The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

His face — no, all the way up to his ears — went bright red, and he fidgeted with my collar.

"Put me… put me down…."

Oh no.

The right arm…!

Startled, I hastily set Hajun back down on the dirt.

Then, worried his eyes might land on it, I hurriedly hid my right arm behind my back and eased a step away.

But the moment I put a little distance between us, oddly enough, the boy's face twisted.

Tears welled up fast in those big eyes — a face on the very edge of bursting into a heartbroken cry.

Right, the arm….

What a terror this awful right arm must be to a child….

Self-recrimination came rolling in.

But that didn't mean I could let him walk this stretch on his own feet either.

I dropped my gaze, and the horrific wreckage scattered in every direction — sharp glass shards and jagged bits of metal — caught my eye.

Haah….

In the end I tucked the right arm hidden behind me even further out of sight, and with only my good left arm I scooped the small body up in one motion.

"I know you don't like it… but bear with me a second. Once we're clear of this stretch, I'll put you down right away."

Hajun buried his face in my shoulder and mumbled something small, but I couldn't quite make it out.

That was when I felt a hand tugging at my waistband from below.

"Director! Director!"

I looked down: Hayun was reaching up and bouncing on the spot.

"Me too! Pick me up too!"

I sucked in a breath, thrown for a second.

The only arm free right now — with Hajun in the other — was the right one I'd hidden behind me.

But not knowing what was going on inside my head, the child grabbed at the arm I'd been hiding with both her tiny hands.

"right here, pick me up!"

Hayun's… gotten used to my arm a little?

Still in a daze, I carefully stretched out the stiff right arm and hoisted Hayun up.

"Hee-hee!"

A clear, ticklish little laugh sounded in my ear.

Without a moment's hesitation, Hayun flung her two small arms out and wrapped them snugly around my neck.

Rubbing her plump cheek against my shoulder, she burrowed in against me.

At that warm, soft heat, the shoulder that had gone rigid seemed to melt down, just like that.

But.

Get a grip. Can't let it show how much you like this.

I forced back the strange feeling threatening to spread across my mouth, cleared my throat, and pulled on a brusque face.

"Ahem. This is just so my dolls don't get damaged, and only because I have no choice. This once."

I looked back and forth between the children's eyes and made it stick.

"So don't go getting any funny ideas. Got it?"

The two in my arms just looked up at me, met each other's eyes, and giggled behind their hands.

"Hee-hee."

"Yes~ we get it."

What. What's with that weird reaction?

Just as I opened my mouth to nag some more.

Rustle.

A grating sound came from the gap in the collapsed wall of the ruin.

I whipped my head around on reflex.

There, glaring at us, was a damp, sticky creature that looked as though it were coated in black filth.

That's….

[Director. District Eight is low-land — an area that used to flood often. And there was a big river nearby. So the Gate that opened here at the time was a 'water-attribute' dungeon. The water's all drained, but… you'll still see monsters that have something to do with water or swampland.]

The monster in front of me was exactly as Han Soeun had described before we set out.

The grotesque shape of a slime — a mass of oozing black mud clumped together.

Every time it wriggled, a nose-searing sewer stench rolled off it.

Doesn't look aggressive, but… better to handle it fast.

I reached into my coat for the self-defense mana pistol, but with children in both arms there was no way to pull the pistol out.

"Down for just a second. Let me handle him, then I'll pick you up again."

But the response was cool.

"Nnnghhh, don't wanna…."

Hayun clung tighter around my neck, whining, and Hajun too shook his head firmly, refusing.

"I'll fire one shot, real quick, then pick you up again. Yeah?"

I was in the middle of trying to coax them down onto the ground when Hayun, looking past my shoulder at the monster, shouted.

"We can just get it!"

"What?"

Before I could ask again, Hayun stretched a hand out toward Hajun in the other arm.

Hajun, as if he'd been waiting for it, caught his sister's small hand.

Fwash—

Clinging to me, both small hands locked tight.

Between them, blue mana bloomed.

Kuguguu—

At the same time, one of the chunks of reinforced concrete lying on the ground beside the slime lifted lazily into the air.

"Take it!"

At the kids' short battle cry the massive concrete lump shot forward like a cannonball.

Kwaang—!

Along with a thunderous roar, a haze of dust bloomed up.

A moment later, once the acrid dust settled, all that was left where the slime had been was a smear crushed flat past recognition.

"……."

I stared blankly at the sight, then looked down at each of the children in my arms in turn.

The pair who had just unloaded that pitiless artillery strike were nuzzling back against my chest, laughing, innocent as anything.

"Hee-hee. Now we can stay here, right?"

"Ho-ho…."

Shaking my head, I settled the children more securely and started walking again.

What played out from there was more of the same ruthless massacre.

A ruined city, monsters lunging out from every direction.

But I didn't have to lift a finger.

Shk—

Thwack—!

Hands locked tight, they had straight-up parked several dozen fist-sized stones in orbit around me, hanging in the air like satellites.

And any time a bush rustled or something felt off, mercilessly, a stone would fly and bury itself in whatever it was.

It was like walking around with a top-of-the-line automated defense system strapped on.

Great, but… is this how it's supposed to go…?

Sure, I'd come here to protect them, but here I was, on the receiving end of the kids' ironclad escort. An absurd inversion.

Feeling both strangely deflated and reassured at the same time, I kept quietly moving deeper into the ruins.

I couldn't say how much further we'd gone in.

"……."

At some point, the black haze at the edges of my vision had thickened enough to blur what I could see.

I didn't even need to check the meter to know.

We'd finally reached the heart of the contamination zone — the part we were here to work.

"Down you two go."

"Uwaa… no. Just a bit longer…."

