* * *
Yeojoon’s face flushed bright red as he realized why Haebom had positioned himself that way.
But Haebom didn’t have time to care—he couldn’t let the training stall any longer because of Yeojoon.
With Haebom’s help, Yeojoon finally managed to destroy the core, then immediately shoved Haebom away with an angry huff.
“Ah—!”
Pushed backward, Haebom’s feet tangled, and he stumbled.
He was about to land hard on his butt.
Sure, it was sand, so it wouldn’t hurt that much—but it definitely wouldn’t feel good.
“Careful.”
Fortunately, Haebom’s butt was safe.
Before he knew it, Wonho had approached and caught him in time.
Clicking his tongue, Wonho shot a sharp glare at Lee Yeojoon.
Startled, Yeojoon let out a frightened “Eek!” and quickly hid behind Choi Yoonseo.
It was the textbook definition of bullying the weak and sucking up to the strong—completely repulsive.
Wonho wouldn’t have cared if it were someone else, but if it was directed at Haebom, of course he got annoyed.
“Thanks.”
“…Yeah. Let’s get moving again.”
“Right, let’s go. Everyone, this way.”
Haebom quickly moved away from Wonho and resumed walking at the front with Lee Taeyoung.
As he walked, he silently vowed once again to report that Lee Yeojoon should never be allowed inside a gate.
The desert inside the gate still stretched endlessly, and monsters continued to appear from time to time.
Then, just as Wonho confronted one of the creatures, he was struck by a strange sense of wrongness.
They had progressed far enough into the gate that a break seemed necessary, so they set up a rest area far from where they had defeated the monster.
Even inside a simulation, monsters moved by instinct—there was still a risk that the smell of blood would attract more.
In a gate like this, which Wonho could clear in half a day alone, there was no need for a base camp or even a guide.
But high-grade gates were a different story.
The whole reason they had guides enter gates in the first place was because espers tended to go berserk from excessive power usage the moment they came out.
Na Hyunjoon’s rampage, although staged, had essentially been the spark that set this policy into motion.
After explaining about the base camp, Haebom told everyone to rest and turned away.
Under the scorching sun of the barren desert, Wonho created a pillar of ice that wouldn’t melt so they could rest.
Since he had been using his powers constantly, Haebom figured maintaining this ice must be exhausting too, and quickly approached Wonho.
He could hear Lee Taeyoung teasing him from behind, but he tried to ignore it.
“Ho—huh? What’s with that face? Are you feeling sick?”
Haebom was startled by the hardened expression on Wonho’s face and placed a hand on his forehead.
The higher his wave levels rose, the hotter Wonho’s body became.
In fact, Haebom could instantly tell when Wonho’s readings were high.
His hair would turn ghostly white…
Right now, only the tips were white, while the rest remained pitch black.
Haebom checked his temperature and the color of his hair—both seemed normal—and let out a sigh of relief.
Then why did Wonho still look so troubled? Haebom tilted his head in confusion.
“…Something feels off.”
“What kind of feeling?”
Not knowing what he meant, Haebom tilted his head so far it nearly touched his shoulder.
Wonho frowned and gently straightened Haebom’s head before continuing.
“It feels like a real gate. No matter how well those bastards built the simulation, there are always tiny differences. Because those guys barely even went into actual gates—they just based this off footage.”
He didn’t particularly hate special-type espers, but those people only entered gates enough to meet the contractual minimum.
They rarely went to real gate sites or fought monsters.
That was fine—they were different from combat-types like him.
But every time he trained inside the simulator, the subtle differences always stood out to him.
Yet this time, he couldn’t sense any of those differences.
Something about this gate… it felt off.
It even seemed like the difficulty level was mismatched.
It was supposed to be D-rank, but the last monster they fought was something you’d expect in a C-rank gate.
“Then should we just end the training here? It might be hard on everyone today, but it’s better than running into trouble.”
“…We don’t need to go that far. But we should wrap it up quickly.”
Destroying the gate’s core marked the end of the training.
If they ended it early without destroying the core, even if it wasn’t as bad as being forcibly ejected from the outside, the resulting backlash could still harm the participants’ bodies.
For espers, the side effects were far milder than guidance deficiency symptoms, and they could be resolved just by holding a guide’s hand.
But for guides, whose bodies were much closer to ordinary humans, it wasn’t so simple.
Wonho didn’t care about other guides.
But he didn’t want to see Haebom lying in bed again.
Whenever Haebom lay there motionless, it felt like he might never wake up.
It was nothing like just sleeping—when he was sick, it felt… different.
“Are you sure you’re okay with that?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just don’t wander out of my sight. Stay put, okay?”
“Mm, got it. Don’t worry.”
Seeing how worried Wonho looked, Haebom smiled warmly.
It was just a simulation.
Once it shut down, everyone would be safely back inside the center’s training facility.
Watching Wonho worry so much over something that wasn’t even a real gate made Haebom sigh inwardly.
If they ever did enter a real gate, Wonho would be several times more anxious.
That thought left a bitter taste.
Honestly, he had wondered if it might not be better to just live their lives never stepping into a gate again.
But what still weighed on him was the fact that he had stumbled into this gate while just walking through a camping trail.
No one knew how these things were connected.
Supposedly, there was no way to enter a gate except through its entrance—but…
“Want me to give you some guiding? Whoa!”
Just as Haebom offered, a ring of ice pillars burst up between them—crack! crack!—startling them both.
No matter how many times he saw it, it was still fascinating.
The ice pillars formed a perfect circle around them, like an igloo.
Though, of course, it had no ceiling.
“G-Guide! Haebom, the guide is…!”
“Shouldn’t we get them out of there?! This looks serious!”
Haebom wasn’t the only one who had been surprised.
The trainees, who had been quietly enjoying the cool air from the ice while resting, jumped up in alarm when the S-rank esper Wonho, Haebom’s pair, suddenly encased the two of them in a ring of ice.
They rushed over to Lee Taeyoung, who still looked perfectly relaxed.
“It’s fine. We’ll crack through the unmeltable ice if we really need to. They’ll come out when they’re ready. Just leave them be. This is the good part. Isn’t that right, Guide Choi Yoonseo?”
“…Yes. The good part.”
“Would be even better if no one interfered, don’t you think?”
Calming the flustered newbie guides, Lee Taeyoung smirked and cast a pointed look at Choi Yoonseo—as if to say, ‘Don’t pretend like we don’t know why you’re here.’
Everyone at the center knew exactly what she was after, and it sure wasn’t a random coincidence that she forced her way into this training session knowing Haebom was overseeing it.
“Who’s interfering! I’m not interfering—who says I am…!”
Lee Yeojoon, who clung to Choi Yoonseo like a goldfish’s poop, also knew her true intentions.
But from his perspective, Haebom was the interloper.
After all, Wonho had been on good terms with Choi Yoonseo long before Haebom showed up.
As if Haebom could ever understand how fairy-tale-like that bond was…!
Grinding his teeth, Yeojoon glared at the ever-composed Lee Taeyoung.
* * *
