The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

A hidden room where darkness had settled heavy.

Around a massive round table, four familiar silhouettes were arrayed like shadows.

A masked man, the Mad Dog in his tiger-print sukajan, and the Fox — face half-hidden behind a fan, eyes crinkled into a smile.

And among them, the white-haired witch Ma Dohee raised her hand.

Kwaang—!

Under her palm the massive round table screamed and split cleanly in half.

She cocked her head at a grotesque ninety-degree angle and looked at the masked man.

"You…. How exactly are you training the peons under you?"

A low, dismal voice rang through the hidden room.

The corners of her mouth curled up grotesquely, all the way to her ears.

"Who dared put a scratch on him? He's mine. He's the toy I've called dibs on…. If he breaks before I get there, are you going to answer for it?"

Ma Dohee whispered it soft and coaxing, but a bone-chilling murderous intent clung to her voice like slime.

"You. Want me to kill you? Hm?"

She drew a hideous thing from her breast pocket.

A hex doll woven from straw, black hair, and lizard skin.

She fisted its limbs as if to crush them and grinned wide.

"Wanna die with every limb twisted horribly out of place?"

That was when.

The masked man's black-gloved hand rose smoothly.

Thumb and forefinger met lightly in midair.

Snap.

The head of the doll in Ma Dohee's hand dropped clean off and rolled down to her feet.

But that overwhelming display got neither a scream out of her nor a step backward.

If anything, she dropped her head, her shoulders shaking, and started to laugh low.

"Heheh… hehhhh…."

Slowly, she lifted her head.

"……So that's how you want it, is it?"

The shadow at her feet stretched sticky and long, and then, snakelike, it slithered up her legs.

Kuguguguuuu—

Black mana rose from her whole body like heat haze off summer asphalt.

It wasn't mere presence.

It was killing intent — a venom that would rot everything it touched.

"Fine. Then how about… we bet our lives on this and go?"

Her pupils bled black, and cursed black mana poured from her fingertips.

Not to be outdone, the masked man answered in kind.

Woong—!

The space around him began to vibrate, red.

As if squaring off against the black mana, a sharp, destructive red mana wound itself around his body.

Black and red.

Two enormous forces were about to slam together head-on inside that narrow room.

The air crackled and shrieked; cracks began to run through the floor and the ceiling.

A hair-trigger standoff.

Clack—!

A brisk snap cut through the heavy air.

The two swelling forces of mana scattered in an instant, as if it had all been a bad joke of a moment ago.

Like a fierce wave breaking against a seawall, they were dispersed with an almost anticlimactic cleanness.

"……!"

"……."

Ma Dohee and the masked man turned to look at the same spot together.

There sat the 'Fox,' who had smoothly folded his fan and slapped it down on his palm.

"Let's stop there."

His voice held no force in it, but a strange, unrefusable weight.

"With the great work ahead of us, wearing each other out among ourselves — is that any way to go? 'That one' would be saddened to see it."

The Fox pointed the tip of his folded fan at the cleaved table and smiled.

"Besides… furniture isn't exactly cheap."

"Ptthh… furniture? Like that costs anything."

Ma Dohee stuck out her lips and grumbled.

In a heartbeat the ghastly murderous intent had slipped from her face, and she was back to being her usual pouty self.

"Still, I want an apology. What if our Director had actually died, huh?"

At her nagging, the masked man moved a fingertip in silence.

Sizzle.

With a burning-in sound, red lettering seared itself into the cloven table.

[Kidnapping.]

Just two characters.

A clipped explanation: his men's aim had been capture, not assassination — a "consideration" of sorts, in their own way.

"Well… I figured they meant to kidnap him, but."

Ma Dohee crossed her arms and gave him a sidelong look.

"Still, from here on out, please be careful. Our Director is so delicate — I'm terrified he'll crumble at the slightest rough handling."

The masked man nodded without a word of complaint.

"Now that things seem to have calmed a bit, let's get on with the actual discussion."

The Fox opened his fan and looked around at the assembled.

"Today's agenda is, of course—"

"That miserable Director bastard, obviously!"

Bang!

The 'Mad Dog' in his tiger-print sukajan slammed a fist down on the armrest, and the solid wood gave way and shattered, sending fragments flying in every direction.

He didn't so much as brush the debris off; veins bulged on his neck as he growled it out.

"I've had it with that bastard. Weak little nothing keeps getting in our way — it's driving me up the wall!"

Murderous intent dripped from his eyes.

"This last one, too! Because that prick butted in, we couldn't even bring the courthouse down! I won't rest easy till I've marched over and taken that arrogant head off his shoulders."

"Mad Dog, are you actually out of your mind? Take whose head?"

Ma Dohee glared and snapped back.

"What? Mad Dog?"

"That's right, you uncouth mutt! Don't you know anything about art? Why would you shred that beautiful face?! I could spend my whole life admiring it stuffed and mounted and still not have enough!"

Killing and possessing.

Two lunatics with no possible middle ground were about to start bickering again when the Fox folded his fan and tapped the table.

Tap, tap.

The brisk but irritable sound quieted the disturbance.

"Both of you have a point. It's true he's become a threat to us."

The Fox's eyes glinted sharp.

"On top of that… he knows too much about us. Suspiciously so. Which means we ought to take some sort of action."

At his words the Mad Dog cackled, as if he'd been waiting for this.

"See?! What'd I say? Just kill him clean and be done with it! Chop the head off — no loose ends, that's the best way."

