Survive With the Max Level Guide

I believe the most unjust death in the world… is dying while working. 

And I died during a night shift.

Stabbed by a maniac who broke into the office with a knife.

In my next life, please let me be born with a silver spoon in my mouth. 

***

And I was reincarnated.

As the youngest son of a chaebol family.

Apparently, wishes made on the verge of death do come true.

“Oh.”

I marveled as I stared at my bank account on my phone. It was just the allowance I’d saved up since I was a kid, but the number of digits was insane. With this much, I could live independently as a rich slacker for the rest of my life.

Acting gentle and well-behaved to earn the affection of the elders in the family wasn’t hard at all. Even in my past life, I’d been the type to get what I wanted in social settings with a pleasant personality, so I’d carried that over into this new life as well.

I was rolling around happily on a huge bed when it happened.

Ding!

Out of nowhere, a cheesy sound effect played, and a hologram-like window popped up in midair.

[A reincarnation benefit for Cha Eun-soo!]
[Congratulations on awakening as an S-Class Guide.]
[A quest has been generated.]

“…!”

I clutched my phone tightly, almost having dropped it.

What the hell is this?

[Protect the peace of the nation!
There are espers who need your guidance. If they go berserk, South Korea will vanish without a trace.
Hurry and keep the country safe through guiding.
Success: Survival
Failure: Death]

“S-Class Guide? Quest?”

I muttered in confusion, reflexively.

Did I seriously awaken as the highest-ranked type of Guide? And I’m supposed to help certain individuals with it?

This situation… felt oddly familiar.

…Ah, that’s right. I’d read about it a ton.

In webnovels.

A story where the system mercilessly throws forced quests at the protagonist.

“Fuck.”

I was floored—but I quickly regained my composure. After all, I’d already experienced something that completely defied reality. Being reborn with the memories of a past life? That alone was far from normal.

Besides, this world was vastly different from the one I came from. Here, humanity was divided into three types: Espers, Guides, and ordinary people.

Espers were beings with supernatural abilities, but the more they used their powers, the more their internal “waveforms” became distorted. The ones who calmed those distortions were called Guides, and the act was known as Guiding.

If an Esper didn’t receive proper Guiding and their waveforms became too unstable, they went berserk. Typically, that meant losing control and unleashing their powers in every direction. The higher the Esper’s rank, the greater the damage to lives and property.

In other words, Guides were essential—not just for the Espers, but on a national level.

Unfortunately, Guides were drastically outnumbered compared to Espers. So naturally, high-ranking Guides were rarer than diamonds in the rough.

And yet somehow, I’d become an S-Class Guide.

I opened and closed my fists repeatedly. Didn’t feel any different. Maybe I needed to meet an Esper to really know?

[Quest tip has been provided.]
[List of high-risk berserkers]

A string of photos and profiles began pouring down in front of me, capturing my full attention.

“…Holy shit.”

My eyes widened.

It wasn’t just the fact that my eldest brother—yes, that eldest brother—was on the list. No, what really stunned me was something else entirely.

Every single one of them—

“They’re all exactly my type.”

Hot as hell.

Cute, beautiful, devastatingly handsome—what precious beings. They absolutely deserved to be protected at all costs.

Whether I lived or died didn’t matter. I refused to let these men lose control and die.

And the fact that they were all guys? Well, that was just icing on the cake for someone like me, who wasn’t exactly into women. Back in my previous life, I’d had flings with people just for their faces—but these men were on a whole other level. The kind of beauty that wiped all those past encounters clean out of my memory.

Before I knew it, I’d straightened up and started reviewing the data politely. It seemed the one thing they all had in common was being S-Class male Espers.

Still, the one I was most concerned about… was my brother.

“Hm.”

Guiding him… that might be a bit tricky.

Out of the three siblings—our eldest brother, our sister, and me—my brother and I had the biggest age gap. He’d been adopted in the past, but no matter what anyone said, we’d always been as close as real blood siblings.

And the thing about Guiding? It involved physical contact. The deeper the contact, the more effective it was. Naturally, there was no way it didn’t involve something sexual.

Still, if this is what it takes to protect my brother… Well, what choice do I have? I can’t just stand by and lose someone I love. Especially not family.

***

[Eun-soo: Hyung, when are you coming home?]

Cha Eun-hyuk’s lips curled up slightly as he checked the message while putting on his coat.

A passing teammate called out to him. “If someone saw that, they’d think it was your girlfriend texting you, sir. That from your little brother again?”

“Dude. You still don’t get it? To our team leader, his baby brother’s more important than a girlfriend.”

Another teammate lounging against his desk with a coffee chimed in loudly, sparking laughter and agreeing voices all around.

Cha Eun-hyuk’s expression quickly returned to its usual sternness, as if he’d never smiled in the first place.

“That’s enough. Wrap it up, everyone.”

“You heading out? Not getting Guided today either?” someone asked with concern.

The Esper Terrorist Task Force had a dedicated Guiding Room on-site. Most team members got a session before clocking out to recover physically and mentally.

But the Guides assigned to their team were all C-Class— and not a single one of them could properly handle S-Class Esper Cha Eun-hyuk.

For someone of his level, weak Guiding didn’t soothe him—it actually made his waveforms feel worse, like they were being scratched the wrong way. So unless his condition reached a critical point, he never sought out Guiding at all.

