Chapter 24

Leaning against the window of the Guide wing, Ihyun took a sip of iced coffee.

Outside, the Supernatural Bureau’s massive, hypocritical glass palace still glittered beneath the sunlight.

Bzzzt—

His terminal vibrated softly in his palm.

The moment he checked the screen, Ihyun’s expression grew serious.

It was a message from Minji.

[Ihyun, except for those loyal to Jeong Yura, most of the people in the Guide wing have agreed to defect together. Aside from those on duty today, everyone is moving right now. The ones on duty will leave as soon as their shifts end, so the Bureau shouldn’t notice anything for now.]

A mass escape of the Guides.

A faint smile touched the corners of Ihyun’s mouth.

Minji’s next message, however, made his expression stiffen.

[And whether we should call it luck or something else, DUST somehow found out about our plans and reached out first. They offered to provide an escape route and a safehouse, so things should go much more smoothly.]

DUST had reached out first?

It made sense after a moment’s thought.

Hadn’t Juwon clicked his tongue before, saying that DUST spies were crawling all over the Bureau?

Besides, after Ho Yeonwoo’s jailbreak, the control center and security teams would be frantic trying to track him down. It wouldn’t have been difficult for DUST’s inside collaborators to exploit the opening.

Even so, Ihyun couldn’t shake his instinctive caution.

What if this was a trap set by the higher-ups—or even Baek Seungho himself—to round up every escaping Guide in one fell swoop?

Anxious, Ihyun quickly typed out a response.

[It could be government agents disguised as DUST operatives, or a sting operation by Security. Don’t move hastily. Verify thoroughly that the contact is someone you can actually trust. If they pick up your trail, it’s over on the spot, so be careful.]

An uneasy silence stretched on for several minutes.

Ihyun toyed with the condensation on his coffee cup, staring anxiously at the screen.

At last, the display flashed.

A long message from Minji appeared.

[Thank you for worrying about us. But really, you don’t need to worry. Do you know who the rebel contact who reached out to us is? It was a squad member who served under Esper Lee Seunghyeon in the past. They even knew a classified code that was used only when he was our squad leader, and Esper Lee Juwon confirmed it too. He said they’re definitely trustworthy. Thank you so, so much for pulling us out of this hell. You have to come with us too. We’ll be waiting.]

The moment he read the message with his own eyes, Ihyun’s heart sank with a heavy thud.

“…”

Minji’s words of gratitude didn’t even register.

The fingers holding his terminal trembled faintly.

A squad member from the days when Squad Leader Lee Seunghyeon had led them.

Just like Juwon, another one of his cherished subordinates was still alive.

A deep ache resonated through his chest.

Emotions he’d buried long ago came rushing back, completely beyond his control.

You survived…

The clock in the Guide wing had long since passed shift change.

One of the Guides remaining in the room muttered irritably.

“These slackers. It’s already been twenty minutes. Where the hell is everyone, and what are they doing?”

She belonged to Head Guide Jeong Yura’s faction—specifically, she was the leader of Guide Team 4, infamous for being the most coercive team in the wing.

Clack—!

The heavy door burst open, and a grim-looking Esper strode inside.

It was an A-rank Esper who had come for a scheduled Guiding session.

“What’s this? Why is no one here?”

The Esper scowled at the empty room.

Before they could grasp the situation, an ear-splitting emergency signal shrieked from the wall-mounted speaker and the watch strapped around their wrist.

Wiiiiing—!

Flustered, the Esper checked the watch screen.

Their face immediately went deathly pale.

[EMERGENCY ALERT: SECTOR U-03, LARGE-SCALE DUST AIR RAID DETECTED.]

It was a notification that Sector U-03—a key military stronghold housing the Supernatural Bureau’s core assets—was under attack.

“An air raid? Damn it! Of all places, our jurisdiction!”

Cursing, the Esper rushed out of the room.

The entire corridor shook beneath the thunder of rapidly approaching footsteps as Espers mobilized for the emergency response.

Meanwhile, Ihyun had already crossed the research institute lobby and reached the top floor.

He looked down through the glass at the crowds frantically mobilizing below.

On the device in his hand, DUST’s raid coordinates overlapped perfectly with the Bureau’s internal emergency alert.

DUST had made their move.

To allow the Guides to escape toward the border without interference, DUST had drawn the Bureau’s forces away with a full-scale diversion.

Juwon, who had slipped up beside him without making a sound, chuckled softly.

