By Zephyria 
“Ah.”
Secretary Yang chuckled lightly. It was a reaction like someone hearing a long-lost name after a long time.
“Did you meet Seo Ji-hoon?”
“Is the ruin of his family related to Umyung?”
“How is he doing? Is he still acting?”
“I asked what you did to Seo Ji-hoon.”
Hae-jun’s voice turned sharp. He had no room for error now. After a whole day without eating, tossed about by all sorts of bleak imaginings, and then having an emotional fight at rock bottom with Lee A-gon.
“Do you know this? Most Assistants are stubborn. Almost all the Assistants I’ve met didn’t want to become Lee A-gon’s Assistant.”
Secretary Yang again answered Hae-jun’s question with an irrelevant story. As Hae-jun was about to lose his temper and pounce, he raised both hands in a gesture to stay put. It meant he would give the answer, but to wait a moment.
“They didn’t want to be entangled with Ability Users for a long time. Especially after realizing they had to be dedicated to a single Ability User and assist only that person for life.”
Hae-jun’s face, which had been showing annoyance, became complex. Secretary Yang continued.
“Lee A-gon’s condition noticeably worsened around the age of eleven. I met him three years later, when he was fourteen. At that time, Lee A-gon… appeared to be a complete mental patient. He was hearing and seeing things that weren’t there and suffered from various paranoid delusions.”
These were symptoms experienced by most Ability Users who did not receive assistance. Hallucinations, delusions, grandiose delusions, paranoid delusions…
“His condition was deteriorating by the minute, and the presence of an Assistant was urgently needed. Lee A-gon had a dedicated team just for him, and around that time, the team formulated a hypothesis. The hypothesis was that Lee A-gon might have formed a unilateral pairing. From then on, I began to scrutinize everyone Lee A-gon had encountered in his life.”
Although Hae-jun had heard similar information from Seo Ji-hoon, Secretary Yang’s account was more precise.
“Everyone Lee A-gon met from birth until the age of ten. School friends, teachers, people running shops around the school. I investigated everyone, and in the process, I found a few Assistants. The problem was that they all refused to live the life of an Assistant. As a last resort, I had to use slightly coercive methods.”
Hae-jun frowned at his words, and Secretary Yang held up a finger and waved it left and right.
“It’s not like I committed any major acts of terror. For example, in Seo Ji-hoon’s case, his father ran a small restaurant, and the situation wasn’t very good. I just added a few touches. Manipulating the restaurant’s ratings, or raising the monthly rent for the building the restaurant was in… that was all.”
“You threatened someone’s livelihood and call it ‘just a few touches’?”
“Many things happen when you run a business. If they couldn’t overcome even that much hardship, it’s clear they would have failed eventually, even if it wasn’t me.”
Secretary Yang felt no pangs of conscience. He truly seemed to believe it.
“Seo Ji-hoon was the most promising candidate for a partner. He was with Lee A-gon for a year. But I knew. I knew it wouldn’t work with Seo Ji-hoon. So, after Seo Ji-hoon ran away on his own, I looked for another Assistant.”
“……”
“The next most promising candidate was you, Park Hae-jun.”
“Me? But I…”
“That’s right. I didn’t approach Park Hae-jun then. It was because Park Hae-jun had already been deemed not to be an Assistant. And that was just a month before I looked into you. I removed you from the candidate list for Lee A-gon’s partner Assistant.”
At fifteen, Hae-jun was abducted on his way home. Taken to a facility, he underwent an Assistant test and was deemed incapable of providing assistance.
“It’s quite strange, but the ‘Dawn’s Radiance’ team had as many as four Assistants. Usually, one in a thousand is a Guide, but there were four gathered there, which is uncommon. Seo Ji-hoon, Kim Seok-ju, Yoon Se-woong, and you, Park Hae-jun. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know Park Hae-jun was an Assistant, so by the standards then, it should be three.”
“Kim Seok-ju. Yoon Se-woong.”
Hae-jun mumbled the names. The two were the protagonists of ‘Dawn’s Radiance,’ later expelled from the entertainment industry for drunk driving and assault.
“Don’t tell me… that incident was also your doing…?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
Secretary Yang nodded crisply. Hae-jun covered his mouth with his hand.
“Don’t look at me like that. Kim Seok-ju had a habit of drunk driving, and Yoon Se-woong had a history of involvement in multiple assault cases due to his temper. Of course, it’s true that I hired reporters to follow Kim Seok-ju every time he drove drunk, and it’s true that I hired people to provoke Yoon Se-woong on purpose and then released videos of him getting hit, but still.”
