"That seems..." He really, really wishes he could refute it, but what does he know? Only the way the guild treats him, and it's...

...hm.

"That would be stupid if they did," is what he settles on. "Anyone with eyes could see how useful—I mean, how good you are."

Okay, now she'll cry. She still doesn't want to, but she does anyway.

"Right! I'm very, very good!! On my own merits without any..." Sniffle. "Anyone else involved, really. But. Um. I figured you should know my baggage or something? Have context for why I'm wary of your guild and don't really want to be attached? Honestly the - the professional distance thing is kind of great for me too, even if I'm super concerned about your backlash and kind of fuck up sometimes, it's, I, just. Um. Fuck I'm making a hash of this, I probably should have done this over text, I'd be more coherent that way. I just would have spent forever trying to figure out what to say..."

Yeah he totally agrees actually this is awful but it is what it is, they're already here, even if he's having to grip his wrists behind his back with enough strength he'd have squeezed a regular human's to a pulp in order to not reach out. And in order not to do something else that he might regret.

One of those is a lot safer than the other.

That's better. It's better if he can't reach out and touch her, better for all involved. Especially after what she just said, it's better if she doesn't get even a whiff of the—thoughts—it's better. He's been there and done that and it's not worth it, and he needs to protect himself.

"I think Korea is lucky to have you and Japan should be sad to have lost you," he says, which is literally contentless after what he'd said just prior but he doesn't know what else to say instead. "...if there's anything you do need from the guild then—I don't know if this helps. Um. I think... anyone? Not just me, I think if you asked anyone you'd—get it. I don't know what. ...the teleportation worked?"

"I-it did, yes," she hiccups. "So that's nice. Um. I'll - probably do any reaching out for guild resources for now in the interim as I - sort out something I like better for myself? Turns out it's kind of hard. To be an esper alone in a new country. There's a lot we need for support and I - barely know this side of my family, really, and I'm living in a guest room and a silo someone else set up and everything is behind like a billion contracts and research and hiring and. It's a lot. Um. Sorry, I. Did not expect to cry. I. Probably should have. Um. Thank you for listening, sorry to suddenly. Dump my entire emotional everything on you? I mostly just wanted to give you context. And. I guess you did get it, huh?"

"...yeah. Do you want to talk to—no she's from the guild." Does he know... anyone... outside the guild...? Not really. "Uh, maybe I could get someone to rec someone else who's not in the Guild to help?"

Giggle-hiccup. Yeah. Yeah, she knows how it feels to suddenly realize all of your friends are in your workplace, though she'd glad his realization is less, uh. The way hers was.

"I'd appreciate that. Maybe not today, though, I mostly just want to destroy all dungeons who dare oppose us and then turn my stupid brain off for a while doing... something. Sudoku, maybe."

He nods. "...I think I want to ask HQ to start sending us on real missions." The practice has been good but he's been getting antsy with these dungeons that don't even have names.

Nod! "Sounds good. Um. I feel we've had enough practice together."

"It's only been a week, I guess, but. ...um." How does he put this. "I don't think we're gonna get much practice working together out of dungeons either of us could've easily cleared alone."

"No, I agree we're now past that. Honestly there's probably an argument to be made about splitting up for the easy dungeons, cover more ground? I mean my main concern there is your backlash and both of us recovering quickly from it, but, uh. ... We can absolutely both solo dungeons."

"Usually when there are bigger dungeons, with. More people. I tend to cover... parts of it. On my own. Already. So it's not unusual." Pause. "We could just solo the dungeons we have scheduled for today at the same time and meet up for guiding afterwards." Wait, shit, no, that's a terrible idea?????

"... Yeah, okay. Uh - you are looking better on the backlash front, but send me a message if it gets too bad and you want to meet back up again? But. .... we can totally knock out our day's dungeons in like, two hours and get ultimate bragging rights." She sounds like she would find that great fun, actually.

Well now he can't very well back down, can he.

—that's the backlash talking. Review, correcting for it... yeah no it's fine, it'll actually be overall less total time spent in a room with just her and no one to stop him were he to—never mind.

He summons his commscreen and—uh, he wanted to walk over to her but that's three separate times in thirty seconds that he's had thoughts related to wanting to get closer to her so he should Definitely Not—shares the list of dungeons they have for today with her then suggests a split between them based on what to him seems to best fit their specialties (not that it matters much when they're such small fry). What does she think?

Yeah, that works for her! Nicely divided up to give her the 'blast it with so much fire' stuff and him the 'precision targeting' stuff.

Pretty much!

"...I'll let HQ know. They might need to scramble a bit to have personnel on site but..." They don't need personnel. It's really just a formality, and they're in the business of clearing dungeons, not formalities. "They can figure it out by the time we're done with our first dungeons."

Lee Tae-gun has been having a lot of trouble recently predicting what's going to come out of his mouth but he's not sure there's anything in the world that could have prepared him for the words, "Wanna race me?"

"Ha! Yes."

Terrible, terrible idea.

Terrible idea.

"I'll comm you when we're by the door of our first dungeons, first to clear all three wins, including downtime."

"Deal!" She's grinning, and brings up her commscreen to get to teleporting to her first dungeon.

...please stop smiling.

He takes a little bit longer than she does to get there because her first dungeon was meant to be their first dungeon while his first was meant to be their third, so HQ does have opinions about that, but their opinions boil down to "Oh shit, um, sure?? Uhhh we'll figure it out do you need anything right now—no—okay godspeed." so it's not that much longer.

I'll sync a countdown between our comms, we both start fifty meters away from the portal and go on zero.

Ready?

Ready!

The countdown starts on her screen.

3...

2...

1...

GO!

She could theoretically blast herself into the dungeon's portal with appropriate leverage of fire, but she's up against her own backlash as much as the clock. Doing that would be spending down valuable power. Besides, running builds body heat, and it's best for her to have as much of that as possible. So: she will be running. While grinning. Are the watching onlookers very confused? Absolutely. Does she care? Absolutely not.

In she goes. She's careful to be indiscriminate and sloppy with her fire with this first dungeon, so that after the core's destroyed, there are plenty of still-hot rocks she can pry from their surroundings. Those get shoved down her clothes to keep her warm. It won't stave off her backlash forever, this is a temporary hack, but it's better than not doing it. Her clothes are a bit worse for wear and singed from the experience, but she feels fine. Then she can incinerate the last of everything threatening to crawl out of the dungeon, and step outside by herself.

There's a crowd with cameras when she exits the dungeon. As she puts in the request for teleportation to her next destination, someone asks something about if she and Tae-gun are no longer working together, which briefly distracts her from her typing.

"What? No, we're still partners. We're having a race."

And then the request goes through and she disappears.

Another reason this was a good idea: oh right if he doesn't have her around his power levels also change. On the bright side that's just the same as the moment-to-moment adjustments he's already been having to do with her around, just in the opposite direction, and he has years of practice with not having a partner, so it's just a tiny hiccup at the start.

Tae-gun is careful and doesn't go all-out like Hye-jin does, but unlike his usual M.O. of cleaning the dungeon completely he makes a beeline to where the sensors suspect the core monster would be. He also leaves ice spikes near the entrance to slow down any monsters that might decide to come out and summons two ice swords to go melee on anything he can do that with. 

He wouldn't do this for the kinds of dungeons he tends to tackle, but he can afford to be sloppier for ones like this. He'll clear it fast enough, probably.