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A call came in from Director Shin starting from the morning. Since we are close and contact each other often, I picked up thinking it was nothing much, but the words I heard were unexpected.

“Pardon? Who is doing what?”

—The Medical Bureau filed a report claiming that you’ve brought personal feelings into the treatment, making objective care impossible. They’re saying Esper Kang Juha is excessively dependent on you, and they asked if you used your supernatural power to manipulate him into being obedient. I staked my position as Director and told them absolutely not, but…

As his voice trailed off, I could feel that even Director Shin couldn’t completely rule out the possibility of “what if.”

So, I spoke even more firmly on purpose.

“Sigh… Nothing like that has ever happened.”

—Yeah, of course it hasn’t. But Team Leader Seong… it’s true that you have no prior personal acquaintance with Esper Kang Juha, right?

“Yes. This was the first time I’ve seen him. Oh, we were at the same Center event before, but we never exchanged words.”

—Okay. That’s enough. And before you took this job, Esper Kang Juha never separately reached out to you or acted like he knew you?

“Pardon? Yes. Of course… in the first place, would someone like him even know me?”

He would certainly know about the existence of the National Security Bureau and the Information Team, but I didn’t expect him to know about a mere nobody like a team leader.

Juyoung said, “Eh? Wouldn’t he obviously know?” but there was no reason for Kang Juha to bother knowing someone like me. He’s likely a man busy enough with his own affairs as it is.

—Hmm. I see. Understood. I’ll shield you somehow, but since a report came in from the Medical Bureau, a verification is required…

The mention of “verification” meant they intended to monitor inside my head.

“I’ll do it. I already promised to do it once a month anyway.”

I had a clear conscience, so I had nothing to hide.

“You’ll be the one doing it, right, Director?”

—Yes. But this time, they’re attaching an observer as well. Since this case involves matters outside our National Security Bureau, there’s a lot of chatter coming from all over.

“When they needed help, they were all over me, but now… honestly…”

—My thoughts exactly. I barely held back from telling them to shove it because it felt so dirty. If we let the Medical Bureau snatch Kang Juha away now, wouldn’t it be like setting the whole table only to give the meal to the dog? I absolutely won’t let them take him.

I just laughed silently.

—Anyway, I’ll set the schedule and toss it to Mr. Juyoung. Just come accordingly. And… there’s one more proposal from the Medical Bureau. They want to divide the treatment labor. They said they’ve adjusted the schedule based on Kang Juha’s physical condition and will send you a consultation request form.

“Oh, really?”

—It’s obvious they’re pulling tricks to seize the initiative somehow… Just be aware of it for now. If you want to refuse, give me a call first. I’ll bite their heads off to stop it if I have to.

If it’s Director Shin, he is more than capable of doing exactly that. It certainly wasn’t an empty threat. I suppressed a looming laugh and shook my head.

“No, it’s fine. I have a lot of backlogged work anyway. Since it’s come to this, I’ll just pay less attention to that side of things.”

—Right, right. That’s good then. You’ve been so busy lately that we haven’t even been able to chat, so I was feeling a bit hurt?

“I know. I should hurry up and finish everything off.”

—Yeah, keep up the good work.

“You too, Director.”

The call ended, but a sense of unpleasantness surged back up inside me.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t expected them to act this way. It was just so petty that it left me speechless.

To anyone watching, they were the ones acting out of line, but the most garbage part of it was that under Center law, it would be chalked up as my fault rather than theirs.

If I were my usual self, I would have hated even dealing with them and just tossed everything over like peeling gum off the sole of a shoe. Strangely, though, I didn’t want to back down this time.

I had already left the Medical Bureau on my own to avoid them, so why should I have to be the one to avoid them again this time?

Avoiding something because it’s dirty only works once or twice; when they’re openly picking a fight, backing down now would clearly end with me looking like a fool.

Furthermore, I am part of the National Security Bureau. If I dodged it like that, it would make our side look pathetic.

I’d become a moron who had his achievements stolen by the Medical Bureau in an instant. As it is, we’re ignored and called salary thieves or credit thieves just because we’re office-bound staff…

Director Shin would obviously say that such things are useless and that we only need to do our jobs well regardless of the noise outside, but still.

Knock, knock.

With the sound of a knock, Juyoung opened the office door and poked his face in.

“I can come in, right?”

“Since when did you ever wait for permission?”

“Yes, I’m coming in.”

Even before Juyoung reached me, I held out my hand, waiting for the documents he was about to hand over.

“I guess you already know what you’re receiving? Seeing as you aren’t asking what it is.”

