Paul Cerf, male unremarkable guide, French Guild employee...

Yep, Paul was a Guide. Which made him privileged over the common folk. At least in France.

France had been one of the quicker ones to adapt to the emergence of the gates. No thanks to the Government of course, but you wouldn't know that by listening to their bullshit.

Nope, it was the 'your every day group of friends' or colleagues that self-organised and explore any of the gates that hadn't been discovered and cordoned off by the government.

The first Espers, were these common folk who risked their lives in the first Gates, not the government. Things had quickly become a competition, however, the Government attempting to monopolise all gates and demanding that all civilian espers register, while the rest of the population debated about the governments motives. With the concearn it might be an attempt to exploit the espers who protected their local communities and siphon them off to places in the country of more strategic value, leaving some communities to fend for themselves.

The unafiliated Espers began to organise in local regions and work together with groups in other regions. Their numbers growing along with their cooperation as the horror of the gates began to show.

It was the nongovernmental espers that were always the quickest in closing the gates. Letting up on the peoples suffering, while the government dragged their feet. They began to call themselves, 'les manifestant', The manifested. A double-entendre for manifesting supernatural powers and protesters against the Governments militant ways.

On one hand the Government suffered fewer losses and invested in building Elite forces known as 'les Chasseur' The hunters. On the other hand, the Manifested suffered a lot of losses, but grew rapidly in number. Working with the manifested also offered people ways of awakening as Espers. That was almost impossible for your everyday person in the government during the early days. Pretty much only the military, war veterans and firefighters, or police officers given recognition for excellent service, bravery and campatriotness were allowed to awaken.

Gradually normal people began to awaken as well even without the help of a core. Although most of the early espers were men, there was no such pattern between the organically awakened people. Both Men and women awakened as Espers.

18-25 was the period were most people who would awaken, awakened. It ended up being pritty much up to the individual who they applied to join, The Manifested and or the Hunters.

The manifested came to gather and started Guilds, a legitimate organisation organised to hunt and close gates, as well as gather resources that the government requested, They became popular amongst locals because they were the only ones who would sell them the materials found inside the dungeon. Forget about getting anything from the government if you ran a small business.

Even international actors reached out to be supplied by the manifested (although we're not supposed to talk about that). The Guild grew quickly in power often competing or ending up in conflict with the government for gates and recruiting newly awakened espers, but never overstepping so that the government would treat them as a disruptive ****.

At this point, the Guilds were so powerful, Paul wasn't sure the government would be able to overthrow them even if they tried. And the people would be on the guild's side.

Guides began to apear around this time as well, It was an international discovery. Paul couldn't say who first discovered that there were certain people who who posed the supernatural ability to sooth the minds of Espers on the brink of madness from extensive use of their powers. But words spread, contrary to Espers who awakened to unique abilities, the Guides all had one ability and trait in common, which was why the term for Guide became prevalent in France as well even though France had distinct names for Espers (Although the government plagiarised theirs from other countries, those uncreative pompous dolts).

The awakening guides were quickly snapped up by both factions since the intense competition between the Manifested and the Hunters had lead to some of their people had already gone off the deep end... Ahem... Where close to going off the deep end...

Both had been ****, though perhaps the government had been more **** since they'd invested heavily in a few eliets that were all different levels of crazy, it was even said that their top hunter (Who's identity have never been revealed to the public) had even needed to be restrained and imprisoned in the top security prison.

Guides didn't really have much of a chance to try to form their own organisations like some of the awakened Esper had done. They were all snatched up by the many guilds across France or the government. It had caused a great deal of friction and might have completely dissolved any semblance of cooperation between the two opposing forces if not foreign powers attempting to entice or traffic guides out of the country both newly awakened and already employed.

It had awakened an total outcry from the entire nation and both forces had united and cooperated for the first time to ruthlessly stamp the bad actors.

Although there had remained a power struggle for control over guides, tempers had began to settle between the manifested and the government.

Meanwhile it had begun to show in the rest off the world which nations were going to fall, and which nations had adapted.

South Korea, had for some reason adapted very quickly and rapidly created a system to classify The power levels of Espers and guides, and were considered leading in government regulations around Espers and Guides. Though Paul didn't know much about that, other than both Epsers and Guides were treated like top celebrities, which was far from the case in France.

The French government had been looking to create a guide asociation that controlled all guides under the government and 'leased them out' to the guilds similar to the system that existed in south Korea. This was immensely unpopular and there was no way the Government could phrase this to convince the public that this wouldn't ultimately end up exploiting guides.

