I was tearing up the emergency stairs of a gray building like a madman, a twin tucked under each arm like a piece of luggage.
I'd sprinted flat out through kilometers of brutal ruins the second I saw the red flare stitched across the sky, and my lungs felt on the verge of tearing.
But my legs didn't buckle under me.
The twins had been pushing me along with their telekinesis at intervals, sometimes flinging me clean through the air — thanks to them, I'd punched through at a speed leagues beyond anything human.
"Director!! Over here!!! On the roof!!!"
Number Three Kang Taemin's raw shout, cutting down from the top of the stairs.
Finally reaching the top floor, I threw a kick without hesitation at the iron rooftop door.
Kwang—!!
The already-battered iron door tore free, hinges and all, flew through the air, and slammed ugly onto the ground.
Through the cloud of dust, I burst onto the roof — and what met my eyes was… genuinely horrific.
Number Three, face pulped so bloody I couldn't make out his features — what god-awful thing had been done to him? — standing there upright.
At his feet, Sea-ah, chalk-white, slumped on the ground.
And….
Standing right in the middle of the rooftop, waving a fan lazily, the man in the gold changpao.
"Fox!!!!!"
I heard the taut rope of reason inside my head snap clean.
I whipped the twins tucked under my arms behind my back in one motion, drew the Mana Pistol from my belt, and, without hesitation, leveled it at the space between his brows.
Click—!
"You…! What the hell have you done!!!"
But even in the face of my fury, the Fox only smiled easily, eyes crinkling.
"Ha ha… Director. Good to see you again."
"Save it. One meeting doesn't earn you a reunion, you piece of—!"
I ground my teeth and growled at him, and the Fox didn't argue back — just gave me one of those unreadable, loaded smiles.
That revolting composure.
"Well, if that's how you feel, I can't help that. Fair enough… the mood right now isn't exactly right for pleasant hellos. Still…"
He hunched his shoulders in an exaggerated show and gestured with the tip of his fan at the muzzle pointed at his forehead.
"A gun, really? Vicious things like that terrify me."
The Fox flicked the fan lightly downward in one perfectly elegant motion.
In that instant.
Krak—!
"…!"
The barrel of the Mana Pistol shattered.
A gap in power so overwhelming it hadn't even given me time to squeeze the trigger.
A chill ran up my spine at the cool wind grazing my empty fingertips.
"I only came to have a nice, quiet chat with you… wouldn't leaving those nasty weapons out of it be basic courtesy between people?"
"You're a piece of work."
Every part of me wanted to lunge and tear that easy smile off his face — but right now I had to stay cold.
Ching-.
Without a scrap of regret, I chucked the ruined gun aside, dug roughly into my pocket, pulled out a candy, and shoved it into my mouth.
The moment the hard candy started melting on my tongue, the fury and the panic churning in my head began to flatten under something forcible.
As though ice water had been poured straight into my heart, reason took its place, chillingly calm.
"Haaa…"
I looked him dead in the eye, every emotion folded neatly away, and asked, cool.
"So what do you want."
At my cold question the Fox answered in a warm voice.
"Isn't it obvious… I came to see our Director, of course."
"If it's me you're here for, send the kids and that researcher out. You and me, one-on-one."
But even at my hard warning, the Fox only creased his eyes into pretty crescents and smiled.
"Ha ha, honestly, I'd love nothing more than to have some quiet time alone with the Director myself…."
Slowly, he turned his head, looking back and forth between Kang Taemin and Sea-ah.
"But today's meeting really does need its cast."
Chak—!
He snapped the fan he'd been holding open with a brisk sound.
"Director. Mind if I tell you a very interesting story?"
An abrupt topic change, dropped straight into this situation.
I was so stunned I couldn't even manage a laugh, but he clearly hadn't needed my permission or my answer to begin with — he just launched in, doing as he liked.
"Three years ago, right in the middle of London, there was an incident where one of France's most famous Awakened was horrifically murdered. The person named as the suspect at the time was, of all things, an A-rank illusion user."
The Fox pressed on in that exaggerated, mellow tone, as if telling a bedtime story to a small child.
"Of course, the poor illusionist protested his innocence and denied the charges to the last… but sadly, right at the scene, there was CCTV footage with his face plainly on it, damning evidence."
"…"
"In the end, mana sealed, he was thrown into the most horrific prison there is. And when the whole world pointed fingers at him, calling him a killer, and turned its back — a single 'kind friend' kept coming to the visiting room and stayed at his side."
The corners of the Fox's eyes curved up into a grotesque smile.
"Now, a question."
"!"
"Who do you suppose that one and only kindly friend was?"
Snap—!
The crisp click of fingers cracked through the cold silence on the rooftop — and in that very instant.
Bwaaang—!!!
An enormous, sharp car horn, loud enough to shred my eardrums, hit my brain like lightning.
The cold rooftop under my feet was, all at once, hot rough asphalt.
And at the edge of my vision, a small, familiar back.
A child I knew, chasing a shimmering soap bubble, darting out into traffic.
Minjun.
"Minjun!!! No!!!!"
There was no time even for my head to make sense of it.
I was already back in that time, the familiar preschool apron tied around me, and my body had already thrown itself instinctively toward the child.
A black car barreling down the road, unhinged.
Minjun's face, frozen with terror on the asphalt.
Screech—!
Kwang!!!
Along with the scream of tires, an impact that seemed to grind my whole body to nothing swept over me.
The world lifted through the air, arms locked around Minjun — and then slammed viciously back down to the ground.
