The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

The shout came out before I could stop it.

Every sound in the control room died.

In the silence, the researchers' eyes swung to me all at once.

Their faces registered nothing but blatant irritation at the sudden interruption.

The hostility made me flinch on reflex, but I couldn't back down now.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?! Stop this — right now!"

The researchers were shooting glances at each other, saying nothing—

When, with a grating creak, the control-room door opened behind me.

Through it walked a middle-aged man with a mean-looking face.

His head was completely bald, and behind thin metal-framed glasses, his hollow eyes glinted with irritation, as if the whole commotion was beneath him.

The name tag on his chest spelled it out clearly.

[Nest Research Institute — Deputy Director: Park Wonjin]

Park Wonjin. The moment I saw the name, a passage from the novel played back in my head.

If Chae Junhyeok was the delinquent who abused the children openly, Deputy Director Park Wonjin was the viper who tortured them by inches.

His twisted sadism was the outlet for his inferiority complex toward the Director — a man beneath him in every conceivable way, and yet above him in rank.

He walked up to me and asked, as though I were the most pathetic thing he'd ever seen,

"Director. Now what are you up to?"

Park Wonjin. The villain who tormented the children in the original novel.

Seeing a villain from the novel in the flesh made me flinch before I could stop it.

But I clenched my fists.

I had no idea what the hell was going on, but I couldn't let an experiment like this go on.

"This inhumane experiment — shut it down. Right now."

Park Wonjin met my sharp reply with nothing but a theatrical sigh and a long look.

"Oh dear, Director. Dozed off earlier and had some kind of dream, did we? Suddenly talking like you're some kind of saint — it's honestly hard to keep up."

At his words, laughter that no one bothered to hide broke out here and there across the lab.

Park Wonjin savored the reaction, gave an exaggerated shrug, and added in the tone one might use to coax a child,

"Come, come. Enough of that — let's get you to the VIP seat. I'll have everything perfectly set up so you don't miss a single scream from your little toys."

I slowly turned and looked over the other researchers, meeting their eyes one after another.

There was no fear or dread of a superior in those eyes.

Only irritation, as if I were a nuisance; the weary indulgence you'd show a spoiled child; and the open mockery of people who were enjoying the sight of someone being jeered at.

For a moment, I felt like I'd been hit over the head.

I'd taken it for granted that the delinquent Chae Junhyeok of the original story was a tyrant swinging around the institute's power at will.

He did whatever he wanted, abusing the protagonist and his companions however it suited him.

But no.

Chae Junhyeok was nothing more than a delinquent brat with no real power, no real clout.

All he'd been doing, under the Deputy Director's tacit indulgence, was swinging a little toy knife around.

I was standing there, dumbfounded by the shocking truth the original hadn't revealed, when—

"Nngh...!"

The moan coming through the speakers snapped me back to my senses.

I turned and, through the glass, saw the child still writhing in pain.

In that instant, everything — Chae Junhyeok's place in the institute, what happened in the original — went blank in my head.

None of that mattered right now.

"What are you all standing around for?"

Park Wonjin let out a mocking snort.

"Escort the Director to the VIP seat. Now."

At his order, the burly researchers began closing in on me.

If they get their hands on me here, it's over.

I looked frantically around.

Just then, my eyes landed on a red fire extinguisher tucked into the corner behind me.

Without hesitating, I bolted for it, yanked it out, dodged past the researchers, and headed straight for the glass wall.

"What the—?"

Leaving Park Wonjin's face — clouding over with confusion — behind me, I ran up to the massive pane of reinforced glass.

My heart was pounding hard, but I forced myself to stay calm and hoisted the heavy extinguisher up onto my shoulder.

Then, with everything I had, I hurled it at the glass wall.

BAM!

For all the terrific noise, the glass didn't have a scratch on it.

Park Wonjin's expression shifted at once into open contempt and mockery.

"Oh, for pity's sake, Director. What are you doing."

He spoke in that same coaxing-a-child tone.

"That's reinforced glass. You could throw that thing a hundred times and it wouldn't matter, so quit wearing yourself out and come over here."

Just then, a memory flashed through my mind.

The voice of a firefighter who'd come to visit during a safety-training session at the kindergarten.

"Reinforced glass disperses impact, so if you hit a wide flat surface, it won't break. When you're escaping, you have to focus every blow on the edge — right at the corner!"

Reinforced glass? Then—!

I readjusted my grip on the extinguisher, moved into position, and hammered the corner of the glass wall with everything I had, over and over.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

KRRRAAAASH—!

With an ear-splitting crack, glass fragments rained down, hitting me all over and biting into my skin.

Stinging pain shot through my whole body, but none of it mattered.

The only thing my eyes could see was the collapsed boy.

I dashed straight through the broken glass and dropped to my knees beside him.

But his body was clamped tight in cold metal restraints.

"Get these restraints off him — now!"

The researcher who met my eyes recoiled as though he'd seen a ghost, then worked the control panel as if in a trance.

With a click, every restraint holding the boy released.

