The One and Only Guide - Chapter 2
Jian sighed and quickened her steps. Her mind was in turmoil. She wanted to get away from the Center as soon as possible. She had hoped that this time, after a long time, they would call her for another matching test, but as expected, it had been a futile hope.
The continuously updated new record was laughable. Every Esper she had matching tests with turned out to have a 0% match! Could there be a more useless Guide in the world?
Even if she received mockery, what could she say? She was supposed to be an S-rank Guide, but what good was that? She was worse than an F-rank Guide!
“Ugh, this is miserable…”
An unintended mutter slipped out.
In reality, the results of the hundreds of matching tests she had repeated over the past few years could be described as nothing short of that—miserable.
Recording 0% with every Esper in every matching test, even the ones to confirm if she was truly a Guide, was insufficient to convey just how miserable it was.
According to the test results, it was certain that Jian was an S-rank Guide. But where in the world could you find an S-rank Guide like her? A Guide without a single matching Esper.
The average matching rate for C-rank Guides was 30%. Higher-ranked Guides had significantly higher average matching rates. So theoretically, as an S-rank Guide, her matching rate with any Esper, regardless of who they were, should have been at least 50%. Furthermore, Guide efficiency should have exceeded 80% for her to be considered normal.
However, Jian was an exception. Her matching test results were consistently 0%, regardless of who the Esper was, what kind of person they were, or their gender. Guide efficiency couldn’t even be considered in her case.
At this point, she began to doubt whether she was really a Guide. She couldn’t trust the test results either.
She had gone through hundreds of these matching rate tests over the past ten years. But the results were always the same.
Responding to the Center’s call to repeat matching tests, receiving the same predictable outcome every time, and enduring the ridicule from her surroundings—all of it had become exceedingly tiresome. If it weren’t for the Guide’s monthly salary, which came like clockwork, she would never have endured such humiliation.
“Ah, that’s enough. I want to do something else… I must have gotten hungry.”
Jian thought while suppressing her familiar sense of disappointment. She planned to go home, eat some ice cream, and take a nap. After all, this wasn’t an unexpected outcome. There was no point in feeling sorry for herself; it would only be her loss.
And then, in that very moment, Jian’s body was pulled forward. No, she was being sucked in.
“What…?”
Someone exclaimed as they saw Jian being pulled like that.
“It’s a Gate! Someone report it!”
“Everyone, evacuate!”
“A person got sucked in!”
Jian’s eyes snapped open at the distant cries. She tried to grab onto something, anything, with her arms, but her body was floating away due to the pressure from the Gate.
Gates that manifested without warning often caused unusual phenomena. Sometimes monsters would burst out of them, and sometimes people would get sucked into the Gates. Jian being pulled into the Gate was the latter case.
And the survival rate for people who got sucked into the Gates was less than 10%.
“No! Someone, anyone… Help me…!”
She cried out for help, but there was nothing she could do. Jian was being pulled towards the entrance of the Gate. She looked at the blue Gate that had opened in mid-air, her face gripped by fear.
That was Jian’s last memory. The moment she passed through the Gate, she was hit by a powerful shock throughout her body and lost consciousness.
* * *
“Uuu… ugh…”
Her head was throbbing, and her back ached. Jian regained her senses with great effort and cautiously raised her head. The air and atmosphere here were distinctly different from those of Earth, clinging to her skin with a palpable thickness.
Jian quickly surveyed her surroundings. She expected there to be others who, like her, had been caught up in the pressure of Gate creation. However, there was no one around.
“What the… Did I get sucked in alone?”
Unbelievable. Jian didn’t complain but immediately stood up. If this place was indeed inside the Gate, monsters would soon appear. If monsters emerged before the strike team was sent into the Gate, she would have no chance of survival.
Fortunately, the surroundings were eerily quiet. No signs of creatures or monsters were in sight.
But this was inside the Gate. It was a place where any kind of monster could appear at any time. Jian tried to remain calm as she scanned her surroundings. The terrain seemed cave-like, from what she could tell.
It was quite chilly here. She had felt a gust of wind, but the surroundings were eerily calm. Monsters or any other life forms were nowhere to be seen.
However, this was inside the Gate, and anything could happen at any time. Jian tried to calm herself and continued to survey her surroundings. The terrain resembled a cave, from what she could gather.
Her skin was tingling, and the cold was biting. For a moment, her body temperature had dropped dramatically, and her lips trembled from the cold. Her ears, nose, and even her hands and feet felt like they were about to freeze off. It was an intense cold that could lead to hypothermia if she hadn’t been wearing her long coat.
Despite being disoriented from being pulled into the Gate, she couldn’t help but wonder how she had failed to notice such extreme weather conditions at once.
