Not exactly enthusiastic consent but Jaeha didn't want to make decisions! Haru calls.

He picks up quickly. "Hey. How're you guys—" Then he takes one look at Jaeha's face and decides that's a stupid question. "How can I help?" is what he goes with instead.

"So, remember how Jaeha's been in a backlash hole that I was very restrainedly not suing anybody over? - Jaeha I'm gonna need you to, like, explicitly release me from the NDA, possibly in writing."

"Already done," he says, opening a file on his commscreen and mailing Haru it, with his digital signature. He realised he was going to need it earlier today while Haru was in the dungeon and decided to get it out of the way early.

"...okay, uh, emotionally preparing myself, here."

"Yeah, buckle up, it's not fun. His backlash eats his emotions, positive ones first. And he has been continuously backlashed since his awakening, with, like a brief blip right as he was coming out of hell week for his asshole dad to show up and be an asshole, which was when he was seventeen. And as you might expect in a seventeen year old whose emotions are being eaten and whose dad is an asshole his conscience fell by the wayside somewhere in there and he's only just now coming out of it. His power's a lot more comprehensive than it looks on the record and he's been in the habit of abusing it in civilian situations. We are in progress on a plan to cut that shit out forever but I am among other things not immortal and the plan can't be 'I personally catch him at it every time'."

"...a lot more comprehensive..."

"It's not taking full complete control of someone's entire mind but if that's the target you're aiming to get just short of you'll land approximately in the correct description of it."

"—holy shit."

"He bounces off me - he's slipped and accidentally tried to empath me a couple times, passed it off till yesterday as a startle response, it ticks my backlash but doesn't do anything to me otherwise. Based on the description I can't imagine it'd work on recordings, and it doesn't alter long term memories. Range extent is also very scary - Jaeha, how scary exactly, do you know -"

"From the top floor of the Quasar building I can reach street level. —I haven't tried that specific thing, it's just a good order of magnitude ballpark."

"Holy shit," he repeats. The Quasar building is thirty stories tall!!!!

"So, yeah. Guild support in managing that as he finishes getting out of the hole - almost there, now - and verrrrry cautiously resumes dungeoneering activity - would be good. Jaeha unless you happen to remember for a fact that you've never poked Yoo-min in the brain this would be a great opportunity to apologize."

"I absolutely did poke you in the brain. I'm sorry."

"What—did you do—"

"Nothing specific to you. The first time we met in that one QQ meeting I was generically making myself come off funnier and more charming and interesting than I actually am."

"You... used mind control powers... to sound charming?"

"I wanted you all to like me."

"But you didn't directly make anyone like you?"

"Can't go that far. I can play with my illusions while pulling on your brain's own understanding of what would look good, and then make up the difference by subduing the immediate negative reactions and encouraging the positive ones, but I can't make you feel entire new things wholesale nor actually change what you're thinking directly."

"Oh." That's... less bad than he'd expected. "And you did that just to sound better?"

"It's what I used to do all the time, to everyone, almost as a reflex. I wasn't trying to do anything else."

...he probably shouldn't try getting into Kang Jaeha's fundamental motivational structure here even if it sounds fascinating. "I see. I—forgive you."

"That's very generous of you. I don't know that we can rely on everyone to react the same way, if you have a sense of who would be best to tell for safety coverage without making it a huge public witch hunt."

"Safety coverage?"