Chapter 3 – GOY 3
Lee Yeon-soo.
He had been a topic of conversation since he was young.
He was an S-Class Guide, one of fewer than ten in all of South Korea. He wasn’t just high-ranking; he displayed exceptional skill in various areas, including his “emotion ability” to see and analyze the form of mana, his guiding skills, and outstanding academic performance.
Furthermore, due to his doll-like beautiful face and clear, elegant aura, he monopolized the attention of not only Espers but the general public as well.
However, no matter how outstanding his appearance or abilities were, he would not have enjoyed the same level of popularity if he had been affiliated with an organization.
When he awakened as an S-Class Guide, all sorts of conglomerates, including the Seong Han Group, offered him exclusive contracts.
But Lee Yeon-soo rejected every single offer.
In the past, the state managed all Espers and Guides.
Abroad, those who awakened as Ability Users were instantly set for life, but that wasn’t the case for Espers and Guides in South Korea.
Simply because they had awakened, they were forced into military conscription, and even if they were injured or lost their lives, the government provided nothing more than a meager compensation fee.
Rather, Espers were treated as monsters, and Guides were despised and regarded as sexual tools.
Dissatisfaction erupted among the Ability Users over this, but their claims were dismissed as the ramblings of monsters, and no one listened to them.
Then, a significant event occurred in 1981.
Three S-Class Espers simultaneously acquired Italian citizenship.
The South Korean government, having lost three S-Class stolen contentEspers unauthorized copyin an instant, protested, but Italy didn’t even blink.
Instead, Italy brought the human rights issues of South Korean Espers and Guides to global attention.
The government and the public were enraged. When it became known that the S-Class Espers who changed their nationality were receiving VIP treatment and living luxurious lives, the anger grew even further.
People condemned them as traitors who betrayed their country for money.
However, the Espers and Guides thought differently, and despite the countless criticisms, the defection of Ability Users continued.
Due to this series of events, not only the Espers and Guides but even their families were placed under surveillance, leading some to choose asylum in protest.
In response, the government tightened its control over Ability Users even more.
Entering the 90s, numerous social problems arose due to the shortage of Ability Users.
Beyond the naturalization of existing awakened individuals, it became common for parents who suspected their children had awakened to secretly seek confirmation [stolen content]at unauthorized facilities and then contact foreign countries to flee the land.
The newly formed government was preoccupied with countermeasures. International criticism wasn’t the only problem.
Espers and Guides were essentially national power. Their departure alone constituted a national loss. They had to hold onto the Ability Users trying to leave for foreign countries by any means necessary.
Moreover, times had changed.
The military regime shifted to a democratic government, and foreign media entered the country. Public perception changed, and Espers and Guides were no longer seen as monsters, but as objects of envy.
Rather than criticizing the Ability Users who defected, public opinion shifted toward criticizing the government that had created such a situation.
The government strove to improve the treatment and status of Ability Users.
By the mid-1990s, the regulations for the forced conscription of Ability Users completely disappeared.
They no longer had to spend their visit our siteentire lives in the military [Read on Read BL Novels]simply because they were Ability Users.
In the 2000s, a government department dedicated solely to Ability Users was created, centers for Espers and Guides were established, and treatment issues improved rapidly.
The treatment of Ability Users became good enough to be recognized internationally; in particular, the treatment of mid-to-low ranks below C-Class was evaluated as being among the best in the world.
The problem was that the dissatisfaction of high-ranking Ability Users of A-Class or above remained.
High-ranking Ability Users abroad received astronomical sums of money. It was fair to say they were walking corporations.
However, no matter how much the government wanted to treat Ability Users well, they could not pay such enormous sums to individuals.
Ultimately, the government reached out to corporations.
Until then, South Korea had managed both Ability Users and gates through the government. But from then on, Espers or Guides were allowed to be affiliated with corporations or start their own guilds.
Of course, there were many critical views regarding the privatization of Ability User and gate management, Read on Read BL Novelsbut [visit our site]the law eventually passed on the grounds of following global trends.
Corporations competed to scout Ability Users and established guilds to conquer gates.
The astronomical price tags of high-ranking Ability Users became news articles, sparking much envy and jealousy.
More years passed.
By now, it had been a long time since private companies entered the guild business, and the astronomical fees of Ability Users were no longer a novelty.
