MEYIM| Chapter 7

Episode 7

“So, the matching rate is the number you get by combining and measuring things like how efficiently a Guide can transfer their power to an Esper.”

Completely unrelated to Yeongwon’s inner screaming, the nonstop-talking professor’s lesson continued.

“You’re at least familiar with the term ‘matching rate,’ right?”

“Yes.”

“Usually, once it goes above 50%, the Esper and Guide start feeling mentally elevated. To put it more bluntly, they feel pleasure. Esper tends to feel it much more strongly.”

Professor Yoon winked playfully behind her thick-rimmed glasses.

“When it gets close to 70% for an Esper… Oh my, it feels really good, but I can’t exactly say what it is. This isn’t adult content, so I shouldn’t get censored, hehe. Anyway, apparently they feel that kind of excitement.”

Yeongwon nodded.

“Guides, on the other hand, need to be above 75% before they get swept up in that kind of feeling.”

That was something she could have found out through an internet search too.

“But the problem starts when the matching rate drops below 50%. Both sides start feeling serious pain. And when you put it into numbers, the pain is much more severe than the pleasure.”

When Yeongwon first learned this information through the internet, she finally felt like the pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together.

The reason everyone refused to guide Kim Yeohyeon even though he was treated like a national hero.

And the reason he eventually went berserk right in the middle of Myeongdong after his vessel had been completely emptied.

The main body of the iceberg that had been hidden beneath the surface was slowly revealing itself.

“That’s why Guiding is prohibited by law when the matching rate is below 35%. The pain is basically the same as torture. Especially for the Esper.”

“And on the other hand, when the matching rate is too high, there’s a risk of addiction and dependence. So the Center isn’t particularly happy about combinations with matching rates above 70%.”

“So being higher isn’t always better.”

“Exactly. But you don’t have to worry.”

“Why?”

Professor Yoon Heeyu answered with a gentle smile.

“Because cases like this are extremely rare. In 98% of cases, there isn’t even a single partner with a matching rate of 75% or higher.”

“As for 80% or higher, there have only been 35 reported cases across the entire world. 90% or higher is zero cases. There have been Espers with multiple people showing matching rates below 10%, though.”

Kim Yeohyeon. There was no need to explain who that Esper was.

“If it got close to 90%, I suppose you could probably experience a level of peace comparable to meeting a god. But that’s just speculation. Something like that probably can’t exist in reality.”

Perfect stability. The ultimate peace rooted in paradise. Something on an entirely different level from sexual pleasure.

“Anyway, even cases with matching rates above 80% can be counted on one hand. Especially among S-rank Espers, there’s only one case. And it ended very, very badly.”

“That infamous ‘Summer of Hell.’”

It was an incident Europe was still suffering severe aftereffects from.

“Of course, there’s no need to worry too much because the absolute majority of cases are concentrated between 45% and 55%. Not especially good, not especially bad. But in the case of S-rank Espers or unselected Awakeners…”

Professor Yoon stared closely at the unselected Guide sitting in front of her.

“There are sometimes exceptional outliers. Their matching rates can be unbelievably high compared to the majority, or unbelievably low, and so on.”

Yeongwon thought over everything the professor had told her. But none of it felt particularly special because everything she had explained so far was information Yeongwon could have found through an internet search.

So she decided to ask about something more advanced, something she couldn’t find just by searching.

“Professor, by the way, what exactly is ‘reverse Guiding’?”

“Reverse Guiding is…”

Professor Yoon paused for a moment.

“Normally, Guiding is done according to the Guide’s will. But when an Esper’s power is extremely strong, the Esper may have to control the process of drawing out their own power. That’s called ‘reverse targeting.’”

“Think about it. Imagine your mind is perfectly awake, but your body moves against your will. How terrifying would that be? Imagine washing your face at the sink or getting water from a water purifier, but those ordinary actions happen against your will.”

“If an Esper’s control is poor, reverse Guiding can kill the Guide. When all of their power is used up, both Espers and Guides can die. The only difference is that a Guide’s vessel naturally refills at an unbelievably faster rate than an Esper’s, and they don’t go berserk simply because their vessel has been completely emptied at the end.”