“I heard from Director Shin.”

“Ah. But when you look at it, it’ll be a bit different from what you expected.”

What does that mean? A bit different from what I expected? Isn’t it the consultation form for adjusting Kang Juha’s treatment schedule?

“…Oh.”

“Right?”

“You’re right. It is different from what I expected.”

It was even more infuriating than I thought.

In the treatment schedule proposed by the Medical Bureau, the number of days assigned to me was a mere 4 days. 4 days out of 31.

“What do they think they’re doing?”

“They’re picking a fight. Should we… pick one back?”

“Sigh… Just set the verification schedule first.”

I felt like I would only have a voice once my innocence was proven there. Since the Medical Bureau is currently suspicious of me, it was hard to expect a good outcome no matter what I did.

“Yes, sir. I’ll set it for within this week.”

This week… looking at the calendar, I already had no schedule for this week. Since yesterday’s visit counted as my day. To enter the Special Treatment Room again, I had to wait a full 7 more days, including the weekend.

“Juyoung-ah.”

“Yes.”

“Do I really have to live while being treated like this?”

As I spoke with a sigh, Juyoung suddenly pulled sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on.

“Shall I go and flip everything over, hyung-nim?”

“Who’s your hyung-nim?”

It was so funny seeing him speak with such a dead-serious, low voice that I could only let out a hollow laugh.

“Just give the word, hyung-nim.”

“And if I do, what are you going to do?”

“…I haven’t thought that far yet.”

“Take off the sunglasses.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Since it’s turned out like this, I might as well do all the backlogged work until my innocence is proven.”

“Oh, you want to do that? I’ve actually just been waiting for that timing. Just a moment.”

Seeing the back of Juyoung as he left the office with a wide grin, a sense of dread washed over me.

What is it? Why is he so excited? Nothing good ever happens when he’s excited.

And sure enough, exactly as I expected.

“These are documents that need to be processed immediately. These are reports submitted by the few remaining team members. And this is a department transfer request submitted by one of those few remaining team members.”

“…Why has the staff been cut in half in just one month?”

“Well. I wonder why?”

Juyoung was wearing a smiling face, but for some reason, his twinkling eyes felt like they were pointing clearly at me.

“I want to resign…”

“You know you can’t.”

“…”

༘⋆

I thought life had been a bit leisurely lately for some reason, but it turns out work had been accumulating steadily like credit card points. It wasn’t even a matter of being tricked; it felt like I was in the position of doing overdue summer vacation homework.

After spending several days straight buried under a pile of documents, a sense of disillusionment and anger toward everything surged up anew. I had to fight the real-time impulse to smash the office window and jump out.

I ended up eating all the chocolates I had prepared for Kang Juha due to stress-induced binge eating. A mountain of trash piled up on the table, which Juyoung cleared away in horror upon discovering it later. During that time, I stayed half-sprawled in my chair as if I had become one with it, staring blankly at the monitor.

“I think I’m going to die of overwork…”

“Espers don’t die that easily. Especially not S-Class ones.”

“Exactly. I don’t even know why I’m an S-Class. Look at Kang Juha. Does it make sense that Kang Juha and I are the same rank?”

“Oh, now that you put it that way, you certainly are different.”

“Maybe I should retake my rank exam. If I drop to A-rank, can’t I go outside and even get a job overseas? Wow, I really feel like I need to do it again.”

Suddenly, new hope surged within me.

Yes, I’ll ditch this garbage South Korean Center and flee abroad!

“Where did I put my passport?”

“It expired last year, and you said you wouldn’t renew it since you had no reason to go out, so I left it alone.”

“Ah. Then I’ll have to get a new passport first.”

“But even if you retake the exam, Team Leader, you’ll probably still get an S-rank. You already had your regular check-up last year.”

That’s right. Last year, too, I received a result clearly marked as S-Class.

“But you never know, right?”

“I don’t think so. And according to a rumor that went around once, Esper Kang Juha originally showed energy waves far superior to the S-rank standard, but because there’s no rank higher than that, he was just labeled as S-rank.”

“…Isn’t he a monster?”

“Well, in terms of energy waves, you’re at the ceiling too, Team Leader. They say you’re the best among all mental-type Espers in history.”

“I might be at the ceiling, but I didn’t break through it.”

No wonder entering Kang Juha’s mind was so incredibly difficult. It was just that the human named Kang Juha himself was impossibly strong.

Wow, so if Kang Juha had truly set his mind to rampaging, I could have been shattered into pieces right then and there. I better not mess with him…