“The other two protagonists also had scandals involving military corruption and drug offenses. Why did you bother with them?”
“That’s a misunderstanding. Why would I bother with people who aren’t Assistants? That was just something they did themselves.”
“I am not that idle,” Secretary Yang replied sternly.
“Time passed without finding a proper Assistant. I had Assistants operating in the shadows help Lee A-gon, but it wasn’t of much use. I had to find an Assistant who could quickly form a pair with Lee A-gon. I meticulously searched for everyone Lee A-gon had contact with before the age of ten. If I found someone with whom he had even a slightly close relationship, I would test their family as well. Still, no suitable Assistant appeared, and Lee A-gon eventually went mad.”
Mad Lee A-gon.
Hae-jun knew mad Lee A-gon well. That’s how Lee A-gon was when they reunited.
“Do you know what happens when an Ability User with immense powers doesn’t receive assistance for an excessively long time? They gradually close their hearts. They close their mouths, their ears, and finally, their eyes. They do that to themselves to prevent a Rampage.”
It was a chilling phrase. Rampage. It was an explosion caused by an Ability User losing all reason and being consumed by their power. An Ability User’s Rampage that devastates everything around them.
So far, there had been only two Rampage incidents worldwide. It is known that when an A-class Ability User went into Rampage, all life within a 1-meter radius died.
What would happen if Lee A-gon went into Rampage? Perhaps the range would be 2 Meter. It was truly terrifying.
“We call that state ‘stagnation.’ The longer the stagnation state lasts, the more effort is required to return to normal. For your information, the reason Park Hae-jun considered the resonance rate between the two of you to be poor was immediately after Lee A-gon’s stagnation state had lasted for a full two years. Honestly, I was surprised. I thought it would take six months for Lee A-gon to speak again, but you achieved it in one month.”
“……”
“When Lee A-gon fell into stagnation, I immediately had him forcibly hospitalized. Park Hae-jun, do you know how we treat Ability Users who refuse assistance? It’s through blood transfusions.”
He whispered as if sharing a secret.
“We draw blood from an Assistant with the same blood type as Lee A-gon and transfuse it. After about three months of that, Lee A-gon regains his senses. Then, the re-sensitized Lee A-gon uses his powers to escape the hospital, and I repeatedly capture him and bring him back. Then, Lee A-gon started using drugs to fall into stagnation more quickly. Eventually, I realized I could no longer forcibly hold Lee A-gon.”
Secretary Yang’s voice grew somber.
“I found everyone Lee A-gon had contact with before the age of ten. Only when there was no one left to find did I realize I had missed something. So, I pulled out the list of people I had disqualified and set aside during the first attempt from under my desk.”
He paused briefly, as if creating a dramatic moment.
“And at the very top of that list, I found Park Hae-jun’s name.”
“Ha.”
Hae-jun closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. So that’s how it happened.
He remembered being puzzled when Secretary Yang already knew the results of his Assistant test. And the interview appointment that was set up as soon as he made the call.
And then the meeting with Lee A-gon and the Assistant test, which proceeded so quickly as if they had been waiting for this very moment.
“Ah, the path to you was truly difficult and arduous. Everything had to be conducted in the utmost secrecy. We couldn’t send him to the military. If he were forcibly conscripted, Lee A-gon wouldn’t receive blood transfusions and could die right there. How much effort we put into finding you…”
“Was that also your doing?”
Hae-jun interrupted Secretary Yang. He had no interest in how much effort Secretary Yang had put in.
“What are you referring to?”
“What Professor Seok Chang-ho did to me. Was that also you, Secretary Yang?”
“That was not.”
Secretary Yang denied it, but Hae-jun glared at him with suspicion.
“Is that true?”
“As you know, Professor Seok was always that kind of person. There were many victims before you. Professor Seok chose you because Park Hae-jun’s scenario was excellent, not because of my intervention.”
His trembling hands stopped. Hae-jun felt relieved. He didn’t want to hate Lee A-gon anymore.
If it turned out that Lee A-gon was also responsible for that, he felt he would truly, truly come to despise him.
“Besides, when I found Park Hae-jun, Professor Seok’s incident had already occurred. At the time, Park Hae-jun was staging a one-man protest in front of the school, and I ordered an Ability User to make contact with Park Hae-jun by any means necessary.”
“Me, protesting alone… and you made contact?”