DPGR 128

Would this be the color if Dojin’s red energy were mixed with a generous amount of white milk?

It was a color that somehow seemed like it would smell of strawberries. Jiho pressed his lips together, not liking it, then suddenly snapped back to his senses. He had let his mind wander for just a moment, and the energy that had been flowing out of his body had nearly vanished.

“Guide Jiho, don’t lose focus. You’re doing great.”

“Y-yes.”

“Now try projecting your energy as far as you can. Match your wavelength… to the kind common among most espers.”

Jiho quickly adjusted his wavelength. With his extensive guiding experience, calculating the average esper wavelength was easy.

“Hoo…”

Exhaling slowly, Jiho increased the amount of energy he was emitting. It was his first time learning about something called “radianct guiding,” and yet he was already able to control it. That fact surprised even him.

He glanced at a distant esper who was looking around, and his face brightened.

“Ah! I think it’s working! That esper over there just reacted!”

Jiho’s pink-tinted energy grew fainter the farther it traveled, until it turned completely transparent. As a result, the esper felt the guiding energy brushing against his skin and flinched but couldn’t figure out what was going on. He simply looked around, confused.

Geonwoo, who had been listening to Jiho’s explanation, let out a breath of relief. His shoulders, previously stiff with tension, relaxed slightly.

“Good. Then let’s continue supporting them with radiant guiding.”

“Okay. But… we’re way too far back here. Shouldn’t I move up a little? At least somewhere I can see the espers directly.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“But if I stay here, I won’t know how far my guiding is reaching. It’s hard to control without being able to see. I might end up wasting too much energy.”

Jiho had a point. Geonwoo hesitated for a moment but eventually nodded, seeing no flaw in his reasoning.

“Then just a little. Just move forward a little.”

“Yes!”

Jiho responded brightly.

None of them knew yet. The closer they got to the front lines, the more horrific the scenes they would witness.

“Ten o’clock direction, to the left!”

“Hold on! Just a little longer!”

“A g-guide! Is there a guide?!”

In the midst of a scene turned to chaos, the Esper Director was using his powers at full strength for the first time in a long while.

A thick darkness surged around him, forming a massive wall of defense.

With his back shielding the people behind him, the director scanned the situation.

“Any teams finished with dungeon clearance? No reports yet?”

“N-no, sir. We haven’t been able to reach anyone! Communications are unstable, so we’re not even sure if our messages got through.”

“Damn it… what about the injured in the rear? Are they okay?”

“Well…”

The esper, who had been replying diligently, hesitated for the first time, his lips trembling without forming words. The director clenched his teeth at that reaction.

He didn’t need to hear it to know. Of the people he’d left behind, very few had any real chance of recovery.

Still, he desperately hoped one of them, just one, would survive.

That person had always said he hated being the center of attention, and yet the director had coaxed him into taking the lead position.

“What about the Guide Director?”

“…”

“I said, the Guide Director!”

The director’s voice rose.

But the esper next to him only looked back at the fallen Guide Director with a devastated expression.

The Guide Director had kept his promise, to take full responsibility if anything happened.

Though he’d never once served in the field, he had run around with nothing but an unfamiliar pistol, pouring out guiding energy to the espers.

When a hastily built barricade collapsed, he had rushed to the front to shield the leading espers with his own body.

‘Back…! Fall back!’

A guide protecting an esper was unheard of. In the middle of a battle, most guides could barely manage to keep themselves alive.

But no one could criticize the Guide Director’s recklessness.

He had stepped in front of a young esper who was about to be eaten by a monster, sacrificing himself while muttering over and over, “Thank goodness…”

In the end, he lost his right arm. The monster’s teeth then pierced his neck, chest, and right side.

That was when the Esper Director had found him.

Clutching to life, the Guide Director had reached out to him and forced out his words.

‘I-I’m fine… hngh…’

“D-don’t speak! You’re bleeding too much!”

‘K-Kang Haechan… is the esper… c-cough! o-okay…?’

Kang Haechan was the young esper he had saved.

Even though he wasn’t an esper himself, the Guide Director had taken it upon himself to memorize the names of every single one at the center, saying he needed to do his part.

He was that kind of fool.

‘…Soon, somehow… we’ll find… a way… Hang in there… please hold on…’

With those final words, the Guide Director lost consciousness. He was still breathing, but barely, it wouldn’t be surprising if he stopped at any moment.

The Esper Director spread out his cloak and laid him on it. Then he gathered the wounded and exhausted espers behind him and expanded his wall of darkness to hold the monsters back.

He himself was bleeding from his side and back, trailing blood as he moved.

“Director!”

Espers came running from afar. They were ones he had sent to the rear earlier due to blood loss from insufficient guiding.

He started to scold them, why had they come back?—but his eyes widened instead.

Their complexions were far too bright for people who’d been on the verge of collapse.

“What… what the hell? Did someone guide you? From where? How?”

The pair guides from the Beta and Gamma teams had long since collapsed from exhaustion.

And they were short on manpower to begin with, more than half had dropped from depletion.

‘That’s why I’d thought we couldn’t hold out much longer…’

While the director was still frozen in confusion, the espers reached him, drew their weapons, and aimed at the monsters.

He asked in disbelief:

“What happened? Are you really alright?”

“We’re fine! We can fight again!”

“No, seriously… how?”

“Well… we don’t really know either.”

“What?”

Are they messing with me right now?

The director’s brow twitched upward. One of the younger espers sliced into a monster and answered:

“I thought I was going to faint, but then suddenly I felt guided!”

“…What are you even saying?”

“Exactly! I was just standing there, but it felt like I was getting guided, like… for real!”

The director looked around at the other espers for confirmation. They nodded and chimed in.

“He’s right! There wasn’t a guide anywhere nearby, but suddenly the guiding energy just hit me.”

“I even blacked out for a second, but when I woke up, my body felt fine.”

“…What, did you all eat something weird?”

From the director’s perspective, it was the only logical explanation.

Maybe they were hallucinating, or had accidentally ingested something strange, or had simply cracked under pressure.

But they looked far too good for that. It was like they’d all been matched with perfectly compatible guides.

But there’s no way that’s… ah. No way…

Suddenly, a young face flashed through his mind. A small figure with unusually pale coloring, twenty-year-old guide, Seo Jiho.

He’d been kept at the center at Baek Dojin’s request.

Right. Guide Seo Jiho should’ve been at the center today…

Things had been moving so fast, he hadn’t thought of Jiho until now. Could he have been the one guiding the espers from afar?

But how…? How did he manage to secretly guide so many of them? And wait, wasn’t his wavelength…

The Commander’s thoughts ran deep. As his focus slipped, the wall of darkness thinned, opening a gap.

“Director!”

Someone cried out in alarm.

He snapped back and quickly summoned the darkness again, but it was too late.

SCREEEEECH!

A monster, claws raised, leapt through the breach and lunged straight at him.

Its sharp claws swung upward, then came slashing down, right toward the his chest.

“……!”

He instinctively stepped back. In that moment of retreat, he wedged his left arm between himself and the monster in a defensive stance.

SHRAK—!

The monster’s claws sliced downward. The director’s body reeled back, and dark red blood sprayed in all directions.