By Zephyria 
I wiped my face. As I stood there screaming, overwhelmed by shame and self-loathing, Vasily, dressed sharply in a suit, approached me with steady strides.
Stopping before the wall of ice, Vasily asked,
“Are you leaving work?”
“Can’t you tell by looking at me?”
“That’s great. I happened to have a place I wanted to go with you.”
“I refuse.”
Vasily wasn’t the type of guy to kindly give me a ride home for nothing. He clearly had some ulterior motive.
“Are you refusing without even hearing where we’re going?”
“It’s not to my house, is it?”
“You’re smart…”
Is he picking a fight…?
I glared at Vasily with narrowed eyes.
Vasily reached out and touched the ice wall. Tap. The moment he lightly placed his hand on it, the ice bars surrounding me came crashing down. I tried to flee immediately, but he was faster in grabbing my arm. Vasily dragged me straight toward his car.
“Let me go! Ugh…”
I was forcibly shoved into the passenger seat. I resisted until the end, but Vasily simply fastened the seatbelt and slammed the door shut.
Now was my chance. I hurried to undo the seatbelt and escape, but instead of hard plastic, my hand touched cold ice. Looking down, I saw that the seatbelt buckle had been frozen solid.
Click.
Vasily returned and sat in the driver’s seat with an infuriatingly relaxed expression.
“Let’s go.”
“I refuse.”
“Unfortunately, I wasn’t asking for the Guide’s opinion.”
The car took off.
I had been kidnapped on my way home from work. Trapped in the passenger seat, I trembled my fists. I had waited and waited for this clock-out… and today was Friday, of all days.
He pretended to be well-behaved, but he’s finally showing his true colors. Gritting my teeth, I asked him,
“Can I report this to the Ministry of Employment and Labor?”
Vasily reached into the inner pocket of his suit. What is he taking out? I flinched in tension, but what emerged from his jacket was just an ordinary smartphone.
Vasily tossed the smartphone toward the passenger seat.
“Type in your account number.”
What is this? Glancing at him with suspicion, I entered my account number and handed the phone back to Vasily. After tapping the screen a few times, Vasily spoke.
“Check it.”
“Check what…”
Buzz.
Just then, the smartphone in my pocket vibrated. What on earth did he do? Frowning anxiously, I pulled out my phone to find an unexpected deposit notification.
When I clicked the notification, the banking app opened, and the transfer history was the first thing I saw. The most recent deposit was under Vasily’s name… and when I checked the amount, my eyes nearly popped out of my head.
200 million?
“I-I can’t just… because of this…”
“Is it not enough? Then I’ll send more.”
The smartphone vibrated again. Simultaneously, the same amount was deposited once more.
200 million plus 200 million… that’s 400 million in total.
“…”
In just one minute, I had earned several years’ worth of salary, and my thoughts became complicated.
With this money, I wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of medication until Vasily gets a new Guide. Not just medication. I could simply quit being a Guide, live for a few years without the suppression chip, and then start working as a Guide again once I hear that Vasily has found someone.
Ahem… well, maybe I’ll just hear where we’re going.
“So, where are we going?”
“A Gate.”
“…”
A brief silence fell.
Clack, clack. I repeatedly tried to undo the frozen seatbelt.
“I-I have no intention of entering a Gate. Let me out… I said let me out!”
“When did I ever tell the Guide to enter the Gate? I’ll be out quickly, so wait outside. Just give me a bit of guiding once I’m finished.”
“…Are you serious?”
“Would I be lying?”
“…”
I stared at him with distrustful eyes.
“You have a face that says you don’t believe me.”
“Isn’t that natural? There are so many Guide kidnapping cases these days…”
“Do you think I’d actually kidnap Guide Kwon Gi-dam-ssi?”
He was essentially telling me to know my place as a C-Class. Realizing his intent, I shut my mouth.
My pride was hurt, but I couldn’t refute him. To an S-class Esper like Vasily, a mere C-Class Guide was nothing more than a pastime. That’s why I was even more curious. After a month, his interest should have started to fade, so why was he still following me around?
I shifted my eyes around the car. I couldn’t see a navigation system guiding us to a destination. I desperately tried to recall every news report I had seen recently, but none of them mentioned Vasily going to a Gate today.
“So, which region’s Gate are we heading to?”
“Don’t worry. It’s close.”
Vasily answered only that and fell silent. I have no idea where we’re going. He didn’t seem inclined to give details, so I stopped asking.
The Seoul roads were packed during the rush hour, but the traffic eased slightly as we entered a sparsely populated area.
