(BL) Hunting The Field Guide novel Chapter 428

Chapter 428: A brief visit to the front lines

Karen kinda missed not having a Guide around. Not because she wanted someone around her to be able to guide her whenever she needed it, but because she missed talking to Brent and Kellen. _{freēwēbnovel.com}

Kellen had been a nice constant for years when she’d been on the front lines as a representative for the Saturn Guild. He’d always been so serious looking, and then he’d crack a silent joke every once in a while that would have her reeling as he walked away. She missed the moments where Kellen and Karen were still getting to know each other, and how their relationship had developed over the months while Kellen was getting ready to leave the front lines.

Honestly, Karen had been kind of looking forward to how their relationship, which had changed for the better in the last few months, would translate to the front lines. Instead of getting that right away, she got Brent.

Brent was hilarious, and a good comrade to have at her side. He was always cracking jokes, while also not taking shit from anyone like Kellen didn’t. It was strange to see how much of Kellen’s personality was just...being a good Field Guide, and how that translated to Brent.

With that said, that didn’t take away from either of them. She liked being told she wasn’t allowed to do things, and why. Karen was always the first to admit she was a dumb Esper and liked to be told she was wrong by Guides. She loved finding out that things she was doing weren’t right.

Maybe that reflected poorly on Karen, but...she just liked knowing that others cared about her actions and herself enough to criticize her when she did something wrong. So, sometimes she acted out, sometimes she sought comfort in another person’s arms. So what? She wasn’t hurting anyone. It was also something she knew she shared with Brent, which meant that they got along swimmingly.

It wasn’t lost on her how both her Captain and Kellen had people who were similar to each other at their sides. Karen didn’t want to brag, but she considered herself pretty close to the Captain, even if they didn’t call each other by their first names. He’d offered once, but Karen had just shrugged and said she liked to keep that small bit of barrier between them.

She felt like if she had allowed it, something would have shifted with their relationship. She didn’t know what it was, but...she didn’t have to find out right now.

Either way, Karen was having a fun time with Brent around and now that he had gone back with the rest of the first batch of new recruits, she was pretty bored. She’d gotten bored of one of her more common actions while she had no one to criticize her. She’d actually been getting tired of it even with people around to criticize her.

Karen was...Karen was feeling the settle down bug. She kept watching how Kellen and the Captain were with each other, how their relationship had developed over time and a deep sense of yearning filled her. She had been ignoring that tugging feeling in her guts for years, but now that she was faced with a good relationship all the time from two people she cared for and respected, she was hooped.

It was only made worse now that the group she was looking after on the front lines was so decreased. She found herself doing things she normally wouldn’t, like hanging out with Captain Sergei. He wasn’t her least favourite Captain, that was reserved for any young upstart who tried to come to their front lines thinking that everyone was going to roll over for them, and Captain Tom.

Always Captain Tom.

But Sergei wasn’t her favourite either. He was too quiet, and then, too observant. She didn’t like how it felt like he could see right through her. He made everyone except for a select few people feel uncomfortable, but Karen couldn’t really argue about their current situation.

While she was awkward having coffee dates with him in the morning, it was part of their new routine until those fuckers who just came to the front lines fucked up. All because of a prediction that Kellen made.

That was something that pretty much no one else knew. Karen assumed Kellen’s parents knew, because she didn’t think Kellen kept much from his family. Well, maybe he did, but unlike her, he had a supportive family so she was a little salty about that. She also knew Captain Thatcher, and the man had looked and sounded like he was spiraling when she had spoken to him.

He was not taking this new development well.

Karen hadn’t joked about it, but she did think it was strange. She had never heard about this happening to any other couple. Was Captain Thatcher just that good of a fuck? If that was the case, why hadn’t anyone else had this happen to them? Or had they, but they hadn’t brought it up?

She loved talking about them because it was something that everyone on the front lines needed, and could appreciate. The only people who didn’t realise how important Field Guides were, were idiots who didn’t last long on the front lines in two ways, or those who had enough money that it didn’t need to matter. They could just hire enough cannon fodder.

Captain Sergei sat there, listening, a small smile on his face as he did so. Karen was worried that she was boring him, that he wasn’t actually that interested in what she was talking about, but he ended up surprising her.

He told her that he had asked the same question to Brent, and he had gone on a huge rant about Kellen, and how he was able to pull this program out of his ass and execute it like the genius that he was. How he had doubted if ’fru fru’ Guides were ever going to adapt to the way of Field Guides, but he had been proven wrong.

For the Guild’s Guides sake, Karen felt a little hurt, but she also understood. She was one of the Espers who worked almost exclusively on the front lines. She knew how to act around normal Guides, she wasn’t some kind of demon or E.A.G. member. She knew how to say please and thank you and smile normally, but she did love how the Field Guides out here treated her. She was treated like she was their favourite treat all because she wasn’t insane.

When she went back home? Sometimes she saw how some of the Guides looked at her. Like they were scared that she would break their hand or other parts of them if they did higher level guiding.

It stung, she wouldn’t lie, but...yeah. She had been noticing a change in the Guides ever since Kellen rolled into the Guild. Well, more like was carried into the Guild. The attitude had shifted, probably because he’d beaten a few Guides, more likely because his influence on his students had been spreading to everyone in the Guiding Division.

It was a good thing that they were gaining confidence, and not in the same bad way that had caused several Espers to almost Surge.

That was what Captain Sergei and Karen talked the most about. How confidence could change a Guide, and in a good way.

They were having that discussion when all hell broke loose, and Kellen’s prediction came true.