Hayun clutched a fistful of my clothes, whining, and Hajun buried his face against my shoulder, showing no sign of coming down.

"No. Time to get to work."

I made my voice firm and cut it off flat, and their tiny lips pushed out several inches.

"Fine…. Got it."

Wearing the world's most aggrieved little faces, the children wriggled reluctantly out of my hold.

The instant their feet hit the ground, wistful, they threw themselves into my waist from both sides in fierce hugs.

I stroked each of their soft heads once and coaxed them.

"All right — everyone, pull out your crystals."

At the word, the children started rummaging in their coats.

Soon enough, a clear hexagonal crystal was in each of their hands.

"Hajun, you first."

At my prompt, Hajun flinched his shoulders in and fidgeted with the crystal in both hands.

I stepped up, patted his small shoulder, and gave him a nod. Only then did Hajun draw a small breath, cradle the crystal carefully in both palms, and hold it out.

"Pu-… purify…."

Shwoo—!

The black haze that had been fogging my sight up spun and vanished into the crystal as if pulled by a powerful vacuum.

Slosh.

From the bottom of the clear crystal, a pitch-black liquid started to rise.

That's quick.

Sure enough, being deeper in made a difference — this was on a whole other level from the demonstration Han Soeun had done at the entrance.

"Good. Hayun, you try."

"Yes-!"

And with that, we settled in to fill the crystals we'd brought in earnest.

Shwoo, shwooo—.

Ten, twenty….

As empty crystals turned black and piled up in the bag, the smothering, thick air around us began to open up, little by little.

"Hmm."

Around the time we'd filled thirty crystals, I looked around.

The pressure of the air, which had been pressing down on us like a wet blanket, had eased considerably, and the blurred outlines of the ruins had sharpened.

"At this rate we'll wrap up quickly."

The goal per team was a hundred.

At this pace, another two or three sectors would be plenty.

Easier than I'd figured. Get it done fast and buy the kids something good to eat afterward.

That was the moment.

Whoooo— Pop!

A sharp, ear-splitting bursting sound.

I snapped my head up on reflex.

Above the ash-gray sky, a bright, ominous flash bloomed.

Red smoke, spreading and dispersing across the sky.

That's…!

The flare I'd given Kang Taemin.

"Damn it!"

Without stopping to think, I snatched the twins under both arms like packages.

Thwit!

"D-Director?!"

At the sudden bolt the children startled and cried out, but there was no room now to soothe them.

"Hold on tight!"

I clamped the children under my arms and pushed off the ground running like a madman.

Ta-da-da-dak!

The wreckage tore past my sides on a rough wind and fell out of view behind me.

Whatever's blown up out there, it's blown up bad.

Kang Taemin was ex-military, hardened through every kind of hell.

Barring something serious, there was no way he'd have fired a flare when it meant giving away his position to monsters.

Worst-case scenarios chased each other, one after another, through my head.

Heart hammering fit to burst, I ran flat out toward the place the red smoke was rising from.

Ka-thunk. Ka-thunk.

Along with a steady vibration, her body rocked.

Sea-ah, with great effort, pushed her heavy-as-lead eyelids open.

She could have sworn she'd said her goodbyes to the Director earlier, then let the tension out of her body and dropped off like she'd been knocked cold.

Huh…?

A floating sensation, as though her body were lifting. The car was moving.

Through her hazy sight, in the driver's seat, she could see the big frame of a man.

A familiar back.

Kang Taemin.

Ah, it's Teacher Taemin.

Sea-ah checked that solid back and let out a small breath of relief.

But right after, a question came up.

But… where are we going?

She'd been told they'd wait at the entrance, hadn't she.

Had monsters shown up near the car and he was moving them to safety?

Sea-ah forced her fever-cracked voice out.

"Teacher… where are we going?"

But all that came back was a cold silence.

Never mind an answer — Kang Taemin didn't so much as move, just kept his eyes ahead and his grip tight on the wheel.

Not the usual quietness — this was something else, an unnaturally rigid line to his back.

Had he not heard her?

Sea-ah, gripped by a bad feeling, called out to him again.

"Teacher? Where are we going…?"

"……."

"Aren't we supposed to be waiting for the Director at the entrance?"

Still no answer.

Only then did Sea-ah realize, on instinct, that something had gone very, very wrong.

A cold shiver ran up her spine.

With trembling eyes, Sea-ah looked out the window.

A ruined city.

Collapsed gray brick and buildings stripped down to bare skeletons.

The scene flashing past outside was unfamiliar, and at the same time uncannily, spine-chillingly familiar.

Cutting through that sense of wrongness, an old sign — covered in dust and cobwebs, half torn away — slammed into Sea-ah's sight.

[Bok-sun's Tteokbokki]

In that instant Sea-ah's body went rigid as a plaster cast.

That place….

The place she'd rush off to with her little siblings' hands in hers, clutching a few bills their busy parents had left on the table.

The place where a single cup of tteokbokki felt like having the whole world, where they'd bickered and shrieked with laughter over who got the fried squid.

Piiiiii—.

Cutting through the piercing whine in her ears, hallucinated voices bled in, grotesquely vivid.

'Noona! We're going to Bok-sun's again today? Yay!'

'Unnie! Unnie! Today I wanna eat da Pikachu-donkatsu too!'

But those bright, warm little voices soon thickened, ugly and clogged.

'Unnie… I can't get out. Save me… p-please save me…'

'Noona I… c-can't breathe… noo…na please…!'

"Ugh… ugh…."

Sea-ah's pupils shook uncontrollably.

The horrible sensation she'd fought so hard to forget, stuck deep in her mind, was tightening around her throat again.

Slosh.

The car was bone-dry, but from her ankles up, Sea-ah could feel cold, damp water rising — and, in it, the guilt.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!