The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

In the central control room, where the all-nighter research had been dragging on for days, everyone was, in a word, half-dead.

Han Soeun was sprawled with her head down on the desk, and Kang Taemin was pressing at his eyelids as if worn out.

The other researchers, hollow-eyed, only glared at their monitors.

That was when—

Kwang!

Along with a rough impact, Lee Jinwoo slammed his desk and shot up out of his chair.

"...No way."

His eyes were nailed to the monitor, unable to leave it.

Behind the lenses, Lee Jinwoo's eyes were burning bright with the mania and excitement of a true academic.

"...What is it, what's wrong..."

Han Soeun lifted her head with a groan.

"Look at this! Get over here, quick — you need to see this!"

Lee Jinwoo shoved his slipping glasses back up roughly and jabbed at the screen, feverish.

"The Director... was right. His hypothesis was the answer!"

"What are you talking about?"

Lee Jinwoo swallowed hard and cried out, his voice shaking.

"Park Suho's ability... it wasn't healing!"

"...!"

"It's transference! He's not magically erasing wounds — he's moving someone else's pain over onto his own body, exactly as it is!"

With trembling hands, Lee Jinwoo pulled up the training logs from Hwang Dushik's sessions.

On the screen, the flow of mana while Park Suho was treating a virtual patient was mapped out.

"Normally, a healer's mana flows out from the caster and into the wounded. But look right here — every time Suho used his ability, some unidentified malignant energy was... flowing into him!"

"Then... his biometric energy dropping..."

"That's the trap!"

Lee Jinwoo shouted.

"We thought that was the cost, the penalty. It's not! It's that Suho had no way to process the wounds he was pulling over, so they were just piling up inside his body!"

"!!!"

"That's what the life-force drain actually was! Suho doesn't have a penalty — he was just using his ability wrong!"

At that staggering conclusion, the control room broke into an uproar.

"That can't be... but... it's true. There's no mana consumption."

"The value of this malignant energy flowing in... it matches the data from the virtual patients Hwang Dushik was summoning!"

Every last piece of the data was confirming Lee Jinwoo's hypothesis.

But knowing the truth brought an even bigger wall.

"Okay, so Suho's ability is wound transference — but how the hell are we supposed to process that?"

"The best answer is expelling it. We have to get it out of his body somehow. The problem is where and how we get it out."

Lee Jinwoo raked his hair, muttering.

That was when—

Kang Taemin, who had been listening in silence to their debate, asked in a low voice:

"...That malignant energy... at the end of the day, isn't it just a form of energy?"

Energy?

If what was piling up inside Park Suho's body was not simple wounds but energy...

And if there was no way to process it — then there was only one path.

Find someone who could absorb that energy in his place and release it.

Every eye in the room turned to another monitor in the control room, where a child was in the middle of training.

The astonishing ability to absorb energy and make it his own.

"...Cha Yul. Yes — Yul, he might actually be able to do it."

From that day on, they threw themselves into building and testing a hypothesis for energy capture.

"The key is timing and a vessel."

Lee Jinwoo drew a complex diagram on the whiteboard as he explained.

"The instant Suho pulls the wound over — before it gets absorbed into his body, we have to catch it and hold it there artificially. That's the only way Yul can take it off him."

"So... we'd need a third vessel that can hold that energy, even for a moment? Hm... how about a mana reservoir?"

"No. That only holds pure mana."

"Then what if we cultured biological tissue and used it as a temporary container—"

"Are you insane? What biological tissue is going to withstand that kind of toxin? It'd necrotize the second it touched the stuff!"

The three of them racked their brains like mad.

The human body wouldn't work, and neither would a mechanical device.

No ordinary material could handle that alien energy.

Where in the world... could you find a vessel that could physically hold something as abstract as wounds and pain?

That was the exact moment.

Ding—

A text message from [Golden Lifeline] came in.

[My card. Whatever the kids want to eat, want to have. Don't worry about a limit. Just buy them all of it.]

"...What?"

Han Soeun, peeking at the text over his shoulder, muttered as if she couldn't believe it.

"He hands us an impossible homework problem, and now — right now — he's messaging us to buy snacks for the kids?"

But Lee Jinwoo didn't laugh. If anything, he only narrowed his brow and stared, boring holes into the phone screen.

Strange. The Director isn't the type to send personal texts like this. And of all times — this timing?

Lee Jinwoo's brain spun fast.

If the Director sent this fully knowing what situation we're in right now...

The instruction in the text was clear.

Spend money on the kids.

Which would mean — the very act of spending money might be the hint to break through this dead end.

He snapped his head up and asked:

"Where does the Director spend the most money, usually?"

"Well... if it's not on the kids... artifacts? He never spares a cent when it comes to buying up rare artifacts, he's just pouring it out. You go into the Director's office and there are shipping boxes everywhere—"

"...Artifacts."

The instant that word left Lee Jinwoo's mouth, every piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

Tang! He slapped the desk and shot to his feet.

"That's it! Artifacts!"

He said it almost like a shout.

"If there are artifacts that store mana, then there absolutely has to be an artifact that can hold that alien energy!"

"!!!"

In that instant, an enormous exclamation point popped up over the three of them in the control room simultaneously.

Money. A card with no limit. And artifacts.

The scattered puzzle pieces were slotting together with a completeness that made your skin crawl.

"D-don't tell me... he knew all of it and gave us the hint...?"

At the chill of déjà vu running up their spines, none of them could speak.

It was as if the Director were looking down into this room — no, into their own heads.

"O-okay, let's start with the auction sites!"

Energy storage, purification, conversion, absorption... they mashed together every keyword they could think of and searched all night long.

But no artifact that could catch energy showed up.

