NOVEL NEXT chapter 21
When Siwoo opened his eyes again, only a few squad members were still nearby.
He frowned slightly. The others stared back at him, pale and confused.
“H-how did this happen…?”
Even after countless Gate deployments, none of them had ever experienced anything like this. For once, the soldiers looked openly shaken. Siwoo remained calm as he surveyed their surroundings.
The landscape was completely different—and so was the air against his skin. He could feel that the danger level here was far higher than before.
He was the only S-class Esper left. Normally, even from a distance, he could faintly sense other S-classes’ energy, but now he felt nothing. Which meant they were scattered far apart.
The intention was blatant. Separate the S-classes and destroy them one by one—that was what the Gate wanted. Never before had a Gate’s hostility felt so deliberate, so conscious.
A bad feeling stirred in his gut. The moment he tensed, a foreign presence brushed against his senses. He spun toward it.
“Enemies ahead!”
The soldiers shouted, raising their weapons as a horde of monsters came rushing in.
There was no time to think. Siwoo conserved his power carefully and began fighting.
They had come in too deep to turn back now. He didn’t know how long it would take to clear an irregular Gate like this, but he needed to hold steady and prevent his readings from dropping.
Maybe once the Center realized communications were down and the situation looked wrong, they’d send reinforcements or government orders—but…
Han Raon would never come to a place like this of his own accord.
The thought made Siwoo’s chest tighten. He forced himself to stay rational.
Raon had always been obsessively careful about his own safety. After Alpha-1’s Red Gate suppression, even the government had stopped pressuring Guides into danger. Unless Raon chose to enter a Gate, no one could make him.
So there was no way he’d come here. Fighting off monsters, Siwoo crushed every trace of that creeping dread in his head.
But still, something about Raon lately had felt off. And before Siwoo could shake that unease—
“Major Yoon Siwoo! Over here—!”
“…!”
Amid the fight, he spotted another squad battling nearby. But they weren’t Alpha-1 members—they were from an external unit.
And—
“What happened? And why are there Guides here…?”
Those external Espers were fighting to protect Guides. The soldiers looked exhausted, but thanks to the Guides among them, no one was critically injured. Siwoo tore his gaze away from the unfamiliar Guides and questioned one of the Espers.
“The Gate’s color shifted drastically. The government and the Center agreed to deploy Guides as support.”
“All of them?”
“No, sir.”
The Guides who had joined Siwoo’s position were Hyun Juwon and Kim Taehyeok—Guides from parallel Alpha units. Siwoo knew their faces. The moment he saw them, his heart dropped—but when he didn’t see Raon, he felt a flicker of relief.
“…!”
Siwoo’s eyes widened.
For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
Why—why the hell would Han Raon be here?
Just yesterday, he’d been smiling during a guiding session. That image flashed through Siwoo’s mind like a knife.
“Where is Han Raon now?”
“We don’t know. But other Espers should be with them—try not to worry too much.”
The Esper’s tone was meant to reassure, remembering that Raon was Siwoo’s pair Guide. But Siwoo didn’t hear a word.
“Major?”
“Hh—hah…”
His mind filled with flashes of sick, intrusive imagery.
Raon, separated from everyone, being torn apart by monsters. Raon, trying to guide some other Esper and dying for it. Each thought worse than the last, until Siwoo could hardly breathe.
The air around him trembled. Invisible energy gathered, vibrating dangerously.
“Back away!”
The soldiers instinctively retreated.
There had been no warning signs, but the look in Siwoo’s eyes terrified them. Was he about to rampage? Just moments ago, he’d seemed completely stable. None of them knew what to do.
While they hesitated, Siwoo’s entire mind was consumed by a single thought: Find Raon.
His power responded in kind—bursting outward.
Drip, drip.
“Rain…?”
The soldiers who had backed away ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) looked up in disbelief. The falling droplets thickened, turning into sheets of rain. As they stared, Siwoo’s rain-soaked body blurred, leaving only wet footprints behind.
“Major!”
They shouted, but he was already gone.
Only the rain kept falling.
***
“You should’ve refused when they told you to come!”
“…”
“You want me to lose my mind and die here, is that it?!”
Raon could only stare as Siwoo exploded at him. He’d never seen him this angry before.
Even at the moment of his own death in the old timeline, Siwoo hadn’t lost control like this. And now—though it had been dangerous—no one had died.
Raon was too stunned to speak.
“What the hell were you thinking coming here, huh?”
“Siwoo, I—”
He’d imagined a few ways their reunion might go inside the Gate. Maybe Siwoo would be startled, maybe relieved, maybe ask for guiding right away. But this—this fury—he hadn’t pictured.
Soaked through, Siwoo looked almost feral. Maybe from overusing his ability—his normally dark eyes were now tinged a luminous blue.
Beep, beep-beep!
“…!”
A mechanical alert shrieked from Raon’s wrist device. He flinched and looked down.
It was the warning for a drop in his assigned Esper’s readings. The name flashing red across the screen—Yoon Siwoo.
Raon’s brow furrowed. It had only just reached forty percent after so much effort, and now it had plummeted below thirty? Impossible—or nearly so.
Drip. Drip.
Raon stared at the water running down both of them.
This storm—clearly Siwoo’s doing—had been how he’d found Raon. They must have been far apart; it had to be a deliberate wide-area cast. To cover that much distance, he’d had to push his ability past safe limits. Enough to wreck his readings again—to make the device scream in alarm.
Raon grabbed Siwoo’s wrist without warning. The surge of guiding energy made Siwoo’s eyes fly open.
“Look at this—your numbers are dropping again!”
“That’s—”
“And you’re telling me not to come in here?”
“….”
Siwoo had no answer. With his contamination level nosediving, he couldn’t argue. Raon took that silence as permission and flooded him with guiding energy.
Thankfully, the drop had come from overexertion, not contamination. Even simple contact guiding was enough to bring him back up. Siwoo gritted his teeth as warmth wrapped around him.
The fury clouding his head began to ebb, washed clean by Raon’s energy until his mind felt clear and still, like water. At last, his reason returned.
“…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled like that.”
“It’s fine. You had a point.”
Raon smiled faintly. Honestly, he had been startled—but there was something almost pleasant about seeing Siwoo like this. In the previous timeline, Siwoo had never gotten angry, not like this.
And anger like that was something you only showed to someone close. The thought made Raon’s pulse quicken as he continued guiding until Siwoo’s readings stabilized.
“Um… Raon, your back—your injury…”
“Oh.”
At Hamin’s trembling voice, Raon finally registered the warmth spreading down his back. Blood was seeping freely through the torn combat suit, the edges of a deep gash barely visible.
“It’s fine. A potion should be enough—”
Before he could finish, Siwoo had already pulled out a vial and poured it over the wound in one swift motion. The healing spread instantly.
Raon blinked, momentarily speechless as the pain vanished.