Whether fortunately or unfortunately, Ji Gwanyeong narrowly avoided the mandatory Esper-Guide test required for teenagers and awakened as an Esper at the age of twenty-one.

Perhaps it was because of that unusually late awakening.

Ji Gwanyeong paid a harsh price, enduring an awakening fever that lasted nearly a week—far longer than the typical one or two days. Having lost both his parents in a helicopter accident, he had been living alone in a large mansion, and it was only through the care of the elderly butler who had raised him since childhood that he managed to survive that ordeal.

The day he finally opened his eyes, his body changed from what it had been before, remained a vivid memory for Ji Gwanyeong, someone who found most experiences dull.

Mistaking the overwhelming flood of information making his vision go white as brightness, he barely managed to speak:

“Sir, could you close the curtains, please?”

But the butler did not move the blackout curtains despite his words.

It was only natural.

The butler was a floor below, in the grand hall, ensuring the household staff stayed silent about their young master’s condition. He was too far away to hear him.

Yet Ji Gwanyeong could see him simply by lowering his gaze to the floor. He could hear even his soft whispers as if they were being spoken right next to his ear.

After suffering through the relentless fever, Ji Gwanyeong’s world had completely transformed.

He could see too clearly. He could hear too well.

Testing his newfound abilities, he raised a vase from a distant table with a mere wave of his hand. Then he turned it upside down. Naturally, the water inside should have poured out, but instead, Ji Gwanyeong suspended it mid-air, defying gravity itself.

Next, he split the water.

Into clusters. Smaller droplets. Molecules. Atoms.

And finally, he made the water disappear entirely. Or rather, he had broken it down into units so infinitesimally small they could no longer be seen. It still existed somewhere in the world, just beyond perception.

When the butler finally entered the room, everything was gone—except for Ji Gwanyeong, seated on his bed. Not even light remained.

For the first time in his life, the butler experienced perfect darkness.

Frozen in shock, he could not immediately grasp the situation.

Ji Gwanyeong, noticing the butler’s confusion, reassembled the light he had previously broken down. The room brightened once more, returning from a void-like state to normal.

In hindsight, it was simply the reckless use of newly awakened power without understanding his limits. Breaking matter down to such a minute scale had been incredibly draining.

Drenched in a cold sweat, Ji Gwanyeong shrugged at the wide-eyed butler staring at him.

“I think I’ve become an Esper.”

Though the butler had cared for him for a long time, Ji Gwanyeong never fully trusted him. A secret was called a secret because it could never be kept. Sharing it with others was impossible.

With a gentle smile that was more of a farewell than comfort, Ji Gwanyeong separated the middle-aged man with the clouded face—and then reassembled him.

The butler died just like that, without leaving a single trace behind.

On the day of the butler’s funeral, Ji Gwanyeong personally carried his portrait as he walked. He even shed tears.

Though the butler had quietly siphoned what little remained of his parents’ estate, steadily erasing Ji Gwanyeong’s influence while collaborating with his squabbling relatives, he was still the only one Ji Gwanyeong had ever revealed the truth to.

The Esper gave the butler, who had served him with moderate loyalty, the proper respect he deserved. It was for the sake of one of the few values the refined monster still held dear—dignity.

Afterward, completely alone, Ji Gwanyeong took a leave of absence from his university. He headed straight for the bottom, a place where he would have to willingly abandon his dignity.

The reason was simple.

“Mr. Gwanyeong, here’s your drink.”
“Yes, thank you.”

He needed the flashiest, loudest disguise.

A mask that could hide his twisted, savage nature while dispelling the suspicions of the Guides scattered across various social circles. Acting turned out to be quite a fitting career choice for that.

Ji Gwanyeong deliberately approached those his instincts identified as Guides. And when the unbearable strain from his sharpened senses overwhelmed him, he would let himself collapse into their arms.

For an Esper with hypersensitive senses, contact with a Guide was a better stabilizer than the most expensive drugs.

But he had no intention of walking into the Center voluntarily.

A monster like him knew the value of his power. He couldn’t not know. Watching the Espers who occasionally passed him by, Ji Gwanyeong scoffed. Becoming a lab rat at the Center, sharing the same label as those inferior creatures, was out of the question.

And so, without ever properly undergoing a matching test, Ji Gwanyeong continued his emergency “self-treatment”—intimate encounters with those he instinctively recognized as Guides.

It was a desperate, clumsy attempt to quench his thirst after prolonged agony.

That constant sense of deprivation only sharpened his abilities further, unintentionally refining them day by day. He could see, hear, split, reassemble, and destroy.

Like a ticking time bomb growing larger, Ji Gwanyeong became fiercer and more dangerous.

At times, when the pent-up power made his fingertips tingle, he would split water molecules just to soothe his boredom, his gaze half-lidded with lethargy.

Day by day, he was steadily becoming a monster.

And the public adored the monster among them. Ji Gwanyeong found that amusing.

Then, one day, a scar—like a tattoo—appeared on the monster.

He looked at the massive, dark red pattern etched across his entire back, starting from his right shoulder blade, and let out a dry laugh.

It was a Name.

He had never expected that someone’s name would be engraved on his body. Not even his near-perfect mind could have predicted such a thing.

And for it to be such a massive Name at that—it was nothing short of a nuisance.

As Gwanyeong lounged in the hot water, his body feeling lethargic, he used the steam on the mirror to trace the pattern. One of countless pieces of information now permanently etched in his mind.

A Name was so complexly encoded that specialized analysts were often needed to decipher it. Yet, the mind of an Esper could break down the dark red pattern on his back with laughable ease.

Choi. Taehun.

A painfully common name.

The fact that the person whose name was engraved on his back was also male didn’t sit well with him. Sharing a Name with someone of the same gender would only make him a prime target for those obsessed with the idea of fated soulmates.

Gwanyeong clicked his tongue softly.

Most people, when a Name appeared, would be desperate to find their so-called destined match. But he had no intention of poking a beehive.

In his mental database, Choi Taehun was already classified as a useless, disposable piece of data.

But that was the monster’s arrogance.

—

Choi Taehun had been on edge all day.

The burning heat that had spread from his shoulder across his back had subsided by evening, but his heart was still racing, leaving him with a strange sense of anxiety.

It got to the point where his supervisor had even scolded him:

“Taehun, you’re really distracted today, huh?”

Even on his way home, he’d been so out of it that he nearly caused an accident, earning himself a few honks and curses from other drivers.

He only snapped out of it once he arrived home, slumped on the sofa, and noticed someone prowling around him with bright, curious eyes.

His younger sister.

It wasn’t until they made eye contact that Taehun felt grounded again, managing a faint smile.

Reaching into his briefcase, he pulled out a pristine signed photo he’d carefully brought home.

“Whoa! You actually went to Ji Gwanyeong’s fan sign event?!”
“Yeah.”
“Ah! Oppa! You’re the best! Want a massage?”

Under normal circumstances, that sweet offer would have earned an instant yes.