Chapter 4

　　The campus was empty for the short winter break. An isolated silence hung over the Blue Wing, the dormitory for SAA’s espers. The quiet made the sound of our ragged breaths seem deafeningly loud. Because his mind and body were in turmoil, his ability was leaking unconsciously, filling the room with a swirling, oppressive heat.

　　This guy’s condition is…

　　I could finally understand after guiding him directly. Yoon Geonwoo’s power was far greater than I had ever imagined, and he was suffering from an agony to match.

　　"Ngh…" A deep, pained groan escaped his throat each time our hot flesh tangled together. The weight of his upper body had shifted, and I found myself straddling him. By the time his parched lips were slick and glistening with saliva, he spat a curse through his teeth.

　　I understood how he felt. Being subjected to non-consensual mucosal guiding via the mouth would naturally provoke resistance. But you have to save a person’s life first, right? This was… CPR! Yes, it was an act of the same nature as CPR.

　　"Get… off…" Yoon Geonwoo mumbled, his eyes hazy, but he still tried to push me away. His attempt, unfortunately, was futile. It might have been different if he were in his right mind, but an esper’s instinct to satisfy a desperate hunger couldn’t be controlled by willpower alone. Honestly, with a contamination level this high, he should have been clawing at me, desperate for guiding. His self-control was truly something else.

　　[Contamination Level: 84%]

　　I checked his contamination level again. Even after pouring everything I had into it, it had only dropped by a mere 5%.

　　I guess I should be grateful for this much.

　　After all, Yoon Geonwoo’s refusal to be guided had been a hot topic since he first enrolled at SAA. He avoided all contact and conversation with guides, and any attempt to guide him would cause a massive scene. He not only refused guiding from Central Headquarters’s guides under government command but also consistently skipped joint classes between the guide and esper divisions.

　　With his immense power, his rampages made him the number one person guides avoided. If a guide accidentally bumped into him, he would brush off the point of contact with an exaggerated display of disgust. Who would willingly approach him?

　　There were all sorts of rumors about his behavior—"He has a guiding phobia," or "No, he just hates guides"—but no one knew the real reason. Every guide who had been paired with him was dismissed without a word, myself included.

　　"What the… Ugh…"

　　"Not yet. A little more," I said, pushing him back down when he tried to sit up during a brief pause between our lips. The heat of his body against my fingertips was abnormally high. As he swallowed hard, the blue veins on his long, straight neck stood out. When I slowly traced the path of those veins, as if to measure his temperature, I could feel his body tremble beneath me.

　　The white packets and blue pills scattered all over the floor, combined with his high body temperature, told me everything I needed to know about how Yoon Geonwoo had been suppressing his sky-high contamination levels all this time.

　　This bastard, how many suppressants has he been taking?

　　I knew it. I thought he was being strangely quiet… I pressed my lips to his again, glancing at the number printed on the drug bottles. Seeing the text confirmed what I had suspected from the moment I entered the room.

　　Number 505-B. Commonly known as Helper Killer.

　　These blue pills, also called ‘Acute Esper Suppressants,’ immediately suppressed a portion of an esper’s contamination upon ingestion. But a potent drug always comes with side effects. Espers who took Helper Killer for extended periods found it increasingly difficult to control their abilities, and some even experienced memory loss. Immediately after taking it, it was common to become dazed and weak from the drug’s effects, just like Yoon Geonwoo was now. For that reason, we were taught that Helper Killer was a special medication reserved for missions in dangerous areas where guiding was unavailable.

　　To find these forbidden pills scattered in the room of Yoon Geonwoo, who wasn’t even an official esper yet… Of course, I could guess the reason.

　　Did headquarters give them to him?

　　From the perspective of the Central Headquarters and the SAA, they couldn’t just stand by and watch a precious S-Class esper rampage. And Yoon Geonwoo had repeatedly rejected all their efforts to pair him with a compatible guide.

　　He didn’t… take all of these at once, did he?

