By Zephyria 
I don’t know for what reason I ended up in the body of a D-Class Guide named “Yeon Yu-jin” but…
I knew this much.
Suddenly, after 20 years, I possessed someone else’s body, and I was just a stranger with nowhere to go.
‘Jae-ha, what happened to Jae-ha…?’
My pair. My partner.
Even though the Bonding would have been severed because it was someone else’s body, I ended up looking for Jae-ha out of a sense of emptiness.
Even though I barely managed to get up with my thin and staggering body and looked out the window, nothing changed.
“……”
What could be seen below the hospital was an endlessly ordinary landscape.
Students after school, parents walking with their children’s hands in theirs, office workers running busily somewhere.
A scene I had wished for countless times in my heart, cutting off the necks, arms, and legs of monsters.
That’s why it was an even more alien sight.
“Heok….”
I couldn’t breathe properly.
I grabbed my neck and gasped for air, and a nurse who was passing by in the hallway was startled and ran to me.
“Patient! Are you okay? Patient!”
“Heok, heok….”
“There’s a patient here showing symptoms of hyperventilation….”
My consciousness became hazy again.
I don’t know why Yeon Yu-jin’s body is so weak. How can he collapse with hyperventilation just because he’s a little shocked?
With this weak body, he can’t be a Guide. He’ll just be monster food. Yeah, that’s why he’s doing something like an idol…….
‘I don’t know why he’s hated by everyone.’
If it were me, I would have quit such an idol.
When I searched, he was being trashed as a Failed Idol in some unknown idol group.
With that thought, I lost consciousness.
And Jae-ha appeared in my dream.
Jae-ha in the dream looked the same as when I died.
Wearing a combat uniform stained with blood, crying while holding onto me, he didn’t seem like the always bright and cheerful Jae-ha.
“No…. Ga-hyeon. I can’t lose you like this. There are words I haven’t said to you….”
‘What is it?’
Anyway, this is a dream. It was just my subconscious imagining what happened after death, so there was no guarantee that Jae-ha was like this.
“I wanted to tell you that I…….”
‘I can’t hear you, you punk.’
Because I protected Jae-ha and died, I would never know what he was trying to say.
‘Since 20 years have passed, he’s either become an old man or… died while raiding a Dungeon.’
Will I be able to hear from Jae-ha, the Esper who was my partner, again?
I squatted down next to Jae-ha in the dream.
Tracing the traces of the vanished Bonding.
‘What happened to Jae-ha after I died?’
The chances of him surviving are slim because the situation was so bad.
‘I wish he would be alive if possible…….’
Soothed by regret, I stared intently at Jae-ha’s face, which I had created in my subconscious.
But strangely, Jae-ha, soaked in tears, raised his head and looked at me.
‘W-what. Did he see me?’
It must be a mistake, right? I don’t have memories like this.
I sighed, thinking I was scared for nothing, but Jae-ha passed right by me and headed to someone else.
The surrounding background flickered and changed.
It wasn’t the desolate Dungeon Gate, but a room filled with bright light.
A room that looked like a laboratory at first glance. There were piles of all kinds of medical equipment there.
‘What is it?’
My corpse was in a glass tube in the middle of the room. Various types of hoses were connected to the side of the tube. Even the already dead body had various mechanical patches attached to it, making it grotesque.
‘Wasn’t I already dead and buried in the ground?’
I felt repulsed by the sight of them trying to forcibly preserve a corpse with a large hole in its chest.
That’s when it happened.
Clang-.
“…Ga-hyeon. You were here.”
Jae-ha broke the glass tube, hugged my corpse inside, and pleaded with the medical staff.
“P-please, please treat Ga-hyeon. He’s my Guide. He was seriously injured trying to protect me. If you don’t treat him soon, his life will be in danger.”
‘You idiot. I’m already dead.’
Was he very shocked?
It was a dream, but it was so vivid that my heart fluttered.
I’ve seen countless Espers and Guides who acted like they had lost their minds after losing their partners.
A man who looked like a doctor replied stiffly to Jae-ha’s words.
“He has been dead for a long time. We even gave the death announcement directly in front of Hyeon Jae-ha Esper.”
“That’s a lie!”
“An Ga-hyeon Guide died from excessive bleeding. Aren’t you a witness? The injured area was also a vital point. It’s a pity that you lost the Guide you were paired with, but Hyeon Jae-ha Esper is a capable Esper, so you can find a new Guide….”
The doctor’s words could not continue to the end.
“Ugh!”
“Shut up.”
The doctor’s arm was bent. Even though Jae-ha was still, his wrists and joints were grotesquely twisted.
It was Jae-ha’s ability, telekinesis. It was shocking that he was using the ability that used to cut through the bones and flesh of monsters without even lifting a finger on a human.
