"YOU SEE, Yihun-ah, if you don’t burn the body of a dead Guide, you can still harvest their hearts. Well, to be precise, we’re harvesting their Cores and not their organs."
Yihun remained indifferent. "The majority of Koreans cremate their dead, so where do you find those corpses?"
Yes, he was in a room with at least thirty dead Guides.
Each corpse had a hole in its chest.
Tsk.
"Aigoo, Yihun-ah. Do you think Korea is the only country in the world?" Charles Kang asked sarcastically. "There are many countries in the world that are at war. In those places, it’s not unusual for people to die every day— especially the orphaned children."
Tsk.
To be honest, Yihun couldn’t stand looking at the corpses of the children that Charles Kang and Yosef Lee would often bring to the Lab.
Hence, he just realized now that most of the children weren’t Koreans.
These bastards steal corpses from all over the world?
However...
"Something isn’t adding up here," Yihun said, a bit confused. "Guides don’t grown on trees. I find it hard to believe that all those children were Guides."
"You’re right— they were Civilians when we found them," Charles Kang confirmed casually. "Yihun-ah, you’ll be surprised by how easy it is to buy children— especially from poor countries. And, if you have the connections that I do, it’s easier to smuggle them in."
Scumbag.
Yihun clenched his hands tightly.
Of course, he was angry and disgusted.
But he had to hold back.
My anger won’t magically give me the power to kill this old bastard. What I need now is information. I already sent the S.O.S letter to Moon Noa. If ever he ends up coming here, I need to bait him with information that will force him to help us.
"The Cores that you harvested before... are all of them really legit?" Yihun said. And now that he was thinking about it seriously, he felt stupid. "That can’t be right..."
"Ah, you’re finally taking our business seriously," Charles Kang said, acting sarcastic again. "Yihun-ah, if only you paid attention from the start, then none of this would shock you anymore."
Well, sorry for being busy scheming your death.
"But it’s alright. I’m planning to teach you how to create Guides anyway."
"’Create’ Guides?"
"Do you know the real meaning of the ’E’ in E-Class Guide?"
"Oh, god. Please stop attaching all the English words that start with E to our class," Yihun complained, already tired of the different meanings attached to E-Class Guides. "Exclusive. Elusive. What E word is it this time?"
Charles Kang laughed as if he was amused by how fed up Yihun was with the ever-changing meaning of the letter ’E’ in the E-Class Guide. "This time, I’ll tell you the origin of your class. Your type is called E-Class Guides because of Song Heejin’s ability."
"Song Heejin is the first E-Class Guide, right? Does she have the power of an Esper? Did you get the idea of awakening Guides as Espers because of her?"
"To be honest, Song Heejin is hard to classify. Yes, her Mana reads as a Guide’s. But she can’t actually guide Espers."
"Didn’t that witch guide Ki Gayoon and the First Generation of Espers?"
"Yes, but she only did that not because guiding was the only thing she could— but because she needed Mana from Espers to activate her real ability," Charles Kang explained. "That ability allows her to create artificial Cores— and those artificial Cores could create artificial Guides if implanted in the heart of a Civilian."
Yihun gasped out loud.
He was shocked— so shocked that he couldn’t control his reaction this time.
A Guide who can create Cores that create artificial Guides?!
That was crazy...
... in a bad way!
"Engineer."
Yihun was still shaken that he didn’t understand what the old man meant with that random English word.
No, it couldn’t be ’random.’
’Engineer’ starts with E, and engineers create or build stuff, so...
Again, he gasped out loud.
"An Engineer Guide— that’s what Song Heejin is," Charles Kang said. "She can identify Guides with the same class as her, and that’s why you and the other kids that she chose are called E-Class Guides. Unfortunately, none of you have the same skills as her. That was why she had to create that monster of a child."
Fucking hell.
That was big news.
Moon Noa, you better get here soon.
"Are you waiting for your savior to come?"
Yihun didn’t react this time.
"I know that you sent an S.O.S letter to Moon Noa."
To be fair, Yihun wasn’t shocked.
It’s easy to trace the letter I sent, after all.
"But it seems like Moon Noa didn’t get the message you sent."
"What do you mean by that?"
Is that why this old man didn’t make a move even though he knew I sent an S.O.S letter to Moon Noa? Because he already knew that the S-Class Guide bastard ignored my call for help?
Fuck it.
Moon Noa is my last hope...
Where did he come from?
Why is he walking around barefoot?
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