“Yeah. I’m heading out.”

He answered curtly and walked out. His coat flared in the winter wind as faint snowflakes drifted from the sky.

The moment he got into his car, parked in the outdoor lot—A stabbing headache hit him like a knife to the skull.

“Ugh.”

He grimaced, the pain tugging at his brows.

Letting out a heavy sigh, he sent a reply to Cha Eun-soo. He’d gotten off work later than expected.

[Me: Just leaving now. Dinner?]

[Eun-soo: The housekeeper made something earlier, but I didn’t eat yet. Wanted to wait for you.]

[Eun-soo: Oh, and Noona had something come up, so she’s staying at the office tonight.]

With their mother away on a business trip, the only family member currently home was the youngest—Eun-soo. Without hesitation, Cha Eun-hyuk started the engine and pulled out.

Even though his little brother had recently become a legal adult, to Eun-hyuk, he still felt like a kid you’d left too close to the water’s edge. Just the thought of him being home alone made his chest tighten with unease—Even though he’d already stationed bodyguards discreetly nearby.

It wasn’t just about the age gap. Everything changed when he was thirteen.

It had been a perfectly normal day. His family was gathered around, delighted by the babbling of late-born Eun-soo.

Then came the intruders. Esper terrorists.

They destroyed the mansion’s security system in an instant, then breached the heart of its sanctuary. And just like that, they murdered our father—right in front of the whole family.

But it didn’t end there.

“Cute.”

The man who’d killed our father turned his gaze toward the cradle, where baby Cha Eun-soo lay asleep.

In that moment, it felt like time stopped for Cha Eun-hyuk. The fear and rage that surged through him at the thought of losing his newborn brother wrapped around him like a serpent.

A father whose breathing had already ceased.

A mother, collapsed in a faint.

A sister, dazed and unresponsive.

I have to protect Eun-soo.

That conviction pulled the trigger. And raw, untapped power erupted from his still-immature body.

Clumsy, but burning with murderous intent—a force began to take shape.

The terrorist’s hands, which had been reaching for baby Cha Eun-soo, froze over with a sharp crackling sound. Solid ice crept up his arms, locking him in place.

But the man only looked down and laughed, amused. With a mere thought, he shattered the ice into glittering particles that dispersed like dust.

“Already awakened, huh? At your age? Impressive.”

Cradling Cha Eun-soo in his arms, he turned back and grinned at Eun-hyuk.

“Unlike that pathetic piece of trash who acted brave despite being a regular human.”

“…Put my brother down. Right now.”

“Hmm. I don’t really see why I should listen to you.”

The man gently patted the baby’s tiny body with both unharmed hands, the touch disturbingly tender.

“You’re the weak one here.”

His tone was like that of a teacher offering a lesson in basic facts.

“Still, you’ve got guts. I’ll give you a chance.”

This kid you’re so desperate to protect… keep watching over him. Because who knows when I’ll change my mind.

His voice, eerily calm and monotonous, slowly faded away.

As Cha Eun-hyuk returned from the memory, he noticed the steering wheel had frosted over. The temperature inside the car had dropped significantly.

It always happened whenever he recalled that nightmare. Though his unstable waveforms certainly didn’t help.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again.

Cha Eun-hyuk had been chasing that man ever since. Yes, part of it was for revenge. But the deeper reason—the one that gnawed at him—was the fear that one day, that bastard might come back to hurt Cha Eun-soo.

And the only way to be free from that fear was to tear out the root of the threat itself.

“You’ve arrived, sir.”

The first thing he saw when he reached the entrance of the house were the bodyguards bowing their heads. They were men he had personally selected to ensure his family’s safety.

After pulling the car into the garage, he walked across the neatly maintained stone path.

They’d long since moved out of the mansion where the attack had taken place. Yet the sprawling garden here had been arranged just like the one their father loved in life— as if it had been transported over in its entirety.

A light layer of snow dusted the scenery, the kind that someone might call picturesque.

“Hyung?”

And then came that familiar voice— the very person who might have said just that.

A young man with light brown hair sat on the bench just outside the front door. He must’ve been out there for quite a while—his pale cheeks, not just the tip of his nose, were flushed red from the cold.

Cha Eun-hyuk frowned and strode over quickly.

“Why are you sitting out here? You’ll catch a cold.”

“I was waiting for you and getting some fresh air. Isn’t the garden so pretty with the snow falling?”

Cha Eun-soo smiled as he said it, holding up a now-cold mug as if to prove his point.

“It’s relaxing. But yeah, it’s definitely cold. The tea cooled down fast.”

“Then why didn’t you just go back inside right away…Forget it.”

Cha Eun-hyuk swallowed a sigh. Now that they were face to face, he couldn’t even bring himself to scold him. He always ended up being the one to lose.

“Come in.”

He opened the front door wide and stepped aside, silently gesturing for him to go in first.

Cha Eun-soo stood up without protest and gazed at him quietly.

“You look really pale today. Is it because you haven’t had enough of that Guiding thing?”

“Tired, that’s all.”

It wasn’t a lie. The truth was, not receiving Guiding from someone of the proper rank was what wore him down.

But Cha Eun-hyuk had no intention of ever going into detail about the pain Espers experienced—not to his youngest brother. He simply maintained his usual stoic demeanor.

“Hm.”

At that, Cha Eun-soo gave a curious, knowing smile—and stepped inside.