The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

"Oh my, the children are just adorable. Are these the ones you're looking after… the ones you mentioned?"

Ma Dohee asked with a smile.

In that instant, every one of the kids' little hands fisted tight into my clothes at once.

"!"

"Direektuh. Who's that lady? Why're you with somebody we don' know?"

The kids were bristling — nothing like their usual selves.

Is it because she's a stranger?

Faced with an unusually sharp reaction from the kids, I hurried to introduce her.

"Ah, this is Ms. Ma Dohee — she's here to help me out today. She's a big favor to us."

"Director… that lady, something about her is scary…."

At a distance where she could clearly hear it, I froze in embarrassment; Ma Dohee let out a bright pfft of a laugh and bent down to meet the kids at eye level.

"Oh no — scary? Unnie isn't a bad person. I'm going to be really close friends with the Director, you know? We'll be seeing lots of each other, so let's be friendly."

She smiled sweetly, all warmth, but if anything it only poured fuel on the kids' resistance.

"You're not gonna be fwends with our Direektuh! Don' come here! We don' wanna meet you!"

"Kids! You really —!"

Just as I flinched and moved to stop them, Yul and Sea-ah stepped forward and tucked the little ones behind their backs, shielding them.

Yul fixed Ma Dohee with a coldly settled gaze and spoke.

"You might not realize it yourself… but there's definitely something off about you."

Sea-ah nodded, backing Yul's words.

With even the older kids digging in like that, I couldn't help my own guard going up.

But I couldn't just let them keep firing off rude remarks at someone who'd come here in good faith to help.

I hurriedly steered the kids off into a corner.

"You all played nice with the Bawi Guild people. So why are you being so rude to a guest who came to help the Director, hm?"

I coaxed them as gently as I could, but Hayun stomped her feet, indignant.

"I don' like her! She really sheems like a dangerous puhson and the Direektuh doesn't even know it!"

Their faces looked ready to crumple into tears at any second, so I hurried to soothe them.

"All right, all right. But the Director really does need her help with something today. In exchange — like you said, I'll be on my guard, tight — so don't worry too much. I've packed the artifacts and Number Three is coming along, so there's no way anything dangerous is going to happen. Okay?"

Only then did the kids give a reluctant nod.

The whole way into the institute, the kids kept turning around anxiously to check on me.

I waved with a smile, over and over, to reassure them, and finally got them all inside.

Only after I saw the door swing firmly shut did I press my throbbing forehead and let out a deep sigh.

Is there really something to Ms. Ma Dohee, then…?

But when I needed her help right now, I couldn't just slap suspicion on her without cause.

To salvage the disastrous first meeting, I walked over to Ma Dohee.

"I'm really sorry. The kids are being unusually shy today, for some reason."

At my apology, Ma Dohee only smiled radiantly, waving it off.

"Oh, please, it's fine! These are children who've been through terrible things — of course they're wary of strange adults. If anything, I'm relieved that the kids seem so sharp."

"Thank you for understanding."

She smiled shyly at that and edged a step closer to me.

"By the way, Director. There are quite a lot of children… taking care of them all on your own must be exhausting."

A gaze with a strange heat to it fixed on me.

"It'd be lovely if there were one more solid, dependable person by your side to help shoulder the burden and take care of the kids together, don't you think?"

I found myself nodding in spite of myself.

"Of course. The more helping hands, the better."

At my answer, Ma Dohee's face lit up.

"Then, could it possibly be…!"

She clasped both hands to her chest and looked up at me with eyes full of expectation.

Wanting to live up to that earnest look, I aired the wish that had been weighing on me most lately, in dead earnest.

"Yes. If we could just land one competent staffer we could fully trust with the guild's overall admin work, that would be wonderful."

"……a staffer…?"

"Yes. Our institute's researchers are research staff, so administrative work isn't really their forte."

The radiant look that had bloomed across Ma Dohee's face crumbled in the space of a breath.

At her reaction, an inward oh no hit me.

Ah — did I just tactlessly dump my complaints on someone who came to help?

