The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

As if responding to Lee Sea-ah's panic, the barrier kept swelling, greedily sucking in the surrounding virtual reality data.

The dazzling beach scene garbled up as if riddled with static and reverted to the bleak gray training room.

But the barrier's growth didn't stop there.

Like a giant iron ball swelling in size, it started pressing on the actual walls and floor of the institute, letting out a horrible grinding screech — skreeeek!

"Damn it!"

I hurriedly handed off Hajun — whom I'd been holding — to Kang Taemin.

Then I hammered my hands frantically against the barrier and shouted the name of the child trapped inside.

"Sea-ah! Can you hear me? Sea-ah!"

But my voice couldn't get through — the barrier was sealed off completely.

Beside me, Cha Yul was clenching his teeth too.

Realizing his own rage had made the situation as bad as it could get, he forced the leaking mana back inside himself.

Then, just like me, he rushed the barrier.

Cha Yul poured every bit of his power into an energy blast and slammed it into the barrier, but the attack just bounced off, useless.

"Waaah! Sea-ah noona...!"

"Unnie... unnie, I'm scawed...!"

The little ones burst into tears watching the barrier grow ferociously.

They held their ground desperately, insisting they wanted to stay with Sea-ah, but Kang Taemin scooped them up anyway and got them evacuated out of the training room.

In the control room, Lee Jinwoo and Han Soeun were practically screaming as they fought to bring the system back online.

The training area had become total pandemonium — shattered data fragments, kids crying, and system alarms all tangled together.

Everyone was completely helpless.

That was when one child caught my eye.

Curled up silently in the corner farthest from the chaos, motionless — a small shadow.

I ran straight to him, dropped to one knee in front of him, and met his eyes.

"Sihyeok! Save Sea-ah!"

But as if turning away from my desperate cry, the boy only lowered his head further.

I gripped his trembling shoulders hard and forced him to meet my eyes.

"With your shadow... with your ability, you can get in there! Sihyeok, please!"

Sihyeok's answer was only a small shake of his head — a no.

He curled up even deeper, hiding inside his own shell.

That was the moment.

Thwack!

With a harsh sound, Sihyeok's head snapped to the side.

Cha Yul had come up without me realizing and slapped Sihyeok clean across the cheek.

He yanked the fallen boy up by the collar.

His red eyes were blazing like fire.

"Hey. Kim Sihyeok. You gonna snap out of it or what?"

He said it almost growling, biting the words out.

"Get in there. Now. Does Sea-ah have to die right in front of your eyes for you to snap out of it?!"

At Cha Yul's shout, the boy's shoulders jerked hard.

Sihyeok lifted his head, very slowly.

His tear-brimmed eyes took in each of us in turn — his wailing younger siblings, then Cha Yul, whose furious face was pressing him to act, and... me, looking at him with pure desperation.

I don't know how long it took.

The child's trembling stopped abruptly, as if it had never been there.

Finally, as though he'd made up his mind, he reached with a trembling hand and grasped the suppression collar around his neck.

He unlocked it himself and threw it to the floor.

The clang of it landed unusually clear in the noise of the training room.

The next moment, his body became a shadow and melted down into the floor, gone.

And inside Sea-ah's barrier, Kim Sihyeok rose silently up out of the shadow behind her.

He caught her by the shoulders — she was terrified, shaking — and seemed to whisper something to her; then, without hesitation, brought the edge of his hand down against the nape of her neck and knocked her out.

Thud.

The moment Sea-ah lost consciousness, the enormous barrier that had been about to swallow the whole training room slid soundlessly away and vanished, as if it had never been there.

"Haah, haah..."

My legs gave out and I sank to the floor where I stood.

Beside me, Cha Yul was breathing hard too.

Relief that Sea-ah was safe came surging up from deep in my chest, wave after wave.

I couldn't hide the joy about to burst out of me, and roughly ruffled Cha Yul's hair — like I was proud of him.

"Nice one, punk. You yelled, so Sihyeok moved. That's all on you."

Just in case he decided to swing at me on the spot, I yanked my hand back fast, spun around, and ran over to the two collapsed kids.

Sea-ah lay there with her eyes closed, her face peaceful, and Sihyeok was slumped down beside her, dazed, as if every last bit of strength had drained out of him.

Without hesitation, I scooped his small body up into my arms.

"Hey, kid. You saved Sea-ah! Really well done!"

At my praise, the boy said nothing for a long while.

Feeling awkward, I was just about to set him back down.

A voice, barely above a whisper, reached my ear.

"...Really?"

For a moment I went blank.

Sure, I'd seen him from a distance, mumbling something to the other kids now and then.

But that voice had never — not once — been directed at me.

And here he was, looking me in the eye, speaking to me.

Someone watching might have laughed and asked what the fuss was over one word.

But this was the first time I'd heard this child's voice in the nearly three months since I'd fallen into this place, and my heart lurched in immediate response.

I forced the lurch back down and shoved my delinquent mask back on.

