NOVEL WEB #030
#030
“Center Director…!”
Kim Sehyun’s voice was dripping with resentment. Calling Hyun Dowoon with a sorrowful face, Kim Sehyun couldn’t continue speaking for a moment and burst into tears. His fingers covering his mouth trembled.
“Please re-evaluate me.”
“Guide Kim Sehyun.”
“I’m struggling so much… People keep calling and asking – journalists, acquaintances, strangers, everyone…!”
Kim Sehyun cried out, gasping for breath. With a face red as if having a panic attack, Kim Sehyun painfully shouted and reached out his arm shakily. He seemed to want to grab Hyun Dowoon’s hand.
Instead of taking Kim Sehyun’s hand, Hyun Dowoon used his healing skill to remove the hyperventilation symptoms. He did this while stepping aside, as if not wanting to touch him.
Raising an eyebrow as if asking if he was alright now, Hyun Dowoon spoke.
“We were just talking about how Jaeha is suffering a lot of damage because of this incident.”
“I overheard… You’re doing a re-evaluation?”
“I was in the process of persuading Jaeha to go in that direction.”
Hyun Dowoon moved a bit closer to me, his eyes asking what I wanted to do.
Kim Sehyun bit his lip and lowered his gaze.
‘Why does he seem like a ticking time bomb today?’
I felt an inexplicable sense of unease. From the fact that nothing good had ever come from being around Kim Sehyun, I couldn’t help but feel nervous all over.
“Re-evaluation… Jaeha, what are you going to do?”
Kim Sehyun asked me with bloodshot eyes. His gaze was somehow intense. It seemed like he had made some decision and was acting on it, but it was clear that it wouldn’t be good for me.
I didn’t particularly have good people around me, but Lee Jaeha was pitiable in his own way. How did it end up that he can’t trust his pair Esper, can’t trust his only longtime friend – what does he have that’s truly his own?
“I’m not sure what I should do yet.”
“Why don’t you know? Jaeha, you need to resolve this situation. This controversy is happening because of you.”
Kim Sehyun urged me to get re-evaluated. I felt a surge of irritation and dizziness at the fact that my pairing was being called a ‘controversy’.
Some friend he is. I was glad that it was me hearing this and not Lee Jaeha, whose whereabouts I no longer knew.
“You’re here in the first place because you’re my friend, because of my consideration. I feel responsible since you keep causing controversies.”
“Your consideration?”
“Isn’t it? Starting with this house you’re living in, I provided it for you.”
That’s because you changed my house as you pleased, you bastard!
Just as I was about to get angry, feeling suddenly upset:
“Are you really friends? Jaeha, you don’t need to listen to this. Come to my house instead.”
Hyun Dowoon said, blocking me with an displeased expression. Then he continued, looking at Kim Sehyun with contemptuous eyes.
“Pairs often live together anyway. Now that we’ve completed the paperwork, let’s live together.”
“…It’s okay. There’s no need for that.”
I could find a new house with the 850 million I earned recently. I disliked both the house Shin Haejun lent me and Hyun Dowoon’s house now. Thinking about it, I wondered why I hadn’t thought of getting a new house. My perspective had probably become too narrow. I seemed to have been too focused on the world inside the story.
‘I thought pairs were… truly indispensable beings who only saw each other. But now that I know that’s not the case, I need to sort out my emotions.’
Having suddenly fallen into this world and feeling anxious, I ended up getting hurt because I met someone who treated me as if I was precious. It made me constantly mistake… that they truly cared for me sincerely.
At times like this, living in the same house would only make me more unsettled. I didn’t want to resent Hyun Dowoon anymore, as he just wanted a guide who existed for work, not someone special.
“…I’m sorry, I think I got too excited about this sudden situation.”
Kim Sehyun interrupted the conversation between Hyun Dowoon and me, biting his lip hard. After apologizing to Hyun Dowoon, he turned to me and said:
“…So Jaeha. Let’s get you clearly evaluated, and if it turns out F again, let’s agree not to have any more complaints.”
