The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

The next morning.

Having pulled myself together somewhat, I sat up on the rumpled sheets and leaned back against the headboard, dazed.

What do I do…

Every time I shut my eyes, hideous afterimages scraped across my retinas.

The howling crowd, the sound of flesh bursting apart, and the wretched sight of the Knight and Fighter dropping to their knees before me.

Strictly speaking, this wasn't my doing.

That horrific hellscape was one of the countless atrocities the pre-transmigration Chae Junhyeok had racked up.

I was nothing more than an outsider who'd happened to land in this body.

But…

I let out a rueful laugh and slowly shook my head.

To take over Chae Junhyeok's body, help myself to his wealth and power and connections — and then, when it came to what he'd actually done, dodge behind not my problem and look the other way?

That would make me worse trash than Chae Junhyeok.

I had, after all, been a teacher — someone who taught kids for a living.

If I — of all people, who was supposed to set an example — turned my head away irresponsibly just because the weight was too much, I'd never live down the shame. That much was obvious.

At the very least, I shouldn't do anything I couldn't face in the mirror.

As long as I was going to walk around in this shell, this hideous chain of cruelty had to be broken. By my own hand.

But once the resolve settled, the enormity of it hit me.

How do I even make this right? With money? Or by telling them to beat me the way they were beaten?

Tangled thoughts chased each other around, but no amount of hair-tearing in a bedroom corner was going to solve anything.

First, meet them face to face. Sit down and talk, and something's bound to surface.

Steeled, I sprang up out of bed.

I washed up in cold water to scrub the noise out of my head, then finished getting ready.

"Hoof…"

I drew a deep breath and yanked the bedroom door open.

Clunk—

"…huh?"

I froze on the spot like a statue.

Dozens of pairs of eyes packed into the corridor had swung to me all at once, as if on cue.

Hollow, sleep-starved eyes, red-rimmed with exhaustion.

Every one of them held their breath, watching my face.

"…what are you all doing out here?"

The idiotic question had barely left my mouth before the twins and Suho — planted directly in front of the door — hurled themselves at me.

"Direektuh!!"

"Are you okay now? Really? Does it not hurt anymore?"

"Waah, Direektuh, we thought you were dying yesterday!"

Feeling the warmth of the little ones clinging to my waist, faces stricken with fear, it hit me all over again — just how wrecked I must have looked coming into that room the night before.

I cleared my throat and forced my voice up, doing my best to sound unbothered.

"Wh-what's with all this? What's the fuss for? Yesterday I just ate something bad — stomach was off for a bit, that's all. Anyway, something urgent just came up, I've got to head out right now."

I fumbled through the words and tried to slip out from under the kids clinging to me, but they'd braced themselves for exactly this and stuck fast as leeches — no shaking them off.

"Direektuh, where you going! No!"

"Just rest here with us today!! Why do you keep going out! Stop going out!"

"Oh come on, I'm sorry, but not today. Something really important's come up and I absolutely have to go. I'll explain everything later, just let go of me for now!"

But these weren't kids who were going to let me go quietly.

The instant I tried to take a step, a thick coil of Sihyeok's shadow came crawling across the floor and wrapped itself firmly around my ankle.

To add insult to injury, the twins pulled their telekinesis up and lifted my body clean off the ground into the air.

"Aack! Let go, would you?! Let go!"

"Promise you won't go anywhere and we'll let go!"

"No, listen, it's really important! Let me down already!"

First thing in the morning, a full-on scuffle broke out in the middle of the corridor.

Me flailing and thrashing where I was suspended in midair, the kids below digging their heels in — our voices climbed higher and higher.

Before long the noise had drawn a crowd, and the corridor was buzzing like a marketplace.

Cornered, my eyes darted around and landed on someone.

"Come to think of it, why haven't you gone back yet? Han Jewoon gave you a short leave, didn't he! It's been days already!"

I jabbed a finger at the teleporter who'd been standing there rubbernecking with everyone else.

"He's still waiting for you!"

The man — filled out a little since he'd first arrived here — flinched at the sudden gesture and hurriedly waved both hands.

"Ah, n-no! Actually I'm perfectly hap—!"

But the kids didn't let him finish.

"How can we leave when the Direektuh is sick! No way!"

"Ergh… the Director doesn't get how we feel at all! Why do you think we're doing all this training?!"

At the kids' outburst, I stopped short and pressed them.