Before long, control lines began to appear, signaling we had reached the destination. I got out of the car and approached the spot where the Gate had opened with Vasily.
A minimum number of personnel were guarding the vicinity of the Gate. I estimated the location by recalling the place name written on the last road sign I saw. As Vasily said, it wasn’t particularly far…
The association employees, upon spotting Vasily, greeted him politely. Then, they noticed me beside him and looked at me with puzzled expressions.
“Wait here for a moment. I’ll be out in 30 minutes.”
“If you’re not out by then, can I go home first?”
“My, I suppose I shouldn’t be late then.”
Thinking it was a joke, Vasily replied with a smile. I quickly grabbed Vasily as he was about to head toward the Gate.
“Where are you going? Leave the car keys.”
“What?”
“Are you telling me to walk back?”
When I brazenly held out my palm, Vasily looked at me with a rare expression of surprise. Soon, letting out a short laugh as if amused, he pulled the car keys from his pocket.
I snorted and snatched the keys from Vasily’s hand, stuffing them into my pocket.
If he’s even one second late, I’m going home first. Of course, I intended to keep that expensive car as a trophy. Vasily wouldn’t care about losing a single car, so his foreign luxury car would become mine.
“You’ll have to come out quickly if you don’t want to walk back.”
“Feel free to take your time. It’s fine if you’re late.”
“Are you planning to go home alone? I can’t let that happen.”
Despite having his keys stolen, Vasily kept grinning, as if something was wonderful.
With a smile that never left his face, he entered the Gate alone. He really isn’t taking me in. Feeling inwardly relieved, I flopped down into a chair.
’30 minutes…’
It was an awkward amount of time—too short for a proper nap.
Wondering what to do while waiting for Vasily, I looked around listlessly.
A few Espers guarding the Gate and one association employee dispatched from the management team. It was a lean setup that told me everything I needed to know. It was likely a small Gate that had only recently appeared. It was so trivial it made me yawn.
Come to think of it, there was a time in the past when Vasily and I entered an E-Class Gate together, and I ended up dealing with all the monsters by myself. I thought he would help at least a little, but Vasily didn’t lift a finger even while I was fighting a desperate battle against the final boss.
Even so, when I finally defeated the boss, the sense of achievement… was a load of crap. The moment I stepped out of the Gate, I fainted and was rushed to the hospital. It was an experience I never wanted to repeat.
“Sigh.”
How did it end up like this? After the regression, I thought I’d never have to face Vasily’s unlucky face again.
Anyway, where should I do the guiding once Vasily finishes the conquest and returns?
Vasily didn’t particularly like receiving guiding in places where other people could see. We would definitely have to move, so the association would be best.
I should write the report and collect a nice amount of overtime pay. I found out recently that the higher the rank of the person you guide, the more allowance you get. Since Vasily is S-Class, the amount was quite decent.
The bonus and the several years’ worth of salary Vasily had deposited. As I was licking my lips thinking about my future retirement funds, I saw Vasily emerging from the Gate.
“Are you finished already?”
“Yes. It didn’t take 30 minutes, right?”
“It took 26 minutes.”
“That was close.”
Tsk, what a shame. I really intended to leave him behind.
“Where would you like to receive your guiding?”
“Hmm… how about my house?”
“I refuse.”
I quickly shut down the nonsense. Vasily’s house was the perfect place to go missing without a trace. He might be planning to imprison me so I couldn’t escape and force me to guide him.
There was a time when I tried to run away from him once and ended up trapped in his house for about half a year. I shuddered at the memory.
“That’s a shame. Then my private room. You know where it is since you’ve been there before, right?”
“Yes, well… let’s head back to the association first.”
The private room was within the expected range. I’ll finish the guiding quickly and go home to rest. Tomorrow is the weekend, so I want to hurry back and just sleep. Now that my bank account is full, it might be a good time to look into real estate.
I got back into Vasily’s car.
“You can sleep if you’re tired.”
“I’m not.”
Perhaps because I had worked five days straight and was exhausted, my eyes kept closing throughout the trip to the association. Seeing me yawn deeply, Vasily gave me permission to sleep, but I shook my head.
Falling asleep next to Vasily. To be so bold as to lack tension… it would have been unimaginable in the past, but since I hadn’t been his Guide for a long time, my guard seemed to have dropped significantly.
Eventually, when the car came to a brief stop at a red light, I quietly closed my eyes. I didn’t want to sleep while the driver was right next to me, but it was Vasily’s fault for kidnapping me without a word during the Friday rush hour.