For high-ranking Ability Users of A-Class or above, it was considered a natural course of action to sign a contract with a conglomerate as soon as they awakened.
The state-run centers weren’t even considered as an option.
The centers struggled every year to attract high-ranking Ability Users, but they could not beat conglomerates in a bidding war.
People’s views on this phenomenon were sharply divided.
The older generation criticized the youth of today for having no patriotism and only chasing money.
The younger generation largely believed that whatever one chose was a personal decision and there was no reason to be criticized.
Regardless, people tended to look with respect upon those Ability Users who gave up the money and chose the center.
In this climate, the event where Lee Yeon-soo, an S-Class Guide, rejected the offers of conglomerates became a huge topic.
Moreover, he had personally rejected the opportunity to become the exclusive guide of Joo Seung-hyuk, the youngest son of the Seong Han Group, South Korea’s top corporation.
Lee Yeon-soo was not what one would call a “gold spoon”; rather, his family circumstances were on the difficult side.
Despite that, he chose his convictions over immense wealth and a lavish life.
It was only natural that the public was enthusiastic about Lee Yeon-soo.
However, as much as he received love, envy and jealousy followed.
Park Ji-hee was also one of the people who looked upon Lee Yeon-soo with distaste.
The high-ranking officials who treated Lee Yeon-soo as if he were a sacred relic, the Espers who held him up like an S-Class treasure, and the followers and fans who praised every single minor action he took—everything surrounding him was irritating.
She didn’t like Lee Yeon-soo as a person either.
Rejecting the exclusive offers from conglomerates seemed like bluffing or arrogance, and his overly humble attitude despite having everything felt like a facade. Furthermore, his innocent appearance, as if he were completely unaware of his own popularity, came across as “fishing” or playing a character.
However, after entering the Esper Academy as a freshman and talking to Lee Yeon-soo directly, she completely discarded her prejudice against him.
Aside from his abilities and appearance, he was an ordinary young man.
He had a cautious personality, far from arrogance or bluffing, and he didn’t enjoy the pouring popularity. Rather, [visit our site]he unauthorized copyfound excessive attention burdensome and wanted to live as quietly as possible.
He was intelligent, diligent, and had excellent situational judgment, but he strangely had low self-esteem and could not view himself objectively.
He exuded an atmosphere of being haughty yet calm, making him seem unapproachable, but in other aspects, he was so excessively innocent that he was the kind of guy you couldn’t just leave alone.
Moreover, his sense of reality was lacking in strange areas, to the point where she sometimes thought he had come from another world.
Before she knew it, Park Ji-hee came to cherish Lee Yeon-soo like a younger brother. Feeling sorry for having looked down on him due to prejudice, she treated him even better.
The freshman welcome party at the Esper Academy was an event entirely managed by the student council.
Honestly, this year’s freshmen were an unprecedented poor harvest. Combining Espers and Guides, there were only three A-Class users, and the talent pool was so disastrous that even F-Ranks were admitted.
Because two S-Class individuals, Lee Yeon-soo and Joo Seung-hyuk, had entered last year, it felt even more meager by comparison.
Graduates had been notifying them of their absence, offering various excuses.
The freshman welcome party was an event funded by donations from graduates. The school provided the auditorium but did not interfere in any other way; in exchange, they provided no budget.
The student council president, sensing that this historic event—which had continued without a single break since the Esper Academy became independent from the Ministry of National Defense—was about to fail, used a trump card.
He called Lee Yeon-soo to the welcome party.
The student council president forced the reluctant boy to come by slapping a fake title on him, calling him the “representative of the current students” and such.
As soon as news broke that Lee Yeon-soo was coming, graduates suddenly changed their minds and said they would attend, and donations began pouring in.
Lee Yeon-soo was an S-Class Guide who did not yet belong anywhere. Since many companies and guilds coveted him, they were trying to make a connection by any means.
Approaching him for scouting or networking was actually the tame part.
“Yeon-soo, you have to drink the alcohol your Seonbae gives you.”
“Hey, are you ignoring us because you’re S-Class? You’re saying B-Class doesn’t even feel like a Seonbae?”
As soon as Lee Yeon-soo finished his welcome greeting and stepped down from the podium, Esper seniors swarmed around him and began forcing him to drink.
The shallow intention of trying to do something to him by getting him drunk was disgusting. Usually, they weren’t this obnoxious, but perhaps because so many people had attended this year solely to see Lee Yeon-soo, they were more blatant.
