#2
Before he even had a chance to think about what a Guide was, Wonwoo had to face a rapid-fire barrage of messages that the ‘SYSTEM’ spewed out as if it had been waiting.
[The ‘SYSTEM’s’ GUIDE to being a ‘Guide’! ( o｀ω′)ノ]
[Esper MEETS Guide!]
[Loading GUIDE. Please wait a moment.]
[…■□■□■]
[Reconfiguring GUIDE to fit user ‘Wonwoo’.]
[Please wait just a little longer! (* ￣︿￣)]
“…How pointless. Ah, maybe not pointless. How kind.”
Wonwoo muttered to himself as he watched the flood of messages.
[Of course, that’s a given! Because this is a system of the GUIDE, by the GUIDE, for the ‘Guide.’ ( >ω<)/]
Wonwoo was startled by the message, which seemed to be responding directly to his words.
'What the, is this some kind of artificial intelligence?'
Wonwoo blinked his eyes several times for no reason. As if in response, the system displayed various emoticons in its messages.
[Starting with the Seoul Gate No. 124 from the news just now, even more Gates will begin appearing all over the world!]
[When a Gate appears, Espers are the first to rush in and solve the Gate problem with their unique ‘ability’! (づ￣ 3￣)づ]
[They might summon flames to burn the monsters from the Gate to death! Or, freeze them to death with ice powers!]
[Or even blow up the Gate itself! That's the Esper, the problem solver!]
[But what if an Esper is overworked?! And they collapse, unable to use their powers?! (′д｀σ)σ]
[Gates will start popping up like mushrooms after a rain!]
[Even if an Esper raids 10 Gates, what if 15 new ones appear?! The remaining 5 Gates will continuously spew out monsters!]
[And what if that keeps repeating?!]
[Then the world will be completely destroyed by the Gates, right? (T_T)]
[The revitalizing tonic for Espers that has appeared to prevent such a catastrophe! The Vitamin C! The stamina recovery potion! The fragment of vitality!]
[That is precisely what a Guide is. (. ❛ᴗ❛.)]
The drinks Wonwoo had chugged to stay up all night during exam periods flashed through his mind.
“So a Guide is… something Espers drink, or eat, something like that?”
[What a cruel and atrocious thing to say! (⊙ˍ⊙)]
[It’s not entirely wro….]
[An error has occurred, and the chat message was not transmitted properly.]
[We apologize for the inconvenience. Please wait a moment.]
[No, you just need to pass the Guide’s ‘warmth’ to the Esper!]
[So, when an Esper is struggling, the Guide appears with a swoosh and holds their hand, giving them energy with a swoosh swoosh! (●ˇ∀ˇ●)]
[Then the Esper’s abilities will be enhanced and stabilized, allowing them to solve even more Gate problems!]
“Something’s… strange.”
Although an error message had appeared, Wonwoo hadn’t missed it. He had clearly seen the message that answered his question by saying it wasn’t entirely wrong.
As if dying and coming back to life wasn’t enough, he’d now become a ‘Guide’ that had appeared out of nowhere.
Wonwoo contemplated. In a situation like this, just how much of this system’s messages should he believe and accept?
Returning to the past was one thing, and becoming some kind of revitalizing tonic or vitamin was another, but the messages didn’t solve Wonwoo’s fundamental question.
“So why did I become a Guide? Why me, of all people…? And why while going back to the past?”
[User’s permissions are insufficient… ■□■□■]
[■□■□■□]
“…What’s with it all of a sudden, like a spam message. Is this thing okay?”
Feeling uneasy about the messages that were just showing a series of blank squares, Wonwoo looked away from his phone.
“Forget about that broken thing and leave it alone. It's better to think about it myself."
Wonwoo brought out a notebook and a pen and began to organize his thoughts. To understand his situation as described by whatever this system thing was, he figured the fastest way would be to retrace his memories of the ‘8th.’ That was his last memory, after all.
<8 AM, woke up to my phone alarm. While getting ready for school like any other day, I suddenly received a message around 9 AM announcing a class cancellation.>
<Since it was also Parents’ Day, I impulsively decided to visit my parents at the columbarium. I grabbed a triangle kimbap for a quick bite and left the house around 11 AM. I took Line 2 to get to the Express Bus Terminal station and thought the view of the Han River from the window was pretty.>
<And then… I encountered the Gate and died.>
“…I don’t think I’ll figure anything out just by thinking alone.”
