The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

The unexpected, straightforward admission threw me off more than anything.

"But if I'd known those maggots would actually stoop to using the drug to kidnap my own son, I'd never have cut a deal with them in the first place."

"Why the hell would you join hands with a terrorist outfit like that?!"

"Call it a symbiotic relationship. Do you have any idea how much the Bureau's budget has ballooned thanks to those terrorists — the Awakened Liberation Front?"

Chae Ganghyeon's eyes gleamed with greed.

"Thanks to them, the public lives in fear, and naturally the Defense Corps under the Bureau doubled in size. The budget allocation, too."

"You're insane……."

"And thanks to your father here quietly covering their backs, they've grown their own strength — a perfect symbiosis, wouldn't you say?"

"Of course, them daring to keep going after my son — that's deeply displeasing. I'd warned them clearly, and yet they pull a stunt like this again……. Looks like it's time I gave those maggots' leash a good hard yank."

The calm way he tossed out a back-room deal at national-scandal scale sent a chill down my spine.

"Ha! What if I go straight to the press with this?"

"Well, if that's really what you want, what can I do. It's your father's own doing — I'll have to take my medicine."

Chae Ganghyeon shrugged and added, cold,

"But…… once your father's head rolls, what about you? Do you really think the government will leave you be? Your guild? The label 'Chae Ganghyeon's son' — that's not something you'll ever peel off, as long as you live."

"So…… you're saying since I can't afford to blow the whistle, you're not calling off the press conference no matter what?"

I ground my teeth and glared, and he rose lightly to his feet.

"……!"

At the simple motion of him standing up, my shoulders locked before I knew what was happening.

……why did I flinch?

Strange.

One movement from him and my whole body tensed.

While I was still working through the confusion, Chae Ganghyeon put on a benevolent smile.

"What parent ever wins against his own child? If you want it that badly, I'll go out and declare that the second awakening was a false report."

"……what?"

"I only put this together out of frustration because you kept dodging my calls. You should've called your father more often, hm?"

At the sudden reversal, I fixed him with a suspicious stare.

"What's this all of a sudden? What do you want?"

Instead of answering, he moved slowly toward the massive executive desk.

Sitting on it, in an ornate frame, was a picture of a blond little boy laughing without a care in the world.

Chae Junhyeok……?

The face was oddly familiar.

Chae Ganghyeon ran a thick finger down the boy's cheek in the frame and spoke.

"There's only one thing I want. To see it proven that you're still here in your father's embrace."

"……what's that supposed to mean."

"I know a grown child has to be let go to stand on his own, but your father isn't ready to let you go yet."

The remark was so out of nowhere my brow furrowed.

"Junhyeok. Do you remember the enjoyable time you and your father used to share, back in the day?"

"Enjoyable time?"

"Yes. Your father would like to do it again. It ended on a sour note last time because it seemed hopeless…… but watching you these days, I've been given hope. Maybe the future I once dreamed of is possible after all."

What on earth is he talking about?

Cold sweat trickled down my spine.

There was nothing like this anywhere in the original novel.

What "enjoyable time" had ever existed between Chae Junhyeok and Chae Ganghyeon?

A cozy little family picnic? Or an ordinary father-son game of catch?

No chance.

"If you accept the offer, I'll take responsibility and put the lid on the second-awakening business."

With no way to know what this "enjoyable time" actually was, I racked my brain for a read on him and cast a careful line.

"Just do it like before, then. Why bother asking me now?"

"Ha ha, back then you were too young to voice a preference either way. Now that you're grown, of course I have to ask."

……what is it, exactly?

Questions kept piling up, but I ran the calculation fast.

The real Chae Junhyeok — delinquent of delinquents — would never have gone along quietly with anything physically painful or truly awful.

Which means…… it might not be that big a deal after all.

Above all, right now my top priority was protecting Sea-ah.

"……Fine. Sure, I'll do it."

The instant I accepted, a beaming smile broke out across Chae Ganghyeon's face.

"Ha ha ha! Yes — that's my son! It'll take a little time to gather up those people again, so sit tight and wait, all right?"

……gather those people?

For an instant, an icy, foreboding premonition flashed across my mind.

But the die had already been cast.

"Then I'll declare at the press conference that the second awakening is groundless."

Chae Ganghyeon added, benevolent smile still in place,

"Oh, and since you'll be coming to the Bureau often from here on out, I'll go ahead and let the press know that our Bureau and Nest Guild are in close cooperation."

A firm guarantee that he'd shield me from the press's blade.

I gave a heavy nod.

"…Do that."

Yeah. This wasn't the time to worry about my own hide.

As long as I could keep the kids safe, anything else was fine.

Three days later, the island resort.

The kids were clustered together in front of the TV screen.

Hayun pointed at the screen and cried out delightedly.

"Ah! There's the Director!"

Amid a barrage of camera flashes, Chae Ganghyeon and Chae Junhyeok stood side by side in front of a wall of microphones.

Chae Ganghyeon spoke with ease.

[We hereby declare that the rumor circulating about Nest Guild producing a second-awakened Hunter is completely groundless. It is nothing more than a badly garbled piece of gossip.]

The firm announcement had barely ended before the reporters descended on them like hyenas.

"Chief! Why is this a matter that the Bureau — a government body — is briefing on directly, when it's an internal issue for a private guild?!"

Under the sharp question, Chae Junhyeok stepped forward to the podium.

[No second-awakened Hunter has emerged, but we did succeed in obtaining significant data that comes close to that threshold.]

His bombshell set the room buzzing.

