By Zephyria A blizzard rages.
Due to the strong winds, it is difficult to even keep my balance, and the sensation in my hands and feet vanished long ago. Every time I gasp for air, I can feel my lungs freezing bit by bit.
The path I tread is a field of thorns made of ice.
Winds that seem to hold all the coldness of the world howl fiercely. With every step, sharp frost tears my skin, and the blood flowing from the wounds turns into bright red crystals, scattering into the storm.
Nevertheless, I pushed forward desperately.
The reason I cannot stop here is that my damn Esper was right at the end of this path.
“Vasily Kairova!”
I screamed his name at the top of my lungs toward the faint silhouette visible in the distance.
An Esper who had locked himself inside a massive glacier. Once his rampage began, everything around him started turning into ice in an instant.
Even the monsters could not approach him and were frozen cold. Seeing as I, a Guide, was still safe, it was clear that some shred of Vasily’s consciousness still remained.
I gritted my teeth and struggled to take a step forward.
Vasily Sergeyevich Kairova.
A Russian S-class Esper with ice-based abilities. From the first day he was recruited to Korea, he set a monstrous record by clearing dozens of Gates opened within the country single-handedly. In a situation where people could not handle the rapidly increasing number of Gates, they hailed him as a savior, treating him like a ray of light.
But the reality was different.
Vasily was a cold-blooded man whose very emotions were frozen. Corpses were always strewn around him, and the scent of blood always lingered wherever he stayed. The ice created at his fingertips did nothing but destroy everything.
Vasily removed any obstacle that hindered him immediately. Civilians, Espers, and even association officials. By my count alone, dozens had died by his hand.
The reason I was able to keep my life while by his side was likely because I was the only Guide who could withstand Vasily’s wavelength. However, to him, I was merely a consumable. A crude consumable that would eventually break.
Perhaps that was why he dragged me into the Gates every single time. He forced weapons into my hands and made me fight monsters, and once the conquest was over, he pressured me with ruthless guiding. No matter how much I refused, fled, or resisted, the result was always my defeat.
I did not understand him, and he did not understand me. We would spend our entire lives hating each other without ever understanding. I was certain of that.
Accompanying him on today’s Gate conquest, I was as tense as ever.
The atmosphere was even chillier than usual. It was easy to guess why his mood had sunk. It was because I had notified him that I would truly quit being his Guide once this Gate was finished.
Vasily ignored those words as if he had heard something useless, but in his head, he was likely recalling the history of my previous attempts to terminate the contract. Perhaps that was why the ice attacking the monsters was exceptionally violent today.
As always, Vasily froze the Gate in an instant and finally defeated the boss located on the lowest floor. I barely managed to compose my exhausted body after fighting the monsters.
“……Guide Kwon Gi-dam.”
A voice drifted quietly from afar. It was a tone that had sunk even deeper and colder than usual.
“Are you really going to quit being my Guide?”
Instead of answering, I slowly raised my head and stared at him. Reading the answer in the silence, Vasily muttered softly.
“Right, I see.”
After saying that, Vasily fell silent. Around his motionless figure, his wavelength began to flicker unstably. By the time I realized something was wrong, his rampage had already begun.
“Ugh……”
The storm grew more violent the closer I got to Vasily.
As his rampage started, a blizzard howled as if intending to freeze the entire world. It was a relief that this was inside a Gate. If it hadn’t been a Gate severed from the real world, the entire Earth would have frozen over.
I barely reached Vasily and collapsed. Perhaps unable to withstand the intensifying cold, all sensation in my body seemed to have vanished.
But I cannot give up after coming this far. I squeezed out my last bit of strength and reached my arm forward.
Thud. Ice touched my fingertips.
‘……I wonder if guiding works even through ice. I can’t tell because I have no sensation.’
I thought as I lifted my head.
If guiding worked, Vasily might come to his senses. Clinging to that sliver of hope, I looked at Vasily, but he did not open his eyes while trapped in the ice.
“Ha…… haha……”
A hollow laugh escaped me out of despair. The ice touching my fingertips began to swallow my arm, as if refusing to let me go. My legs were already frozen, so I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t even feel the cold in my hands since the sensation had already died.