The proposal was hollowed out to the extent that it was mainly a registry for all guides and similarly to the SNU a 3 day seminar which was mainly an infomercial for the government, a crashcource on what guides abelites and how to act in a crisis, and what Paul remembered as an incredibly awkward and cringeworthy sex ed class that had not managed to prepare him for the intimate realities of being a guide, especially a male guide.

There was supposedly an equivalent organisation for Espers, but Paul could hardly remeber it's name and he wasn't convinced either all guild espers even bothered to register.

As for the Military service, that was more complicated. The Mandatory National universal service (SNU) had been extended for three months insteas of 1, during which individuals would be screened and some would be heavily incentivised to join the military service, Guild however, competed with the government usually offering local training and strategic exercises for all ages, campaigning to help people stay safe as well as improving on public relations.

Regardless the National guide association was quite the flop in France (only slightly more successful than the esper equivalent), Paul had heard that the government could contact guild employed guides through the association if they were looking for some contingency compatibility tests for Hunters in case of an emergency. But Paul didn't actually know any guides personally who'd been called to go in and do one of those. Technically the Guilds could use the Guide association in a similar manner, but they preferred not to reveakl any more information about their espers and guides than necessary to the government and tended to handle that between guilds....

That sort of compatibility test, Paul seemed to have to do on a monthly basis....

Beyond the National asociaton for guides there were also various Unions. The two biggest ones Were the UNPG (L’Union Nationale pour la Protection des Guides) National union for the protection of guides and the CGM (La Confédération des Guides Manifestants) The confederation for protesting guides. CGM was the only one Paul had considered joining since it catered towards guild employed guides while the former catered for the government employed guides.

Unfourtunatley, guide Unions had derisive history, where the early ones exploited, blackmailed and pimped out their members, sometimes foreign powers had been behind them, in which case there had been certain guides who'd even been trafficked out of the country. This last thing was a red line that Neither the guilds or the government had any tolerance for and there'd been several purges.

Guide unions garnered still a great deal of distrust from goth the guilds and the government which unfortunately has hampered advancements in the labour rights of Guides. Paul was quite hesitant to join because even he'd felt that some of the smaller unions that had approached him were a bit sketchy.

Anyways, the only other thing the French Government seemed to have taken from the South Korena system was their classification system.

Hunters and Guides could be classed From A to F Where A were the most promising and F might as well be a civilian. Most people awakened were between F-C initially, B's were considered gifted and A's were la crem de la crem. Over time Espers could increase their rank, the easiest and quickest way being by absorbing a core, not like just anyone could get their hands on those though... The other way, Paul wasn't too sure about, maybe practice? And something about good guiding over longer periods of time? That what some roumours seemed to say.

Guides could also change their class, but If anyone knew how or why that happened, it certainly wasn't Paul.

Then there were an S class apparently. As far as Paul knew, it just didn't happen that people awakened into the S class, this was something that had to be broken through by absorbing a core. Paul had heard about there being about twenty something S class Espers. In France. Frankly there probably was more but that was the public figure anyway. Then there was rumoured to be one or two SS classes under the governments employ, but Paul didn't know if that was true or just a ploy to cower the Guilds.

As For S class Guides. Paul hadn't heard of any.

Paul was C class, which for him who worked in quite prestigious guild headed by an S class meant that he had a very unremarkable rank in the guild.

What qualities separated him from a D or B class? Heck if Paul knew. He'd just been assigned the Class on the Guide seminar by the Guides Association, no explanation or anything. No one else seemed to know either. Socially, most people didn't really seem to care, it was something people joked and promptly forgot about. It only seemed to matter in beurocratic matters and, worst of all, pay....

The only thing that stood out about Paul was that he seemed to score fairly consistently between Espers as 5o in compatibility.

Espers and Guides could have Varying affinities towards each other, Usually it was a hit or miss, where some would score between 10 -30 or 60-80. This was why Guilds mapped out affinities ahead of time, so that the Esper would know who they should seek out for guidance, and who they should avoid. Apparently having a low compatibility scoring could lead to the guidance being rather unpleasant, and if the Esper was doing badly it could even back fire and push them over the edge.

Paul wouldn't know though could he'd never experienced it. He'd never experienced the high compatibility either which was said to be a euphoric experience.

But his steady score made him a dependable go to guy for guidance if no one better was around.
You'd think that was good thing, right?

But life as a guide isn't so easy...