‘Choi Yoonseo, focus! You have to guide! If you don’t, everyone dies!’
‘Hic… I-It hurts…! Ugh, I can’t…!’
‘What do you mean you can’t?! Hurry—guide him!’
By the time Yoonseo completely lost herself, Na Hyunjoon’s rampage began.
The only one who could stop an S-class esper in full berserk mode was another S-class esper.
But in Korea, Na Hyunjoon was the only one left.
Requesting help from overseas was far too late.
The center shoved Yoonseo into the flames engulfing Na Hyunjoon.
But her guiding—now at rock-bottom efficiency—had no effect.
Her match rate was higher than most, but barely enough to qualify as a pair.
That wasn’t enough anymore.
Without proper guiding, Na Hyunjoon’s flames devoured half of South Korea.
It was pure devastation.
Even with over half the country reduced to ruins, gates kept forming.
The unchecked gates affected neighboring countries, spreading disaster across borders.
Eventually, the gates merged into one colossal entity, opening above Korea—a gate so enormous, its rank couldn’t even be measured.
Every time he blinked, a white ceiling came into view, only to fade back into darkness.
Haebom kept repeating that meaningless motion.
“Oh? You’re awake? You collapsed on the hiking trail at the campsite, so we brought you to the nearest hospital.”
A stranger sitting beside him explained the situation.
Haebom slowly opened his eyes and nodded.
He had hoped that if he ever opened his eyes in a hospital, it would be the Center hospital—but of course, that wasn’t the case.
The world Haebom awoke to was still a world without Wonho.
His eyes kept blinking, and before he realized it, tears pooled and trickled down his cheek, soaking the pillow beneath him.
After undergoing some tests and receiving an IV, Haebom was allowed to leave the hospital.
He had no guardian, no one the hospital could contact, and no one who would actually come even if they were contacted.
The wind of the changing season, from summer to autumn, brushed his cheek—but it brought him no comfort.
When he checked the time on his still-working phone, it showed the same date—the day he had walked along the trail and crossed through the Gate.
“Damn it… Ho, Wonho…”
The moment the word ‘guardian’ came to mind, the image of Wonho, who had always played that role for him, surfaced naturally.
No, it wasn’t just that—no matter what Haebom thought about, it always circled back to Wonho.
He had ranted about saving the world on his own terms, only to dump Haebom into a world without him.
That so-called ‘administrator’ bastard…
“Shit… shit… shit…”
All that slipped through his teeth were curses and quiet sobs.
Squatting in front of the hospital, cursing and crying, he could feel the passersby throwing glances his way.
Some of them looked at him with pity.
Others whispered, probably assuming he had some terminal illness.
Haebom couldn’t care less.
A terminal illness?
It felt like one—the illness of missing Wonho so much he could die.
“No… I can’t stay like this. I just have to go back. I made it there once—there’s no reason I can’t do it again.”
Haebom abruptly stood up from where he had been crouching.
There was no time to sit and wallow. He had to return to Wonho as soon as possible.
Of course, wanting to see Wonho was part of it, but Wonho’s condition was the bigger issue.
It wasn’t like there was no one else who could guide him—there was Choi Yoonseo.
Still, Haebom knew they wouldn’t leave things that way.
There were guiding devices and drugs available, but relying on those wouldn’t be easy.
Once an Esper got used to being guided by a real Guide, machines or medications couldn’t fill that void—it was only natural.
The first thing Haebom did was return to the campsite to retrieve his belongings.
He could’ve left them behind, but they were all worth money.
He needed money to carry out the plan forming in his head—however much it would take, he didn’t know.
Once he gathered all his things, Haebom headed straight home.
He plugged in his dead phone and sat down on the bed, staring blankly into space.
It had been quite a while since he last ate, but he wasn’t hungry.
Whether it was a mental issue or a physical one, he wasn’t sure—and honestly, it didn’t matter.
“It’s on.”
The moment the phone powered up, Haebom immediately tapped the screen to open the reading app for novels.
Thankfully, all his reading history for that novel was still there.
It wasn’t like reading it again would reveal anything new, but just in case, Haebom reread the entire story—from the first chapter to the last—without moving an inch.
When he finally reached the last chapter, Haebom pressed his stiff eyelids with his fingers.
The contents of the novel hadn’t changed.
As always, it ended with Choi Yoonseo and Na Hyunjoon’s sweet, happy ending.
But beyond that happy ending… there was the future shown to him by that administrator bastard—a future that never made it into the world Wonho lived in now.
Wouldn’t it have made sense to explain something that important from the start?
What kind of useless administrator worked this way?
Haebom muttered to himself angrily.
Then again, if that guy were actually competent, Haebom probably wouldn’t have been dumped back into his original world to begin with.
Haebom had no lingering attachment to this world—not to the house he worked his whole life for, nor to the camping equipment he’d collected as a hobby.
None of it mattered.
Only Wonho came to mind—Wonho, who must be suffering right now.
‘Get it together…’
As soon as Haebom thought of Wonho, his eyes stung with tears again.
Closing his eyes, he exhaled deeply, then reopened them.
He searched for the pen name of the author who wrote that novel and quickly found their email address.
It wasn’t a difficult process.
[Hello, oooooo-nim.]
He spent a lot of time drafting a message that wouldn’t raise suspicion.
Before he realized it, the sunset was glowing outside his window.
Since he had returned with his belongings at night, that meant a whole day had passed—without eating, without sleeping, just reading the novel and writing that email.
Once he finally sent the message, Haebom collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
Ding!
“Huh?”
Startled, Haebom’s eyes shot open.
That notification sound—it was unmistakably from his email app.
He had purposely set a different tone for it, never knowing when he’d get a reply.
But he knew better than to get his hopes up.
From the day he returned to this world until now, two weeks had passed.
He had been fooled countless times, spam flooding in far beyond what he imagined.
Even when he filtered it, the spam came from different addresses, over and over again.
Letting out a shaky breath, Haebom picked up his phone with trembling fingers.
[MAIL
oooooo
Hello, this is oooooo, the author.]
“Huh? Wha—wait, really? For real? This isn’t a dream, right?”
Seeing the preview, Haebom nearly dropped his phone.
After two weeks of desperate waiting, the reply had finally come.
Haebom took several deep breaths to calm himself, then tapped on the notification, swallowing his nerves.
[Hello, dear reader. This is oooooo, the author. Thank you for your email. It makes me so happy to hear that you cherish my work. You asked about the background of the novel—well… like many writers, I started after an idea suddenly popped into my head. If there’s something unique about this novel, it’s that I based it on scenes I saw in a dream before I began planning.]
The rest of the message was a long-winded explanation of those dream scenes and how they inspired the novel.
The author, unsurprisingly, wrote paragraphs upon paragraphs.
It was clear how thrilled they were to finally have someone asking about this.