Most only worked on ordinary mana or curses.

Then Lee Jinwoo's eye caught on an A-rank necklace with a very strange description.

[Name: Heart of the Void / Rank: A / Form: gold-colored necklace / Effect: Forcibly absorbs alien energy from the wearer's surroundings and attempts to store it inside itself. / Caution: If the storage limit is exceeded, the artifact may shatter and the stored energy may return to the wearer.]

"...Forcibly absorbs? Isn't this too dangerous? What if it accidentally touches the mana already inside Suho's body—"

"'Alien energy' is vague, too."

The effect was unclear and the risk was heavy.

But...

"...We still have to try, don't we? This might be our only option."

Just as Lee Jinwoo, having made up his mind, was moving the cursor over the purchase button—

"Hup! The price...!"

The number on the screen was a figure beyond anything they'd imagined.

"Even if it's the Director's card... is it really okay to buy this? This is a bit—"

While he was breaking out in a cold sweat, Han Soeun snatched the mouse right out of his hand.

"Aigh! Why are you being so stingy about this!"

Without a moment's hesitation — if anything, delighted — she rapid-clicked the buy now button.^※TL I feel you Soeun. I wanna do this too

[Payment complete]

"Uh — hey!"

The moment the crisp confirmation flashed up on the screen, Lee Jinwoo went a little numb.

Money that would've taken him fifty years of grinding — doing nothing but breathing — to maybe get close to touching, gone like a mirage with a single click.

"It's fine, it's fine. The Director's loaded!"

Han Soeun couldn't have cared less, and — if anything — started scrolling manically through the VIP auction site.

"While we're at it, buy more! Buy more! Didn't you say the kids' mana recovery speed was slow the other day? [D-rank Mana Recovery Bracelet] — throw ten in the cart!"

"Yul needs proper armor for training too! [C-rank Shadow Resistance Cloak]! Put that in too!"

"Hey! Hey! Han Soeun! Have you lost your mind?! Do you know how much you're racking up?!"

Lee Jinwoo shrieked, but Han Soeun's hand was already flying at the pay button.

That evening.

After reporting to the Director on the separate homework problem he'd been assigned, Lee Jinwoo remembered the charges Han Soeun had racked up in a frenzy that afternoon.

He realized he hadn't reported this critical little detail during the call.

In the end, with trembling hands, he picked up the terminal again.

[Director. It's Lee Jinwoo. To be direct — in order to solve Suho's problem today, we... bought a few too many artifacts.]

Not a full minute after he'd sent that confession — with his everything on the line—

Ding—

[Anything below a certain amount doesn't even ping me with a notification, so don't worry about it and buy more of whatever else you need.]

Lee Jinwoo stared blankly down at the message.

Fifty years of his life — that, for someone on the other side of that screen, was a sum small enough that no notification even goes off.

"Haa... haha..."

Right. A gold spoon — no, a diamond spoon — really is a whole different dimension.

Dazed, he shoved the terminal into his pocket and staggered out of the control room.

The next morning.

Lee Jinwoo called Cha Yul and Park Suho into the lab.

The two children came in, but the air was still heavy.

Suho especially hovered by the doorway, fidgeting, unwilling to actually step inside.

Maybe because of the memory of getting harshly stopped last time for using his ability.

Suho's eyes were full of wariness and unease toward the Chief Researchers.

Haah... just what the hell did that Hwang Dushik man do to him.

Getting a child to see the adults trying to stop him from eating away at his own life as obstacles standing in his path.

Lee Jinwoo forced the corners of his mouth up and put on a bright expression.

"Suho. I didn't call you in today to tell you not to use your ability."

"...Huh?"

"The opposite, actually. We finally found a way for you to use it all you want."

At those words, the wariness that had been filling Suho's face a moment ago vanished in a flash.

"Huh...? How? Is there really... really a way?"

"Of course~ We figured out something really important about your ability."

He explained the results of the past few days' research in language a child could understand.

"The truth is, your ability wasn't healing."

"Huh...?"

"It's transference. Meaning... you take another person's wound and move it over onto your own body."

Lee Jinwoo went on, using hand gestures to help the child follow.

"It's like — imagine another friend is holding something really heavy, and you, Suho, take that heavy load and carry it for them instead. So the friend's load goes away, but your body gets tired in proportion to the weight."

Only then did Suho open his small mouth as if he understood, and nod.

The look on his face said he finally, at last, got why his body had felt so heavy and painful every time he used his ability.

Lee Jinwoo picked up the [Heart of the Void] from the table and held it up in front of the child's eyes.

"But if you wear this necklace, that heavy load you take on — you can put it inside this necklace instead of inside your own body."

"...Then... then I... I don't have to shave off my life-force anymore? I... I can use my ability freely too?"

"It's not certain yet."

Han Soeun picked up where he left off.

"This necklace doesn't have any function for erasing the stored energy. It just holds it, that's all."

"Which is why we need your help, Yul. That energy stacking up in the necklace — we need you to absorb it with your ability and release it. Can you do that?"

Every eye in the room turned to Cha Yul.

For a moment he looked at Suho, who was still sneaking awkward glances his way.

The truth was, Cha Yul had apologized to Suho on the very day Hwang Dushik took him out of the room.

But the awkward distance between the two of them wouldn't go away easily.

Suho felt guilty for saying such awful things to his hyung, and shaken from being hit by him.

And Cha Yul was in self-loathing for having raised a hand to his little brother, and neither of them could bring themselves back to how they'd been before — they were stuck hesitating.

The thin but stubborn wall of silence that had gone on for days like that.

Cha Yul didn't hesitate.

"If it means Suho... doesn't have to hurt anymore. I'll do anything."

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