The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

The cold muzzle pressed against her forehead.

But Sea-ah didn't step back, and she didn't squeeze her eyes shut either.

Even if she was going to meet her end right here, she wasn't going to beg abjectly for her life.

Instead, she strained to the last second to somehow drag the man in front of her back to his senses.

"Teacher…! I don't know who did what to you, but please — snap out of it!"

Bloodshot eyes locked on Kang Taemin's clouded, lifeless ones, Sea-ah forced the desperate cry out.

"Kill me and… you'll regret it for the rest of your life! Please — for the Director's sake, at least — pull yourself together!"

Her ragged shout scattered on the wind sweeping the rooftop.

But no answer came back, all the way through.

There was only a chillingly perfect, inorganic murderous intent, tightening the finger on the trigger slowly and without mercy.

"…"

Faced with that unshakable silence, Sea-ah, at last, gave up.

So… this is where it ends.

An ache spread through her chest.

Two years ago, that day.

When she lost her whole family, she'd wished she'd died with them.

But she'd been dragged off to the institute — no dying, either — used as a horrific test subject, kept alive day after day on nothing but pain.

Days no different from a corpse with breath still in it.

And yet.

Miraculously, only now had she started wanting to live again.

The lovable younger ones who trailed after her calling "unnie, noona."

Yul oppa, who wordlessly became the place to lean when the weight got to be too much.

New knowledge that got stranger and more fascinating the more she learned, and researcher teachers who genuinely looked out for her.

And… above all, the Director, who had given her his whole, unconditional gentleness.

Happiness and warmth she'd forgotten so completely — she was only now finally able to feel what those things were again.

…It isn't fair.

Tears finally rose in her flushed eyes and blurred her sight.

Why now, of all times, right when she wanted so badly to live.

Why had death come.

She'd never known how bitterly, how cruelly the wish to live could carve into a heart.

But Sea-ah, in the end, did not let the tears fall.

If anything, she lifted her chin straight up.

At the very least, she didn't want to show him a weak, collapsed figure that had given up.

That was the last of her pride — for the Director who had saved her, and for herself, who had survived every kind of pain.

Even with death right up against her, Sea-ah kept her eyes wide open, glaring dead into Kang Taemin's empty pupils with everything she had.

Click.

Kang Taemin's thick index finger, hooked on the trigger, began, very slowly, to pull back.

One more second and it would all be over — that split-second before the firing pin dropped.

"Stop."

In that instant, a strangely lilting voice tickled her ear, cutting through the cold rooftop air.

An endlessly soft, gentle voice — but the force behind that single word of command was absolute.

As if by magic, Kang Taemin's huge frame — on the very edge of squeezing the trigger — locked in place, like a machine yanked from its power source.

Sea-ah's eyes snapped, on reflex, toward the source of the voice.

The rooftop's iron door, crumpled and smashed like a sheet of paper.

Above that awful wreckage, a man was looking down at the scene with a repulsively easy grace, watching them with interest.

"Fox!!!!"

The nickname the Director had used for that man came out of Sea-ah's mouth.

The strange, unreadable man who'd appeared out of nowhere during the Ari kidnapping business, dropped a loaded remark, and vanished.

"Hmm… little pitchers have big ears, apparently. That man goes around calling me that, and the little ones pick it up too."

He curved his eyes up in a fox-like smile, wide.

"Not exactly the nickname of my dreams, but… I suppose it's a bit late to ask him to change it now."

The man leapt down from the crumpled iron door as lightly as a feather, and — waving the fan in his hand elegantly — walked toward Sea-ah.

Then, as if truly worried, he let his brows droop.

"Oh dear, oh dear…. I told him only to burn through all your mana… but it seems he took the order a little too well. To think he'd be that loyal. My apologies."

"Don't touch me…!!!"

Just as the Fox's hand was about to reach her, Sea-ah shrieked in desperate refusal and shrank back.

She scraped the very bottom of her mana — right down to her soul — and forced up a transparent barrier in front of her at last.

Watching the pitiful resistance, the Fox smiled slyly behind his fan.

"Ohh… must be her age? Her mana comes back quickly, doesn't it?"

The Fox flicked the fan he held lightly downward through the air.

He'd only swept the empty air softly, as if in dance.

Kang—!!

The barrier Sea-ah had barely managed to stack together split cleanly in two and shattered.

"Kya-!"

Caught by the mana backlash, Sea-ah rolled across the ground.

The Fox drifted closer on smooth, gliding steps and looked down at the trembling Sea-ah without mercy.

"Don't be so afraid. I'm not going to kill you right this second."

"Ugh…. Then… what the hell do you want…!"

The Fox smiled and turned his gaze away.

"What I want is…."

He turned his back on Sea-ah and walked toward Kang Taemin, who was standing there like a statue.

He rummaged through Kang Taemin's coat without a second thought and pulled out a cylindrical object.

The very red flare the Director had pressed into Kang Taemin's hand before they entered the ruins, telling him to fire it without hesitation the moment anything happened.

"This, right here."

Shwoo—

Without a beat of pause, the Fox shot the red flare up, and it split the ash-gray sky.

Pop!!

The instant the red flash burst overhead, a chilling realization struck through Sea-ah's mind like lightning.

She hadn't been this man's target to begin with.

Keeping her alive and dragging her all the way here, taking his time even though he could have killed her, deliberately burning down her power.

All of it was a trap.

She was only bait — and the real prey they were after was….

"Director…!"

At Sea-ah's despairing whisper, the Fox curled his eyes into a smile, as if a clever child had just landed on the right answer.

Then, unhurried, he strolled toward the edge of the rooftop.

