No matter how much they investigated, they couldn’t find any point of contact between Koo Hyukjun and Go Yeonwoo.
Koo Hyukjun was simply the director of the esper center, and Go Yeonwoo was merely an esper belonging to the center.
Not a single clue beyond that could be found.
At the same time, they couldn’t just recklessly go find Koo Hyukjun and threaten him.
That would be no different from shoving Go Yeonwoo straight into Koo Hyukjun’s jaws.
If that happened, a sharp-witted Koo Hyukjun would eventually figure out that Go Yeonwoo had awakened as a guide.
No matter what they did or how they tried, they couldn’t properly find out anything about Go Yeonwoo.
Kang Taewon and all of them gradually felt a growing sense of anxiety.
Go Yeonwoo’s condition was steadily worsening without the slightest sign of improvement.
To a damnably infuriating degree.
In that situation, an abnormal S-rank gate had occurred.
To the extent that most of the standby espers had been drafted.
Lately, it felt like strange phenomena kept happening.
Starting from the red gate that had burst recently all the way to the current gate.
Completely abnormal situations were occurring in succession.
It was almost as if someone from the outside had intervened.
He knew it was an absurd thing to think, but even Kang Taewon, who rarely thought deeply, found the flow of his thoughts heading in that direction.
Nobody still knew the reason why gates occurred.
The causes behind why espers and guides emerged among ordinary people were also unknown.
In such a situation, the assumption that someone had deliberately caused a gate made no sense.
That was obvious, and yet… why did his intuition keep whispering that it wasn’t?
The murderous bastard who had killed Woo Jiyoo had awakened as a guide, and coincidentally, their wavelengths matched each other to a terrifyingly perfect degree.
Driven by a sort of sense of revenge, Kang Taewon had intended to use such a Go Yeonwoo as a guiding fucktoy until his lifespan ran out.
It was supposed to be just that, so he couldn’t understand why things had ended up like this.
Even the reason why he was currently venting his fury on Kim Sungchan and interrogating him felt blurry.
“Spit out everything you know. Didn’t I tell you to flap your jaws a bit more? Are your earholes plugged up or what?!”
“Cough-huk, th-that, that’s all of it, ck…!”
“Stop.”
Lee Dohoon pulled Kim Sungchan away from Kang Taewon’s grip and stared at Kang Taewon coldly.
Attracted by the steadily growing commotion, the gazes of the esper group who had been with Park Jaerim were turning their way.
If this kept up any longer, it would only unnecessarily heighten the suspicions of the center’s espers.
Even after realizing the meaning behind the gaze Lee Dohoon was sending him, Kang Taewon’s agitation refused to subside easily.
Huffing and puffing for a long time, Kang Taewon finally raised his foot and began kicking a nearby pillar to vent his frustration.
Crunch, smack!
“…What the hell. Why is Kang Taewon acting up again?”
“They’re having a paired-up seizure, those bastards.”
“Hey, hey. Spread out further. If you get unluckily caught up in that, you just die.”
Behaving no different from Shin Heeseung, the espers belonging to the center widened the distance a bit more and watched nervously.
Whether it was Shin Heeseung or Kang Taewon, the sight of them throwing a tantrum like crazy people didn’t look normal at all.
They figured that if they unluckily got caught in the crossfire, they might really end up crippled.
Well, as expected of S-rank espers.
They were nothing but a bunch of crazy bastards.
“What’s there to be surprised about now? When have those bastards ever acted normal?”
Park Jaerim said with an unbothered face.
Even after seeing the outrageous acts of Kang Taewon and Shin Heeseung, he regarded them as casually as pebbles on the roadside.
Soon, the espers reminded themselves once more that Park Jaerim was an S-rank just like those guys.
“Anyway, I suppose we need to get out of here first.”
“That’s true, but we won’t be able to turn back and go out the way we came. Look. The fog is still thick behind us. If we try to go back, we’ll just wander around and get lost.”
At Park Jaerim’s words, one of the espers raised a counter-argument.
Just as he said, the fog was far too dense to return through the passage they had come from earlier, making it difficult even to distinguish directions.
“What about it?”
At Park Jaerim’s gaze, which seemed to ask what the problem was, the esper was momentarily at a loss for words.
Then Park Jaerim added with a nonchalant face.
“If the passage isn’t visible, we can just make one. Why are you guys overthinking things so much?”
Glancing sideways at the espers, Park Jaerim walked right past them and stood before a wall made of sand.
Soon, he drew his sword and condensed his energy into the blade.
The blade began to flash brightly in the dim space.
Crack!
The blade plunged straight toward the wall.
The impossibly sturdy sand wall collapsed, creating a large hole.
“At this rate, if we do it a few more times, we’ll be able to climb up.”
Muttering as he estimated the depth of the hole bored into the interior, Park Jaerim repeated the same action a few more times.
“What are you doing, you bastards? Not coming. I said let’s get out of here, didn’t I?”
Turning around, Park Jaerim said to the espers.
He flicked his chin toward the inside of the bored-out passage, urging them to set off.
Those who had been hesitating soon began stepping into the opened tunnel.
Park Jaerim’s gaze shifted toward Seok Kiwoo, who was at the back.
Exchanging a silent look, Seok Kiwoo started walking while cradling Go Yeonwoo in his arms.
At the same time, as if on cue, Shin Heeseung and Kang Taewon, who had been venting their anger, stopped moving.
Their heads turned toward Go Yeonwoo in Seok Kiwoo’s arms.
His arms, hanging limply downward, swayed according to Seok Kiwoo’s movements.
Even though it was just that he had lost consciousness, somehow they couldn’t shake the feeling that he looked like a corpse.
With strange feelings washing over them, the gazes of the four men refused to leave Go Yeonwoo.
They kept staring like that even after they completely escaped the underground and stepped up onto the surface.
