The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

[Weeeeng—! Weeeeng—! Weeeeng—!]

At the eardrum-splitting blast, I shot up out of bed.

"Wh — what is it!"

The red emergency light was spinning wildly, filling the room.

Before I could even get my bearings, an unreal scene was laid out in front of me.

Standing blankly in the dark, a small child — Kim Sihyeok.

And sprawled at his feet, a man in a black mask.

Am I dreaming right now...?

I was staring blankly at the ridiculous pairing when—

Kwang—!

The Director's office door was thrown open hard enough to break it, and the three Chiefs poured in.

"Director!!!"

"What's happened!!!"

Ah — not a dream, then.

"..."

What in the hell is this...

At the scene in front of me, I could only work my mouth open and shut in disbelief.

Lee Jinwoo hurriedly flipped the lights on, and the wrecked room was laid bare in stark detail.

The floor was spattered with blood and had a dagger flung across it, and the fire alarm was smashed.

But the most ridiculous part wasn't any of that.

"...Why are you here?"

I looked down at Sihyeok, standing with one foot planted lightly on the pitch-black shadow spread out at my feet.

"Don't tell me..."

A memory flashed through my head.

The way the shadow on the wall had, night after night, seemed to ripple oddly. I'd thought it was fatigue seeing things.

"You've been hiding in my shadow?"

Sihyeok didn't say anything, but I could read the confirmation in the child's eyes.

"No, wait — since when...? Don't tell me you've been doing this every single night?"

"..."

"Then what about sleep? Have you been up all night?"

He stayed silent through the whole line of questioning.

Instead, he trotted over, threw both arms around my waist, and burrowed into me desperately.

At the way the small body clung on, as if it didn't want to be pulled off, whatever scolding I'd been about to give melted like snow in spring.

Ha — what am I supposed to do with this kid.

Giving up in the end, I let out a sigh and hugged the child's back in return, patting it gently.

That such a small kid had been standing watch every night to protect me — it was absurd, and at the same time something ached in my chest.

Meanwhile, Han Soeun, having pieced together the situation, pressed a hand to her chest.

"Still... that could've been really bad. An assassination attempt in the middle of the institute — my god."

Lee Jinwoo, wiping cold sweat, chimed in too.

"Right. Breaking through the institute's security and getting in this far... if it weren't for Sihyeok..."

At their words, I pressed my throbbing head and glared at the assassin bound to the chair.

The face revealed once the mask came off belonged to a man I'd never seen before.

Why on earth would he go for me...?

The people who'd hold the most grudge against me at this point in time would be...

Hwang Dushik? Or Park Wonjin?

But...

Before long, I shook my head.

Those bastards hiring an Awakened at this level? Not a chance.

The Nest Research Institute was, in name, the Bureau's flagship research facility — staffed with a security team of top-tier talent and equipped with a tight surveillance system.

For an Awakened to get inside a place like this... B-rank at minimum...

Hiring a talent like that would cost an astronomical sum, and Hwang Dushik didn't have that kind of money — nor was Park Wonjin the kind of man to take on that kind of risk.

Is there some enemy of Chae Junhyeok's that I don't know about?

My thoughts were tangling in messy knots, but first, I needed to look after the child in front of me.

"Kim Sihyeok."

I stood at a slant and looked down at him.

"You did well this time. Thanks to you, I got out of a headache."

"..."

"But who told a doll to stay up all night on his own? If my doll breaks doing things his owner didn't tell him to do, guess who has to fix him. Don't ever do this again. Got it?"

At that, Sihyeok clamped his mouth shut. A silent, stubborn refusal to answer.

"Well? No reply?"

"..."

Lips still firmly shut.

At the stubbornness in his eyes, I clicked my tongue, giving up.

"Haah... fine, we'll pick this up tomorrow. Get some sleep first."

I gave Han Soeun, standing beside me, a small look.

"Number Two. Take him back for me."

