The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

From that day on, joint training between Kim Sunja and the elite research team began.

And exactly one week into the start of training, the central control room was, quite literally, in an uproar.

"Th — this isn't possible! Why are the graph readings like this?!"

Han Soeun clung to a monitor and let out a strangled cry.

"The average output... went up by fifty percent!"

Lee Jinwoo was scrolling down through the data too, with the dazed look of someone whose mind had gone offline.

For the last several months, they'd staked their pride as elites and gone all-out.

Scanning the kids' bodies down to the nano-level with cutting-edge equipment, analyzing muscle micro-tremors and mana circuits, they'd built what they considered the most scientific, most efficient curriculum in the world.

But Kim Sunja's methods seemed to mock their science.

Inside the training room.

Kim Sunja wasn't looking at any complicated machines or data.

She just kept the long-stemmed pipe in her teeth, ran her eyes over the training kids, and tossed out one comment at a time.

"Cha Yul. When you pull mana up, why are you clenching your ass so hard?"

"What?"

"Draw that strength up into your core. Wring it from the tips of your toes and push it out."

She tapped his calf and lower back with the cane.

"Not there — here. There's a pressure point where the mana runs in circles."

Cha Yul, half-skeptical, corrected his stance.

He wound the strength up from his toes and drove his fist forward, forcing mana into the spot she'd marked.

Kwaaang—!

An explosion twice as big as usual tore through the air. Even Cha Yul himself, startled, was staring down at his own hand.

The researchers in the control room couldn't shut their mouths.

"We were calculating everything — muscle contraction-relaxation speed, mana conductivity, the works..."

Han Soeun muttered, hollow.

"That woman just... looks and knows. Where the mana's blocked, where it's leaking. She's seeing the flow itself, straight through."

That was the sheer power of the S-rank ability [Root Sight].

The domain of essence — somewhere data could never reach.

"Sea-ah, you're trying to make your barrier only rigid."

Kim Sunja crossed to Sea-ah this time and dropped a piece of advice on her, casual.

"To block wind you build a wall. To block a wave, you open a channel. Instead of taking force head-on, learn to let it slide along the grain."

That one line seemed to land like a revelation — Sea-ah's whole approach to running her barrier flipped a hundred and eighty degrees.

The hexagonal barrier that had been nothing but rigid started rippling, fluid, deflecting incoming attacks smoothly aside.

Mana consumption fell by half, but the actual defensive strength went up — a miraculous jump in efficiency.

"This is insane... a completely different league."

Lee Jinwoo shivered and pushed his glasses back into place.

"This isn't training. This is... retooling them from the ground up."

Beside him, Han Soeun stared at the monitor with an equally awed look and couldn't hold back her admiration.

"Now I finally get it. Why every Hunter Teacher Kim Sunja ever taught wears the strongest of their tier label."

Amid the researchers' commotion, the kids were absorbing Kim Sunja's teaching like sponges, growing at a terrifying rate.

But behind this insane rate of growth wasn't only Kim Sunja's guidance — there was another reason hidden underneath.

"These kids... why are they going this hard...?"

After that day, whatever wind had blown through them, the kids had completely changed.

Nobody had to tell them anything — they were up at dawn and out at the training room, pushing themselves right to the edge of collapse.

Cha Yul, especially, was the worst of them.

Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!

On the monitor, Cha Yul was pounding a virtual monster with a savagery that scared you just to watch.

His whole body was drenched in sweat, his knuckles were skinned raw and dripping blood, and the kid didn't stop.

At this rate he's going to ruin his body...

I'd gone down to the training room more than a few times to try and rein him in, tell him to ease up. No luck.

Every time, Cha Yul would only throw himself at it harder, more furiously, as if to make a point.

There was venom in those eyes.

In the end, all I could do was monitor his biometrics in real time and, the moment the overload hit dangerous levels, force training to halt and send Suho in.

