The Guide is Actually a Body-Switching Esper [BL]-Chapter 272: SS-Ranker’s Rampage

"It happened over ten years ago. She was traveling around the world, fighting monsters, and enjoying her life as an SS-ranker..." Lane started telling the story, speaking slowly, resting his head on his arms as he stared at the ceiling. "Well, to be fair, I don’t know much about her life at that point. We weren’t in touch back then, not regularly. She was always wandering around, constantly changing her number, so she only contacted me every now and then, before disappearing for some time again. But, either way, she was living her life freely, without any restrictions, that’s for sure. And with an amazing ability like hers, naturally she was using it to her heart’s content!"

"The problem was that those were still the early days of the Awakened. Our numbers were fairly low, especially as far as the Guides are concerned. And high-ranking Guides were a particular rarity. That would be troubling enough for an SS-ranker who used their ability on a daily basis... But then there was the government’s attitude regarding the Guides. I don’t know if you remember it, since you were still a civilian at the time, but back then, all the Guides were forced to join government organizations..."

"Yes, I know about it," Damien nodded his head.

"Right."

Well, not everyone remembered the story these days, now that the Guides were the ones with the most rights and privileges, but their lives in the early days were tough. It wasn’t only the strikes that they had fought out their freedom, through a lot of suffering and deaths, both among the Guides, the Espers who went on rampages due to the lack of guiding, and the civilians caught in the middle of this all. Those bloody days were still remembered by many who were old enough to witness that, but what came before it, not so much.

But that time, when the Guides still had no freedom, was when Diana met her downfall.

"Well, so you can probably imagine how it was to be a high-ranking Esper back then. Even if you were an officially registered Esper, unless you worked for the government organization, you would always be short on guiding. Even the Espers working for the Guilds had to control their ability usage, make sure they didn’t go overboard, because the access to the high-ranking Guides was always limited. They couldn’t refuse them, since they needed the Guilds to clear the dungeons, but they still restricted the guiding sessions to minimum, to show the Guilds who was truly in control. Not that it worked - many powerful Guilds, such as the Allen Guild, secretly kept a few unregistered Guides to support their top members... But it was harder for people like Diana, who just wanted to be free and unrestrained."

"Of course, it would be possible for her to find a Guide companion, who would agree to work for her in exchange for freedom from the government, but finding a suitable one was easier said than done. She was an SS-ranker, so any lower-ranking Guide just wouldn’t be enough. It would have to be an S-ranker at the minimum, with a decent enough compatibility... And how was she going to get one, when there were only a few S-rank Guides in the whole world, each of whom was under strict government surveillance? Try to free one, and she would have a whole army chasing after her. Could be funny if she were on her own, but burdensome while carrying a Guide with her. Thus, she could only rely on occasional guiding every now and then, sometimes going for a month without guiding if her luck was bad."

"But how long could she really go on like that? High-rankers typically can go without guiding for longer, but at the same time, their need for guiding is much higher, when it comes to the quantity they need to receive. And the deficit can accumulate over time. With the lack of regular guiding, overuse of her ability, and the fact that none of the guiding she received was in any way satisfactory, it was only natural that at some point, it just passed over the tipping point... And she went on a rampage."

"It was quite lucky, honestly. She had been in a dungeon at that time, going on a little raid with my aunt Ariana. She’s my half-aunt, unrelated to the Allens, Diana’s illegitimate child, she had years after leaving the family. But anyways! Because they were on a raid, with no one else around, we were able to keep the rampage a secret..."

Lane went silent for a while, as he needed a moment to calm down, getting a bit emotional thinking about it all. Noticing his mood, Damien reached out his hand, not quite knowing what to do, and grabbed Lane’s arm, squeezing it gently, and earning himself a somewhat bitter smile.

"As for how she even survived," Lane eventually continued, letting out a sigh. "That’s all thanks to Ariana’s ability. She has quite a unique ability, that can ’freeze’ Mana, therefore stopping any ability use. Of course, she wasn’t able to completely stop Diana’s rampage, as her rank lower, but she could at least slow it down enough to get it under control, and take Diana out of the dungeon to find some help. After receiving some guiding, Diana’s wavelengths calmed down, and her rampage was over..."

"But her body took serious damage. Her limbs, as well as some of her organs, had to be replaced with prosthetics. And not just any normal ones, as her body rejected them. We needed to create special prosthetics that operate on Mana... They suck Mana from the surroundings, and maintain her life that way."

"That’s why we met her in the dungeon, as you might have noticed. She has to live there, and cannot leave, or else the prosthetics would drain her own Mana, and send her on another rampage..."

"So, that’s basically it. That’s the story. The powerful wind master she once was is pretty much gone... The only hope for her to ever leave the dungeon is if the outside environment undergoes Manaforming..."

Lane finished the story, causing the room to fall into silence.