“Just like Guiding, when the matching rate is below 35%, reverse Guiding is also prohibited by law. So unless it falls under certain special circumstances defined by law, you can be criminally punished for reverse Guiding.”

“Because it’s a crime.”

And all the puzzle pieces finally fell into place.

Why S-rank Esper Kim Yeohyeon was rejected by Guides.

His scarred appearance from the burns probably wasn’t the main reason.

Kim Yeohyeon had performed something that should have been forbidden, with the permission of the state.

Reverse Guiding.

Yeongwon fell silent for a moment before asking,

“Reverse Guiding too… if the matching rate is low, the Esper would feel pain too, right?”

“According to past research papers, the lower the matching rate… the more severe the pain the Esper experiences compared to ordinary Guiding. Extremely severe.”

“It hasn’t been studied very deeply because it’s the kind of pain that nobody seriously wants to know the reality of.”

“So I suppose there’s an ironic side to it. When the matching rate is low, the one who experiences truly unbearable pain through reverse Guiding is the Esper who gets criticized for doing it.”

There was a brief silence before the subject of the conversation changed.

Kim Yeohyeon.

Awakened around the age of ten, or perhaps even earlier.

According to the World Tree, he had the highest potential in the Korean Field when S-rank Espers were being selected.

Third in Korea’s S-rank ranking, ninth in the world.

Yet he was a balance-breaking monster whose potential was so great that once it fully bloomed, there would be no reason for him to remain at that ranking.

Among Espers, who were divided into ‘illusion-type’ and ‘physical-type,’ he belonged to the physical type, which was said to be much rarer and stronger.

But.

Even if he was a hero who had saved the country, to the Guide who had to be assigned exclusively to him, he was a devil.

Yeongwon closed her eyes and thought about Kim Yeohyeon for a long time.

She felt suffocated.

“Let’s make this clear.”

Yeongwon spoke about something that gave her no answer.

Talking to herself like this was a habit left behind from the memories of the old Sim Yeongwon communicating with something invisible.

“I don’t care about the problems of this place.”

She didn’t want to get dragged into Kim Yeohyeon’s misfortune. But if she wanted to get out of the Center, which was desperate to make an unselected Guide work for them, she needed Kim Yeohyeon.

‘The situation from the past keeps coming back to me.’

It felt like an insect was crawling up her arm. Just like that, something she couldn’t quite identify was deeply unpleasant and irritating.

“I have no intention of joining your mission.”

Even while saying that, she admitted that she couldn’t completely turn her back on it either.

Before going to sleep, Yeongwon stood by the window for a long time with the blinds pulled up. The annex building was clearly visible from there.

She reached up and touched the back of her neck, which was completely clean without a single scar. Since she had chopped off her hair on her second day at the Center, her neck felt even more exposed.

“……I’ll endure the pain with you.”

No matter what her matching rate with Kim Yeohyeon turned out to be, sharing and enduring his pain was nothing to her.

“I’m only doing it because I don’t feel good about living rent-free in a 200pyeong house. It’s not because I have some greater cause.”

The gray building that looked like an iceberg seemed especially dark.

Tomorrow.

Kim Yeohyeon would come to that building across from her.

The long-awaited day of his return.

Yeongwon checked the carefully prepared schedule and left the dormitory.

Her first appointment was a meeting with Yoryeon at around 7:15 in the morning. Normally, that was an hour when she wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed, but her determination to live the good life in the penthouse no matter what finally dragged her out of bed.

“Yeongwon! Over here!”

Yoryeon waved one arm enthusiastically in front of the side entrance of the annex. Yeongwon gave her a lazy little wave in return before slowly walking over. Yoryeon smiled even more brightly.

“Seriously, our department head has been in such a good mood these past few days that she allowed an outsider to enter the annex. We have to finish before nine, before the matching lab researchers come to work.”

“Mm…”

“Oh, Yeongwon. Here, here’s your caffeine.”

“Thank…”

“I’m the one who should be thanking you!”

