The Espers Who Regretted Losing Me – Chapter 31

Author: Asternkm

From the start, this was a probability so absurd it could only be called a miracle.

Over the past seventy years, approximately 380,000 gates had appeared worldwide.

On average, about fifteen rifts opened each day—but gates that reopened four times or more numbered only around thirty in all of recorded history.

That alone showed how vanishingly rare it was for the same gate to recur.

And yet—
The same gate had reappeared in the same country, after only one year.

There was no precedent.

Worse still, it was an integrated gate.

In the year following The Pale and Pallid Baromets Botanical Garden and The Reclaimed Strange Paradise, three integrated gates had appeared. All of them overseas.

One had merely combined a B-rank and a C-rank gate, causing no major issues.

But the other two—just as feared—were integrations of two A-rank gates, resulting in catastrophic damage.

Those two gates alone had claimed fifty lives.

In the past twenty years, there hadn’t been a single operation with more than five casualties.

And what made these integrated gates especially troubling was this:

More than half of the dead were guides.

Instead of targeting the espers attacking them head-on, the monsters had gone after the guides being protected at the rear.

Jung Sigeom stared once more at the report on The Reclaimed Strange Paradise.

The same thing had happened there, a year ago.

The Named Monsters inside that gate had prioritized Yoon Hyea, the guide.

When he realized this, Jung Sigeom summoned Jung Haram of Geumgang Unit One and asked about the circumstances surrounding the raid on The Pale and Pallid Baromets Botanical Garden.

“…Now that you mention it,” Haram said slowly, “I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it did feel like Baromets charged straight at Hyea.”

His testimony matched the pattern.

The high death toll among guides in A-rank integrated gates wasn’t coincidence.

The monsters inside integrated gates explicitly targeted guides first.

If Jung Sigeom had realized this immediately after the Baromets raid, the espers would have guarded Hyea far more desperately.

If they had—
She might not have died.

Since then, Jung Sigeom had been endlessly blaming himself for his careless decision to leave later integrated gates to “the espers’ on-site judgment.”

At the time, he’d thought they’d simply been lucky—that the first integrated gate had been unusually easy.

The truth was the exact opposite.

That was why he wanted to send Cha Eunhwi, Yeon Dogyeong, and Lee Shinra into the newly opened Reclaimed Strange Paradise.

Because maybe—

Just maybe—

Hyea’s body might still be there.

By regulation, it was something that should never be allowed.

Until Hyea was found, there was a real chance the three of them would refuse to leave the gate.

To awakened beings, death was both near and distant—but the living must never chase after it.

Hyea’s death wasn’t their fault.

It was his.

Jung Sigeom’s misjudgment.

If he had prioritized safety above all else, perhaps she would still be alive.

…He had replayed those meaningless hypotheticals so many times he’d lost count.

And yet, this time—

No matter the backlash—

He wanted to grant permission.

Because he, too, was someone trapped in regret, unable to escape the past.

“……”

His head throbbed.

He remembered the cigarette he’d tried once and never again—the stench, the taste.

With a hardened expression, Jung Sigeom made his decision.

They deserve to know.

Gathering the documents, he rose immediately.

His destination was Geumgang Unit Two’s operations room.

Officially, Geumgang Unit Two had been disbanded after Hyea’s death.

With the guide gone and the espers unable to function normally, there was no other choice.

All three suffered from severe anxiety. They couldn’t even eat on their own—staff had to force-feed them just to keep them alive.

They even rejected guidance from other guides.

At that point, simply keeping them alive had been the best headquarters could do.

Normally, once a unit was disbanded, access to its operations room was sealed.

But every morning since returning to headquarters, the three of them gathered there as if by unspoken agreement.

In the end, the space had been left open for them.

The absence of three A-rank espers was a heavy loss, but Geumgang Unit One had desperately worked to fill the gap.

The suffering of an esper without a guide defied description.

Even if they’d once fought like enemies, as Jung Sigeom had told Baek Eden long ago—

Only another esper could truly understand that pain.

The operations rooms were close to the director’s office.

Jung Sigeom greeted staff lightly as he walked a familiar path.

Reaching Geumgang Unit Two’s room, he opened the door without hesitation.

The door had no lock, no keypad—removed in case something happened.

Inside, the lights were off, the room shrouded in darkness.

Seeing the three motionless figures, Jung Sigeom sighed and stepped inside.

Eunhwi, sitting blankly at a desk, glanced up—but didn’t greet him.

Dogyeong sat on the sofa, staring into empty space with a hollow expression.

On the floor below him, Shinra hugged his knees, his face buried.

Jung Sigeom turned on the light and closed the door.

Sitting in the empty spot on the sofa, he struggled to speak—then finally forced the words out.

“At dawn today, a gate appeared in Zone A–3.”

At the mention of a gate, Dogyeong finally looked at him.

A sudden smile bloomed on his pale face.

“Okay. I think I’ve rested enough. I can work again now. Can we go right away?”

Jung Sigeom clenched his fist.

The way he spoke—despite barely being able to use his powers—sounded like he was asking to die.

Closing his eyes briefly, Jung Sigeom spoke without hesitation.

“The gate that appeared is the same one you cleared a year ago. An integrated gate—The Reclaimed Strange—”

Creaaak.

A chair scraped harshly across the floor.

Cha Eunhwi had risen, standing there with a haunted expression.

Staggering closer, he stared obsessively at the documents in Jung Sigeom’s hands.

When the files were placed on the table, Eunhwi and Dogyeong lunged to read them.

Their gazes froze on one line under Special Notes.

—June last year. Location where Guide Yoon Hyea went missing.

Their eyes shook violently.

Jung Sigeom continued.

“As you know, for the same gate to reappear in the same country after only one year is close to miraculous. And the shorter the interval, the higher the chance that something still remains inside.”

“……”

“Geumgang Unit Two has been disbanded. But if you’re willing to enter the gate, I’ll authorize a temporary unit under my authority.”

A deathly silence fell, as though no living soul remained in the room.

Jung Sigeom saw Dogyeong’s eyes waver.

Swallowing bitterness, he added—

“If you feel you can’t go, that’s fine too. We’ll assign Geumgang Unit One. And if any traces are found inside, I’ll order them to retrieve—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, old man. I—I’ll go. I can go.”

Dogyeong ground his teeth, eyes blazing.

“I’ll go too.”

Eunhwi answered in a hoarse voice.

Then, naturally, both of them looked toward Shinra.

Still curled on the floor, Shinra let out a suppressed sob.