The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

The people who turned toward the source of the scream went rigid, cold as statues.

It was the rooftop of Building 210 — the building right next to Building 209, where Sea-ah lived.

From beneath the deep blue water that had swallowed the building, grotesque lizard-shaped monsters were swarming up the outer walls, blackening them as they climbed toward the rooftop.

"Eek! L-look down there! Th-they're coming up our side too!!!"

At someone's shredding scream, everyone's eyes plunged downward.

Sickeningly, the outer wall of the building they were standing on was being overrun the same way — lizard monsters swarming up at a ferocious speed.

"Block them! You said he was an Awakened! Hurry up and do something!!!"

Panicked people shoved Gold Toad's son roughly toward the railing.

The young man, chalk-white and shaking like a leaf, was shoved forward by the shouting crowd — he squeezed his eyes shut and thrust both hands out into the air.

Fwash—!

By the barest margin, a translucent shield spread along the edge of the rooftop.

Kwang! Thud! Kwaang!!

The monsters that had leapt for their prey slammed into the shield and could only shriek in frustration.

"Eeeek…!"

"Aaaagh! S-stay back!"

Right up against their faces, the monsters' hideous heads, mashed flat against the transparent shield, thrashed wildly.

At the sight of the vile slime and dozens of glinting sawtooth teeth, the horrified people screamed and scrambled backward on their hands and knees.

But this was nothing compared to the neighboring building, which had no barrier at all.

"Kyaaaaaaah! Someone save me!!"

"No, honey!! Aaaagh!"

The monsters that had climbed up onto that rooftop began snatching people up alive.

Clamping the thrashing prey in their jaws, the beasts hurled themselves without hesitation into the deep blue water.

Splash!

Along with dying screams, the sickening sound of people being driven into the water rang out.

But the residents on Building 209's rooftop had no room to watch the massacre next door.

Because the monsters, driven mad by the smell of blood, had begun slamming their heads even more violently into Building 209's shield.

Kwang! Krrrk— Kwang!!

Under the merciless impacts the translucent shield swayed as if it would shatter at any moment, and the son holding it up already had a face white as paper.

"Ngh, ungh…! Hah…!"

He was wringing his mana out to the very last drop, his face gone chalk-white, and just as a crack began to split the surface of the shield — that was when.

—Kyaaaaaaak!!!

From somewhere, a shriek that rang deep in the bones tore through the air.

Then something almost unbelievable happened.

The monsters that had been raging against the shield stopped attacking all at once.

Like a well-drilled troop under orders, they turned without hesitation, crawled slowly down the apartment's outer walls, and slipped back into the deep blue water.

"Haaah…! W-we made it…."

The moment the shield lifted, the people dropped to the floor as if on cue.

But before anyone could savor the relief, Gold Toad — face flushed red — bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"Get up, all of you! You useless bastards! If you've got heads on your shoulders, use them!"

His menacing shout ripped through the air on the rooftop.

"If they come back again, we're all a real meat buffet! If you don't want to die, get down to the lower floors right now and haul up anything and everything we can use to block them! Desks, chairs, wardrobes — I don't care, anything that'll block that entrance, drag it up here!"

At his roar the panicked crowd snapped back to itself and stampeded down the emergency stairwell.

Sea-ah, too, pulled herself up.

"Teacher, please look after the little ones."

"Sea-ah! Where do you think you're going? It's dangerous!"

The teacher, gone chalk-white, tried to stop her, but Sea-ah shook her head firmly.

"Our house is downstairs. I'll just grab what we need and come right back up before the water rises any higher."

Once she'd reassured him, she met her siblings' eyes and impressed on them,

"You have to stay right here next to Teacher and be good. Noona'll be back soon, all right?"

"Yes! Noona, come back fast!"

"I'ww wait!"

Sea-ah pushed through the crowd swarming the rooftop entrance and ran down to their apartment on the fifteenth floor.

She dragged out a big suitcase and stuffed it with whatever she could grab — thick blankets, bottled water, canned emergency food.