"Yes, Director. Come on, Sihyeok."

Han Soeun carefully led Sihyeok out.

Only after I watched him disappear through the door did I let my expression harden and turn to Kang Taemin.

"Search him."

The moment the order dropped, Kang Taemin started going over the unconscious assassin.

Inside pockets, the soles of his shoes — every inch of him. The hands worked quickly and thoroughly, the way you'd expect from a former soldier.

A moment later.

Kang Taemin had pulled off the mask and was turning it over in his hands when he found something and got up.

"Take a look at this."

What he held out was the black mask the assassin had been wearing.

On the inside of it, a finely embroidered logo.

"This is..."

A pattern I knew all too well.

A grim design of a huge gray tower cleaved in half by red lightning.

I remembered.

The terrorists who had made a wreck of the banquet hall when I'd met Han Jewoon there.

And their symbol, plastered across the news screen the next morning.

"Awakened Liberation Front..."

The name came out of my mouth on its own.

The radical group that had carried out terror attacks demanding the dissolution of the Bureau.

"The Awakened Liberation Front?!"

Lee Jinwoo cried out, shocked.

"You mean that crazy group that carried out the banquet-hall attack last time? There were remnants left...!"

"But why on earth would they be targeting the Director? Why would terrorists break into a place as tightly guarded as this institute just to..."

She paused for a moment, then, as if she'd caught on, clapped a hand over her mouth.

"D-don't tell me... because you're the Bureau Chief's son?"

I clicked my tongue, bitterly.

The father's enormous accumulated karma splashing onto the son — the most typical, most exhausting cliché in the book.

Just then, Kang Taemin, who had been listening in silence, stepped up to the assassin slumped in the chair.

"Ask him yourself."

Kang Taemin, expressionless, roughly seized the assassin's jaw.

Then he pressed hard on a specific pressure point on the back of the neck.

"Krh-huk...!"

The assassin's body jerked violently, and unfocused eyes snapped open.

"Wh — what!"

The moment he opened his eyes, he found figures looking down at him coldly, and — panicked — instinctively pulled mana up.

Chshhh—

His body started melting into the air, going transparent in an instant.

An attempt to hide and escape.

But Kang Taemin was faster.

Chak.

"Aack!"

Kang Taemin snapped a black metal ring around the assassin's neck, pulled from inside his jacket.

It was the [Ability Suppression Restraint] the children had once worn.

"Wh — what is this... ugh...!"

His body, which had been going transparent, snapped back into visibility.

I sat down in a chair, crossed my legs, and looked down at him haughtily.

"Hey. Getting your senses back?"

I jutted my chin at him and gave a nasty smile.

"Didn't know your place, came after me, and look how that turned out. So — you came in ready to die?"

At that, the assassin lifted his head.

"You... you should have died...!"

He spat blood-flecked saliva at my feet and snarled.

"We only complete our cause by taking your head!"

I made a face like I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Cause? What cause?"

"Shut up! Filthy dictator's bloodline!"

The assassin raved.

"You thought that being Chae Ganghyeon's son, you'd live out a natural life! I failed, but my comrades will finish you! Absolutely!"

"Haah..."

I let out a deep sigh.

A fanatic there was no reasoning with.

"So what exactly is your goal? Kill me and do what? Flip the whole world over?"

"Yes!"

The assassin's eyes flashed with mania.

"Starting with your death, we will make our will known to the entire world! We will smash this disgusting reality where Awakened are farmed like livestock under the shackles of the Bureau!"

Veins standing out at his temples, he screamed.

"All of it — every bit of it is the dirty scheming of your father, Chae Ganghyeon! Inside the system that man built, we're no better than slaves!"

I clicked my tongue.

"If you've got that many complaints, why not just join a guild. There, the Bureau's influence would be smaller... why take it out on some poor bastard who's got nothing to do with it?"

Hearing that, the assassin let out an incredulous laugh.