Ari, watching the monitor next to me, nodded, serious.

"That oppa isn't messing around. Looks like lasers are about to shoot out of his eyes."

"Even you can tell it's too much, huh? Haah..."

From the first day Ari had come to the institute, she'd been stuck to me like glue — and somewhere along the way, the seat next to me during training observation had become her assigned spot.

"By the way — you can't go to school right now, and you're cooped up in here... you doing okay?"

Prime age for running around and playing, and here she was stuck in the dry, sterile life of the institute.

It'd be fair enough to feel stir-crazy.

But instead of answering, Ari's eyes drifted, slyly, over to the monitor beside her.

On the screen, Sihyeok was buried in his shadow training.

"Ahem, ahem. Well... I'm fine."

The kid's cheeks colored faintly as she swung her feet, answering.

"And the friends here play with me a lot, so I like it. They're all sweet."

Ari's knack for winning people over was really something.

She'd already become best friends with Suho and the twins, and she'd even worked her way into decent chatting terms with that prickly Sea-ah.

The one exception — Cha Yul, lost to his training.

But Ari's interest was fixed in exactly one place.

The moment training ended and break time started, Ari would toddle straight over to Sihyeok, without fail, and trail after him.

Just like she'd done back in Jeju.

Cute little things.

I smiled a warm smile at the fresh little sight of them and settled back into my chair.

But that peaceful daily routine wasn't going to last long.

Bzzt—.

A short, heavy vibration. One line of a message on my phone screen wiped the smile off my face.

[Come to Bawi Guild HQ.]

"Whoa..."

Standing in the middle of the enormous lobby of Bawi Guild HQ, a breath of admiration slipped out on its own.

"Insane... seriously."

However far back I tilted my head, the skyscraper's top wasn't in sight.

The descriptions I'd read in the novel as text hadn't captured even a tenth of the real thing.

An overwhelming physical weight, the kind print could never convey, filled the whole field of vision.

The lobby ceiling had to be a good five stories high, and hanging from it was a massive crystal chandelier easily worth a house, dumping down light bright as the sun.

But more overwhelming than the building was the people inside it.

Tankers in the kind of heavy plate armor you'd only expect in a movie, with human-sized greatswords slung across their backs.

Mages floating little magic circles in the air and going over documents.

And high-ranking rankers, dripping with rare artifacts that glittered all over them.

High-ranking Hunters an ordinary person might not see once in a lifetime came and went through here as casually as people at a neighborhood convenience store.

Tak-tak, tak-tak.

The crisp click of heels cutting across the busy lobby.

A woman in an impeccably tailored suit stopped in front of me.

"Excuse me. Are you Director Chae Junhyeok of the Nest Research Institute?"

"Ah, yes... yes..."

At my flustered reply, she gave a deep bow.

"I've been waiting on the Guild Master's orders. This way, please."

The look in her eyes when the words Guild Master crossed her lips was full of a deep respect and awe she couldn't hide.

Seeing that, an odd feeling came over me all over again.

Ah... right. That guy's actually a Guild Master.

Usually all I saw was him teasing me sly, or getting swatted on the back by Seo Jihyeok, so it hadn't quite sunk in — but sights like this made it plain. He was, no question, the Guild Master of Korea's number-one guild.

She stopped at the very back of the lobby, in front of a private elevator framed in heavy gold trim.

The doors opened, and the interior was luxurious beyond reason.

A red carpet ran across the floor, and a faint fragrance drifted through it.

But the most striking thing was the buttons.

Instead of a numeric panel for choosing floors, there was only a single golden button.

[TOP]

The woman pressed it without hesitation and stepped back out through the door.

"Have a safe trip up."

Just as she bowed at a full ninety degrees and the doors closed—

Wuuung—!

An intense G-force slammed down on my whole body.

"Uh — whoaaa!"

Pressure like being strapped to a rocket.

