“Was this really the name of the person Grandma introduced me to?"
'I thought it was a Seonnyeo-nim(fairy), not a Doryeong(Guide)…' Thinking this, Jinho couldn't shake the uneasy feeling he’d had for a while.
Jinho remembered his grandmother, worried about her only grandson, insisting that he must call the number she gave him because she had an unusual dream.
But Jinho didn't actually want to get his fortune told. Normally, Jinho would have followed his grandmother's words without much resistance. Getting his fortune told wasn't such a difficult task, and he was willing to do it if it could ease his grandmother's worries.
However, Jinho had recently been forced to watch a horror movie about Korean shamanism. The esper colleagues he worked with in the European Union had insisted, saying, “There's a super scary movie that just came out in Korea!!" and made him sit down and watch it.
Smashing Gates and mercilessly killing the bizarre monsters that came out of them was one thing, but scary things were scary things. Even for an esper who solved Gate problems, a horror movie made with the intent to scare was terrifying.
When the scene came on where the shaman actress, as if truly possessed by a spirit, rolled her eyes back and danced on straw cutter blades, Jinho trembled in fear, even as his friend next to him laughed to the point of breathlessness at his reaction.
That was why Jinho had only taken the number from his grandmother and kept postponing the call. It felt like the moment he made the call, the face of the shaman actress with her eyes rolled back would pop up on his phone screen. He kept pushing it off, and whenever his grandmother asked if he had called, he would just mumble that he was busy. And now, a suspicious text like this had arrived.
Jinho forced a smile, trying his best to forget the shaman performance of the brilliant actress.
“Register the ID and…”
When he registered the ID in the messenger app, a rainbow-colored profile picture decorated with roses of various colors, including fluorescent ones, greeted Jinho. And as soon as he added the ID, a message arrived as if it had been waiting.
[Have you ever worried and thought, is your destiny okay as it is??]
[The fact that you and I are now talking like this is!]
[A very big opportunity to change your destiny!]
[This, oh my, I'll get in big trouble if someone finds out, but I saw that your fate, Jinho, was all twisted up and I just couldn't let it be]
[So that’s why I contacted you, okay???]
[An esper who struggles for the sake of the world]
[Should live well. Yes. Of course.]
[So let’s just, you know, work something out]
Jinho let his forced smile drop, and with the most serious and grave expression he had ever made, he looked at the messages.
Honestly, the rest of it just looked like a common ad or spam message that he could dismiss lightly. But at the part that said ‘your fate has been twisted,’ Jinho felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
Feeling a sudden fighting spirit, as if he needed to grab the person sending these strange messages and shove them into a Gate, Jinho bit his lip.
[What is my fate that you, Guide-nim, have supposedly seen? Maybe it's because my Korean is not very good, but your messages feel suspicious. Have we perhaps met somewhere before? Please don't misunderstand. I just think it would be better to meet in person and talk. Are you in Korea? I'm in Norway right now, but shouldn't we meet face-to-face instead of talking like this over chat?]
[Wow, this person seems calm but is also]
[Impatient. Don't your fingers hurt??]
[Of course, I'd like to see you face-to-face too, but it's a trade secret.]
[If they find out I contacted you like this, Jinho, my grandfather who descended to me will beat me to death. I’ll have to write an apology letter!]
[So let's just talk like this over chat, okay?]
[By the way, tell me how it's suspicious.]
[If I hear that I’m suspicious and do nothing]
[It kinda hurts my feelings~~]
It was suspicious. Very suspicious that Jinho wondered if he should continue this conversation with this System Guide person.
But Jinho decided to follow the strange feeling he had. That feeling resembled the sense of duty that he had to kill the monsters that appeared from the Gates and the instinct that he had to solve the problem by destroying the Gate's core. And so, feeling a similar sense of mission, Jinho diligently typed on his phone's keyboard.
[…For some reason, I get the feeling that the place you're in right now, Guide-nim, is a Gate.]
[Oh, correct.]
[Since you got it right, I will.]
[Now reveal a true heavenly secret.]
[Ah. My mouth was so itchy, no. My fingers were so itchy, I almost went crazy.]
[To solve the Gate problem.]
[You need to meet your destined partner.]
[Go back to Korea.]
***
Until the system ‘rebooted,’ Wonwoo was busy taking care of the things he had to do one by one.
While the system was down, Wonwoo attended his lectures as usual while doing his research. He diligently managed his schedule, doing assignments in his spare time. And just like that, time flew by, and seven days had passed.
The first thing Wonwoo did was create a folder named ‘S-Class Espers’ in his phone's memo app and organize what he had researched so far. Second, Wonwoo decided to take a leave of absence from school.
The first thing Wonwoo realized while getting his affairs in order was the fact, “It's going to be impossible to meet espers while attending school.”
Of course, he couldn't ignore the world destruction, so meeting espers and providing guiding was important, but for Wonwoo, managing his grades was also an important matter that couldn't be ignored.
Just because he had become a Guide and received the momentous mission of stopping the world from ending didn't mean time would stop. It meant the lectures he had to attend would continue. Wonwoo, who had been assessing and organizing his schedule while looking at his calendar, ultimately decided to give it all up cleanly.
“Alright, let’s take a leave of absence!”
Even though he had already taken his midterms and done several group projects, Wonwoo cleanly gave up on the current semester.
“For a graduating student… every single credit, every single lecture is precious. Right. I’m not sad. Of course. It’s all for the sake of the world. Of course!”
For a moment, he thought, 'Wouldn't it be okay?' but it was truly just for a moment. Wonwoo saw the amount of homework that had piled up over the past week, from the 2nd until now, and folded that thought away neatly.
Holding back tears, Wonwoo submitted his leave of absence application on the university portal site. Immediately after, he received a summons-like text from his department assistant and headed to school with weary steps.
What greeted Wonwoo when he returned home, completely exhausted after pouring out a slew of excuses about family matters to the department assistant who asked why he was suddenly taking a leave of absence after doing everything already, was the chat from the ‘rebooted’ system.
-Bbirong bbirong!
“…Yeah, yeah. I get it, 120 hours have passed.”
Denying the feeling of gladness that rose within him, Wonwoo picked up his phone.
[‘SYSTEM' is operating normally!]
[We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the sudden error.]
[The error has been corrected and the system has successfully rebooted.]
[□■□■….]
[This body, has appeared! つ ◕▽◕)つ=]
“Yeah, yeah. Nice to see you. Really, really nice to see you. I have a lot to say to you. And a lot to ask.”
[For some reason, I can hear a teeth-grinding sound from user ‘Wonwoo’! (⊙_⊙;)]
“Nah, you must have… misheard. Grinding my teeth? Why would I be grinding my teeth?”
[…Yes! Of course!]
[For the user who waited for the system to reboot, ‘SYSTEM’ has prepared a quest! (ﾟДﾟ*)ﾉ]
[<QUEST> Generated!]
[‘It Was That Moment Back Then!’]
[How about recreating that moment on May 8th? ( •̀ ω •́ )✧]
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