Episode 4
Tears formed in Yeorye’s eyes. Seeing that, Goeun lowered her head deeply again. It wasn’t as though Yeorye was her biological grandmother, and besides, since she wasn’t Igoeun from within *Seugayeon*, she found herself at a loss as to how she should react.
Truthfully, Goeun still hadn’t adapted in the least to the situation where actual people uttered the words ‘Esper’ and ‘Guide’—terms that had only existed within the novel’s setting.
“They say your matching rate with Naeun was low too.”
Actually, a B-rank wasn’t a bad grade by any means.
Since Naeun had gone through the ‘Guide Making’ training course hosted by ‘SW Guide Management,’ which was operated by the Seongun Group, from a young age, she was a Guide with a promising future who could even rank up to S-rank.
Of course, the female protagonist buff played a part here too. After all, the author had given the female lead, Naeun, an S-rank setting.
Although there were various reasons why the matching rate was low even with Naeun, to whom she was related by blood, one of them was the difference in rank. Even before awakening, Goeun’s estimated rank had been measured high, which meant that only Guides of A-rank or higher could perform Guiding on her.
“So I wanted to bring in a Guide of a higher rank than Naeun just in case, but right now, high-rank Gates have broken out simultaneously in the southern region. Because of that, all the Guides in the company were requisitioned to go there, so there was no one I could bring.”
“Ah, yes.”
Yeorye looked at Goeun once more with a peculiar gaze.
“Goeun.”
“…Yes.”
Goeun had no other words she could say in this situation. Though about a week had passed since she possessed this body, the routes through which she could obtain information had been exceedingly insufficient.
First of all, since she had been a supporting character whose importance in the original work was minuscule to the extreme, there was no information about ‘Igoeun’ in Goeun’s memory. The only episode related to ‘Igoeun’ was when the female lead, Naeun, awakened as an S-rank.
Furthermore, the character ‘Igoeun,’ who existed solely in the hospital, had only Naeun—the original work’s female lead and her older sister—with whom she interacted. Even though it was a world with smartphones, since she had no friends, ‘Igoeun’ didn’t even have a common SNS account.
Since her waking hours were markedly few, even if she had had an account, there would have been no posts worth uploading.
It was an environment where she couldn’t gather information about ‘Igoeun’ even if she wanted to. It was a truly hopeless situation, not knowing where she could obtain information about ‘Igoeun.’
And in the midst of that, with the appearance of Yeorye—the grandmother of both Naeun and Igoeun—her response sensor had broken like a malfunctioning machine, repeating nothing but “Yes.”
“I thought my granddaughter was docile because she only stayed in the hospital, but I see now that you have quite the spirited side.”
Yeorye’s wrinkled hand warmly enveloped Goeun’s small, pale one.
“Would this old lady be unable to save even one girl like you?”
Surprised by Yeorye’s words, Goeun lifted her head.
“I’ll find your Pair Guide somehow, so don’t worry.”
“Um… Then, Grandma.”
Since she had been lying in a hospital bed for about a week, the only thing Goeun could do was think about how to survive going forward. So Goeun had drawn up several plans for the future. The ultimate goal of these plans was just one: finding ‘Igoeun’s’ Pair Guide.
She didn’t know how she had entered this novel, so she couldn’t know the way out either. In that case, she would try to survive somehow.
And so, the method she had come up with was precisely this.
“There’s something I’d like to ask of you.”
“A request? What kind of request?”
“Could you… put out a special recruitment notice for Guides by the Seongun Group?”
“A special Guide recruitment?”
Opening a large-scale Guide recruitment to find her Pair Guide from among them.
Goeun knew full well that this proposal was absurd.
First of all, in *Seugayeon*, Guides were divided into two categories. One was government-affiliated Guides, and the other was private Guides.
Most private Guides belonged to guilds, but being guild-affiliated had the major drawback of an unstable income.
Because of that, those who had manifested as Guides generally preferred government affiliation, which had a stable salary system and even provided pensions after retirement. Publicly certified Guides were mostly those who had manifested naturally, and various ranks from D to A were affiliated with it.
But what Guides in *Seugayeon* envied most was not government affiliation. It was precisely being a Guide affiliated with the ‘Seongun Group’ that was being mentioned constantly.
Furthermore, the Seongun Group’s official recruitment took place only twice a year, in November and June. Right now, both the first-half and second-half recruitments had just ended.
“Would it be… difficult?”
Goeun looked at Yeorye as carefully as possible, yet with truly desperate eyes. Yeorye seemed lost in thought at Goeun’s words and said nothing for a moment.
The Seongun Group. A major corporation in *Seugayeon* regarded by all as the undisputed best company. The Seongun Group had developed its own Guide Making system and was also the first Guide management agency.
Though the Seongun Group was a company with many businesses, ‘SW Guide Management’ was its largest core business. If one completed SW’s Guide Making class, even those with faint Guide energy waves could become at least a C-rank Guide and up to an A-rank Guide.