"Obviously! Stating the obvious over here. Thanks to you, one of my dolls didn't break! Well done, Kim Sihyeok!"

I ruffled his hair vigorously, like I was praising a puppy.

Sihyeok, apparently fine with my rough handling, just went still and let it happen.

That was when—

The little ones, who had been watching from outside the training room, came rushing in with a waaah! cheer.

"Oppa!!!"

"Hyung saved Sea-ah noona!"

They piled onto Sihyeok and wrapped that small hero up in a tight hug.

Cha Yul, who had come up at some point too, hesitantly smoothed down Sihyeok's rumpled hair.

"...You okay where I hit you? Sorry. I was too worked up."

Sihyeok looked up at Cha Yul. Then, very faintly, shook his head.

"...It's okay."

That long, long day wrapped up like that, in the warmth of the kids piled around each other.

The next morning, after finishing her meal, Sea-ah bowed her head and apologized to everyone, researchers included.

"About yesterday... I'm sorry. For losing control..."

Apology done, Sea-ah then stepped in front of Cha Yul.

"...I'm sorry to you too, oppa. What I said yesterday was way too much."

At that, Cha Yul's stiff face flushed faintly.

Eyes fixed somewhere else, he muttered gruffly:

"...I'm sorry too. For losing my temper over nothing."

Watching the two of them make up so awkwardly, I felt something warm rising in my chest.

The goal I'd wanted so badly since falling into this novel.

A future where the children leaned on each other and grew — body and mind alike.

The scene I, as a reader, had wanted so much was, right there in front of me, quietly starting to come true.

But my final goal didn't end here.

Getting them out of this hellhole of an institute and truly independent — able to stand on their own.

And for true independence, they'd need more than just strength; they'd need at least a basic knowledge of how to survive in the world.

I decided to add one more slot to their daily schedule.

"All right, kids! Mornings are for using your brains!"

Under the plausible justification of my dolls can't be ignorant.

Han Soeun volunteered to play the role of the kids' teacher.

In a clean classroom rendered in virtual reality, the kids were split into the three older ones and the three younger ones, and began receiving basic education — Korean, math, English, and so on — at their respective levels.

And for one hour each day.

Special lessons on the history and geography of this world, and on Gates and Hunters.

Deeper, more granular details than anything that had shown up in the original novel.

Under the pretext of keeping an eye on the kids, I sat in the back row and, right alongside them, drilled information about this world into my head.

I'd quietly worried the kids might hate studying, but that turned out to be nothing to worry about.

Whether it was that they'd been starved for learning or something else, the kids soaked knowledge up like sponges.

The way they focused so intently on each lesson — small eyes shining, straining to learn even one more thing — was almost awe-inspiring.

One more thing: a playground for Sihyeok opened up too.

Sihyeok's training room was a small game space where colorful water balloons drifted through the air.

His task was to reach his shadow out like a hand and pop them.

At first, he was afraid of the idea of his shadow even touching anything — but as his siblings cheered him on with "Oppa, that one! Pop that one!", he started to work up his courage.

Every time a water balloon burst with a bright pop!, the faintest flicker of accomplishment surfaced on his face.

But I couldn't just sit there smiling at the sight.

Time left until the public evaluation: barely one week.

That day too, I stayed with the researchers putting together the kids' curriculum, and it was almost midnight by the time I could get back to the Director's office.

Dragging my worn-out body along, I gripped the office door handle.

Bone-tired, the second I opened the door — instinct stopped me dead on the spot.

The air in the room was different.

Not the usual smell of dust — a faint trace of someone unfamiliar, heavier and cooler, hung in the air.

I held my breath and silently pulled a cold piece of metal from my pocket.

The C-rank artifact I'd spent serious money on at auction not long ago — the Mana Pistol.

A self-defense item that compressed and fired external mana directly, no bullets required.

My heart started pounding hard.

Holding my breath, I took a careful first step into the room.

In the pitch-black darkness, I could just make out the outline of the huge couch.

Someone was there.

That was the moment.

"Finally, he crawls in."

I whipped the barrel toward the sofa where the voice had come from.

Right at that instant, the clouds outside the window parted and moonlight poured into the office.

The moonlight lit up the intense red hair of the man on the sofa — and eyes even colder than that hair.

It was Han Jewoon.

Crossing his legs as easily as if he were in his own living room, he said in a lazy voice:

"What took you so long, kid. I nearly died of boredom waiting."

The moment his voice trailed off, from behind me came a click — a switch flipping on.

"Well, if you sit there in the dark like that, of course he's going to be startled, Guild Master."

Startled half out of my skin, I reflexively whipped the mana pistol around to point at whoever was behind me.

But before I could even get my finger on the trigger—

Krik-!

The mana pistol in my hand was blanketed in white frost and frozen solid in an instant.

As I stood there staring blankly down at the barrel — now a chunk of ice — a neat-looking man pushed his glasses up and said:

"I get that you're startled, but could you put that weapon away. Even granting that's just some delinquent bastard whipping a gun around out of shock, having a barrel pointed at me puts me in a genuinely foul mood."

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