“Ga-hyeon… isn’t dead. He has to be. We promised to get out of this hell alive.”
‘This… it’s too vivid, like something that happened in reality.’
But I don’t have memories like this, and it doesn’t make sense to have them in the first place.
It doesn’t make sense that I, who became a corpse, can hear and see anything.
What is this dream?
‘By the way, it’s the first time I’ve seen Jae-ha get so angry.’
That gentle guy made such a fuss just because I died? Was I such an imaginative guy?
While I was embarrassed, Jae-ha in the dream continued to use his power.
“Bring Ga-hyeon back to life. Bring him back to life…….”
“Kkeuaak, aaaaak!”
Due to Jae-ha’s enraged telekinesis, the sound of bones twisting and breaking was heard in succession.
“S-save me! Aaaak!”
Watching Jae-ha manipulate humans so easily, as if crumpling up newspaper, the other medical staff were terrified and ran away while sending out a radio message.
“E-emergency! Emergency! The twelfth Alpha has entered a state of rampage due to the aftereffects of losing his pair Guide. Request immediate termination!”
‘…What?’
It was too nasty to be a dream.
I had heard rumors that the treatment of Espers who went on a rampage was not good.
But I didn’t know that it would be my Esper, and that a kill order would be issued.
‘Hey! Hyeon Jae-ha! Run away!’
This is a dream, it’s just a novel that my subconscious made by arbitrarily drawing on memories.
I screamed madly at Hyeon Jae-ha to run away.
Hyeon Jae-ha only looked for me like a fool and didn’t get up from his seat.
“Ga-hyeon… I’m sorry. I’ll somehow get you back….”
‘Stop talking nonsense and get up and run away, you bastard!’
“This is codename Scylla. Rampaging Esper confirmed.”
In the meantime, a huge armored vehicle rolled in. Weapons made to fight monsters also came into view.
“Twelfth Alpha, executed for killing civilians.”
Uuung-.
“Fire.”
Kwang.
A huge flame flew and swallowed Jae-ha.
Along with my corpse that Jae-ha was holding onto until the end.
“No!”
I woke up with a start in a dark hospital room with the lights off.
“…Was it a dream?”
[ What’s no good? ]
“Ugh!”
I woke up startled by a nightmare, and something strange appeared in front of me.
“…What is this?”
[ What is this, you ask? That’s rude. ]
Whether it was sulking or not, it was whining in a grumpy voice…….
‘No matter how I look at it, it’s a sprouted Potato.’
I rubbed my eyes several times, but what was on top of the round, brownish-yellow lump was definitely a sprout.
‘Am I too tired? Now I’m seeing all sorts of hallucinations. Not only am I seeing a sprouted Potato…….’
The scene that unfolded when I woke up was the same private hospital room as before I collapsed. Am I still sleepy? The sprouted Potato (?) that was stretching its cheeks like sujebi dough rushed at me.
A sprout grew on the Potato, leaves, Potato, Potato, sprout! Subtract one!
Why did this song come to my mind…….
[ Who are you calling a sprouted Potato?! ]
“Keuheok.”
The unidentified sprouted Potato (?) gave me an excellent punch. Its toothpick-like limbs had very good strength.
I grabbed the cheek that the Potato hit. It was numb and very painful.
‘It’s not a dream.’
It’s not a hallucination. It was reality.
“…Why is the fact that I’m being hit by a sprouted Potato the reality?”
[ I said I’m not a sprouted Potato! ]
Whether it resembled Nolbu’s greedy nature. Just as the Potato was about to hit the other cheek, I blocked its short fist.
“What kind of Potato is so violent?”
[ Eek! ]
It was enough to be hit by the Potato once. I was supposedly an SSS-Class Guide, so if I couldn’t even avoid this much, my face would be ridiculous.
[ Let go of this! ]
I gagged the struggling Potato and thought.
‘Do pets like this come out these days?’
In Dungeons, there were things that could be obtained other than various items such as weapons and artifacts, and that was pets.
I had heard of cases where people brought back the cubs or eggs born by magical beasts in Dungeons, tamed them as pets, and used them as summons. Legendary beings such as unicorns and Pegasus rarely appeared inside, which made people enthusiastic, but… I never thought there would be something like a sprouted Potato.
When I scanned the smooth surface here and there to see the owner identification tag, the sprouted Potato got angry and shouted.
[ I’m not a pet! ]
“If you’re not a pet, then what are you?”
Unless humanity’s genetic engineering technology has advanced like crazy in 20 years, this guy was a pet. If not, he was either a crazy magical beast that spoke human language.
The Potato, which barely escaped from my rough touch, said, panting.
[ I’m An Ga-hyeon, your ability! ]