"Ha! Smaller influence? That's rich. The one holding the leash on every Awakened in this country is the Bureau."

Veins standing out again, he fired back.

"From Awakened registration to Gate assignments, it's all in your father's palm. Guilds? They're just parasites, scraping by on the scraps of meat Chae Ganghyeon throws them!"

"..."

At the ferocity of his tirade, I had to shut the mouth I'd been about to argue with.

Because for a split second, the bitter truth of eight years ago flashed through my head.

Bureau Chief Chae Ganghyeon. And Bawi Guild Master Oh Manseok, who had watched that absolute power's every mood and thoroughly buried the unjust deaths of Choi Jiyeon and Yeon Minjun.

Thinking back to that cowardly, ugly past... yeah. What he was saying wasn't entirely off the mark.

"I may have failed..."

A crazed smile spread across the assassin's mouth.

"But our other plans will succeed, without fail. Because they... have already made their move."

He looked at me and cackled, the sound of it crawling on my skin.

"Look forward to it, Chae Junhyeok. I'll be watching you go down... from hell!"

"What?"

Just as I was about to press him back—

Krrrk.

The assassin bit down hard on a back tooth.

"Don't!"

At my shout, Kang Taemin lunged at incredible speed and grabbed his jaw, but it was already too late.

Trickle.

Dark red blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

His face went blue in an instant, and his unfocused eyes rolled back toward the ceiling.

"Kh... khrrr..."

Along with a final death-throe convulsion, the assassin's head dropped limp.

A corpse sprawled in front of me.

The coppery smell of blood.

My stomach churned.

Nausea rose up right that second, but I ground my teeth and held it down.

Get it together. I can't fall apart right now.

Kang Taemin, face grim, checked the body's pulse and shook his head; Lee Jinwoo and Han Soeun stood mute, gone still with shock.

Only a heavy silence settled over the room.

Bzzt — bzzt—.

"...rector."

Someone shook my shoulder carefully.

"Director. The phone..."

At Lee Jinwoo's trembling voice, I snapped back to myself.

"Huh...?"

Only then did the buzz churning in my pocket and its sharp mechanical tone come clearly into focus.

Still half in a daze, I hit the answer button automatically.

"Hell—"

[Chae Junhyeok.]

The other end cut me off without mercy.

It was Han Jewoon.

But not the usual smug, easygoing voice.

[You. Any chance you let slip Teacher Kim Sunja's location somewhere?]

The barely-suppressed anger seeping through the voice hit me like ice water, and my head snapped clear in an instant.

"What... what are you talking about? There's no way I'd say a thing like that!"

[Hah... so the rats sniffed her out on their own, then.]

"What in the hell is going on?"

[Turn on the news.]

At those words, I switched on the hologram display mounted on the wall of the Director's office.

Chshhh—

The moment the screen came on, huge red letters filled the view.

[BREAKING NEWS]

"Wh — what is this..."

On-screen, the anchor was ashen-faced, delivering the breaking bulletin at a frantic pace.

["Breaking news! Multiple Gate breaches are occurring simultaneously all across downtown Seoul as we speak!"]

The scene on the news was a living hell, plain and simple.

Dark-red Gates were yawning open across the heart of Seoul, and monsters that had come pouring out of them, as if vomited up, were overrunning the roads.

They were trampling over cars, running on top of them, tearing the city center to pieces.

["The Awakened Management Bureau and each of the guilds are currently mobilizing every available force, en route to the scenes! We ask all citizens to evacuate to a safe location immediately!"]

Listening to the anchor's frantic shouts, I stared vacantly at the screen, and Han Jewoon's voice on the other end went low.

[Gates have broken all across Seoul. My guild just got the mobilization order too.]

[And... my source in Jeju just got in touch.]

"...?"

[The old lady's granddaughter. Yeon Ari.]

An ominous premonition ran down my spine.

[The little one... has been kidnapped.]

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