---- Dae ----

“Guess what I saw at the Esper Guide Center!” Tessa waltzed into the workshop and dropped spools of soldering leads into a bin on Dae’s desk. Dae nodded in thanks without taking his eyes off his work. Tessa was Dae’s closest friend. She had a chaotic air about her. Her hair created a halo of tight, obsidian curls around her head. She had owlish eyes made more prominent by the round glasses she wore. She had freckles all over her face and leading down her neck. A soft nerd, Dae’s perfect platonic match. 

“I’m sure it’s something soap opera worthy,” Dae sighed with fake annoyance. Tessa leaned against Dae’s desk and glared at him. 

“If I have to hear about your ten year long unrequited love to someone you don’t know the name of, You have to listen to my gossip.” 

Dae gave one more theatrical sigh before setting his work down. He turned his focus to Tessa. She grinned eagerly.

“Thank you! Now, as I was saying, I was at the EGC and I was just finishing up with my guiding session. Side note!” 

Tessa flicked Dae on the forehead. Dae’s hand shot up to soothe the ache and gave Tessa a bewildered look, “It’s so unfair that you get access to the guild’s S-class guide and you don’t even use them! I’m always stuck with whoever they have available at the center!” 

Dae scratched at the back of his neck anxiously. Thankfully, Tessa decided to move on. 

“So at the EGC, there was this Esper. They looked young, no more than twenty years old. He was getting into this fight with another Esper in the lobby.”

“The older one had been waiting since before my appointment. I think she was higher class so I figured she had to wait for one of the higher class guides, ya know?” 

“Well this young Esper got it into his head that the older Esper was trying to make a move on his guide.” Tessa’s voice dripped with contempt, “Yeah, he was acting like one of the center’s guides was his personal property or something!” 

Dae grimaced. No matter how common it was, Espers acting like they could possess guides put a bitter taste in Dae’s mouth. It tasted like burnt food made by tiny hands on a stove too big to use without being burned. Of his mother coming back exhausted, smiling at him saying, “My Esper needed me.” 

Despite being a chronic gossip, Tessa wasn’t quick to dislike someone. She told stories like a documentarian describing a zebra being eaten by a pack of lions. But Tessa, much like Dae, couldn’t stand Espers mistreating guides.  

“It was escalating pretty bad actually. I was a little worried ‘cause I was the only other Esper in the lobby and as you know psychometry isn’t exactly built for combat. So the younger Esper is going off and flames start forming in his hands and the older Esper is just standing there watching like she's not going to do anything.” 

“The guy at the front desk was just watching like he saw this kind of thing all the time. He held up the phone and called someone. I assumed he’d called security, so I was gonna leave. But then the doors open and these two guides come out. One of them was a young lady, probably a few years younger than us.

“Now, I say this with no malicious intent,” Dae bit his lip in anticipation for what was sure to be an amusing, brutally honest assessment of the guide, “She looked like she couldn’t win a fight against an earthworm.” 

“The other guide with her must have been in his fifties or something. I didn’t see his face but his hair was white. The girl went and linked arms with the older Esper. I heard the older guide summarize the fight and both of the guides started laughing. The old guide said something to the young Esper and he got all red and embarrassed.” 

“From what I gather, the young Esper thought the older one was there to meet the white haired guide. It sounded like he came to that conclusion because the white haired guide was the only A-class at the EGC. But the A-class Esper was actually there with her exclusive guide, the younger girl. The young guide was visiting the white haired EGC guide because they were old co-workers or something.” 

“Couldn’t you have picked up on their names or something? All these descriptors are confusing.” Tessa shot Dae a withering glare and Dae shrugged unapologetically. 

“I heard the older Esper call the young guide Amy, I think. I was a little far away, ‘cause the pyro Esper scared me.” 

Dae laughed which earned him another flick. 

“We can’t all be like you Oh-mighty S-class, who basically isn’t an S-class because he refuses to use any guides except his soulmate who he’ll never find again!” When Dae deflated subtly under the weight of Tessa’s last comment she started to back pedal. Softening as she realized she’d gone too far, “Sorry, There’s still time for you to find your true love,”

Dae’s face flushed and he righted himself. He looked away from Tessa’s playful gaze. 

“Guiding isn’t romantic.” 

“And thank Beyond for that!” Tessa said with a full body shiver. For someone so interested in the love lives of others, Tessa despised the idea of romance for herself.

 Dae ran his hand across his face, trying to regain his composure. Tessa may have been his closest friend at the Titan guild, but not a day went by where she didn’t get on his nerves. Dae imagined it felt similar to having a sibling

They’d joined Titan around the same time. Both transfers from other guilds who wanted to focus on research and tech development over field work. This naturally led to them working together often. In the beginning Dae was convinced that Tessa genuinely disliked him, and he also felt that he shared that sentiment. It wasn’t until they’d been given a month-long assignment together that he realized her jokes and pestering were a display of affection.

One late night, turned early morning, Tessa was sorting messages for the workshop when she suddenly shot up giggling and pointing at Dae wordlessly. When Dae asked her what was wrong her laughter intensified. It had taken at least three minutes to get her into a state where she could voice what she found so funny. 