Wonwoo sighed, realizing that no matter how much he thought about it, there was nothing he could do in this situation. But to blindly trust and follow the words of this system thing, which was his only clue, felt too suspicious.
“What should I do….”
-Bbirong bbirong!
As if to reprimand him, a loud alarm, this time with added vibration, rang out.
[‘SYSTEM’ is very sad.]
[I brought this whole GUIDE for the ‘Guide’! But the Guide won’t even listen! (´ㅠ＿ㅠ｀)]
“This thing is ridiculous. What do you mean I won’t listen? Who was it that ran away without answering what I actually asked!”
[（；´д｀） An error has occurred.]
[To minimize error occurrences, reconfiguration is complete.]
[Custom GUIDE for user ‘Wonwoo’! Please just look at it once! (┬┬﹏┬┬)]
At the series of crying emoticons, Wonwoo’s heart softened just a tiny bit.
It wasn't that the system seemed pitiful or sad, but more that he decided he might as well just see what it had to say.
“F-Fine. Then… let’s hear what it is you have to say.”
[✪ω✪*) As expected, the Guide is a kind talent worthy of saving the world!]
[As expected of the G… Guide I chose.]
It seemed like it was changing the subject, but Wonwoo decided to let it slide for now. He had more pressing matters.
[The ‘Guide’ must meet an ‘Esper’ to save the dying world!]
[And you must perform your role as a Guide by ‘Guiding’ the Espers!]
[If you don’t…….]
“Guiding is that hand-holding thing you mentioned before. What happens if I don’t do it?”
[The world will be destroyed! (ノへ￣、)]
The system then continued with a lengthy explanation. To summarize its contents, it was as follows:
First, he had died, come back to life, and become the world’s only Guide.
Second, a Guide is a being that acts as a sort of revitalizing tonic for Espers.
Third, as a Guide, he must meet Espers.
Fourth, a Guide can perform ‘Guiding’ by sharing their warmth with an Esper.
Fifth, Guiding is, to quote the system’s message, ‘super, very, extremely’ good for Espers.
And finally, if things continue as they are, the world will be ruined by the indiscriminate appearance of Gates. Therefore, the Guide must meet the best of the best, the S-rank Espers, and Guide them to solve the Gate problem.
[Level up the S-Class Espers with ‘Guiding’ and defeat all the Gates! ( •̀ ω •́ )✧]
“Hmm….”
Wonwoo felt grateful for the system's diligent explanation. It was so kind and detailed that he wondered if the claim about reconfiguring it just for him was true.
But if there was one thing that bothered him the most.
“Why me, of all people? The only S-rank Espers I’ve seen are on TV or in internet news…. No, don’t you dare say my user permissions are insufficient again.”
Wouldn’t it be better if the president, or someone from ‘the Bureau,’ the national agency that handles Gate problems on the front lines, became the Guide? The thought filled Wonwoo’s mind.
He was just an ordinary university student. A student who was about to graduate, looking for language academies to get his proficiency scores, and searching for interview study group posts on his university’s community app.
Even when the news was in an uproar about Gates breaking out and Espers appearing to solve them, it all felt like a distant story to him.
S-rank Espers were so few you could count them on your fingers. To put it in perspective, it was more likely to meet a popular idol and get their autograph than to meet one of them.
Besides, whether Gates appeared and Espers solved them or not, he was a university student, soon to be a graduate and a job seeker. The Gate incidents on the news were nothing more than irrelevant disaster reports.
Even though he occasionally encountered Gates, he was too busy trying to avoid them, and the number of times he had directly faced a dispatched Esper could be counted on one hand. The message about having to hold their hands made Wonwoo uncomfortable.
And no matter how it tried to cover it up, the words the system had fumbled were also bothering him. For some reason, he could imagine a scene where the system declared, ‘You will become a revitalizing tonic!’ and ground him up to be served as a drink to the Espers.
[It’s alright! Because SYSTEM has prepared something for a user like ‘Wonwoo’!]
[Loading the ‘World Destruction Virtual Experience’ program for the user.]
[To fit the user’s environment, this program will be adjusted to a ‘Gate Experience’!]
[The ‘What If You Get Sucked into a Gate?’ experience program is now activating!]
“…Excuse me?”
[Please be aware that you may experience dizziness, pain, etc.! (◔◡◔)]
As if the world had gone dark, Wonwoo’s vision suddenly turned black.
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