Joo Seunghyuk had said he had no intention of marrying anyone but me.

And there was no chance he would keep pushing ahead with a marriage behind my back. The only reason the Nemershield Necklace had been put up for auction at Aquilus in the first place was because the arranged marriage between Seonghan and Lexington had completely fallen apart.

“Whether it went through or not isn’t the point. What matters is that he tried to marry someone else without you knowing. And beyond that, your matching rate with Joo Seunghyuk makes no sense. Seven years ago it was forty-eight percent. After you entered the Esper Academy, the simulation results were about the same. And now, in the span of a year, it’s suddenly over ninety percent?”

“Matching rates change....”

Even mine with Park Geonwoo had dropped by eight percent.

“They change, sure. But I’ve never seen an S-rank’s matching rate suddenly go up by more than forty percent. That’s abnormal. And it’s not like you two are even Imprinted.”

“...We’re not Imprinted. But in the world of Espers, anything can happen. New abilities appear that never existed before, and some people jump several grades from reawakening.”

“You and Joo Seunghyuk are different. This kind of matching rate is impossible.”

Park Geonwoo kept looking frustrated, but I met his eyes without wavering.

“When I awakened, a lot of people said it was impossible. I wasn’t from a family of ability users, there wasn’t a single awakened person among my relatives, and a Beta kid like me awakening as S-rank? No way. They said the testing machine must have been broken, or that I wasn’t even my parents’ biological child.”

“That’s just them being rude.”

“When I still hadn’t awakened by the time I became an adult, they started whispering again. They said a Beta Guide had limits, so my mana being that high was suspicious, that it was strange I scored such high matching rates with Espers without awakening. Some even claimed the Center must be fabricating data to promote me.”

“Yeonsu, you’re special. You’ve shattered every piece of common sense the Esper world had. You’re an S-rank Guide from a non-ability family, you have mana beyond a Beta Guide’s supposed limits. Your guiding ability is exceptional, and you can even see the form of mana. You score high matching rates with Espers. That’s why no one doubted it when your matching rate with Joo Seunghyuk shot up abnormally. With any other Guide, maybe not — but with you, people thought it was possible. Lee Yeonsu was already special. Nothing you did would surprise them. And Joo Seunghyuk took advantage of that.”

There was certainty in Park Geonwoo’s voice.

“And since no one knew about the special Red Lotus Flame, they had no choice but to believe the matching rate results.”

“Shouldn’t they believe them? You’re the one who’s assuming that just because there’s special Red Lotus Flame at Seunghyuk’s villa, he must have drugged me.”

He let out a deep sigh at my words.

“Of course, it’s possible he didn’t. Maybe his guiding rejection subsiding temporarily boosted your matching rate, or maybe he tampered with the device to make the numbers higher.”

“Is it even possible to tamper with the device...?”

“It’s made by Seonghan. If it’s Joo Seunghyuk, he might know a way to manipulate the results.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

He had been plagued for years by rumors that Seonghan had faked his data — that he wasn’t truly S-rank, only a product of corporate manipulation.

Because Seonghan manufactured mana measurement equipment, people claimed without evidence that of course they could inflate their own child’s numbers.

When Seunghyuk began tackling Gates in earnest and proved his ability, the nonsense had died out. But the conspiracy theory that he or Chairman Joo could alter Seonghan’s test data at will still lingered.

“Don’t get worked up. I’m just talking about a remote possibility. And even if it’s unlikely, it’s still more likely than the matching rate between two S-ranks going up by over forty percent. And the Inspection Division didn’t move on mere speculation. We even brought in Jinhwan to check. We did everything we could to prevent any unjust situation.”

“So it was a trap. That thing about Jinhwan almost being stolen was just an excuse. The real goal was to check our matching rate.”

The sudden S-rank alert, Park Geonwoo showing up right on cue, the Inspection Chief waiting for us.

Everything had been a setup to arrest Joo Seunghyuk. And Park Geonwoo had been working with the Inspection Division to investigate him for a long time.

If the test was done with Seonghan’s equipment, Seunghyuk might be able to falsify it. So they’d wanted to use Jinhwan — someone no one could interfere with — to measure our matching rate. But if they’d told him the real reason, he never would have agreed, so they staged this little play.

“Seeing how you arrested Seunghyuk right away, I guess our matching rate was pretty high?”

It must have been high even with Jinhwan, not just Seonghan’s machine. That meant it wasn’t machine tampering or a temporary spike from guiding rejection recovery.