“The discipline has slipped. Lee Yeon-soo, in our time, if a Seonbae gave us a drink, we knelt and drank it.”
“How old is this Seonbae to be talking about discipline? How long has it been since the Academy became independent from the Ministry of National Defense? Senior Kim, you graduated last year.”
When Ji-hee, unable to endure it any longer, spoke up, he frowned.
“Park Ji-hee really has no tact.”
Senior Kim crumpled his face, making it very obvious that [unauthorized copy][visit our site]he had no interest in her and [unauthorized copy]that she should stop interfering.
‘I have no interest in you either! Who’s the one being tactless and obnoxious right now!’
Ji-hee felt a surge of irritation.
As the atmosphere turned cold, Lee Yeon-soo stepped forward, pushing Ji-hee behind him as if to protect her.
“I will drink.”
“Right, of course you should.”
“Yeon-soo, no. You’re already quite drunk.”
“It’s okay.”
Ji-hee tried to stop him again, but Yeon-soo smiled gently and drank the alcohol.
Far from stopping him, the seniors joined in the harassment, demanding he take their drinks as well.
Lee Yeon-soo wasn’t particularly weak to alcohol. However, due to the flood of drinks, he seemed to have reached his limit, and his slender body swayed.
Just then, as Lee Yeon-soo was about to collapse, a man caught him.
In that instant, the venue fell silent as if cold water had been thrown over it.
That man was none other than Joo Seung-hyuk.
‘What terrible luck! Of all people to collapse toward, why did he fall toward Joo Seung-hyuk!’
Ji-hee could not hide her astonishment.
During their middle school years, Lee [visit our site]Yeon-soo had rejected unauthorized copyJoo Seung-hyuk’s exclusive guide contract.
The event of an ordinary boy rejecting an exclusive guide contract with an S-Class Esper—and a third-generation chaebol at that—had become a massive topic.
It was also the first event that firmly etched the existence of Lee Yeon-soo into the consciousness of South Korea.
And as much as Lee Yeon-soo was praised for this, Joo Seung-hyuk’s pride had been deeply wounded.
Joo Seung-hyuk and Lee Yeon-soo were known by everyone to be arch-enemies.
Lee Yeon-soo was noble and confident wherever he was. He was humble, but he never let himself be intimidated.
Yet, he explicitly avoided Joo Seung-hyuk and dreaded encountering him.
Meanwhile, in academia, there had been much research on whether rank or matching rate should be prioritized when matching Espers and Guides.
Dozens of papers were poured out every year and debates continued, but there [stolen content]was no disagreement regarding matters related to the guiding of S-Class Espers.
‘In the case of an S-Class Esper, if an S-Class Guide with a matching rate of 50 percent or higher exists, rank is unconditionally prioritized.’
As the premise ‘if one exists’ suggests, ‘S-Class Guides’ were rare in themselves.
The Esper Academy had a high proportion of practical training, and it was common for Espers and Guides of the same rank to form a team.
And currently, the only S-Class Ability Users enrolled in the Esper Academy were Joo Seung-hyuk and Lee Yeon-soo.
However, the professors never put the two in the same group. They even went so far as to adjust lecture times to ensure the two did not encounter each other.
Joo Seung-hyuk was an S-Class Esper, handsome, and a chaebol. He lacked nothing, but unfortunately, he had a major flaw in his personality.
He wasn’t just good at killing monsters; he frequently injured Espers or Guides as well.
Therefore, to protect the precious S-Class Guide Lee [Read on Read BL Novels][stolen content]Yeon-soo, they did not put the two in the same group.
When two people who were such enemies that even the professors took care to separate them met in this manner, the auditorium had no choice but to fall silent.
‘Is Joo Seung-hyuk going to hit Lee Yeon-soo?’
‘What if he beats him half to death?’
‘Shouldn’t we contact a professor?’
Such thoughts flashed through people’s minds. But while no one could step forward, Ji-hee spoke up.
“Sorry…!”
She apologized on Lee Yeon-soo’s behalf and tried to pull him away.
However, before Ji-hee could even finish her sentence, Lee Yeon-soo suddenly grabbed Joo [Read on Read BL Novels]Seung-hyuk’s neck and hugged him.
“Wow, you’re really handsome.”
“…….”
‘Lee Yeon-soo, are you crazy!’
Ji-hee almost screamed out loud.
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