"No! I'll kidnap him! I'll live with him, and no one will ever have to know! Just tuck him away where no one can find him!"

Ma Dohee shouted, refusing to be outdone, while the masked man simply crossed his arms and looked on in silence.

"Killing him is out. There's information we need to extract."

The Fox spread the fan and murmured behind it, secretive.

At that, Ma Dohee shot her hand up and called out.

"I'll get it out of him! Torture is my specialty!"

Her eyes lit up like a child handed a new toy.

"I just need to dig the information out, right? A little… very little rearranging of his brain in the process would be all right, wouldn't it?"

Her head was already drifting, sweet and grotesque delusions blooming across it.

"A gentle touch on the brain to wipe out the pointless memories… and then, if I trick him into thinking I saved him… wouldn't I be able to make him into a pretty little half-wit, looking only at me for the rest of his life?"

Fully drunk on the fantasy, her cheeks flushed rosy.

"That awful institute, those eyesore little brats — he'd forget it all… and be Director-mine alone! Eeeeee!"

At Ma Dohee's mad, squirming rapture, the Mad Dog beside her scrunched up his whole face and clicked his tongue.

"Ugh…. For the first time, I feel sorry for that Director bastard."

He honestly, sincerely pitied the man called Chae Junhyeok.

He almost thought it might be a blessing to get his head cleanly taken off by him rather than end up in that woman's grip with his brain kneaded like dough.

"But say. Kidnapping? You think that'll be easy? You even failed this time."

The Mad Dog asked, sidelong.

"That bastard's the hottest man in the Republic of Korea right now. On top of which, he's bound to have his guard cranked way up after this business. How the hell are you gonna carry him off without a whisker of a trace?"

It was a fair, practical point.

At which the Fox covered his mouth with the fan and let a faintly bloody smile slip out.

"Don't worry. The prey is walking into the snare on his own two feet."

"What?"

"Word is the Director and the children are headed to District Eight soon. That's when we take him."

"District Eight?"

The Mad Dog's brow knit.

"That's the closed-Gate area, isn't it? Barely any monsters — what's he going out to that empty tin-can zone for?"

"He needs to run adaptation training for the children, and to fill his community-service hours as well. Above all… showing an outside audience will be the biggest reason. That they're operating as a proper guild."

"Hmm…."

"For us, it couldn't be better. No eyes, no CCTVs — a lawless strip of land. There isn't a stage more perfect for a kidnapping."

At the Fox's explanation, the Mad Dog's eyes gleamed. Interest, clearly piqued.

"Watching those brats the Director's raising the other day, they weren't half bad…. Been a while — mind if I loosen up a little?"

But the Fox firmly shook his head at the Mad Dog's question.

"This once, hold off. Now is not a very good time to lay hands on those children directly. Instead…."

The Fox twisted up the red corners of his mouth grotesquely and smiled cold.

"We ought to make those children tear at the Director with their own hands."

"What? Kids, tearing at the Director?"

The Mad Dog asked back, incredulous.

"You think brats that loyal are just going to lose their minds and turn on their master?"

"They won't want to. We'll leave them no choice."

The Fox's eyes shone chilling.

"We trigger an 'overload.'"

"……!"

"From what I've observed so far, Chae Junhyeok has one fatal weakness. The moment those children are in danger, he throws himself in without thinking twice."

The Fox snapped the fan shut and continued, cold.

"Force one child into overload, and Chae Junhyeok will absolutely dive into that fire. Without so much as noticing his own body being torn apart."

A faintly bloody sneer slipped out from between his red lips.

"We'll take advantage of that chaos, and quietly extract a wrecked Chae Junhyeok. As for the child in overload… well, we can just leave them."

He dropped his voice and murmured out the tragic scenario.

"Then the world will hear it as this."

"'An imperfect test subject finally went into overload… and horrifically murdered the Director who had cared for them with such love.' Just like that."

"…!"

"Public affection for Chae Junhyeok and the children is running dangerously high right now. Long-term, there's every chance it becomes a very tiresome obstacle to our plan."

The Fox's eyes shone snake-cunning.

"But if word gets out that that national hero was horrifically torn to pieces by the very monsters he'd trusted? That kind of chaos is the very picture we want, isn't it?"

He tapped the tip of his folded fan against the broken table, easy.

"People will start doubting, gripped by fear. Are these things called Awakened truly safe to keep beside us? Or do they need a shorter leash? Just so."

"……!"

"And Chae Junhyeok — perfectly disguised as one of the dead — will spill every piece of information we need."

The Fox looked at Ma Dohee and smiled.

"After which he'll live on, deep underground, as your pretty little 'toy' forever, Ms. Ma. Wiped from the world without a trace."

The moment the words left him, the air in the meeting room settled cold.

"…"

"…"

Suffocating silence. The Mad Dog was the first to break the taut air.

"Kh, hhhh…."

He shook his head as if repulsed, but admiration was smeared thick across his face.

"That's the Fox for you. Say what you want, that head of his knows how to work. Rotten to the marrow, this one."

"I love it! Director-mine, wiped from the world with no one out there looking for him!"

Ma Dohee, cheeks flushed deep red, clapped her hands together like a child, and the masked man too gave a weighty nod in agreement with the Fox's plan.

At the assembled praise the Fox inclined his head gracefully in thanks, then folded the fan and pointed with it at District Eight on the map.

"Now, then. Let us move on to the most important matter. That is — how we're going to trigger the 'overload' in one of those children."

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