He apologized to the wrong person and now he’s talking nonsense. I looked at Kim Sehyun with cold eyes and snapped:
“I never complained. Should I just quit being a guide now?”
To be honest, my ability to endure in this world comes from being a guide. To smoothly disrupt the plot of this world designed by the author and maintain my own life, I had to complete quests.
And those quests basically come from the plot. It’s about gradually changing and twisting the direction, not a system where Nine can suddenly create content out of nowhere.
To follow the plot, I had to work as a guide no matter what. That’s why the setting of being an F-rank guide was put in place.
‘But Kim Sehyun doesn’t know I’m thinking this way.’
Now I know for sure. Kim Sehyun needed me. He said I was absolutely necessary for guiding. So he would definitely react if I said I was quitting.
As expected, Kim Sehyun’s face instantly turned pale at my threatening outburst.
And my arm was suddenly pulled. Unexpectedly, not by Kim Sehyun, but by Hyun Dowoon.
“That’s not allowed!”
“What?”
“You’re my pair guide. How can you quit on your own? That’s a completely different matter.”
Hyun Dowoon’s expression became more serious than when he was confronting Shin Haejun earlier. As he lowered his face, I blinked in surprise, suddenly meeting his gaze up close.
“You won’t quit, right?”
Hyun Dowoon asked with a serious face, putting his finger under his lip. Startled by his suddenly sparkling blue eyes, I flinched, shrinking my shoulders with a small gasp.
‘I should be grateful that he at least needs me as a guide.’
While I want to deviate from the novel’s plot, on the other hand, it makes me anxious to think that my role in this world is nothing.
As I was thinking with clenched fists, suddenly my phone alarm beeped. A quest from Nine at this moment?
‘The flow needed for the story… it’s the re-evaluation!’
It was clear that my re-evaluation was an important turning point in the story.
‘Quests are automatically accepted even if I don’t check them.’
So I was automatically in a situation where I had to get re-evaluated. There wouldn’t be a quest telling me to refuse the re-evaluation.
“Jaeha.”
When I lost focus for a moment trying to deduce the quest, Hyun Dowoon called me urgently. So I gave my answer.
“I’m F-rank anyway, and not particularly important, so why don’t you pair up with an S-rank like Sehyun instead?”
“Whether you’re F-rank or not doesn’t matter. Do you think I haven’t formed a pair because I couldn’t find an S-rank guide until now?”
When I suggested this with an expressionless face, Hyun Dowoon tilted his head and said:
“I asked you to be my pair guide because it’s you.”
Hyun Dowoon said firmly, grasping my hand. Because it’s me? What did he see in me? I wondered strongly. Honestly, I was more concerned about Kim Sehyun, who was watching us with a crumpled expression, having lost interest, than Hyun Dowoon who was speaking vaguely and sweetly.
I looked straight at Kim Sehyun and said:
“I’ll do it. The re-evaluation.”
Nine will surely give me a way to get through this.
I said this while tightly gripping my phone, which was more reliable than anyone else.
***
Comments (104)
Po****: What’s the reason for re-evaluating Lee Jaeha?
└It’s probably a section where the Center Director and Sehyun get entangled? If you want to make sense of the main character connecting with the bottom character who’s paired with a random supporting character, you need to break the pair. It’s setting up for Jaeha to pretend to have something, form a pair, but then break it when he measures as F again during re-evaluation.
GG****: But why does Sehyun keep failing at guiding? Is the author trying to plant some foreshadowing? Honestly, this doesn’t seem like foreshadowing. You need to give some hints for it to be foreshadowing.
└I apologize if I’m wrong, but aren’t you the person who keeps appearing in the comments? Why do you always leave comments that might hurt the author’s feelings?
└Am I supposed to only leave praising comments as a paying reader?
