I am a Guide Who Killed an Esper.

[Demanding the Truth Behind the Missing Espers!]

“Ah, it’s Thursday today.”

When you’re stuck working night shifts with too few staff, it’s easy to lose track of the days. Yoonui only realized it was Thursday when he spotted the large banner with bold red letters fluttering in the wind and a truck blocking his route to work.

Thursday was the day the protestors held their regular rallies. Glancing between the blue guide badge dangling from his neck and the protestors standing atop the truck with megaphones in hand, Yoonui let out a long sigh.

On protest days, it was best to shove his badge—clearly identifying him as an employee of the Ministry of Defense—deep into his pocket to avoid drawing attention. But after waking up late and dragging his feet out of a reluctance to face the day, he’d left the house without thinking, the badge still hanging around his neck.

Now, removing it at this close range would only make him look suspicious and attract the protestors’ attention. His only option was to brace himself, walk through, and mentally prepare for the inevitable shouts of “Shame on you!”

Sure enough, as soon as the protestors—who were scrutinizing every passerby for the color of their badges—spotted the blue string around Yoonui’s neck, they picked up their megaphones again.

“The Ministry of Defense must reveal the truth behind the missing Espers!”

“Reveal the truth! Reveal the truth!”

“Reveal the truth! Reveal the truth!”

The loud chants, aimed squarely at him, made his ears ring, and his conscience wasn’t exactly at ease either. Still, reacting in any way—showing discomfort or turning to look at them—would only embolden the protestors and risk being dragged into their crowd.

He wasn’t the Minister of Defense, nor a spokesperson—just a low-ranking field worker. The smartest move was to pretend he neither saw nor heard anything. Keeping his head high and his gaze fixed ahead, Yoonui quickened his pace, careful not to provoke the protestors.

Luckily, there was an excellent target for his frustration just ahead: a red-badged worker leisurely strolling along, coffee in hand, looking completely unbothered by the chaos.

“Ah, so for admin staff, it really is someone else’s problem, huh?”

As soon as he passed the front gate and was safely out of the protestors’ view, Yoonui delivered a solid slap to the back of the carefree red badge in front of him.

“Ugh!”

The person he hit was Kim Joomin, an administrative officer from the Talent Development Team who worked in the same office. She clutched her coffee cup tightly, letting out a wheeze like her lungs had been crushed.

“I almost spilled my coffee!”

“Seriously, watching you red badges walk around like none of this is your business every Thursday is so annoying.”

“Of course, it’s none of our business. Did we deploy the Espers? Did we make them go missing? Our department has absolutely nothing to do with it.”

Joomin shrugged nonchalantly as she replied. She wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t make it any less irritating. Yoonui bumped her shoulder playfully in mock annoyance, but this time, Joomin didn’t let it slide, retaliating with a shoulder bump of her own. The two bickered as they made their way through the building’s entrance.

The place where they worked was called the Central Crisis Management Bureau. The name was as vague as the crises they were supposedly managing, but considering the agency had been thrown together haphazardly, it couldn’t be helped.

About 20 years ago, a black hole—though not in the astrophysical sense—suddenly appeared in the skies over Seoul, spilling out unidentified creatures.

Fortunately, it wasn’t an issue unique to South Korea. Similar black holes were observed around the world, and thanks to the disasters in early-affected countries, other nations were somewhat prepared to subdue the creatures as they emerged. South Korea, however, hastily cobbled together a task force to survive the first wave. But even then, the response was chaotic.

The media only made things worse, with sensationalist headlines and clickbait articles that took a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach. These pieces inevitably racked up millions of comments.

The press, ever hungry for attention-grabbing content, churned out inflammatory pieces about the global phenomenon, but no one seemed interested in investigating what was emerging from the black holes or how it might harm humanity. All they cared about were headlines and explosive viewership numbers.

[Exclusive Report: The Government’s Neglect Turns the Country into Hell—What About Public Safety?]
[Opposition Party: “A Government That Has Abandoned Its People” — Cosmic Risk Looms Over Upcoming Elections]

That year alone, five special broadcasts aired criticizing the government’s incompetence.

In the early days of the black hole crisis, gates were opening all across South Korea, spreading anxiety and despair nationwide. News outlets and comment sections were rife with demands for action, filled with vague cries to “do something, anything, immediately!”

With elections approaching, newspapers attacking the government daily, and comment sections in uproar, the government, desperate to show they were doing something, cobbled together a bizarre, multi-headed organization by pulling personnel from various departments.

This hastily assembled, patchwork organization became the Central Crisis Management Bureau, a mishmash of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Defense, and its own administrative staff.

