The Espers Who Regretted Losing Me Chapter 1

If there really is a god in this world, I want to ask them sincerely. Out of all the people out there, why did you make me a guide?

And there’s one more thing I want to ask. Out of all the espers, why did you have to stick me with these guys?

“Hyeya noona, how do you have such terrible learning ability? Were you a birdbrain in your past life or something? Well, both are small and insignificant, so I guess they’re similar.”

“I—I didn’t do it on purpose……”

“Our Yoon Hyeya always says the same things. ‘I didn’t mean to,’ ‘It was a mistake,’ ‘I was thinking about something else for a moment’…… You must have felt really safe next to us to be so bold as to get distracted inside a gate. But isn’t that the kind of thing criminals say?”

“…….”

“They say there’s no grave without an excuse, but I hope you remember that today’s clearing time got longer because of Guide Yoon Hyeya. It’ll be a problem if this keeps happening.”

As Lee Shin-ra, Yeon Do-gyeong, and Cha Eun-hwi spoke one after another, my chest felt tight and heavy.

Seriously…… was being a little late grabbing someone’s hand really something worth getting scolded for an entire hour?

I desperately wanted to answer, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry! It’s all my fault! I’m a worthless birdbrain with no learning ability who sounds like a future criminal every time I open my mouth and makes nothing but excuses!’ —but I had to hold it in.

As long as I was a guide and these guys were espers, there was an absolute power imbalance between us. A clear superior–inferior relationship.

‘Of course, I’m the “inferior” one…….’

I forced on the most gloomy expression I could manage and apologized again in a deflated voice.

“I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful next time.”

No matter what excuse I made here, they’d treat me like I’d committed some unforgivable crime.

I have no human rights, and they have no humanity.

Still, if I just apologized without arguing like this—acting like the absolute weakling I was—the harassment would end there.

“……As long as you know that. If you do it again, I’ll handcuff myself to you, Hyeya noona, and we’ll walk around like that.”

As expected, it was Lee Shin-ra—the one who’d been the nastiest—who snapped back curtly.

I thought it was finally over, but I froze at the word handcuffs.

Maybe Shin-ra took my expression as ‘There’s no way you’d go that far, right?’, because he kept going.

“I really would. Do you know what happens if we’re handcuffed together all day? We’d have to eat together, and even sleep together.”

Ah, just imagining it is horrifying, so please don’t even say it!

I felt all the blood drain from my body.

I nodded quickly and swallowed a sigh without making a sound.

Honestly, if I’d shown a submissive, crushed attitude from the start, it would’ve ended right away.

I’d been with Yeon Do-gyeong and Lee Shin-ra for eight years now, since I was thirteen, and with Cha Eun-hwi for about a year in the same unit.

Since none of us were strangers, I knew that if I clung to my words and argued, things would only get more annoying.
I also knew the easiest way to avoid their abuse.

But even if I gave up quickly, I hated acting obedient.

Especially when I hadn’t actually done anything seriously wrong.

‘I know nothing changes even if I push back, but that doesn’t mean my feelings just disappear.’

I’ve always believed that espers and guides should be equal partners.

But society absolutely did not see it that way.

A guide is useless without an esper, but an esper can still fight without a guide.

That difference became a massive wall, creating discrimination between guides and espers.

The kind of discrimination where, even if espers treat guides like expendable tools and look down on them, no one finds it strange.

And it wasn’t a concept that formed overnight.

‘This is all because of the first generation.’

The early espers—the ones called the first generation—used to say this:

Guides are gifts sent down by God for us.

I don’t know what kind of feelings those first-generation espers had when they said that.

But that definition became firmly established in public perception, leading to the idea that espers could do anything they wanted to guides.

Of course, I know how hard espers struggle and suffer.

I know—but that doesn’t make it right to ignore guides, who are supposed to be their partners, and treat them like tools.

‘……If they were the kind of people who’d listen no matter how many times you told them, things wouldn’t have gotten this bad in the first place.’

That’s why, at a basic level, I really, really hated espers as a group.

Was it because they awakened at a young age and were worshipped by everyone around them? Because of their natural personalities? Because their education was flawed?

……Anyway, they all had serious personality problems.

From what I’d seen, it felt like all of those reasons applied.

In any case, the guys standing right in front of me were no exception.

‘I just want to go home already…….’

I’m exhausted. Completely exhausted.

As I rolled my eyes around, thinking about how badly I wanted to hurry home and rest, I vaguely saw another unit in the distance that seemed to have just finished clearing a different gate.

When someone awakens as an esper, their five senses develop beyond normal limits. Guides don’t get that.

Our physical abilities are exactly the same as ordinary people.

So I couldn’t hear their voices, but I could clearly see the leash fastened around the guide’s neck as they followed behind.

My stomach went cold in an instant.

That was one of the vile things espers sometimes did to guides.

They called it “just a joke” among themselves, but how could putting a leash on a person ever be a joke?

Worse still, parading around like that was basically a crime in my eyes.

But headquarters only gave verbal warnings about that disgusting behavior—they never strictly regulated it.

The reason was simple. The usual victims of those “mischievous jokes” were low-ranked C-rank and D-rank guides.

Espers and guides.

Together, we’re called “awakeners,” and once our abilities manifest, we’re registered with the ESP Association and raised at headquarters.

In truth, the reason many espers have such terrible personalities might be because they grew up with every aspect of their lives controlled.

In places beyond the Association’s watchful eye, they created their own rules, like innocent-looking tyrants.

From their point of view, guides—who “exist for them”—were easy targets.

Of course, if an esper commits direct physical violence against a guide, they’re punished severely.

Because of the overwhelming difference in physical ability, an esper harming a guide—who’s basically no different from an ordinary person—is even more serious than an athlete beating up a normal civilian.

‘But violence isn’t just about hitting someone.’

Mockery, contempt, verbal abuse, flicking someone’s head or tapping their cheek “without hurting them,” and dragging them around while treating them as less than human—those are all forms of violence too.

What’s ironic is that the espers who usually engage in that kind of vile behavior tend to be lower-tier B-ranks and C-ranks.

A-ranks weren’t much better personality-wise, but since they were more exposed to the public and received more attention from headquarters, they were relatively more restrained.

The less-noticed B- and C-ranks vented their inferiority toward A-ranks on guides instead.

Even so, those guys were treated like heroes by ordinary people and valued as important assets by headquarters.

No guide wants to stay at headquarters after enduring endless humiliation.

In fact, when C-rank or D-rank guides expressed their intention to quit, headquarters would take minimal measures and then let them go.

But most of them endured it in silence.

They had no choice.

The moment you leave the Association, your qualifications as a guide are completely revoked.

And we grow up confined in the ESP Association headquarters from childhood, receiving only the bare minimum education needed to function as guides.