"What? Why are you training so hard?"

Wasn't it, obviously, to make themselves stronger?

At my question, the kids abruptly clamped their mouths shut in unison, as if by prior arrangement, and shifted their eyes awkwardly to the ceiling.

"…."

The oddly loaded silence stretched on longer than it should have.

Just as it did, Hayun, lips twitching with something like indignation, finally couldn't hold it in and burst out,

"That's 'cause we're gonna protect our Direek—!"

Fwoosh—!

In that instant, an enormous shadow reared up and slapped down over Hayun and the little ones, swallowing them whole.

"S-Sihyeok?!"

The telekinesis broke and I hit the floor with a thump; horrified, I looked over at Sihyeok.

But he was gazing off into the middle distance as if none of this had anything to do with him, playing innocent, shameless as could be.

Sea-ah, watching him out of the corner of her eye, let out a small sigh and stepped forward.

"It's nothing. And we'll settle the little ones down, so go ahead and get going, Director. You said it was important, didn't you?"

Yul, standing behind her, nodded, backing Sea-ah's words.

Watching the older kids physically clamp down on the little ones who'd been howling and clinging to me a moment ago, taking such a firm stance, threw me for a second.

But they weren't kids who'd pull anything reckless, and the older two doted on their younger siblings — I decided to trust them.

"R-right. Well then, look after your little brothers and sisters! Number Three, let's go!"

I hurried out with Number Three and headed for the garage.

As Chae Junhyeok's footsteps receded, Sihyeok's shadow slid soundlessly off the little ones.

"Phah!"

Freed from the shadow, Hayun rounded on her older siblings, seething.

"Why'd you stop me?! I was gonna tell him we're gonna get super, super strong and pwotect him!"

Faced with Hayun's tight-fisted protest, Sea-ah let out a small sigh.

"Hayun, do you really think that's what the Director would want?"

"?"

"You know how he is. He worries about us before he ever worries about himself."

"!"

"If he finds out we're training for Gates so we can protect him, he'd march straight up to the Guild Master, grab him by the collar, and make him stop the training — you know he would."

Well aware of Chae Junhyeok's iron overprotectiveness, the kids fell silent as stones.

"So we've got to get stronger behind his back. Go through Gates behind his back too, later on."

Suho's big eyes went wet as he pushed back, downcast.

"But… what if the Director gets hurt again while we're secretly training? The Director's weak — we have to stay by his side and protect him."

At Suho's near-tearful words, the mood sank, heavy.

Just then, Yul — leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, listening quietly — dropped an offhanded line.

"Then the protecting's got to be behind his back too."

"Huh?"

"What that jerk wants doesn't matter anymore. Yesterday too. He just keeps going off and getting himself hurt, coming back rolled in from god knows where. So we protect him without asking either."

"Is it… okay to do that…?"

"Who cares. That jerk ever asked us for permission when he was saving our lives?"

"No! He didn't!"

An eye for an eye — a tooth for a tooth.

Overprotectiveness without permission is met with bodyguarding without permission!

At the miracle logic Yul had laid out, the kids' faces lit up in an instant.

Only Sea-ah scratched her cheek and muttered, "Is this really right…?" under her breath, but there was no stopping the little ones now that they'd been swept up in the current.

"Yeah! That's right! Let's do it!!"

"We'll take out all the bad guys behind him — he won't even notice!"

Buzzing as if they'd already been sworn in as Chae Junhyeok's secret protection detail, the kids huddled their little heads together and started whispering excitedly.

"So how do we protect him without him seeing?"

"Should we do a dishguise?"

"An artifact that turns you invisible would be great!"

Every kind of adorable, outlandish idea was tumbling out when Suho drew a sharp breath and cried,

"Wait! This is no time for that! The Director's leaving right now!"

At that one word, the kids — chirping like a flock of sparrows a moment ago — froze in place.

Then, as if by prior arrangement, every gaze slid, perfectly natural, to a single spot.

The specialist in concealment, standing quiet in the dim corner of the hallway.

"….."

Under the shining, expectant looks aimed at him, Sihyeok gave a solemn nod.

Whissssh—!

And so began the kids' first covert operation to guard Chae Junhyeok.

While Kang Taemin drove in silence, my head was a mess.

What in god's name had this man Chae Junhyeok done, going through his life like that.

Reading about the atrocities of a "delinquent villain" on a page was one thing. Watching them play out in front of your own eyes was another order of thing entirely.