Dragging it back up to the rooftop, straining under the weight, she found the adults had hauled up desks and furniture and were building a fairly decent barricade around the perimeter.

Sea-ah walked over to her siblings, huddled in a corner.

But the teacher, who should have been there beside them, was nowhere to be seen.

"Where did Teacher go?"

At her question, Se-min — who'd scavenged a blanket and wrapped it around himself — pointed toward one corner of the rooftop.

"Da Gowd Toad mister came an' took him."

Following his fingertip, Sea-ah looked over — in the corner of the rooftop, Gold Toad and the teacher were talking, faces grave.

Those two shouldn't even know each other…?

Sea-ah felt a fleeting doubt, but looking after her siblings came first, so she pushed it aside and refocused.

An agonizing wait dragged on.

When lunchtime came, people forced down what food they had brought and waited, desperate, for the rescue team that never came.

Sea-ah sat with her back to the bloody rooftop next door and the water below, littered with drifting corpses, using her own body as a desperate shield to keep her siblings from seeing any of it.

Soon the teacher, done with his conversation, came back and let out a deep sigh.

"From what I hear, the whole area's cut off. If only we could find out what's going on outside…."

"…"

"Sea-ah. By any chance… do you have some other way of reaching your parents?"

When Sea-ah quietly shook her head, a flash of deep disappointment crossed the teacher's face — but his expression changed back to a warm smile in an instant.

"It's all right. This is right in the middle of Seoul — surely the government or the Bureau isn't going to just abandon its citizens. Let's hang on a little longer."

But the people trapped on the rooftop felt otherwise.

"Why the hell hasn't anyone come to get us?! A whole day's almost gone!"

"Exactly! What the hell has the government or the Awakened Management Bureau been doing this whole time?!"

Just as the anger born of terror was about to fill the dark rooftop —

—Kyaaaaaaak!!!

Along with an eardrum-splitting shriek, in the far distance a huge wall of water rose up, as if to swallow the apartment whole.

"Ts-tsunami!!"

The moment someone's despairing scream tore out, a horrifying swarm of monsters surfaced through the deep blue waves again.

The second assault.

"Everyone, get behind the Awakened, quick!!"

Panicked people screamed and swarmed toward Gold Toad's son.

In that instant, Gold Toad's meaty hand snatched his son by the scruff of the neck and yanked him roughly to his own side.

"You idiot, I told you before! Don't throw it wide! Narrow it down!"

The shield that burst out along with his urgent shout was nothing like the huge one from the day before.

A cramped size, barely enough to enclose twenty people.

By sheer luck, the teacher, Sea-ah, and her siblings were standing on the inside.

"Wh-what?! What about us?!"

"Open it now, you sons of bitches!!"

The people who'd been shoved out by a hair pounded on the transparent wall like they'd lost their minds, wailing.

"There's no choice! Throw it wide and it punches through in a second — we all die together!"

Gold Toad glared, veins bulging in his neck.

"Please, at least let our kid in — Kyaaaaaah!"

The desperate plea was drowned instantly by a shredding scream.

The lizard monsters descended like lightning on the people left outside the shield.

They snatched people up ruthlessly with their tails and mouths, then flung themselves off the rooftop railing.

Splash! Splash!

With only a thin shield between them, the rooftop turned into a living hell of spraying blood and torn flesh in a heartbeat.

How much time had passed —

—Kyaaaaaaak!!!

Just as before, a grotesque shriek that rang deep in the bones split the air.

And, as if on cue, the monsters all stopped moving and went back down the apartment without a moment's hesitation.

"…"

After the blood-soaked second assault ended, only a thick stench of blood and an eerie silence settled over the rooftop.

Barely twenty of them left alive.

"I-it's not my fault…. Dad… Dad made me…."

Slap—!

"Snap out of it, you brat! Are the dead going to come back to life just because you sit here crying?!"

"D-dad… b-but all those people, because of me…."

