A while ago, at the Awakened Association—a government-run institution where Guides worked, or more accurately, were forced to work for meager salaries after awakening—Lucien O'Connell was guiding his fifteenth client of the day, utterly exhausted.
As a transmigrator, guiding wasn't exactly something he was most comfortable with—especially since he hated physical contact.
Seriously, he really wanted to quit!
But… in the novel, it was mandatory for Guides. They weren't allowed to work for anyone else; after awakening, they were bound to serve the government alone.
The main goal behind this was to keep a tight leash on all Espers, even those who didn't join the Awakened Association.
After all, most Espers chose to work for private guilds—independent organizations run by wealthy families and powerful elites—where the pay was significantly higher.
These guilds had emerged after the world changed. Humanity adapted, and the ones who understood the benefits of managing the awakened quickly rose to influence.
Then there were also rogue Espers and the ones who refused to join any organization, choosing instead to walk a darker path for personal gain or to align themselves with bad cults seeking to take over the world.
Yet, ultimately, they all needed Guides.
However, Guides everywhere were, by law, bound to serve the government alone.
This created constant tension.
Power struggles and under-the-table deals became common as every faction tried to twist and bend the law to their advantage.
Of course, in recent years, many top guilds and powerful Espers had done their best to pressure the government for permission to recruit Guides directly into their ranks.
But aside from a few exceptions—such as relatives of guild members, strong Espers, or rogue Guides who hid their identities—the government remained firmly opposed.
Their appeals were always rejected.
As a result, even the most powerful guilds were still forced to request Guides support from the Awakened Association whenever their hired Espers raided dungeons to hunt monsters and secure rare resources.
So, the struggle to give Guides freedom from the government was still ongoing.
They were still slaves to the government.
And Lucien would have to suffer through this crap—because, lucky him, he just had to transmigrate into this world when there were so many amazing ones out there!
Still, in reality, it was the Espers who were restrained by the system—due to Guides.
Regardless, after dealing with his fifteenth client, all Lucien wanted was to crash in the small room the Awakened Association had given him and sleep like a dead man.
The young male Esper he was guiding, for some reason, kept glaring at him—almost as if he had committed a heinous crime.
Well, given what Lucien had learned over the past two weeks since transmigrating, the original owner of this body had most likely—no, certainly—done exactly that.
From what he could tell, the real Lucien O'Connell had been a complete disaster: a hot-headed mess with no self-awareness.
The kind of clingy idiot who would stir up drama at every turn just to get noticed by the person he was obsessed with. And lo and behold, that person was the protagonist.
The real Lucien's first and last love.
'Fuck it all.'
Cursing inwardly, Lucien ran his fingers through his messy dark hair, only to curse again—because, well, he had a foul mouth.
After finishing the session, he forced a smile at the man he had been guiding.
But the man fled as if he were a ghost.
Lucien blinked, speechless.
"Wow. Is my smile really that scary?"
He stood up, scanning the guiding room with its two plush sofas before pausing to gaze into the mirror on the wall to his left.
A lean young man in a wrinkled white shirt and purplish-brown slacks, with dark circles under his blue eyes, stared back at him. He was handsome and striking, with the same face as his original body back on Earth.
"Hmm, not scary at all. Maybe it's because the real Lucien always had a gloomy frown on his face. So when I smiled, it probably scared the shit out of my clients. Haha."
Still, he had to admit that the Association clearly spared no expense on the guiding rooms—likely because, during guiding, the Esper and Guide could very well get down and dirty. After all, the more physical they got, the more effective the guiding.
He clicked his tongue.
"Ew. I'm never gonna do that shit."
Stretching his arms, he hurried toward the exit, half-terrified that the workers outside might send in more clients. Lucien hadn't had proper rest in over a week—why?
Because the damn protagonist thought he was stalking him, when all he'd been doing was getting familiar with the surroundings!
Why couldn't he just give him detention instead of piling all these clients on him?
Well, he couldn't exactly put all the blame on the protagonist. The original owner of this body did have a big history of stalking the protagonist—even into the bathroom!
Ahem. What a complete lunatic.
Lucien knew that because he'd read the novel and inherited the original owner's memories the day he arrived here.
"Anyway, I am going to sleep and keep sleeping for the rest of today and all of tomorrow! I'm not doing anything else!"
Yes, that's what he said.
But fate had other plans.
Just as he reached his room and flopped onto his bed, a loud, blaring alarm echoed throughout the Association. The next thing he knew, he was standing in front of the protagonist and that jerk's entire team.
Not by choice, of course.
He had been summoned there.
Like the slave he was.
Because guess what? He was the only A-rank Guide assigned to the protagonist's team—aside from the protagonist's lover, who was a newly awakened S-rank Guide.
And the worst part? The real owner of this body had actually begged his father, one of the heads of the Association, to forcefully get him onto the protagonist's team.
Obviously, his dear father abandoned him afterward because the old man was fed up with the mess his foolish son was causing in the name of love. So now, Lucien couldn't even swallow his pride and beg the old man to redo the original owner's actions.
Fuck it. His life was really ruined. And he knew this was just the tip of the iceberg.
The world he had transmigrated into was destined for ruin. As a Guide, the only thing he could do was watch—and perish with it.