The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

Whatever was happening outside, the loop that had been dragging suddenly began to speed up.

Don't tell me he still had mana left after all.

I'd have liked nothing more than to run this wrecking spree on repeat until the Fox collapsed entirely, but there was one fatal problem.

"Hah… hah…"

My mind and my stamina — being ground down in real time.

Time rewound, and with it the state of the rooftop and my physical condition — but the crushing exhaustion piled up deep in my body didn't reset at all. It just kept stacking up.

However well I was armed with artifacts, cutting down monsters solo, on and on, had finally driven me to the wall.

My hands had already gone shaky, out of my control, and I could feel my body wearing out — right through to the bone.

In the end, I had to move on to the next step.

I forced myself to steady up and set my resolve.

—Kyaaaaak!!

Soon a monster's shriek — the same signal that had started every fourth assault — tore across the rooftop again.

I crushed the hesitation down, squeezed my eyes shut, and opened them.

Then I moved like lightning — snatched the Warding Jade Talismans out of the children's clothes and grabbed Se-min and Se-eun by the scruff, cruelly.

"T-teacher…?"

With no idea what was happening, dangling in the air, the two children's terrified eyes turned to me.

I ground my teeth and threw the children clean out of the shield.

"How could you? Stealing our parents' keepsakes!"

The instant my eyes met Sea-ah's, brimming with tears, my chest felt like it was being torn to shreds — but I wiped every emotion clean off my face and looked down at her, cold and blank.

"I knew it… something felt wrong all along. I really thought you'd be different, somehow…"

Then, without a second's hesitation, Sea-ah pulled her siblings tight against her and hurled herself off the rooftop.

Gold Toad, who had been watching the whole thing, sputtered, incredulous, veins bulging.

"What the fuck?! If you were going to chuck them like that in the end, why the hell did you shove a gun in my face making that whole scene?! This guy's a goddamn psycho!"

But I completely ignored his ranting — which was carrying some residue from the previous cycle, apparently — and stepped up to the edge of the rooftop railing.

Deep down, in the dark, blue-thrashing water.

From that abyss of despair, brilliant, dazzling light was erupting outward, as if by miracle.

Sea-ah's awakening.

The moment the dazzling wave of light hit them, the monsters circling the surface shrieked and began slinking back.

Next comes the boss monster's attack… and then the children's deaths.

I looked back and forth at the three Warding Jade Talismans, the flamethrower, and the Mana Pistol I'd tucked away — and, mind gone cold and settled, laid out the plan.

I can't change the shape of the big current. So…

To confirm my last hypothesis, I stepped carefully down onto the rooftop stairwell.

One second, two… no grotesque ringing, no forced reset.

So — the preschool teacher falling to his death isn't the kind of event that warrants rewinding time.

Shoulders stiff with tension eased all at once, and a deep relief washed through me.

"Hey, you crazy son of a bitch! Where do you think you're going?! Leave the artifacts before you go!!"

Ignoring Gold Toad screaming himself hoarse behind me, I came down without hesitation to the nineteenth floor.

The nineteenth floor was the final flood-line I'd noted while in ghost form.

When I looked out through the corridor window, the golden barrier bobbing on the lapping surface sat exactly at my eye level.

My eyes met Sea-ah's, inside the barrier, where she was holding her siblings.

The child's eyes shook wide with shock at spotting me, then quickly sharpened into hatred and wariness.

A corner of my chest throbbed, but I forced myself to look away, pretending I hadn't seen that chilly stare.

Instead, I dragged out the large suitcase I'd hidden at the far end of the corridor.

Unzipped, it revealed the enormous stash of fuel cans and butane canisters I'd gathered earlier.

"All right — this is where it really starts."

Muttering softly, I poured fuel over the corridor floor and railing without stinting, and started carefully placing the butane canisters I'd stockpiled.

That alone wasn't enough.

I upended the rest of the fuel by the drum over the rippling blue-black water beyond the corridor as well.

A perfect pyre stage — to burn that giant centipede whole, straight to ash.

By the ending as scripted, the centipede was about to shatter Sea-ah's barrier and kill her siblings.

Except…

What if it was the centipede that died, and not the siblings?

Then time would roll back. Burning through the Fox's mana on the way.

This time was nothing like the rooftop.

Unlike then, when I'd had to take hundreds of monsters one at a time, what would burn that creature to ash wouldn't be me — it would be overwhelming fire.

All I had to do was toss a spark.

I could run this stunt on repeat, endlessly, as many times as I wanted.

All right — let's go all the way. See which runs out first: your mana, Fox, or my will.

—Kyaaaaaak!!!

The instant my resolve settled, along with a spine-crawling shriek, the blue-black surface exploded upward.

The boss monster had arrived.

Without a hair's deviation from the first cycle, it wound its huge body around Sea-ah's barrier.

Then, when the barrier wouldn't break, it started slamming the sphere against the apartment in a steady rhythm.

Kwang! Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!

Under the relentless impacts an ominous crack finally began to spread across the surface of the golden barrier.

The giant centipede — having driven the barrier to its limit — was just about to drag the children whole down into the deep abyss below.

"Not so fast!"

Standing on the railing, I let loose a stream of fire from the flamethrower straight at the beast's head.

—Kyeek?!

Sea-ah's parents' guess had landed dead on.