For this reason, the ‘SW Guide Making’ course held every year was fiercely competitive starting from the application stage.
Not to mention the treatment of Seongun-affiliated Guides. Though annual salaries were set differentially according to rank, even a B-rank earned three times the monthly wage of an ordinary office worker. Moreover, since they held power that rivaled government-affiliated Guides, the annual competition ratio for employment was enormous, at a level of one thousand to one.
Because it was such a place, a ‘special recruitment’ for Guides was inevitably truly groundbreaking.
“I don’t mean to recruit many. Just one……. Only one. My Pair Guide…….”
If Seongun put out a special recruitment notice, Guides and Guide hopefuls from across the country would all flock to it; there was no better way to find a Guide. A special recruitment that had never happened once since the company’s founding. Surely, with this method, she would be able to quickly find Goeun’s Pair Guide.
“Special recruitment……. A special recruitment, eh.”
As expected, it was impossible.
Goeun watched Yeorye’s mouth with anxious eyes.
“Why didn’t I think of that sooner?”
However, contrary to Goeun’s expectations, Yeorye’s reaction was quite positive. The eyes that had been filled with pity toward Goeun were now brimming with hope and sparkling.
* * *
‘Things seem to be going better than expected?’
Only two days had passed since Yeorye’s visit. The speed of progress was much faster than Goeun had expected.
Goeun stared at her smartphone, unable to close her gaping mouth. When the unprecedented Seongun Group special Guide recruitment notice went out, she couldn’t help but marvel at the flood of articles pouring out every hour.
[Seongun Group Opens Unprecedented First Special Recruitment…….]
[From F to S, Seongun Group Special Guide Recruitment Notice Posted…….]
[Seongun Group Searching for ‘E.go’s Pair Guide.]
[Who Is ‘E.go’ in the Seongun Group’s Special Guide Recruitment Notice?]
“How many pages of articles are there, seriously……?”
Perhaps because it was something that had never happened before, not only the press but also various internet communities and social media were in an absolute uproar.
Everyone was surprised by the Seongun Group’s first special recruitment notice, but they were paying even more attention to the part about being the ‘Esper E.go’s Pair Guide. So online, posts speculating just who ‘E.go’ could be to warrant a special recruitment notice to find a Guide flooded in all day long.
[Title: Isn’t this the first time Seongun’s had a special recruitment?(5)]
[Title: Doesn’t Seongun have a lot of S-rank Guides? What are they doing; why a special recruitment?(23)]
[Title: But who is E.go? Anyone know?(41)]
For some reason, Goeun felt a bit embarrassed. It was because ‘E.go’ was simply a name she had roughly made up by taking the first two letters of her name, ‘Igoeun’.
She had thought of it as merely the world inside a novel, but she hadn’t expected it to be so dynamic. The attention focused on Seongun’s special Guide recruitment had grown so large that it had now reached a point of being a little scary.
‘The comments are scary, so let’s not look.’
Though the titles aroused immense curiosity, Goeun resisted the temptation and turned off her smartphone screen. Since people were just as fervent about uncovering E.go’s personal information as they were about the special recruitment, she was a bit scared about that aspect too.
Goeun lay back down on the bed again, staring blankly at the ceiling, then closed her eyes.
‘If only I can find my Pair Guide through this special recruitment…….’
…What comes next?
What should I do next?
If she found her Pair Guide, she would be stabilized, so the ability rampage that was supposed to happen on Christmas would no longer occur.
“…Then do I become an Esper?”
Would she really carry out activities like using her abilities freely like characters in a novel and rushing out to handle things when Gates burst open? Weren’t there supposed to be monsters inside those Gates? Then would she have to fight monsters from now on?
Thinking about the future made her head throb. Since she didn’t normally have many occasions to use her brain, even a little deep thinking brought on a headache.
“Right now, rather than fighting, I think I need to rebuild my body from scratch…….”
Goeun stared intently at her arms stretched out straight ahead. They were too thin, far too thin. Perhaps because she had lived in the hospital since childhood, her body seemed to be completely devoid of muscle, not even a single gram.
With a body like this, her stamina was also a problem. She got breathless after walking just a little. The other day, wanting to exercise while she was at it, she had boldly decided to take the stairs to the convenience store on the hospital’s first floor, only to be carried straight back to her room.
Goeun had never been born with such a paper-wisp body in her life, so she was incredibly bewildered. How could a body be so weak that it didn’t even have the strength to open a soda bottle cap?
“Is this even a human body?”
At this rate, she might die of breathlessness before even finding her Pair Guide.
This couldn’t go on. A healthy mind resides in a healthy body. If she kept maintaining this paper-wisp body, when another episode struck later… she might flare up and burn away. As an adult, she should at least be able to open a beverage bottle cap by herself, shouldn’t she?
“I have to build up my body first.”