"Ha ha. Between the guild relocation and everything else that needs attention, I ended up venting without thinking. Please pretend you didn't hear that. Shall we go?"

"Ah… yes, yes. Let's go. Right this way."

Ma Dohee answered in a hollow voice and made an awkward turn to go. Just then, I glanced at Kang Taemin standing behind me and asked,

"Ah, would it be all right if one of our researchers came along?"

"…came along…?"

"A researcher to walk the guild buildings with us. If it'd be an imposition…."

"Ah, no! I-it's fine. Ha ha…."

Ma Dohee took the lead with a droopy look on her face.

The energy from a moment ago was gone without a trace, and the slumped line of her back left me puzzled.

What is it…? Is it too tight for three of us in the car?

At a loss, I climbed into the passenger seat, and Kang Taemin silently took the back seat.

Soon the car slid off and began its run toward District Two.

Before we left, the kids' sharp-edged warnings had put me quietly on guard — but that soon crumbled.

Ma Dohee, as if she'd never been down in the dumps at all, was moving from spot to spot, delivering briefings that would put a professional to shame.

However I look at it, she really is a good person….

Turning the kids' sharp reaction over in my head again, I listened closely to her briefing.

We combed through all three properties she'd scouted in advance, thoroughly.

The one letdown was that while all three were solid enough on paper, not one of them landed as a definitive "this is it."

A late lunch in between, then back to hustling from place to place — before I knew it, the sun was going down and evening was closing in.

"Thank you so much for today. Getting to look around at ease is all thanks to you, Ms. Ma Dohee."

"Ahem, ahem, not at all. It was nice for me too — a chance to get some fresh air, and to spend the day with you, Director."

She really is a good person.

Watching her throw herself into all this all day, as if it were her own business, made me want to find some way to pay her back.

"I'd like to treat you to dinner — do you have time?"

At my offer, Ma Dohee's face lit up in an instant.

"Dinner sounds wonderful! Then how about we go straight to Icarus? Their food is actually quite good."

In that moment, I cheered inwardly.

I'd been casting about for a pretext to visit Icarus, and here she was floating the idea herself — no reason to turn her down.

"Sounds good. Let's head there."

Ma Dohee smoothly drove us to a spot far removed from any glitzy nightlife district — an out-of-the-way place.

Looking out the window, I frowned in spite of myself.

…a ruin?

A grim abandoned building, nothing but the bare concrete skeleton left, like a construction site frozen mid-build.

Beyond the shattered windows, pitch-black darkness gaped, and with no sign of a soul around, only a bleak wind wound through the emptiness.

This is Club Icarus?

Club, my ass — a ghost jumping out at me right now wouldn't have looked out of place. The whole thing was downright ominous.

While I stood there dumbly staring up at the building, Ma Dohee lightly broke the silence.

"Wow! It's been ages for me too. Amazing — the entrance hasn't changed a bit."

She looked at the crumbling ruin with a bright, delighted face, then glanced at me.

"You haven't been in a while either, right, Director? Let's get going!"

The confident look in her eyes said lead the way. I was thrown, but I couldn't let on that I didn't know it.

"Ah, after you."

I motioned her forward with an air of studied ease.

Shoving a woman ahead of me into a deserted derelict building made me feel like a piece of trash, but there was nothing for it.

She looked mildly puzzled but took the lead without complaint, and Kang Taemin and I followed.

The rooftop we reached after climbing the dust-caked stairs was even more desolate.

Broken chunks of concrete and rusted rebar jutting up like the ribs of some dead beast tangled across it, and a biting night wind slapped at our cheeks.

Scanning the surroundings, I stopped short with a jolt.

Ma Dohee was walking, step after steady step, straight toward the perilous edge of the rooftop.

"Ms., Ms. Ma Dohee?"

"Why are you coming so slowly! Hurry up!"

Turning back at the edge of the drop and urging me on, bright as day — the sight sent cold sweat crawling down my spine.

Don't tell me she's lured me out here to some deserted spot to push me off?

Were the kids' warnings right after all?

Every awful scenario imaginable churned through my head.