　　The only reason I was able to successfully force a guiding on him was likely because he had just taken the Helper Killer. Whether it was the effect of the guiding or the drug, Yoon Geonwoo’s body began to go limp, like a waterlogged cotton ball.

　　I checked his condition and mentally reviewed the guiding theories I’d learned at SAA. The most important thing for successful guiding is mutual stability. It was the first principle in every guide-related textbook.

　　After a moment of thought, I reached out and ran my fingers through his hair. The texture of the thick, unruly strands was surprisingly soft. As the fine hair slipped through my fingers, his body trembled as if a sensitive spot had been touched. I tried to soothe him slowly, like grooming the fur of a large beast. I had befriended Boksil, the big dog living in the residence behind the dorms, by feeding him tasty treats and petting his fur, and I intended to do the same now.

　　As I continued to gently stroke his hair, his rustling movements ceased. Perhaps he had adapted to the guiding, or maybe he had just given up resisting. Had my desperate efforts finally reached him? As his resistance softened, the guiding effect became noticeably stronger, thanks to our high match rate.

　　[Contamination Level: 83%]

　　[Contamination Level: 80%]

　　[Contamination Level: 79%]

　　As the numbers dropped, his erratic breathing began to calm down. But when my hand brushed against his face, I felt a dampness. Looking closer, I saw that his eyes, which I thought had calmed, were red and welling up again.

　　Startled, I quickly stopped the guiding and pulled away. A thin, silvery thread of saliva stretched between us as our contact broke. I watched, as if in slow motion, as a droplet formed at the tip of his lips.

　　"Are you… crying?"

　　There was no answer. I glanced down and saw his face was flushed red from a low-grade fever. Was it because of the pain? Or did he hate receiving guiding in a weakened state so much that it brought him to tears? Yoon Geonwoo just panted, his gaze lowered.

　　Unsure of what to do, I gently wiped his wet cheek. At my comforting touch, his reddened eyelids grew moist again.

　　"I’m sorry…" I apologized first, then mumbled an excuse. "Really, I’m sorry, but this isn’t weird. We’re just guiding."

　　I expected some kind of reaction, but… Yoon Geonwoo, his face a mess of tears, remained frozen in an awkward position, neither pushing me away nor pulling me closer. His mind was clearly telling him to resist, but his body, having tasted the sweet relief of guiding, was craving more.

　　I shamelessly exploited that weakness.

　　"We can do a little more, right?"

　　"I…"

　　"Right? Let me. You still need it."

　　It wasn’t a request for permission, but more of a declaration. Please, just let me get it below 70%, no, 60%. With that thought, I captured his lips, which had a strange metallic taste. Yoon Geonwoo flinched and tried to pull back, but when I tugged on the back of his neck, he followed with relative compliance.

　　As I resumed guiding, he continued to let out whimpering sounds, like a sick puppy.

　　It split.

　　I had tried to be careful, but his lip had finally split open, and I could taste blood. Still, I felt a sense of relief that he was now accepting the guiding quietly, his eyes squeezed shut. If an S-Class esper like him had decided to use force, I would have stood no chance. This was a stroke of luck for me.

　　However, due to the rank difference, I was starting to feel the strain of pouring out so much guiding energy. The sensation of every last remnant of power being sucked from my veins was unfamiliar. My strength was draining away as if I were running a marathon without rest, and my breath came in short gasps. Beads of sweat began to form on my forehead.

　　The silver lining was that his contamination level was steadily stabilizing. Whether it was due to the Helper Killer he’d ingested, the guiding I was pouring into him, or a combination of both, I still didn’t know.

　　[Contamination Level: 68%]

　　Just as the number reached my target, Yoon Geonwoo flipped me over and pinned me beneath him in an instant. I blinked, trying to process the sudden change, but a chill ran down my spine.

　　The blue eyes staring down at me… were now filled with a cold light, completely free of the drug’s influence.

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