MEYIM| Chapter 1

The One and Only SSS-Rank

Yeongwon recalled the exceptionally short “yesterday.”

The first place she opened her eyes was a private hospital room.

She figured the ambulance must have gotten to her quickly after a car accident, so she checked her body for broken bones. But, get this… she didn’t feel any pain anywhere.

‘What the…?’

‘Weird…’

Next, she thought the logo on the patient gown was strange.

Usually, an ambulance would take a patient to a major hospital.

But the name next to the logo was ‘Banpo Awakened Convalescent Hospital.’ She’d never heard of a big hospital like that.

She felt a chill.

Swish.

She pulled back the blinds covering the window to look outside.

Can you believe that?

A giant column of water is visible in the distance.

“…”

The content of the novel she had been reading at a crosswalk flashed into her mind.

Gates that defied the laws of physics, Espers who used superpowers, Guides who could heal and control Espers through touch—stuff like that.

Just then, the hospital name on the logo even had ‘Awakened’ in it. In the novel, Espers and Guides together were called the Awakened.

“Ha…”

She ran to the bathroom attached to the private room and checked the mirror.

The woman in the mirror was indeed Shim Yeongwon.

Shim Yeongwon, with her usual light-colored features.

But it wasn’t the short-haired Shim Yeongwon.

It wasn’t Shim Yeongwon wearing a wig either. It was Shim Yeongwon with clearer skin, somehow.

Yeongwon thought maybe she’d been asleep until her broken bones healed and her hair grew this long.

But if that were the case, she should have had an IV drip in her arm or something.

Then… Ding-dong, ding-dong. A strange alarm went off. It sounded like it was ringing inside her head, not from somewhere outside.

[Shim Yeongwon, initial entry into Field ‘Republic of Korea’]

[World Guide Ranking SSS-Rank 1st / 1 person]

[SSS-Rank ranking closed due to lack of other members in the same rank]

Something like a hologram popped up right in front of her eyes.

“I think I’m screwed…”

Amidst the regrets and confusion washing over her, she heard a terrifyingly sweet voice whispering.

She recalled a few scenes from the past she had been trying hard to forget.

‘Save the world.’

‘Yeongwon, didn’t you say you wanted peace?’

It felt like voices that should have been buried forever in the past were ringing out again.

Yeongwon hardened her expression and touched her face reflected in the mirror.

CRASH.

Then, she suddenly made eye contact with a middle-aged man who burst into the hospital room.

“Ah…”

He froze as if he’d seen a ghost.

Swoop.

Yeongwon felt the strength leave her legs. Fatigue washed over her.

“Yeongwon, Shim Yeongwon…!”

“Uh…”

“Doctor! Call the doctor!”

The man shouted toward the outside of the room.

She felt sluggish. Her field of vision slowly narrowed. The man’s polished shoes approached. His feet are shiny, she suddenly thought.

Her consciousness faded.

She slept for a whole day. According to the middle-aged man who’d shouted her name, that’s what happened. After waking up, she was confined to the bed under the medical team’s watch for over half a day.

“Are you feeling a bit better?”

“Are you in pain anywhere?”

Yeongwon nodded or shook her head.

Meanwhile, she desperately tried to remember if there was even a tiny clue about an SSS-rank Guide in the novel’s introduction. Unfortunately, no specific information came to mind.

It was the same for the world-building details.

All she clearly remembered was that it was a modern fantasy novel based on a Guideverse setting.

The premise: ‘Gates,’ dimensional rifts, opened up unexpectedly all over the world, monsters jumped out, ‘Espers’ used superpowers to defeat the monsters, and ‘Guides’ prevented the Espers from going out of control and restored their strength.

Beyond that, she couldn’t recall any special ‘hidden card’ settings.

Yeongwon stared at the hospital ceiling with a complicated expression.

‘I got transmigrated into a book, but my knowledge is only at the level of a random extra in the novel.

Seriously, what the hell… I have no info.’

The only things that felt like “high-level” info were about two things:

(1) In the prologue, an S-rank Esper (probably Mr. Kim?) went berserk in the middle of Myeongdong because he didn’t get Guiding in time.