Our matching rate really had gone up by more than forty percent. And with that, the Inspection Division became certain he had used drugs, and arrested him immediately.

“Ninety-four percent. Ninety-four point seven one eight.”

“Ninety-four point seven one eight....”

That was even higher than the last time.

Just like Seunghyuk had said, our matching rate hadn’t gone down — it had gone up.

“If it’s a number created by drugs, it’s meaningless.”

His tone was cold as he went on.

“And this wasn’t a trap. It was a choice to protect you from danger.”

“To protect me?”

“Yeonsu, think calmly again. It’s not guiding rejection recovery, it’s not machine tampering, and you’re not Imprinted. How does the rate go up like that? If there weren’t any special Red Lotus Flame, maybe. But this is Joo Seunghyuk we’re talking about — the man who led the development of the new drug.”

Joo Seunghyuk had fed me drugs to artificially raise our matching rate...

“There’s no one else like you two in the whole world.”

No — there was one more. Kim Jun from the original Guide’s Swamp.

In the original, after entering the Esper Academy, Kim Jun’s simulated matching rate with Joo Seunghyuk had been decent but nothing remarkable. But in the second semester, when they ran a one-on-one test, it had skyrocketed over ninety percent.

If Seunghyuk really had used drugs, that would explain the difference. In Guide’s Swamp, he’d used them on Kim Jun; this time, he’d used them on me.

That was why every Guide who caught his eye had a dramatic spike in matching rate.

“Joo Seunghyuk gave you the drug. And when I started to suspect it, he tried to kill me by staging a car accident.”

What Park Geonwoo was saying was perfectly logical. And remembering the original only made his theory sound more plausible.

Without drugs, there was no way only the people he was obsessed with would see their matching rate shoot up.

“That’s impossible.”

My head told me he was right. But my mouth — no, my heart — said something else entirely.

“Yeonsu, it’s an unapproved, illegally developed, unverified drug. Even if it temporarily boosts the matching rate, who knows what the side effects are. It could cost you your life.”

“That makes it all the more impossible.”

Seunghyuk cared about my body obsessively.

If I so much as felt a little cold, he would make ox bone soup. If anything could harm me, he would worry and stop it. When he felt guilty for hurting me during his rut, he wouldn’t even lift a finger around me.

That kind of man giving me some untested, dangerous drug? Absolutely not.

“He would never do anything bad to me.”

“You’re still defending him, even now?”

“Yes.”

I trusted him.

Maybe the obsessive maniac from the original would have done it. But the Seunghyuk I knew never would.

“Yeonsu, you’re being fooled. That bastard is a lie from start to finish!”

Park Geonwoo finally burst out, unable to hold back his frustration.

“What do you mean by that...?”

“Even his ability might be fake. He hid and monopolized the special Red Lotus Flame. His rank and mana could have been made with ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) it.”

“That’s impossible.”

He had stopped a Gate Break by himself and taken down the boss. From the moment he first awakened, he’d shown power beyond imagination.

Chairman Joo had seen that incredible ability and called him back to Korea to use him. The Red Lotus Flame on Abite Island had bloomed after that.

So saying he got his power from the flowers was completely backwards.

“That’s not all. There’s a rumor he’s not even Chairman Joo’s real son.”

“......”

“They say the chairman’s wife had an affair, and that’s why the kid was sent abroad when he was young. Seonghan hides it, but apparently he didn’t even know Korean properly until sixth grade.”

“I’m disappointed.”

“Right? That precious youngest son image was all fake—”

“I’m disappointed in you. I didn’t think you were the kind of person to spread trash like that.”

“Yeonsu, that’s not what I—”

“I’ll be going now.”

I bowed slightly and stood.

***

Park Geonwoo had worked with the Inspection Division to investigate Joo Seunghyuk, and he already believed firmly that he had committed crimes.

No matter what I said, he would just think I was being obstinate. Talking any further was meaningless.

I left the meeting room and walked outside. When I reached into my pocket to take out my phone, my fingers touched a piece of paper.

What’s this?

I pulled it out — a neatly folded note.

When had someone put this in my pocket? I’d used my phone and put it away when I came to the Center, but there hadn’t been any paper then... Could it be Seunghyuk...?

I hurriedly unfolded the note. It was in Joo Seunghyuk’s handwriting.

A message he had left for me before he was taken away.