“Hyung-nim, the timing is unbelievable.”

“Indeed. We should take advantage of this opportunity and get moving too.”

Ihyun touched the gold keycard tag to the off-limits section of the top floor.

The heavy steel door slid open smoothly.

But what lay beyond wasn’t a laboratory.

It was a single dedicated elevator.

There were no floor buttons inside—only a single arrow blinking downward.

The elevator descended for a long while.

Eventually, the doors slid open, releasing a rush of cool, damp air.

“…What is all this?”

Ihyun knitted his brows.

Giant glass culture tanks lined the corridor.

Inside them, grotesquely twisted Gate monsters—Corrupts—floated submerged in bluish culture fluid.

At first glance, it looked like an ordinary monster research laboratory.

But the data sheets attached to each tank bore chilling terms such as human compatibility test and fusion rate.

A map of the current Allied Nations hung on one wall.

The instant Ihyun saw the marked countries and the list of nations beside it, he realized what they represented.

Those were the countries connected to this secret underground laboratory.

Carefully pulling open the heavy door at the end of the corridor, they finally found the server room where a duplicate might exist that Kim Seonho had mentioned.

A massive supercomputer hummed in the center of the room.

Complex data and obscure readings streamed endlessly across dozens of monitors.

“Hyung-nim, can you make heads or tails of any of this?”

“No. Not a thing. It’s outside my field. If I’d known, I would’ve held onto Yeonwoo a little longer.”

As Ihyun reached toward the keyboard, Juwon suddenly caught his wrist.

Juwon’s eyes had sharpened toward the entrance.

“Hyung-nim. Someone’s here.”

“Is it an Esper? An ability user?”

Reading the subtle vibrations in the air, Juwon shook his head.

“No. Their aura is weak. Seems like an ordinary person… They’re getting closer!”

“Hide.”

At Ihyun’s command, the two hurriedly dove into the large cabinets lining the wall.

Ihyun slipped inside easily with his slender frame.

Juwon, built like a brown bear, had to squeeze himself in with a grunt.

Moments later, steady footsteps broke the silence and drew closer.

Through the narrow gap between the cabinet doors, they could see the silhouette of someone in a white lab coat.

With practiced movements, the staff member stopped in front of the main computer and pressed the ID chip hanging from their neck against the terminal.

[APPROVED. SECURITY CLEARANCE CONFIRMED: LEVEL 4.]

With a mechanical chime, the monitors flickered to life, colorful interfaces blooming across the screens.

The staff member hurriedly began typing.

Ihyun held his breath, staring intently at the worker’s back and the title of the document appearing on the screen.

After skillfully navigating through several folders, the staff member opened a file.

The title that came into view through the cabinet gap was far more academic and dry than the rumors Seonho had mentioned.

[Gate Rank Adjustment Project: Report on the Possibility of Rank Adjustment Through Pollution Level Conversion Values]

Gate Rank Adjustment…?

To Espers, Gate ranks were absolute guidelines—practically ironclad rules.

Even a single-rank difference between a Gate and the Espers deployed to clear it could send the survival rate of those agents plummeting.

And yet, they’d artificially manipulated those ranks.

A deep furrow formed between Ihyun’s brows.

In an instant, memories of that hellish Gehena Gate five years ago surged through his entire body.

On paper, it had unquestionably been SS-rank.

Allied elites had been deployed, and with Han Taeyoon among them, the numbers suggested it should have been clearable.

Yet the crushing pressure and mana pollution inside had been impossibly high, making a mockery of its supposed SS-rank classification.

Could it… not have been SS-rank?

No.

Perhaps the Bureau had labeled it SS-rank on paper while artificially creating an environment with pollution levels far beyond what an SS-rank Gate should have produced.

An experiment designed to create specific environments, amplify pollution, break down rank boundaries, and push Espers to their absolute limits.

Those bastards know better than anyone how drastically even a single-rank difference can change the stakes of human life…

To gather core data from Espers burning out in overload as they struggled to survive, the Supernatural Bureau might have deliberately sent fifteen elite agents to their deaths.

Ihyun’s heart rate spiked.

His hands trembled faintly as he clenched them into fists, rage surging through him.

On the dark monitor, the staff member opened a command prompt and began skillfully entering a series of complex commands.

[Esper Rank Adjustment Pro — —]

[ERROR / CORRUPTED DATA]

A folder whose title failed to fully render appeared on the screen alongside the error.