CHAPTER 42: A BREATH SO PURE YOU’D HESITATE TO TAKE IT IN FULLY

In Weannas, one of the largest outskirt units, where there were no towering skyscrapers or bustling crowds, only green, black, and red soaking into the soil day after day, it was raining today.

As the raindrops falling onto the ground grew heavier, the entrance of two figures into Weannas’s guiding center marked the beginning of a commotion loud enough to disturb the silence of the downpour. It was after the midday dungeon mission. While some espers were being carried in on stretchers and guided and treated one by one, only S-levels could walk in on their own, unaffected, to receive guidance.

Up until that point, it might have seemed like a normal afternoon, but the moment the unit leader, who hadn’t visited the center in a long time, stepped through its doors, the day transformed for every guide and staff member into something unusual, demanding high alert and utmost care.

Maxim glanced back at the muddy tracks his boots had left behind, slightly surprised that he hadn’t needed to work hard to convince Taras to come here. And though he wanted to speak, he’d already decided not to bring it up, worried Taras might walk right back out if pushed.

Still, Maxim was never one to stay silent for long. "We lost three A-level espers yesterday," he said grimly. "From the southeastern wing." Recently, dungeon appearances in that region had surged alarmingly. "The night you didn’t come back," Maxim added, clearing his throat. And though Taras’s expression barely changed, it was enough to make Maxim hesitate before continuing. "By morning, I started to think maybe... you’d killed him."

The night Taras didn’t return, Maxim had literally chewed his nails to the quick. He hadn’t slept. Eventually, unable to bear the doubt gnawing at him, he’d even contacted the intelligence units in the middle of the night.

No news about Treasure being found dead in his room, for instance.

But when Taras returned at dawn, wearing his usual unreadable expression, only then had Maxim been able to breathe.

"Don’t be ridiculous," Taras said without looking at him. Maxim chuckled and shook his head.

"Ah... right. You once said death would be far too easy a punishment for him."

Taras paused, visibly irritated by the sudden discomfort Maxim’s comment stirred within him. He looked like he might snap at Maxim, until just then, the center’s representative appeared beside them and greeted them with a bow.

Taras turned his frustration toward the representative, who flinched slightly. "The last time I was here, I told you to stop bowing."

"Ah," the representative straightened up immediately, nodding with embarrassment. "I apologize. Welcome, Taras."

Taras disliked being treated like royalty. He hated the sir’s, the kneeling, the deference. He had told everyone, more than once, to call him by name. In time, despite their fear of seeming disrespectful, they had accepted it, but only because they were forced to.

It made them feel even more loyal to him in a strange way. So now, after nearly a month, the mere fact that Taras had returned to receive guiding again was enough to ease everyone’s hearts.

"This way," the representative said, nearly skipping with joy, and led them quickly toward the room Taras usually used for guiding. As Maxim slipped into the adjacent room -his frequent haunt- he smiled at the representative who had unwittingly interrupted their earlier conversation at just the right moment.

Death would be far too easy a punishment for him.

Taras remembered saying that. Those words were his. Still, the idea that Maxim believed he would kill Treasure, combined with those very words, left an unpleasant feeling gnawing inside him.

As Taras entered the room, the representative asked, "Do you have a preference, Taras?"

"Anyone." Taras took off his jacket and sat down, letting a few staff members quickly wipe away the blood and grime from his clothes and skin.

Once they’d all exited and the door had shut behind them, Taras heard someone thanking the representative just outside, sounding especially grateful for being assigned this task. A moment later, the owner of that voice entered the room.

It was a guide -an omega- with a bright, eager smile on his face. It only took Taras a second or two to realize it, but even that short glance was enough to make the guide blush.

"How... would you prefer, Tar?" the guide asked gently, walking slowly toward him with his hands folded in front. He’d used "Tar", a nickname only those close to Taras used. Something flickered in Taras’s eyes.

This omega had a slender neck. The shade of his neck was vibrant, full of life. In fact, his whole body carried that same vivid shade. Not pale. Taras thought, as he studied him: Not a single part of him looked drained. He looked alive, like he defied the outskirts’ struggle for survival with every breath.

Taras found that ironic. Especially because, in contrast, the omega who lived in the city of abundance -the one who had everything- didn’t have a single part of him that wasn’t pale.

"It doesn’t matter," Taras said at last. He just needed to get this over with, get Maxim back on his feet, and return to the unit. He wasn’t in the mood to talk.

The guide nodded, showing he understood, and approached Taras without hesitation, sitting down beside him, so close their legs touched. As Taras silently observed him, the guide seemed to think an explanation was expected and whispered, "I... prefer it intimate."

He gently placed one hand on Taras’s shoulder. His other hand slipped into Taras’s large palm, interlacing their fingers.

For a moment, Taras simply stared at their interlocked hands, seemingly unaware of the guide’s gentle touches or the subtle release of pheromones. Then Taras looked into the guide’s eyes -truly looked- for the first time. What stared back at him was a pair of confident, gleaming eyes, fully aware of their allure. Eyes that didn’t flinch, that hid the tension stirred by the alpha before them with impressive ease.

Taras raised his thumb, instinctively wanting to brush the knuckles of the hand curled into his palm, but stopped. He remembered how that small gesture had once made Treasure’s eyes wide open, those shy eyes, always swirling with too many emotions at once, the ones that used to gaze at him like a frightened little animal. He remembered how those eyes would open, knowing it was him, the moment he held his wrist and stroked it with his thumb,.

And lately... those eyes didn’t look quite so afraid of him anymore. In fact, in recent nights, there had even been the faintest trace of expectation in them.

When the guide in front of him, almost pleading for connection, squeezed Taras’s shirt with the hand on his shoulder, Taras pulled his fingers away from the interlaced grip and firmly grasped the guide’s wrist.

Yes. This way was better.

The guide swallowed, confused, and offered a soft, uncertain smile. "Oh, then I-I’ll continue... however you prefer, Tar."

"..." Just like pheromones, the flow of energy that guides transmitted into espers’ bodies carried an emotional weight. In fact, espers could often tell that each guide had a distinct energy aura, clear or suffocating, pure or tainted, soothing or threatening. Taras had already analyzed the guide’s aura, even before a single drop of energy had entered his system.

Tsk.

When Taras didn’t respond, and remained unmoved by his rather genuine gestures, the guide, his disappointment nearly visible, began the guiding process slowly, almost helplessly.

The fine waves of guiding energy began to pulse through Taras’s palm and shoulder.

At that moment, Taras let go of the guide’s wrist.

"Stop."

Treasure’s energy aura... felt like inhaling the purest breath of air on the most untouched, open land, so clean it made your lungs ache from its clarity.

It was generous, almost recklessly so, offered so freely that one might fear wasting it by accident, a breath so pure you’d hesitate to take it in fully.

Stop? The guide hadn’t even properly started yet. He leaned toward Taras again and, with a flustered eagerness, began to speak without thinking. "B-but I haven’t even-"

Taras stood up. Today... he didn’t really need guiding.

As if suddenly craving that very breath that had crossed his mind, Taras drew in a deep, trembling inhale.

He grabbed his jacket and walked out of the room without another word.