"You want us to hug every useless non-Awakened bastard and die together? Every one of those lives would've been dead already if it weren't for us!"

Gold Toad spat on the floor.

"If they don't like it, they should've been born Awakened themselves! Or gone and had an Awakened kid!"

Sea-ah held her trembling siblings in her arms and bit down on lips gone bloodless.

This time they'd been lucky and been inside the shield — but next time?

Would those selfish adults protect them in the next attack?

Her ominous premonition, horribly, proved right.

The next dawn.

—Kyaaaaaaak!!!

Along with a spray of water crashing over the apartment, the third assault began.

The son, drained of mana, had cold sweat pouring off him in sheets, and the shield he threw up this time was cramped and unstable — barely enough for five or six people.

Gold Toad's eyes, darting around behind his son, landed on Sea-ah and her siblings huddled in the corner.

"Fuck, do we need three brats taking up space? One little one for a hostage's plenty!"

"W-wait……!"

Gold Toad's meaty hand snatched Sea-ah and Se-min by the scruff of the neck and hurled them straight out of the shield.

"Aaah!"

"Waaah!"

Sea-ah tumbled across the cold floor and reflexively yanked Se-min into her arms.

The moment she raised her head, a lizard monster that had rushed right up in front of her was gaping its hideous jaws wide, sickening slime dripping.

"…!"

Sea-ah crushed Se-min against her chest and squeezed her eyes shut.

Just as she'd resigned herself to sharp teeth tearing her flesh —

Kwang—!!

The iron rooftop door was flung open as if it had exploded.

"Kids!!!"

Along with the desperate shout, an enormous stream of flame lashed toward the monster horde like lightning.

The monsters, startled by the overwhelming heat from an artifact shaped like a flamethrower, shrieked and fell back.

The figures emerging through the acrid smoke were dressed in white lab coats — utterly out of place on the bloody rooftop.

"Mom…! Dad…!"

The tears Sea-ah had been holding back burst out of her all at once.

"Unnie! Mom!! Daaad!"

Even Se-eun, who had been trembling inside the shield, burst into tears and came running out.

Her parents closed the distance in a single motion and swept all three children into one embrace.

"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry it took us this long."

Dad choked it out in a cracked voice.

"They had the information locked down — we didn't even know a Gate had gone off. Slipping out took us too long…."

"Honey, does that even matter right now?!"

Mom cut Dad off urgently and fumbled through her coat with trembling hands.

What she pulled out were three Warding Jade Talismans.

Mom tucked one deep into the pocket of each sobbing child.

"These are going to protect you, so don't ever let them off your body."

Dad pulled the frozen Sea-ah into a tight hug and whispered.

"It must have been so scary and hard — and you looked after your siblings for us. Thank you. That's our girl."

The voice she had waited so long to hear.

Sea-ah's nerves, strung taut, were finally coming undone, and relief was just about to wash through her whole body —

Ssssss.

A transparent skin peeled away, and a hideous mutant lizard suddenly appeared out of thin air.

Thunk—!!

"……huh?"

Sea-ah's vision slowed strangely.

Right through the center of Dad's chest, the monster's sawtooth-spined tail had punched clean through.

"Dad!!!"

"Honey…!"

"Khhk…!"

Hot drops of blood spattered across Sea-ah's cheek.

Dad crumpled, blood spilling out of him, all his strength gone.

"No!!"

Screaming, Mom threw herself at Dad.

In that very instant.

"Mom!!!"

Slice—!!

A spine-crawling, wet tearing sound.

Even Mom, lunging forward, was skewered in a single stroke by the monster's massive claws.

Her parents, side by side, run through by tail and claws.

Two figures suspended in midair, drenched in blood.

Before Sea-ah could even process the horrific sight, the monster — as if flicking off some annoying scrap of filth — carelessly hurled the two of them off the side of the apartment.

Splash—!!

Only the sound of a distant splash struck the air.

Her parents — who only moments before had held them close and pressed the talismans into their hands — vanished into the abyss without so much as a final scream.

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