(2) Although she wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, after that incident, ‘Non-Selective Rush’ and ‘Gate Wave’ kept hitting, one after the other.

But never mind the world ending or a huge disaster, there was an immediate, practical problem right in front of her.

Everyone surrounding the ‘Shim Yeongwon’ of this world seemed unnecessarily unsettling.

“Yeongwon, if even a tiny thing feels off, tell me.”

Tiny thing off? Everything!

Of course, Yeongwon didn’t answer that way.

The man seemed quite a bit older than her, and she didn’t even know if she should use informal speech or formal language, so she just coughed as if her throat hurt and signaled her reply with head movements only.

“Nothing? Really? Then just rest more comfortably. I’ll put on more anime for you to watch.”

“…”

“The one with the princess and prince. We have picture books here, too.”

Yeongwon had no idea what kind of person the Shim Yeongwon the man remembered was.

However, she was certain from the man’s condescending look and way of speaking to her like a child: ‘This Shim Yeongwon’ was considered a significantly immature person by the people around her, even before being a patient.

“Yeah. Speak. Shim Yeongwon is awake.”

Her certainty deepened after she overheard the man talking on the phone with someone.

“She’s the same, what can I say. Eating, lying down, not talking. Pretty much, she’s a mute. An idiot.”

The man seemed to think Yeongwon didn’t have the intelligence to understand his words properly.

“Right now, we haven’t gotten the OK yet.

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Plans to keep her locked up a bit longer. Just a little more. Her condition is clean.”

She had a bad feeling.

Plus, this place seemed to be an ‘Awakened’ hospital, but no one mentioned anything about Shim Yeongwon’s abilities to her.

There were many other strange things. The man, who seemed to be Shim Yeongwon’s only guardian, didn’t provide her with a smartphone or any other electronics that clearly existed in this world.

Although she didn’t seem to be in pain, he didn’t say when she could be discharged either.

“Next, let’s watch this one. It’s about a detective game.”

Instead, he only put on cartoons that elementary school students would like.

It was frustrating… but honestly, they were kind of fun.

So, telling herself to just binge-watch the anime, which had nearly ten seasons piled up, and think slowly—it’s not like she hadn’t been treated like a parasite before—she decided to enjoy the bed rest a little longer.

The food was delivered or takeout, not patient meals, so it tasted good, too.

She had confirmed through the medical staff’s and the man’s actions and words that there were no surveillance cameras in the room, so when she was alone, she secretly tried tinkering with the status window.

Ding. Ding. Dong-dong.

Fortunately, operating it was intuitive.

‘Where’s the settings? Ah, there.’

‘Mute some sound effects… Transparency/Hide screen…’

She didn’t know the exact details, but she could guess the purpose of tabs like ‘Esper Ranking,’ ‘Guide Ranking,’ and ‘Ranker Chat.’

Didn’t you get the hang of a new smartphone app after just tapping around for three minutes? The status window was exactly like that.

So, it took less than 30 minutes to figure out the basic operations. It took a bit longer because she stayed still when there were monitoring eyes around, not wanting to get caught doing anything weird.

“Hello? Yeah, yeah… She woke up a few days ago.”

Then, after about a week, Yeongwon overheard the man’s phone call again and realized that the time limit for the event she had been worried about had finally started.

“She’s still a total idiot, same as ever.”

A coarse laugh.

“She’s a Non-Selective Guide. Her rank was determined, about B-rank. Two billion? Raise it. Tell them we’ll deal at three billion.

Uh-huh, uh-huh.”

Another laugh.

“She won’t even be a backup Guide whose head works properly anyway. Forget about the frontline.”

She could tell even from the fragmented conversation.

The Shim Yeongwon in the minds of the people around her is an idiot.

That idiot recently awakened as a Guide they called a ‘Non-Selective Guide,’ and her level was determined to be around B-rank.

And now, this man is trying to sell Shim Yeongwon overseas with the help of the lawbreakers who exist in this Banpo Awakened Convalescent Hospital.

“I’ve arranged for a captain to help with the smuggling. An international ferry. Departing next Thursday, 7 PM. We’ll put her in the cargo and set sail. Where, you ask? Well, Qingdao.”

The destination: Qingdao, China.

Ah, she couldn’t let that happen.