The Guide is Actually a Body-Switching Esper [BL]-Chapter 221: Deja Vu

Lane had a deja vu. Didn’t they have a conversation like that before? A few months back, when he admitted to his possessions... Kind of. Things went well then, so perhaps everything would be alright now as well...

Even though the secrets Lane revealed this time were much worse.

But at least Damien was willing to talk. Accept him, even if only under certain conditions. Which was much better than he had expected.

So, he inhaled slowly to calm down, and asked, "What are they?"

Damien looked down at Lane, oddly calm. Was it because he had already suspected what Lane had been doing for a while, so he was no longer as shocked as he normally would be? Either way, his voice was soothing, or at least sounded that way to Lane, as he said, "First of all, you cannot do it anymore. No more possessions."

Lane pressed his lips. It was an obvious condition, yes... But a very difficult one to fulfill. What was he supposed to do, then? Just waste his days away? If there were any good Forbidden Zones anywhere close, then he could just head there during the day, and come back to hang out with Damien after work... But that would require way too long of a drive. Even if he were to go only two or three times a week, it would quickly become such a chore...

For the time being, though, he just asked, "What’s next?"

He might as well listen to everything Damien had to say first, before trying to raise any objections.

Damien maintained his gaze for a moment, as if trying to figure out whether Lane had accepted the condition or not. He seemed to have a satisfying enough answer in those grey eyes, because he continued, "Second, you have to... stay by my side. I’m not forcing you to date me-"

"But I want to date you," Lane interjected.

Weren’t those supposed to be conditions for Damien to stay with him in the first place?

"Right," a soft sigh escaped Damien’s mouth, as his perpetual thrown eased a little, the corners of his lips rising a tiny bit. "But first and foremost, you need to stay in my sight. Not literally, I don’t expect you to spend all your time with me. It would be best if you were to join the Association, though..."

"Um, that’s a nice idea and all... But aren’t you forgetting something?" Lane lifted his brows. "I have this deal with the Allens, according to which I can’t get involved in any Awakened affairs. Which, naturally, also includes working at the Association, even as an office worker."

Not that he had any intention of working in the office. He did it before, and he nearly died out of boredom! Well, maybe he was exaggerating, but that was not the point.

"Yes, I remember. We’ll get to that in a moment. Now, I would just like to ask you, if it weren’t for the deal, would you be willing to work for the Association?"

"Hmm. That... depends."

"On?"

"On what kind of work I would be assigned to do."

"What if you were to be a Field Agent?"

"That would be... alright," Lane said, without even giving it much of a thought. Which was surprising, really - he didn’t like the Association, after all. He had never liked it, he didn’t like it now, and he doubted he ever would. Not only were they enforcing plenty of stupid, pointless laws, but working for them was incredibly boring most of the time. He would have never joined them, if it weren’t beneficial for his plans...

But those ulterior motives of his kind of fizzled out in the past few months, courtesy of his fling, or, well, relationship with Damien. He was actually having fun...

"But that wouldn’t work, anyway," he added with a sigh. "With my rank, I could only be a part of a low-ranking team. If I had to suffer through that, then I’d rather just stay at home."

"What if you were to join my team?"

"What?" Hearing Damien’s suggestion, Lane couldn’t help but pull back a bit to get a better look at the man. "Are you joking?"

"No."

Lane stared intently at Damien for a while, but he truly did appear serious. "Hmm," he eventually hummed, turning onto his back and resting his head on Damien’s lap. "That... doesn’t sound too bad. But how would you do it? Even if the Section Leader were to change, how would you convince others to let an F-ranker on your team?"

"Well... What if you were no longer just an F-ranker?"

"What? But how?" Lane lifted his brows, confused. "There has never been a case of anything like re-awakening... The only explanation would be to use special activation conditions that I wasn’t aware of, but that could get quite... problematic. Other than that, the only other option would be if I were to admit to hiding my ability, but then I would probably be incarcerated..."

"Not... necessarily," Damien hesitantly said.

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"I’m... not sure if you remember, but I used to work mining Mana stones in dungeons as non-Awakened." Damien averted his eyes, furrowing his brows, clearly getting a bit uncomfortable. "So I... know how to, maybe not avoid the punishment, but work it out another way." freёwebnoѵel.com

There was indeed something like that, Lane remembered it well. Of course he did, it gave him such a scare, after all, discovering just how unlimited Damien’s patience was! Except that,

"Your case is different. While what you did was illegal, wouldn’t your employer be the main perpetrator? So your punishment couldn’t be too harsh."

Although Lane wasn’t an expert in legal matters by any means, he knew that thing for certain. He actually looked it up in the past, curious about what trouble his stiff and proper Team Leader had gotten into...

What he didn’t know, though, that Damien’s case was different from the usual.

"I have taken all the blame on myself," he admitted. "So I was supposed to receive the punishment in my employer’s place."

"What?! Why would you...?!"

"We can talk about it some other time. The point is, if you were to reveal yourself as a high-ranker... Or perhaps B-ranker might also pass, then we might be able to change your punishment into free service for the Association."

"Free service?"

"Yes. That means that every working week you would work ten to twenty hours for free..."

"...Is that what you are doing?"

Damien didn’t answer. But there was no need for him to.

This revelation left Lane completely dumbfounded. Sure, it explained Damien’s impoverished state... Well, at least to some extent. He still shouldn’t be that poor, even with a large of his paycheck cut. He was an S-rank Esper, after all!

But the weirdest thing was that Damien put himself through it all for the sake of his former employer. What was between them, that he was willing to go that far? Curiosity was gnawing on Lane’s insides, but that conversation would have to wait, as they had more pressing issues to discuss.

"Well, I would be willing to accept that," he simply said. Money were not an issue for him, not with the state of his bank account, and he was used to ’working for free’ in a way - each time he ’died’, he lost some of the money earned, as he didn’t bother with any suspicious posthumous bank transfers. "But my deal with the Allens would still be a problem."

"Then... why don’t you just break the deal?"