Chapter 2: Shadows and Demands

Two guides walked past, whispering about Haejin.

He heard every word and shot them a glare sharp enough to kill.

Sensing the danger, the guides noticed him, paled, and hurried into the lecture hall.

Haejin snorted.

He knew exactly what those guides were after: latch onto a high-rank esper and change their fate.

But seeing them run their mouths about someone else always made bile rise in his throat.

They’d be the first to run and hide when real danger came, yet they never shut up about the espers who risked their lives.

He wanted to grab them and beat the shit out of them right then and there, but he gritted his teeth and swallowed the rage.

He didn’t want trouble.

Born with perfect genes, Cha Haejin had every reason to despise guides.

He was the sacrificial lamb of his parents’ political marriage.

The government forced S-classes to marry each other under the excuse of “preserving superior genes.”

Even then, the chance of their child awakening as S-class was disgustingly low, but they claimed it was necessary to increase the pitifully small S-class population.

His father, an S-class esper, had truly loved his mother and Haejin despite the arranged marriage.

But Haejin only got to feel that love for a very short time.

Right after Haejin awakened as an esper, his father was critically wounded in a massive gate war.

In that situation, his mother, an S-class guide and his father’s imprinted partner, should have guided him.

But she refused.

His father was so injured that forcing guidance could kill them both.

So she cited headquarters’ regulations and abandoned him.

‘I can’t guide him. If he dies without it, that’s just how it is.’

‘If I die too, the nation loses an S-class guide. You’re already an S-class esper now, Haejin. We don’t need your father anymore.’

Young Haejin had begged on his knees.

His mother chose the nation over her husband.

He could never forgive her for abandoning his father under the excuse of “the greater good.”

He could never forgive himself for awakening as an esper and taking his father’s place.

And he could never forgive the guides who used to throw themselves at his father when he was the nation’s hero, only to vanish the moment he fell.

That day, Haejin made a vow.

He would accept guiding to prevent rampage, but he would never take an exclusive guide, never marry, never treat a person like a tool.

He would never become an idiot who gave his heart to a guide.

That was why, no matter how excruciating the pain, Cha Haejin refused contact guiding.

Jinwoo elbowed him.

“What’s with the face? You look like you’re about to get eaten by a cyclops.”

Snapped out of his thoughts, Haejin smirked.

“Why would I get eaten? I’ll just throw you first, buy some time, then blow everything up.”

“Man, you talk some real sh*t.”

“Not like it’s the first time.”

They were killing time with stupid jokes, waiting for the boring ethics class to end, when the air suddenly turned dark and cold.

A sinister energy crawled over the campus.

Haejin’s eyes sharpened as he scanned the surroundings and muttered.

“Shadows?”

“They said a gate opened and closed near campus a few days ago. Makes sense some are still wandering.”

Jinwoo instantly went into battle stance, back-to-back with Haejin, scouting the area.

The whole campus mood flipped in seconds.

Civilians and low-rank espers rushed inside buildings for safety.

Only high-rank espers remained outside.

They naturally gathered around Haejin.

An esper with scouting abilities, Jaehyung, warned the group.

“We can’t ignore these roaming shadows. I don’t know if there’s too many or if they mutated, but the energy field is huge.”

“Shadows” was the term for formless monsters that stayed behind when a gate closed.

They were the weakest type, so with an S-class like Haejin and an A-class like Jinwoo present, there shouldn’t have been any tension.

But something felt very wrong.

Boom!

The formless creatures, existing only as light and sound, began to move.

Jaehyung transmitted their positions to nearby espers.

Those who received the telepathic message started unleashing their abilities.

Fire, water, lightning that shouldn’t exist.

Haejin stood still and simply detonated them wholesale.

Since they had no physical body, only flashes of light remained where they exploded.

Yet the shadows weren’t dying easily.

They were supposed to be the weakest monsters; they should have been wiped out already.

The fight was dragging on far too long.

“Hey, scout! What the hell? We’re hitting every spot you marked and they’re not decreasing. How is that possible?”

“Same here.”

“Me too.”

Complaints poured in from all sides.

Jaehyung frowned, focusing harder.

This was his first time encountering something like this.

A moment later his eyes shot open and he started shaking.

“What do we do? I hear a child crying. Five, maybe six years old. The monster has the kid.”

Haejin snapped.

“Is the kid alive?”

“The crying is loud and clear. Definitely alive.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Send the location now!”

“Wait, there’s a message…”

“What message?”

Jaehyung’s voice cracked.

“If you want the child to live, every esper leaves except one. Or the kid dies right now.”

BOOM!

Another explosion. The light flashed brighter, and the surroundings grew darker.

“What?”

Everyone froze in disbelief.

Sometimes powerful monsters made demands through scouts, usually food-related.

But never something this bizarre.

“It says… leaving the strongest esper would be good for your health… I didn’t want to relay it because no one would believe me. They’d think I’m a humanoid-type mutant.”

Jaehyung sighed deeply.

Scouting espers were already looked down on for never fighting directly.

Now he’d be suspected of being a monster himself.

Monsters from gates came in three types:

• Formless → shadows
• Beast/insect type → monster-type
• And the most dangerous: humanoid, ones that could pass for human.

“I’m not a humanoid, I swear! I said I wouldn’t tell anyone!”

Jinwoo, to confirm, asked a question only a real person would know.

“Name the old A-class fire-attribute professor who mainly researches monster-types.”

“Professor Choi Chulmin!”

Jinwoo nodded. No monster would know that.

Now only one question remained: who would stay behind?

Every head turned to Haejin as if it were already decided.

Haejin sighed.

“Where’s the energy coming from?”

“Library side.”

“Main entrance or back?”

“Main entrance.”

“Of all places, the damn library.”

“Sorry… please take care of it.”

Apologies came from all directions.

Haejin snorted.

“Whatever. I wasn’t planning on living long anyway. All of you, get lost.”

The espers scattered into buildings like they’d rehearsed it.

Jinwoo waved as he walked away.

“Don’t die.”

“Why the f*ck would I die? I’m S-class.”

Haejin sprinted toward the library.

With every awakened inside, the front of the library was completely empty.

That should have made the monster easy to spot, but he couldn’t see a single shadow.

Even the booming footsteps had gone silent long ago.

Dead silence. Choking fog.

The energy was far too strong for a mere mutated low-rank shadow.