Pat, pat.

Yoryeon lightly patted Yeongwon’s thick, padded jacket. At the same time, she handed Yeongwon a cup of coffee.

It was obviously hand-dripped coffee she had gone outside the headquarters to buy early in the morning. Yeongwon drank two sips of the warm coffee with somewhat mixed feelings.

‘I guess there’s no need to tell her that I had another motive…’

Yoryeon also requested security approval from the AI that managed the Center for one accompanying person.

Yeongwon followed closely behind her into the annex.

After the first day, Yeongwon and Yoryeon, who lived on the same dormitory floor, quickly became close. Once they found out they were only two years apart, they naturally started speaking casually to each other.

They also ate dinner together about every other day, and a few days ago, they even went out for beer afterward. While drunk, Yoryeon let slip a secret.

She was developing a matching-rate testing device all by herself.

‘At first, of course, I was planning to refuse when they asked me to participate in testing the device as an unselected Guide.’

But then a thought suddenly struck Yeongwon.

The matching lab where the test device was being stored was probably in the annex.

The annex.

The 93-floor underground building with the tightest security in the entire headquarters.

And above all, Kim Yeohyeon’s workplace.

So Yeongwon casually sounded her out.

She asked if Yoryeon ever directly ran into Esper Kim Yeohyeon in the annex.

“Over there.”

When they reached the fourth basement floor, Yoryeon pointed through a glass wall.

“Over there?”

“Yeah. That’s the designated parking area for Esper Kim Yeohyeon that I told you about. All 16 parking spaces in that block belong to him.”

“Oh, right. You said that.”

Yeongwon secretly hid her ulterior motives while memorizing the location.

“His office is around basement floor 60, I think? Since he’s there, I rarely run into him during work. But very, very, very rarely, when he drives himself here, I sometimes see him getting in or out of his car.”

Yeongwon decided not to focus too much on the extremely stretched-out ‘very, very, very rarely.’

For some reason, there was another piece of information Yoryeon had revealed while drunk, insisting that it was top secret.

‘Esper Kim Yeohyeon will definitely park his car in that parking lot on his first day back.’

After saying that, Yoryeon finally collapsed under the effects of the alcohol.

Beep. Beep.

Flash.

The matching lab lit up.

Yoryeon left Yeongwon standing by the door for a moment and quickly moved around the laboratory, setting up the equipment.

Watching Yoryeon work so enthusiastically on something the government hadn’t even ordered her to do made Yeongwon feel a little guilty.

‘She’s really serious about researching unselected Guides…’

‘What is this? Why is that messy hair and those sparkling eyes so cool?’

‘The world really does need hardworking people like her.’

‘But not me.’

‘I hate it.’

‘Reject it.’

Even getting rid of the sleepiness that caffeine couldn’t chase away was already more than Yeongwon could handle.

“Yeongwon, sit there.”

Thump.

“Put your arm in.”

“Here?”

“Yep, yep.”

Yeongwon looked over the mysterious gauges attached to the huge machine, unable to understand what any of them meant.

“It’ll take a few days for the results to come out.”

Bzzzt. Beep. Beep.

The machine started running.

Whirr.

The machine, which had tightly squeezed her arm like it was measuring her blood pressure, gradually loosened its grip.

“As I said, this isn’t a finished product yet. It’s still being tested, so it’ll only calculate your matching rates with the ten Espers whose data I’ve entered.”

Hearing that there were only ten Espers to compare her matching rate with made Yeongwon feel even more relieved.

With only ten people, the data couldn’t possibly be statistically meaningful.

The tests continued until 8:30.

As regular working hours drew closer, Yeongwon became slightly more anxious.

“So, we’re done with this, right?”

“Yep! But I need to organize the functions in this program a little…”

“You don’t have to see me out. I’m not a kid.”

Yeongwon pretended to generously refuse the offer to walk her out.

“I’ll take the elevator myself. We’re on basement floor four, so I only have to go up a few floors anyway.”

Yeongwon didn’t think she was lying.

She would eventually reach the first floor.

The timing would just be a little late.