"One moment. However I look at it, this place is…."

At my stiff hesitation, Ma Dohee tilted her head.

"You must be confused since it's been a while, but this is the right spot. Come on."

Faced with her rock-solid manner, I had no choice but to drag my heavy feet forward and stand at the edge.

A drop of easily five stories or more.

Below my feet, a pitch-black abyss yawned wide, ready to swallow me whole.

Add my fear of heights on top, and I didn't dare glance down.

Dizziness buckled my knees, and cold sweat soaked into my clenched fists.

Where I stood white-faced and trembling like a leaf, Ma Dohee only grinned.

"On the count of three, shall we jump together?"

An emergency siren was going off inside my head, screaming at me to run.

With that yawning drop at my back, my legs shook like an aspen tree, and nausea was climbing my throat.

But in that moment, the hard shape tucked against my chest brought my slipping mind back to me.

The Warding Jade Talisman I'd packed.

Right — I can't back out here.

I clenched my shaking hand tight and called up, one by one, the eyes of the kids waiting for me.

For the safe, radiant road those kids were going to walk from here on, I could gladly hurl myself into a bit of empty air like this.

Even if this was a trap to kill me, the moment we started falling I'd grab hold of Kang Taemin and deploy the Warding Jade Talisman to shield us — end of story.

I squeezed my eyes shut and drew in a deep breath.

Ma Dohee on my right, Kang Taemin on my left, all three of us side by side.

"On the jump, then. One!"

A fierce night wind whipped my clothes wildly.

"Two! Three!"

On the count, all three of us threw ourselves into the pitch-black void without a moment's hesitation.

"Aa — aaaaaaghhh!"

The gut-drop weightlessness ripped a scream out of me before I could stop it.

The terror of falling swallowed my whole body, and just as I braced for the moment I'd slam into cold ground —

An uncanny sensation wrapped around me.

The strange feeling of being sucked into somewhere, quick and clean.

And then, immediately, the heavy solidity of firm, flat ground touching the soles of my feet.

…did I make it?

I carefully cracked my squeezed-shut eyes open, and beyond my retinas an unreal scene unfolded, impossible to believe.

Facing the view spread out before me, only one word ripped through my mind.

Rome?!

The scene laid out below my feet was flat-out unreal.

My paltry expectation of a gloomy, dim club had been blown to pieces.

It was as if the height of ancient Rome, painted onto canvas by the Renaissance masters, had descended right there in front of me.

Where I stood was a high terrace overlooking the entire cavernous underground space in a single sweep.

The thing that seized the eye first was the enormous Colosseum dominating the center.

Between soaring white marble columns, the circular tiers had been converted into gorgeous bar seating, and below them a sand floor spread out into the distance, clumped here and there with dried blood.

Along the outer walls of the arena, countless private rooms clustered thick as a honeycomb, in stunningly opulent style.

Red velvet curtains, gold leaf trim, mosaic-tiled terrace suites — the whole thing reeked of secretive, decadent indulgence.

And at the crown of this entire unreal panorama.

Enthroned at the highest point, with hundreds of rooms sprawling far below its feet, was the seat of an absolute ruler.

A golden throne that drank in all the light around it and blazed, dazzlingly bright.

A temple of hedonism and greed, the most blatant proof of arrogance and power.

This was the hidden VIP club, Icarus.

"What the……."

I was standing there muttering, mouth hanging open, when it happened.

Pah — parapa-pah—!!

An enormous fanfare split the space, drumming against my eardrums.

From the ceiling, dazzling gold confetti burst down like fireworks, and a massive booming welcome announcement thundered through the hall.

[Open the way, all of you, and pop the champagne! His Grand Imperial Majesty has returned!!!]

Bewildered, I glanced around, and a majestic march struck up; as if by magic, a red carpet unfurled from beneath my feet with a whipping rustle, stretching so far I couldn't see the end.

And in that instant.

"Junhyeok—!!!!!"

A sharp high-pitched cry tore through the music.

Roman-style toga flaring behind him, a man was tearing down the red carpet toward me at full sprint.

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