
“No……”
Feeling it while being wrapped in threads, Suhyeon whispered the squeeze.
Since his body was swinging back and forth, Shin Seojun fortunately didn’t seem to notice.
There was no telling what would happen if anything caught that man’s eye.
He was a madman.
Hanging from the threads, Suhyeon’s body shivered.
He couldn’t tell what would happen to him.
A primal, physiological fear reared its head.
“Ah, ugh……!”
The threads binding him tightened further, causing a pain that felt as if his limbs were being severed.
“Shh, be a good boy. If you endure this, you’ll become a docile child. You seem gentle to begin with, so you’ll become an even better-behaved one.”
Whispering words as sweet as a lullaby to a child, Shin Seojun pulled something out in front of Suhyeon.
Suhyeon’s eyes flickered with terror.
It was that music box.
Shin Seojun snapped his fingers, and a thread descended from the ceiling, coiling tightly around the winding key.
The key began to turn with a mechanical click.
Tring-ring-ring—.
Soon, that same noise began to play.
Thump.
The Esper, who had been standing silently after moving the child, collapsed once more.
Suhyeon’s mind began to turn white as he wondered what this was and why he had to experience this here.
He panted heavily.
He wanted to leave.
He wanted to see Hajin.
He wanted Hajin to come and save him.
“……Aaaagh!”
And in that moment, Suhyeon convulsed as a stabbing, intense agony struck his body.