And in the very next moment, my view distorted like taffy being pulled.
Whoosh—
This time a thick, sickening stench of blood stabbed into my lungs.
Filling my warped sight was a hideous monster shaped like a lion the size of a house.
And there, at the mouth of that horrific predator — in my arms, Yul.
No…!
On reflex I threw my whole body around Yul, everything of me between him and the thing.
In that same instant the monster's massive, saw-toothed fang drove ruthlessly through my right arm.
Crunch, krak—!
"Aaaaaaaaaagh!!!"
Flesh tearing away, bone being ground to nothing — the sensation of it, absolutely vivid.
Even the temperature of the hot blood gushing out through the ripped skin.
Just as the pain crushed me down, on the very edge of blacking out from shock.
Snap—!
Along with the brisk click of fingers cracking against my eardrums, the hellish scene pressing down on my sight shattered like glass.
"Hah…! Ha, ha…!"
When my eyes flew open, I was curled up on the dust-covered rooftop floor, clutching my right arm and gasping.
My whole body was already so drenched with cold sweat you could have wrung a puddle out of it.
"Director!! Director…!"
Through vision spinning wildly, I could hear, distant, the tear-choked voices of the twins glued to my sides, weeping big, fat tears.
Sprawled in the dust, I somehow forced my scattered mind back together and lifted my head.
"You…!!!!"
Looking down at my collapsed state as if it were the most entertaining thing in the world, the Fox was waving his fan with a repulsive, careless ease.
"There was something unpleasant caked all over your right arm, so I wondered what it was — and, well, you've been hiding something ghastly, haven't you?"
He folded the fan slowly and brought it up to hide his mouth, eyes crinkling.
"How was that? My little ability today, was it fun? I only gave you the tiniest taste… and you reacted far better than I hoped. Delighted, honestly."
My head knew perfectly well every part of what I'd just been through was fake.
But the horror the Fox had shoved into my mind was so vivid that my body could only respond with terror.
I gripped the right arm throbbing wildly with phantom pain and barely held down the shaking of my body.
Then, forcing strength out of myself, I hauled my unsteady way up to my feet.
Watching my pitiful struggle as if it were some pleasant piece of entertainment, the Fox let out a soft laugh.
"Oh dear… don't be too frightened. I've no intention of using this ability on the Director again today."
The Fox murmured softly, then turned his eyes to Sea-ah.
"Sea-ah. I asked you earlier, didn't I? The fastest, most complete way to break someone's mind."
"…"
"It's this…"
Suffocating silence pressed down on the rooftop for a beat, and then his verdict came down like lightning.
"You teach them that no matter how hard they run for their lives, they're right back where they started."
Snap—!
Sea-ah, who had been sitting on the ground somehow still glaring at the Fox, tipped forward as if the strings holding her upright had been cut, and slumped face-down onto the ash-gray floor.
"Sea-ah!"
I threw myself at the ground and pulled the collapsing child hard into my arms.
But the state of the child in my arms was, blatantly and horribly, wrong.
The vivid, venomous light that had been flashing in her eyes only moments before had gone out like a power switch flipped off.
Her empty, unfocused gaze wasn't taking me in — it was pinned somewhere on some grotesque point in midair, jittering wildly with extreme fear.
Trembling in convulsive shudders in my arms, Sea-ah began to curl herself up as small as she could, tight into a ball.
"Ah… ah…."
At first they were small, choked groans, like an animal in pain.
"Mom… Dad… no… don't go… please, no…."
But the smothered sounds swelled unstoppably and sharpened into screams.
"Se-min…! Se-eun… no…! Don't go over there. It's dangerous! Get back!"
Focus gone, her empty eyes rolled wildly as Sea-ah screamed at the empty air in a voice on the edge of tearing.
"Sea-ah! Snap out of it! Open your eyes! It's all fake! Sea-ah!!"
I gripped her narrow shoulders in my arms and shook her like a madman.
Anything, anything, to drag her out of there — I patted her chalk-white cheek and called her name until my throat gave out, but no light returned to Sea-ah's rolled-back eyes.
"Ha ha ha… no need to strain yourself. It won't do any good."
Just then, behind me, the Fox's mellow laugh rang out, sickening.
"That child's mind is already jammed all the way down to the bottom of the unconscious. Until I release the illusion myself… she's going to be stuck in there forever."
At the same instant the Fox's cruel verdict fell —
Wooooong—!
From Sea-ah in my arms, mana grotesquely thick and vast started pouring out like a dam bursting.
The air trembled, screaming, and vivid blue mana particles pouring from Sea-ah's small frame gobbled up the rooftop air, greedy.
Kuwaaang—!!!
In a heartbeat, an enormous shockwave — as if compressed air had ruptured — exploded outward from her small body.
Kwang!
"Kh…!"
There wasn't so much as a moment to brace.
Arms still locked tight around Sea-ah, I took the full force of that terrifying mana storm right in the chest.
My body was lifted as though rammed by an enormous truck.
"!"
Just as I was being flung helplessly through the air—
"Director!!!!"
The twins' shrill, ear-splitting shout burst out.
In that instant, my body — being hurled at brutal speed — halted in midair, miraculously, as if plucked out of the air.
I was maybe a hand's-breadth away from having the back of my skull run clean through by a jagged, rust-crusted piece of rebar.
"Hah…!"
The heavy sensation of huge, invisible hands gripping me by the back and the waist.
Sucking rough breaths, I whipped my head around — Hajun and Hayun, faces gone dead white, small hands locked tight together, were stretching their free hands out toward me.
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