Employees from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety made up most of the desk workers in the Operations Support and Talent Development departments, while the Ministry of Defense’s Espers handled fieldwork in the Response and Support Centers. They were known, colloquially, as the “red badges” and the “blue badges.”

Technically, as a blue badge and a guide, Yoonui should have been heading toward the Center building on the left. However, he had other plans—namely, eyeing Joomin’s untouched coffee. Sticking by her side, he veered to the right, toward the Talent Development office of the red badges, his actual destination.

“Good morning.”

“Huh? You two came in together?”

“Oh, please don’t say it with that kind of tone.”

Joomin cringed in genuine disgust at the sly greeting from the Talent Development Team Leader.

Kim Heesoo, nearing fifty, was a completely useless officer who had fled to the Central Crisis Management Bureau after failing to get promoted at headquarters. He had an annoying habit of grinning and making inappropriate comments, like asking if every pair of opposite-gender colleagues standing together were dating or when they were sending out wedding invitations. Despite his past failures, he still clung to his ambitions for promotion, but instead of focusing on work, he wasted time spouting nonsense.

Ignoring Heesoo’s oblivious remarks, Yoonui wordlessly headed to his desk and sat down.

“It’s been a while, Yoonui.”

“Yeah, has the office been alright?”

“It’s been so dull without you.”

“I thought so.”

As soon as he sat down, his coworkers approached, enthusiastically greeting him as though he’d been gone for ages. To an outsider, it might seem excessive, but given his recent work schedule, it was understandable.

“You’ve been on night shifts all week, right?”

“Yeah, it felt weird coming in for a morning shift.”

The Talent Management Team, where Yoonui worked, primarily handled attendance and performance management for Espers and Guides. While that might sound like a simple task of tracking clock-in and clock-out times, the reality was far more complicated.

Espers, in particular, were essentially walking biological weapons. They needed to remain separated from civilians at all times, and their whereabouts had to be continuously monitored by the Bureau.

This meant that the Talent Management Team operated as an on-call unit, ready to deploy 24/7 whenever Espers or Guides on leave failed to return on time, left their assigned areas without permission, or disobeyed orders.

Despite being part of the administrative Talent Development department, this team was the only group fully staffed by Ministry of Defense personnel. Their schedules were erratic, and the frequent night shifts and on-call duties often meant that even coworkers rarely saw each other, sometimes going weeks without crossing paths.

“It really does feel like it’s been ages since we’ve seen you, Yoonui.”

A voice called out from the desk opposite his, just beyond the tall partition walls. It was Kim Wooju. Like Yoonui, Wooju was a blue badge from the Ministry of Defense, but he wasn’t an Esper. Instead, he was a data analyst with a doctorate, responsible for analyzing Esper data.

Unlike Yoonui, Wooju had a standard 9-to-6, five-day workweek, making him more similar to the red-badged administrative staff. It had been nearly a week since the two had last seen each other.

Sipping the half-cup of coffee he had stolen from Joomin, Yoonui cheerfully responded to Wooju’s greeting.

“This week, my schedule was all over the place with day and night shifts mixed in.”

“Ah, you’re young, so you can handle that kind of schedule. I couldn’t anymore.”

“You’re not even forty yet, Wooju.”

“Oh, come on. Once you pass thirty-five, aging hits hard. It’s like the human body hits its half-life. From then on, it’s just a downhill slide into old age.”

“I’ve seen pictures of you at thirty-four. You don’t look much different now.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?”

“It’s a compliment.”

Chuckling at the playful banter, Yoonui tapped on his monitor and logged into the system. A pop-up appeared, listing the Espers and Guides scheduled to return by 10 a.m.

The names on the top half of the list were familiar, but the ones on the bottom half were completely new to him. They were likely recruits who had joined after he had been reassigned from fieldwork. Clicking through their profiles confirmed his suspicion—all of them were young. He let out a sigh.

“There are so many unfamiliar faces among the blue badges these days.”

“Well, you’ve been here for five years now,” Wooju replied in an indifferent tone, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Five years was enough time for significant changes to take place—not just in the landscape, but in people too.

Espers, in particular, had a notoriously high turnover rate. Many left due to injuries, deaths, or transfers motivated by their desperate desire to avoid entering gates. Guides weren’t much different, frequently shifting between fieldwork and desk jobs during personnel changes, often leaving altogether.

At this point, even Yoonui couldn’t keep track of where most of his colleagues from five years ago had ended up. Many of his peers had vanished like waves receding with the tide.