My legs went out from under me and I ended up sprawled on the floor in a very ungraceful heap.

A nauseated churn — like my insides were about to come up through my mouth — I couldn't gather myself.

Ding-dong.

Along with a cheerful arrival chime, the doors slid open.

"What are you doing crouched down there?"

A withering voice came in from outside the door.

I raised my head, with effort, and Seo Jihyeok was pushing his glasses up, irritated, looking down at me, cold.

And behind him, at the enormous desk in the center of the office, Han Jewoon was perched on the edge of it.

"Kh — ahem!"

I cleared my throat, loud, and shot to my feet.

Fixing my clothes as I went, I walked in with a shameless face like nothing had happened.

Han Jewoon jerked his chin at the leather sofa in front of the desk.

"Sit."

I dropped onto the sofa, and only then did I take a slow look around Han Jewoon's office — Korea's number-one guild's Guild Master's office, no less.

......

Honestly? It was hideous.

The floor had a tacky red Persian carpet, and the walls were covered in dull, dark-brown solid wood.

Porcelain and orchid pots dotted around, and dead-center on the wall, an enormous framed calligraphy piece reading Solid as Bedrock.

More than the room of Korea's number-one Guild Master, the whole thing gave off the musty old-country-schoolteacher vibe of some tight-lipped rural principal's study.

Maybe my staring was too blatant. Han Jewoon smirked and spoke.

"Interior's a bit dated, right? It's the last Guild Master's taste."

"..."

"Wanted to gut the whole thing at handover — but as you can see, no room to breathe. Left it alone, and this is where it ended up."

The last Guild Master...

At those words, a name flashed through my head.

Oh Manseok.

Teacher Kim Sunja's nemesis. The one who had covered up the truth, coward that he was.

Come to think of it... Han Jewoon knew the truth of that day too.

The question came trailing others behind it. How on earth had he found out?

Had Oh Manseok, when he handed the seat over, actually confessed his own dirty laundry along with it?

Or maybe there was some record, hidden somewhere in this room?

......

But I forced the boiling tangent aside.

Now wasn't the time to bring that up.

I crossed my legs, cocked my chin up in deliberate arrogance, and cleared the air.

"Your taste really is trash. But you were too busy to change it — I'll cut you slack."

I looked Han Jewoon straight in the eye and got to the point.

"So. Why'd you actually drag me out here? Don't tell me it was to show off this fossil of a room."

"Impatient. Take a look at this."

Han Jewoon tapped at the terminal on his desk, and along with a hum, a huge 3D holographic map opened up in midair.

"...?"

The location on the map wasn't a mountain or a sea.

A vast, wide-open plain that stretched all the way to the horizon.

This is... the Honam Plain?

Korea's largest granary region.

"This Gate's... in flatland?"

At my mutter, Han Jewoon nodded.

"Right. Tomorrow noon, an A-rank Gate is set to form here."

Han Jewoon leaned forward and fixed his eyes on mine, hard.

"There. I've laid out the whole board you wanted. Now tell me. Choi Juran's core... how exactly do you plan to restore it?"

His eyes were burning, desperate. I didn't flinch from that cool gray gaze — I lobbed a question back.

"One thing first. Normally, how does your guild approach A-rank Gates?"

"What?"

Han Jewoon knit his brow, thrown, then answered.

"By the book. An elite raid team enters, kills the boss; the rest of the force stays on standby outside and preps for a possible Gate breach. That's the safest way."

But I shook my head.

"Not this time. We're throwing that safety out."

"...?"

"No external force. Only a raid team, minimum size, goes in."

"...What?"

I swallowed dry.

What I was about to say next was insanity that flew straight in the face of this world's common sense.

But it was the only path.

"The only way to restore Hunter Choi Juran's core is..."

I looked back and forth between Han Jewoon and Seo Jihyeok, and declared it.

"To cause a Gate breach... on purpose."

At that one line, the air in the office froze solid.

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