[Given the enormous ripple effects this data will have on the Awakened world, Nest Guild has resolved not to keep it exclusive, but to share it with the Bureau. From this point on, Nest will cooperate closely with the Bureau to prepare fully for the coming age of second awakening.]

The declaration was enough to turn the room on its head, and even more aggressive questions came flying immediately.

"But couldn't this sudden exclusive partnership with the government simply be a product of the family tie between the two of you? The other major guilds could well push back hard, calling this blatant favoritism from the Bureau!"

Even under the openly pointed suspicion, Chae Ganghyeon smiled smoothly.

[Of course, from other guilds' perspective, they might well curse this as favoritism born of a shallow blood tie. But as you all know, Vice Guild Master Chae Junhyeok here has, from his days at the research institute, been more devoted than anyone to the safety and protection of Awakened.]

Chae Ganghyeon put on a show of being the proud father, gripping Chae Junhyeok's shoulder firmly.

[Moreover, through this research he came within reach of a second awakening, proving his ability as an outstanding researcher in his own right. Let me be perfectly clear: this partnership is not favoritism resting on blood ties. It is founded strictly on his ability and on legitimate business grounds.]

Wearing that composed smile, Chae Ganghyeon drew a firm line.

[That concludes today's briefing. No further questions will be taken.]

"Chief! Vice Guild Master! Just a moment!"

"I have another question!"

The reporters thrust their cameras forward desperately, but the two of them turned their backs on the flood of questions and walked out of frame without so much as a glance behind them.

[…….]

The news ended and an ad jingle played, but a heavy, suffocating silence settled over the living room.

"Cooperating…… with the Bureau? Preparing for a second awakening……?"

A deep shadow fell across every child's face at once.

To them, the Bureau wasn't just some government body.

It was where those devils in lab coats worked — the ones who'd torn at their flesh and scraped at their bones, day after day, without a single day off.

And now their Director — the man they'd trusted absolutely — had, with his own mouth, declared he'd be joining hands with them again.

"That can't be true……."

Suho went white and started trembling like a leaf.

"I thought we'd finally gotten out…… and now we're being dragged back in? N-no…… ugh."

Pinned under the horrific trauma, Suho whimpered, sick with fear.

"Second awakening…. You don't think the Director's going to strap us back onto the tables, do you……?"

The worst-case scenario — the one they'd most wanted to avoid — had been said out loud, and the air in the living room froze solid in an instant.

Fear spread through the kids like plague, threatening to crush them — and then.

"No way!"

Hayun jumped to her feet and shouted, brave and defiant.

"Our Director would never do that! I trust the Director!"

The unshakeable shout ringing out of that tiny body ripped straight through the fear that had been pressing down on them a moment ago.

Sea-ah, sitting quietly beside her, nodded and spoke, calm.

"Hayun's right. The Director isn't the kind of person who'd send us back to that horrible lab. He'd never do that."

In Sea-ah's eyes — a girl who once hated the Director more than anyone — trust now sat anchored deep, without a shred of doubt.

Even after that shocking briefing, the kids' faith didn't waver.

"…Then why did he do that interview?"

When Yul frowned and murmured it, deep confusion settled over every one of them.

If the Director would never betray them, then what on earth had happened in those three days?

That was when.

Ari, who'd been reading the room from the corner, spoke up carefully.

"Come to think of it…… three days ago, when the Director was leaving the island, his face — it looked like someone doing something they really didn't want to do. Just like a hero from a cartoon I saw before……."

"A cartoon?"

"Mm-hm. In it, the hero — to protect the fairies — went and joined a wicked wizard on purpose, pretending to be his underling. The Director's face was exactly the same as the hero's back then."

At Ari's spot-on comparison, the kids' eyes went wide.

"I watched that one with noona! The hero was really sad on the inside about leaving the fairies behind, but on the outside he acted cold to them on purpose!"

Suho clapped his hands and jumped in.

In that moment, a vivid image sketched itself across every child's mind — a pitiful Director choking back tears and forcing himself to take the villain's hand.

Ari glanced around, then dropped her voice low and whispered conspiratorially.

"You don't think the Director's being threatened, do you?"

"Threatened?!"

The kids sucked in their breath in unison, aghast.

"S-so that old man from before is bullying our Director?"

Suho's huge eyes brimmed over with tears in a heartbeat.

The strange stiffness in the Director's face on-screen, the darkness in his expression before he left for the mainland, and the sudden reversal on top of that.

Every piece of the puzzle clicked into place, and among the kids, "the Director is being blackmailed" hardened almost instantly into settled, unquestioned fact.

The twins, gone pale, gripped each other's hands tight; even Yul, Sea-ah, and Sihyeok were clenching the fists in their laps hard enough to go bloodless.

The moment the tearful truth landed, the fear that had been crushing them a moment ago was already burning up in something else — a fierce, tender resolve: we have to save the poor Director.

"…But what could they even be blackmailing him with?"

In the middle of that burning determination, Ari raised the fundamental question.

"Hmm…… the bad guys usually take the hero's family or a weaker person hostage, right?"

The kids were nodding gravely when Hayun blinked her round eyes and spoke up.

"But there's nobody around the Director who's weaker than the Director, is there?"

"…."

"…."

For a beat, an uncanny silence fell.

It was a painful truth no one could bring themselves to challenge.

"Hmm… the Director is the weakest, when you think about it……."

"Yeah. One little poke and he'd fly off like a paper doll! Even when we run at him he sometimes wobbles!"

The kids fell briefly quiet, faces solemn, and looked at each other.

"Then maybe it's not a hostage at all — maybe they're threatening him with the Director's life! Because the Director really is super, super weak!"

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