My body is freezing rapidly. The ice that started from my fingertips climbed up my arm in an instant and spread to my chest. The cold seeping deep into my lungs suffocates me. My blood vessels freeze, and my heart slows down.
My vision blurs bit by bit. My body no longer obeys me. It feels as if time itself has frozen, as if the world has stopped.
“Vasily……”
I thought amidst my fading consciousness.
If I could go back to the past, I would never become that bastard’s Guide again.
* * *
“Haaah!”
I snapped my eyes open, taking a deep breath.
As soon as I regained consciousness, the first thing I did was check my physical condition. The sensation in my frozen hands and feet was clear. The blizzard had stopped, and the cold seemed to have vanished. As I inhaled, I felt warm air filling my lungs.
It was warm. As if spring had arrived.
‘Where am I?’
Maintaining my prone position, I cautiously raised my head.
“Ah……”
I scanned my surroundings with high tension, but what entered my sight was a familiar studio apartment. A wave of emptiness and relief washed over me simultaneously, and the strength drained from my body. However, I soon felt a sense of incongruity.
When did I get out of the Gate? It should have been a situation where rescue was absolutely impossible. Furthermore, this is the studio apartment I lived in before I awakened as a Guide.
Beep beep beep.
Once my tension eased, the loud alarm ringing beside me finally reached my ears. I thought it was a warning siren, but it seemed to be a smartphone alarm.
I picked up the smartphone to clear the noise distracting my thoughts. But something was strange. The smartphone was a model I used a long time ago. And the date on the lock screen that appeared after I turned off the alarm was actually……
“It’s six years ago.”
My brow furrowed instinctively.
Only then did I realize. This is a dream. Waking up in a studio apartment I moved out of long ago, the smartphone changing to an old model, and the strange date on the screen—it was all a hallucination I was seeing as I died.
It seemed I was having this dream because of the last wish I made before losing consciousness. Is this what they call a panoramic view of one’s life? Upon this realization, the strength left my body.
“Haha……”
A dry laugh leaked out. Although I vowed that I wouldn’t become Vasily’s Guide if I returned to the past, nothing would change regardless of what I did in a dream.
I will die alongside Vasily inside the Gate. Once I die in reality, this dream will naturally come to an end, and my family will hold a funeral with an empty casket, unable to find my body.
“So I die like this in the end……”
I muttered, wiping my face with trembling hands.
Ha, my life is truly pathetic. To suffer and die after being matched with such a lunatic.
Before manifesting as a Guide, I never imagined my fate would flow like this. I was just an ordinary twenty-year-old Korean youth who had just entered university. If I had known my life would get twisted by awakening as a Guide late after becoming an adult, I would have avoided meeting Vasily by any means necessary.
“What’s the use of regretting it now.”
I am already Vasily’s dedicated Guide, and I’m currently waiting for death inside a Gate.
I knew that one day I would die because of him. Vasily was an unprecedented lunatic who took his Guide into the Gates, and I was the one-and-only Guide who actually entered them. I still couldn’t forget the horrified looks people gave me as I entered the Gates.
“But for a dream, this is too vivid……”
Lying on the bed, I glanced around the room. The laundry strewn about, the kitchen that wasn’t fully cleaned, even the worn-out pajamas I was wearing.
“…….”
This is really strange.
I bolted upright.
No matter if it’s a dream, can it be this vivid? The things I used to use were placed exactly where they should be throughout the room, and my senses were strangely sharp. When I pinched my cheek, I felt a stinging pain.
Could it be…… did I really return to the past?
Gates that began opening all over the world one day. Espers who awakened special abilities and Guides who prevent their rampage. Since there were plenty of unscientific phenomena that could not be explained by modern technology, the possibility wasn’t entirely zero.
I racked my brain with a serious expression. No matter how messed up the world was, there had been no reports of anyone undergoing regression. I could be certain of that because I had overheard all sorts of secrets while traveling with Vasily for a long time. But what if I am the first regressor?
And I had a singularity that others didn’t.
I am the first Guide to have died inside a Gate.