“Contract request from Sceptr Pharma for a Daedalus Kane- Your name is actually Deadulus? Like the wax wings guy?” The mirth in her smile and the way she spoke reminded him so much of guide 609. Which endeared her to him instantly. Since they worked in the same workshop it was easy to maintain a close relationship. 

Tessa was a lower level Esper; she was never called into dungeons. So when Dae was called to the field, all of his work fell to her. Dae expected this to annoy Tessa but she had never complained. When he finally found the courage to ask her about it she just smiled and told him that his organizational style, along with his reliance on real tools made it easy to pick up where he left off. 

Apparently other metal manipulators in the workshop left whole projects with no materials for her. Dae had gone out of his way to leave double of his anytime he went away, just in case. 

Despite their closeness, Dae had yet to fully explain why he was so fixated on guide 609. She might have reported him for guide stalking, and he wouldn’t have been able to defend himself. He had done his best to curb his obsession with 609. Told himself it was just a natural response to his first contact guiding session with an universally compatible guide. 

He’d fled to a guild before he had the chance to bump into 609 ‘naturally’ at the center. When he called them they refused to give him any information on 609 due to privacy. 

It wasn’t uncommon for Espers to become addicted to certain guide’s energies. An issue that was probably more common for a universally compatible guide like 609. It almost made him regret turning down the offered session. But each time that regret tried to take hold of him he thought of Total Drain and white streaks in the hair of a nineteen year old. 

Before Dae transferred from his old guild to Titan he returned to his hometown for a month. In one of his most shameful moments, he volunteered to help with a dungeon and intentionally overworked himself. When he awoke in the center he found a blond, female guide named Cherry in his lap. Her arms were around his shoulders and her face was buried in his neck. As soon as he gained consciousness he pushed her away. 

“Is that enough?” she said, out of breath. Dae nodded and steadied her as she slid off of the bed. She looked completely exhausted. Dae didn’t know how long it must have taken to guide him back to consciousness. 

He apologized to Cherry but she waved him off with a gentle smile, and told him she was just doing, that she was just happy to see him conscious again. 

“Actually we want to apologize to you! We just don’t have anyone in the center who can manage an Esper of your rank. I’ve actually been taking shifts with two other B-classes for the past 48 hours.”

Dae tried not to let his surprise and disappointment show, “There was this universal guide that managed my corruption levels really well when I took my tests here three years ago. Are they not available right now.” 

Cherry bit her lip in concentration. Then clapped her hands together and spoke eagerly, “The ambrosia blooded guide! He moved about a month before I joined. But people still talk about him all the time. A valuable asset, ya know. Guess it was only a matter of time before he got recruited by a private guild.” 

Dae’s face fell, “Yeah,” He looked back at Cherry and tentatively asked, “Why did you call him ‘the ambrosia blooded’ guide?” 

Cherry flinched and looked away from Dae, “Umm it’s kinda awkward but you’re an Esper so like you know how guiding works,” Dae nodded for her to continue, “So like someone found out that if you ingested his blood during a guiding session the transfer would be super effective and fast. That got a bunch of Espers biting him when they were in a bad state. Everyone said he didn’t mind as long as it helped but I find that a little hard to believe. I mean who wants to get roughed up by a rabid wolf.”

Cherry clamped a hand over her mouth, clearly anxious at using the guide slang term for Espers in front of Dae. Dae shrugged, he knew what Esper’s were like, especially at high corruption levels. Rabid wolf was fitting.

“From what I remember about that guide he might have genuinely been fine with it.” Dae let his regret and anxiety cloud his vision for a few moments until he realized how uncomfortable Cherry looked, “Speaking of that, did I do anything to you or the other guides? Any injuries? I’m more than willing to pay for any medical bills!” 

Cherry shook her head and laughed, “Honestly we were expecting that but you were so docile. You just kinda laid there and whimpered.” 

Dae’s face flushed. 

“You talked a little too. We couldn’t really tell what you were saying but it seemed like you were asking for someone. So we checked the logs to see who guided you at your test but saw you skipped guiding all together.”

“Was it someone from your guild? Your level is still pretty high so I suggest you go find that person. Sorry we can’t do more for you!” 

That was the last Dae had heard of 609. He could have pulled rank to get records from the center. Or hired a PI to find guides known for being bitten/having their blood ingested. But all of that felt like overstepping. All he ended up doing in the end was instructing the guild and his secretary to send him any calls from people claiming to have guided him during his test. 

Dae had a fairly large public presence. S-class Espers were treated with something akin to sainthood. Add to that his invention of the energy wells used to drain gates without entering them and Dae was left with a notable level of public intrigue. Each time he accepted an interview or public appearance he found himself hoping to see that guide. Hoping that their time together had impacted 609 as much as it had for him. Nothing ever came of it.

None of that stopped his resistance to guiding. He wasn’t lying when he said it didn’t feel the same. The other universally compatible guide employed by his guild left him with an itchy uncomfortable feeling. She was a B-class named Emma. She was kind and professional but in a way that made it seem like she saw all Esper’s as inept toddlers. Not that Dae could argue with that assessment. 

Emma had commented that Dae was easy to guide when it came to behavior but brutal when it came to sideffects. It didn’t matter what guide helped Dae. No matter how low his corruption level was, he never matched the performance he managed at his ranking test. 

Dae’s watch lit up, breaking him from his daze. 

Dungeon opening, all S-class in area requested