I hurried over and yanked out all the devices stuck into his thin arm and temple, throwing them to the floor.

The boy was in worse shape than I'd realized.

His breath came in unsteady, rattling wheezes, and his whole body was clammy with cold sweat.

My god...! Every inch of him is—!

I carefully readjusted my hold on his limp body and walked out of the lab.

A suffocating silence.

Above it, the crunch of dress shoes on broken glass and the drip of blood hitting the floor rang out with ghastly clarity.

Step. Step.

Everyone parted to make way, watching me with terrified eyes and nothing more.

I ran my eyes over their faces, one by one.

Looking for the one face that hadn't laughed at me or shown irritation when the Deputy Director had been mocking me.

At last, among the frozen researchers, my eyes met those of a young man in glasses.

"You."

He jumped, his shoulders trembling.

"Do you know where the infirmary is?"

The researcher's eyes wavered in panic.

"Yes? Uh, i-it's outside, but—"

"Take me there."

At my words, he floundered, flicking a glance toward the Deputy Director.

A child is hurt this badly right now, and you—!

"Forgotten who's in charge of this institute?"

The researcher's shoulders spasmed as if he were about to have a fit.

"N-no! Director!"

He waved both hands as if to plead his case, shaking his head hard.

"I'll show you the way right now. Please, follow me!"

The moment he finished speaking, he was off — leading the way at a pace close to fleeing.

I followed after him, the boy still in my arms.

As I passed the Deputy Director, I stopped and turned only my head to look at him.

"The way you all handle things is too pathetic to just watch from the VIP seat."

I set my shoe on a shard of glass at my feet and slowly ground it to powder.

"I'll be counting on you from here on out. I'm going to be running things myself now."

Creak... clunk.

The moment the door shut, a suffocating silence fell over the control room.

Dozens of researchers, unable to process what they had just seen, could only stare blankly at the door the Director had walked out through.

The delinquent who always threw his tantrums or savored the test subjects' pain from a safe distance — why, on earth?

The pathetic, spoiled kid they'd always thought of him as was gone.

Bleeding heavily from cuts left by glass shards, he had walked out with the boy in his arms — a chilling sight that raised goosebumps on every researcher there without their meaning to.

But while everyone else was gripped by shock and terror, Deputy Director Park Wonjin alone felt something different.

Rage.

Burned into his mind were the words Chae Junhyeok had spoken as he passed him.

I'll be counting on you from here on out. I'm going to be running things myself now.

That had been an unmistakable declaration of war aimed at him.

That insolent brat... how dare he — in front of the researchers — how dare he disrespect me!

It had been only half a year ago.

That a good-for-nothing kid, with nothing but his father's connections behind him, had been dropped into the Director's chair like a paratrooper.

At first, he'd been briefly wary of the threat to his own position.

But it hadn't taken long to realize the boy wasn't even worth the concern.

He was, after all, a moron who got off on nothing but abusing the test subjects.

Toss the whining animal some food to keep it quiet, and that was all it took.

Today, though, was different.

His antics were the same delinquent nonsense — but the eyes were different.

Not the usual empty stare, full of nothing but rage.

Those eyes had held a sharp, living spark.

Earlier, hadn't the researchers themselves, without meaning to, followed the Director's orders on the strength of that look?

But what was even more humiliating was that he himself had been cowed by the presence of a mere upstart.

When the man had walked calmly out with the bloodied subject in his arms, he hadn't blocked his way — hadn't even managed a word.

An incompetent, brainless piece of trash... has the nerve to make me feel like this?

His lips went bone-dry with the humiliation.

The fact that he'd been outmatched, even for a moment, by a kid he'd regarded as a bug sent an unbearable murderous impulse rising through him.

"Krgh...!"

Unable to contain his fury, he slammed his fist into the nearest console.

BAM! At the crash, the terrified researchers' shoulders jumped.

Park Wonjin didn't care.

If anything, he slowed his ragged breathing deliberately. As he crisply straightened his rumpled lab coat, his eyes had returned to the cold, snake-like gaze from before.

Fine. So the delinquent wants to play a different game this time... he's the one who challenged me, so I'll gladly play along.

A cold smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

The moment the door shut behind me, I slid down against the wall and dropped to the floor.

Haah... I thought I was done for.

The breath I'd been holding all rushed out at once.

I clutched at my hammering heart.

A mere kindergarten teacher, and here I'd just done — what, exactly.

The principal's scolding rang in my ear as clearly as if she were standing there.

"Mr. Kim, you're the calm one usually, but the second it's about the kids you throw yourself in without a second thought. Please, please calm down a little, hmm?"

That voice dragged up, whole, the memory of the day I'd mistaken Iseo's uncle for a kidnapper and hit him with a flying drop kick, no questions asked.

The habit of moving first, thinking later, when it came to kids — apparently that didn't change here either.

I looked down at the child slumped limp in my arms.

Still... I don't regret it.

If I had to do it again a hundred times over, I'd have done the exact same thing to save him.

The one thing I'm a little worried about is—

Just then, the researcher leading the way ahead glanced back at me over his shoulder.

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