Crawled out of somewhere damp and dark, the centipede was seized by panic at the sudden heat crashing down and thrashed as if it had lost its mind.

Taking the flames full in the face, it screamed in pain and, panicking, let go of the barrier it had been coiling in its tail.

Splash—!

I dove without hesitation for the children, who had been flung out onto the water when the barrier shattered.

Who'd have thought survival swimming from my preschool-teacher days would pay off here!

Cutting through the pressure, I swam over and got a solid grip on all three flailing children.

Then I hauled them roughly up onto the nineteenth-floor corridor.

In that very instant, the centipede's massive tail — thrashing mad with rage — came slamming down toward us like lightning.

Flash—!!

One of the Warding Jade Talismans in my coat blazed dazzling light and knocked the incoming tail aside.

Shatter!

Along with the sound of the talisman shattering to pieces, I burst up out of the water and rolled onto the nineteenth-floor corridor.

I locked the terrified children in my arms and sprinted like a madman toward the end of the corridor, drenched with fuel.

—Kyaaaaak!!!

Enraged at losing its prey, the centipede thrust its hideous head and dozens of legs deep into the mouth of the corridor — and right at that instant.

"Kids! Up the stairs! Don't stop, whatever you do!"

I shoved the children roughly up onto the emergency stairs at the far end of the corridor, then whipped around and leveled the Mana Pistol.

"Just die already. Stop tormenting the kids."

I pulled the trigger, sights on the first butane canister set up at the mouth of the corridor.

Crack—!!

The instant the mana round drilled clean through the canister —

Fwoooom—!!

The compressed gas blew out and lit the fuel on the floor into a savage fire.

The overwhelming flame spread in a heartbeat and, one after another, swallowed the dozens of butane canisters placed at regular intervals.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Kwaaaaang—!!!

An eardrum-shredding chain of explosions swept through the narrow corridor, one after another.

The enormous blast waves scattered the fuel slick on the corridor floor and on the water in every direction, and a burning red rain of oil came pouring down over the centipede's body in a carpet-bomb pattern.

"Kyaaaaaaak—!!!!"

An agonized scream on an entirely different level from before ripped out.

Sticking thick to the centipede's smooth, damp mucous skin, the flames delivered a horrific punch.

Fire drove into every gap in its hard armor plating, and the revolting stench of raw flesh sizzling and cooking down filled the whole space.

Extremely vulnerable to heat, it thrashed in agony and hurled itself into the water to put the fire out.

But it was useless.

The fuel slick coating the surface had already caught, and the whole surface had turned into a vast sea of flame.

From the nineteenth-floor corridor down to the water it was trying to escape into, everything was a red-hot furnace of hell.

In the middle of a boiling swamp of flame, the giant centipede burned black, cooking down into a horrific spit-roast.

The instant the chain of explosions started, I locked both arms tight around a stunned Sea-ah and her siblings and sprinted for the twentieth floor.

The terrifying blast pressure and firestorm at my back.

Flash—! Shatter!!

Inside my coat, the second Warding Jade Talisman shattered to pieces.

Just the last one left…!

Thanks to the shield the talisman had thrown up, I'd dodged the direct flame and the shockwave — but the heat, hot enough to cook flesh, was baking the whole stairwell and closing in on my throat.

"Hah, hah…"

I sprinted straight up to the top of the twentieth-floor stairs, and through the acrid smoke and gusts of scorching air, peered carefully down over the railing.

Did I kill it?

In the middle of a hellscape gorged with dark red flame.

The giant centipede — now a charred black lump — twitched its hideous legs, thrashing to the last.

But then its head slumped, all strength gone, and sank heavily under the blue-black surface.

Vanished completely, it never came back up.

A perfect kill.

Panting hard, I carefully checked the children in my arms.

"Kids, are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"

Sea-ah looked up at me, dazed.

The child who moments earlier had been pouring resentment at me was now completely overwhelmed by this absurd turn, and she stammered in a fogged voice.

"W-we're okay… But why are you saving us…?"

Why the man who had thrown them out as monster feed had turned around and risked his life to save them.

The child's confused eyes were shaking violently.

Inside this brutal illusion, I couldn't tell her the truth anyway.

I brushed it off, keeping my tone light, as if it were nothing.

"Well… betraying you and running earlier was eating at me a little."

At my excuse, Sea-ah's eyes moved to the middle of my face and warped, strangely.

An odd look — as though she'd just caught sight of something bizarre.

But I didn't have a second to wonder about her reaction — my attention was completely yanked over to the little ones in my arms.

Their two faces were grotesquely blank, like uncanny wax dolls with the souls drained clean out of them.

So this time it's the siblings.

On instinct, I realized the world was about to warp again, and soon.

—Beeee…… crick-crick-crick……

"Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?Whydidyoukillit?"

Same as last time.

Along with a vicious dizziness that turned my guts inside out, my vision spun into a blood-red whirlpool.

But this time, how I felt was different.

"Ha ha ha!"

In the middle of a world being wrenched apart by force, I burst out laughing.

The world looping again meant I got to smash that giant centipede apart, with my own hands, all over again.

If the Fox was going to strain himself forcing a reset, then all I had to do was run this slaughter on repeat, forever.

The certainty that at long last, I could pull Sea-ah out of this hideous, endless hell — whole and unbroken.

Even through the brutal heat, an overwhelming joy wrapped every part of me.

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