He curled the thumb and index finger of his long, pale hands into circles, brought them to one eye like a telescope, and looked out over the ruins beyond with interest.

"Sure enough… he's charging in without looking. Well… someone seems to be coming from the other side too, but we can just hold that off, so no trouble."

Murmuring easily, the Fox lowered his hand and looked back down at Sea-ah.

There was a chillingly gentle smile on his lips.

"It'll take the Director a little while to get up here. In the meantime, how about I tell you an entertaining little story to keep you from getting bored?"

"Don't bother! I don't want to hear a word out of you!"

Sea-ah screamed it out, glaring at him as if she could tear him to pieces with her bloodshot eyes.

But the Fox breezed past her outburst and went on, softly.

"Have you ever heard of 'Awakened overload'?"

"…"

"An Awakened loses their reason and turns into a monster — overload. Even now, no one in this world has pinpointed its cause. Some say it's when your mana runs completely dry. Others say it's what happens when the core shatters."

The Fox clicked his tongue as if mocking the lot of it.

"But… over the course of my many, many 'experiments,' I've found one method that's absolutely reliable. The most important, the most perfect trigger for an overload is…."

Tack.

The Fox snapped the fan he'd been elegantly holding open shut with a crisp sound, then tapped his temple lightly with the tip.

"This 'mind,' right here."

He bent leisurely and picked up a chunk of concrete debris rolling around the rooftop floor.

"No matter how full your core is with mana, no matter how healthy the body, if you can just perfectly smash this mind…."

Krak—!

He gave a light squeeze, and the solid concrete lump crumbled between his fingers, absurdly easy.

Fine gray dust sifted down through his pale fingers.

"An overload triggers this easily."

Watching him smile as he flicked the dust off his hand, Sea-ah felt a heavy sense of dread.

Why is he telling me this? What's the point?

Just as the eerie question chased its own tail, the Fox spoke again.

"All right, then, a quiz. What's the most reliably devastating way to shatter someone's mind? Our clever Sea-ah should be able to work out the answer, right?"

The Fox smiled and held her eyes with a stubborn, sticky look, but Sea-ah pressed her lips tight together.

Open her mouth carelessly now, and it felt as if she'd end up dancing entirely to the tune of that snake-cunning monster.

"Hmm…. Talking to myself isn't very fun."

At Sea-ah's stubborn silence, the Fox murmured lazily, as though disappointed, and started walking.

The one he was moving toward was Kang Taemin, still standing motionless.

The Fox leaned close to Kang Taemin's ear and whispered, in an achingly soft voice.

"Kang Taemin. Hit your own face. Hard."

The instant the order dropped—

Thwack—!!

Kang Taemin's huge fist tore through the air without hesitation and slammed brutally into his own face.

Along with a dull, cracking sound his head snapped to a grotesque angle, and red droplets sprayed from his split lip.

"…!!"

Sea-ah's eyes bulged wide in shock.

"Well then, ready to answer now?"

"Wh-what are you doing…! Stop… stop it…!"

"Hmm. Doesn't seem you've got the answer yet."

At a light jerk of the Fox's chin, Kang Taemin raised that pot-lid of a fist once more and hammered his own face without mercy.

Krak—!!

"Come on, out with the answer. Until the Director gets here… I can keep this up as long as it takes."

Thwack!

Whack!

Blunt on the surface, Kang Taemin had quietly and warmly looked after her and the younger ones from the background.

And now that same face, at the hands of no one but his own fist, was being ground and torn open, going bloody.

Every time the chilling sound of impact rang across the rooftop, Sea-ah's throat clenched shut.

A way to shatter someone's mind? What is it? Killing family? Or… some horrible torture…?

Under the extreme terror and confusion, Sea-ah's head tangled into a white blank.

Thwack—!!

"Stop it, please!!! I don't know, so stop!"

Her body moved before her mind did.

Sea-ah drove her shaking legs forward and threw herself at Kang Taemin like she'd lost her mind.

She grabbed his bloodied, massive arm with both hands, clung to it tight, and strained to somehow stop that awful self-inflicted damage.

"Teacher! Please…! Please, stop!"

But there was no way a nine-year-old could hold back the strength of a beast that had lost its reason.

Whip—!

Kang Taemin shook Sea-ah off him roughly.

"Aaagh!"

Sea-ah tumbled uselessly across the cold rooftop, but he didn't so much as glance at her.

Clouded, unfocused eyes flashing, he raised that pot-lid of a fist once more, high.

Krak—!

Whack!

Watching the pitiful sight, the Fox snapped his fan shut and shook his head.

"Hmm…. What a shame. I really thought our bright Sea-ah would get it in one."

"You…!"

"Well, she is only nine. Still a bit young, I suppose, to grasp the whole cruelty of life."

The Fox's red lips split into a grotesque arc of a smile.

"Nothing for it, then. The answer… I'll just have to show you with my own two hands."

That was when.

Kwang! Kwaang—!!

The sound of something tearing its way up furiously from the floors below rang through the building.

"Ohh…."

The Fox looked down at the floor under his feet, eyes lighting with interest.

"Our Director's faster than I expected."

Barely had he finished when, from the collapsing stairwell below, a huge shout ripped its way up to the rooftop.

"Sea-ah!!! Number Three!!! Answer me!!!"

The Director's cry, calling for them, desperate.

Hearing that roar, the Fox turned slowly toward Kang Taemin, and then, snakelike, whispered a new command over him.

"Shout. Like this."

The moment the order was fed in, Kang Taemin — blood dripping steadily from the corners of his mouth — opened his mouth wide like a machine and yelled.

"Director!! Over here!!! On the roof!!!"

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