Just how far past redemption the real Chae Junhyeok had been sank in, bone-deep, and my breath came short.

Vroom—

Before long the car pulled up in front of the familiar derelict building.

Please don't tell me the entrance won't open because I've come during the day.

Just glancing down that dizzying drop got a cold sweat going, but I wasn't going to fold here.

Let's go.

I squeezed my eyes shut and threw myself into the empty air.

At the end of that gut-drop weightlessness, space warped, and firm ground met the soles of my feet.

When I carefully cracked my eyes open, the unreal panorama of ancient Rome unfolded before me once more.

Only this time, instead of the high terrace of the day before, I was right beside the enormous outer wall of the Colosseum.

"Junhyeok!!!"

The moment I landed, that familiar voice came ringing at me.

I turned to see the owner charging over, ash-grey long hair flapping behind him, wrapped in yet another luxury watch and a set of gaudy accessories different from yesterday's.

"You just took off like that! Do you have any idea how worried I was?! What on earth happened?!"

At the owner's fussing, I bit down on the pounding of my heart and slid on the familiar delinquent mask.

"Ate something bad before I came, is all. Stomach turned inside out. Drop it."

At my dismissive hand wave, the owner shot me a puzzled look, but I didn't have time to spare on clearing up his questions.

There was something far more urgent I had to see with my own eyes.

"Forget it. Where are those gladiator bastards who were flopping around down there yesterday?"

"Huh? What do you want with them all of a sudden?"

"What for? They're toys I hauled in personally — I want to see how they're doing, it's been a while. Quit prying and lead the way, no more questions!"

At the familiar bratty routine, the owner made a face that said he had no idea what any of this was about, but soon enough he was guiding me toward a room set into the Colosseum's outer wall.

A heavy iron door swung open with a grotesque grinding of metal.

The space I followed the owner into was the polar opposite of the glittering club above — sickeningly so.

The stink of stale mold hitting the nose, and a thick reek of blood over it. It was a squalid, cramped underground dungeon — hard enough to draw a breath in there at all.

Inside a cramped, barred cell where not a scrap of light reached, several rickety, creaking bunk beds were jammed up wall to wall.

And twelve people were crammed into that animal cage, folded up like discarded luggage.

But what shocked me even more was elsewhere.

Every one of them, sprawled on the floor, had a heavy black iron collar clamped around the neck.

Mana-suppression collars.

Those horrific shackles had bitten into the skin of their necks, festering, working the flesh into raw, dark-red scabs.

Clang! Clangclang!

The owner rattled the bars roughly and shouted.

"Everyone up! His Imperial Majesty has honored us with a visit!"

At the clatter of iron, the eyes of the people — lying there as if dead, or blankly staring at nothing — all swung to me at once.

"……!"

Undiluted, one-hundred-proof contempt, revulsion, murderous intent — a weight of hate I hadn't met in a long time.

Nothing like the way the institute staff had looked at me back when I'd first transmigrated. Not even in the same league.

Goosebumps crawled up my spine before I could stop them, and I involuntarily took a step back.

Among them, the one blazing with the most vicious killing intent.

The Fighter from yesterday — body caked in dried, crusted blood — dragged himself upright and strode straight up to the bars.

"Bolted like a rat yesterday…"

He gripped the bars with his remaining arm, hard enough to snap them, and growled at me like a beast.

"So you came crawling back after all? Why?! Determined to watch somebody die?!"

Bang!

The owner freaked out and shouted, "You crazy son of a bitch, you wanna die?! Shut your mouth!" — but the sheer overwhelming force pouring off the Fighter had me pinned in place.

Even with the solid barrier of the bars between us, the weight of the hatred pouring off him felt like a hand at my throat.

And that was when it happened.

"Kkkgh—!!"

The Fighter — glaring at me a heartbeat ago like he'd tear me apart — abruptly doubled over, clutching his stomach, and crashed to the floor.

Wh-what? Why all of a sudden—!

While I stood there frozen, thrown, an unnervingly silky voice from behind me slid into my ear.

"Some animal running its mouth at our Junhyeok. Where does he get the nerve."

A perfume, dense and cloying, sweet enough to turn the stomach.

At the end of the dim corridor.

A man in a long black wolf-cut with only the ends bleached white stood there, wearing an arrogant smile.

It was Oh Taejin.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!