└It’s not right to tell the author what to do with their writing
└Then who are you to tell this person what to do?ㅡㅡ;
└Honestly, it’s been a bit much with only bottom-biased fans appearing until now. Honestly, the bottom character can only cry and cling, which is very unappealing;
Zj****: I hope the re-evaluation goes well; Surely the supporting bottom character isn’t actually going to turn out to be capable? If so, I think I’ll really drop this. I’ve been enduring this frustrating section for so long;;
└Threatening to drop the story really looks pathetic LOLㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└What kind of crazy setting is that? There’s no way the story would develop like that
└To be honest, the setting of only holding hands for guiding was a bit strange from the start,,,honest opinion;
After sending off the uninvited guests and the repairman Shin Haejun sent to fix the front door, I turned around to find a long comment section greeting me. When I looked at why the comments had exploded, it seemed that the episode of me getting re-evaluated was a development that greatly contradicted readers’ expectations.
Well, what’s so important about me, an F-rank, turning out to be F-rank again? Last time they said it was up to chapter 38, so from the readers’ perspective, they’ve been seeing frustrating scenes for at least 40 chapters.
Even I would have dropped it. In the first round of comments, I wanted to beg them not to drop it, but now I just felt like letting whatever happens happen. It’s a situation where only people harmful to my mental health are gathered for cyber bullying, so it’s okay if some of them disappear.
‘Anyway, is there really something to this?’
As I scrolled through the comments with suspicious eyes, I properly checked my phone, which I hadn’t looked at earlier.
: *Finding Pieces of the Truth*
Quest Grade: A
An opportunity to know the truth has come! Let’s head to the rank measurement room right away.
Reward: ???
So it wasn’t telling me to get re-evaluated?
‘There really must be something to this.’
I quickly ran into the dressing room to grab a hat and mask to cover my face, intending to rush out immediately as Nine instructed.
***
At the center entrance, which I found while being careful not to reveal my identity to others, I ran into someone I knew.
It was Shin Haejun, who had given me his business card earlier and left.
“We meet again here?”
Shin Haejun approached me with a welcoming face. Surprised, I pulled my mask up a bit higher and asked:
“How did you know it was me?”
“Why wouldn’t I know? It’s you from any angle.”
I thought this bastard was being too casual again, but I kept my mouth shut to avoid seeming old-fashioned. Honestly, I was more amazed that he recognized me in my disguise. I was wearing a hat pulled low, a black mask, and a thick coat to hide my body shape, so how did he recognize me?
“Where are you headed?”
“Why do you need to know?”
“I came here to threaten the media and the center to suppress rumors. Can’t you look at me a bit more favorably?”
I thought, ‘Why should I?’, but honestly, seeing Shin Haejun’s face looking at me with sparkling eyes after he had acted on my behalf, I couldn’t help but close my mouth. I tapped the ground with the toe of my shoe to show my displeasure and answered, “The measurement room.”
“The measurement room? Getting re-evaluated?”
“I’m just going to check it out for now.”
Shin Haejun followed me closely, constantly talking. I took off the hat I was wearing and handed it to Shin Haejun. He should cover up at least this much to draw less attention. Honestly, Shin Haejun, as an S-rank Esper, is too famous.
When we entered the measurement room, Shin Haejun started talking with the examiner who assists with the evaluation. I looked around, trying to find the piece of truth Nine had mentioned.
“Why wait until the scheduled evaluation day? We can check now.”
Suddenly, Shin Haejun took my hand and placed it on a machine with a strange panel.
“Let’s check our matching rate while we’re at it.”
Then, with flushed cheeks and chuckling, he placed his own hand on the opposite side. Before I could say anything, Shin Haejun pressed the red button in the center of the device with his left hand.
“E-Esper Shin Haejun. It’s not properly set up right now… gasp.”
The examiner, flustered by Shin Haejun’s sudden action, tried to stop him but then widened his eyes upon seeing the test result printed above.
[Matching Rate: 99.9%]
…Huh?