The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

"Grrrrr!"

Dozens of lionesses rushed in, metal scales bristling.

"Beat drop!"

Kang San pressed his headphones down and kicked off the ground.

Kwaang—!

A sonic boom went off, and Kang San blinked out of sight.

Kpokpokpok!

Along with air-splitting cracks, the heads of the three lionesses at the front slammed into the ground all at once.

They'd taken the shockwave Kang San had thrown up.

"Damn, these guys' hide is tough!"

Kang San bounced through them like a pinball, tearing up their formation.

Wherever he'd swept through, gaps opened, and into one of them, a red flash dove.

"Move!"

Cha Yul.

The kid didn't dodge the paw of an incoming lioness — he took it head-on.

Tuung!

Steel scales collided with Cha Yul's bare palm.

[Kinetic Energy Absorption].

The lioness's ferocious charging force ran down through Cha Yul's hand and converted cleanly into red mana.

"I'll give it back."

Kwaaang—!

Cha Yul drove that fist up into the beast's jaw.

The explosion went off inside her, and the massive lioness went sailing into the air.

"Ooh! Nice shot! Little man! Catch this one!"

Kang San used the airborne lioness as a stepping stone and shouted as he vaulted.

At a speed the eye couldn't follow, he was circling the perimeter, herding the remaining lionesses into one spot.

Shwushushuk—!

A prison of wind woven out of sonic afterimages.

Cha Yul caught his meaning in a heartbeat.

Wuuung—!

Blue light spilled out of Cha Yul's boots.

Kuung!

Cha Yul kicked off the air and shot straight up.

His body rose to twenty meters in an instant.

"Now!"

Cha Yul's shadow fell across the packed cluster of monsters Kang San had herded together.

Cha Yul crammed his own mana on top of the falling speed, right up to the limit.

"Get down!!! Meteor!!!"

The moment he struck the ground as a red comet.

Kuguguguung—!!!

A huge crater opened up, and the swept-up lionesses were flung in every direction like scraps of paper on the shockwave.

Inside the thick dust cloud.

Around the two of them, standing back to back, monster fragments came down like rain.

"Kyah! That combo was sick! We've only known each other thirty minutes, right?"

Kang San, giddy, held up his palm — a high five.

But Cha Yul didn't even spare the hand a glance, just brushed past him.

A moment where embarrassment might've been fair enough. But Kang San didn't care in the slightest.

"Ahaha! Shy? Fine, I'll do it myself!"

Clap—!

He met his own hanging palm with his other, brisk and clean. A self-high-five.

"Loud. Eyes forward."

Their personalities were polar opposites, but in a fight, their timing was uncanny.

Watching that overwhelming display, my jaw dropped open without me realizing it.

"Wow... he really has come a long way."

He hadn't just gotten stronger.

The quality was different.

Back in the virtual-training days, Cha Yul had been all raw force — a runaway train dumping his natural strength wherever it happened to go.

Powerful, sure, but rough — burning through mana, gassing out fast.

But now it was different.

After Teacher Kim Sunja's training, the kid's movement had been refined.

At that level... he could hold his own against a grown A-rank Hunter.

I smiled, pleased, watching the kids' growth.

That was when—

Kang San was chasing one lioness that had turned tail, shouting.

"Where do you think you're going?! Finish clean!"

Right as he was about to drive in the killing blow.

Kuuung—!

A huge gold shadow split the sky and dropped.

"Huh?"

While Kang San hesitated, an enormous body plunged down like a bolt of lightning and cut across the lioness's path.

The boss.

The king who had been watching in silence from the rocky rise had moved to protect his own.

"Kraaang—!"

At a single roar of his, the air rattled like it was about to tear, and Kang San staggered back.

"Oho... so the man himself's finally here!"

Kang San's eyes lit up and he dropped his stance.

"Take out the leader and it's over, right? Sonic Slash!"

Kwaang—!

His body accelerated to sonic speed and struck the boss in the flank.

The shockwave slicing through the air seemed ready to shear the beast in two at the waist.

Puk!

But the beast didn't so much as flinch.

The golden fur — harder than steel — had let the shockwave slide past, clean.

There was no crack of a strike landing — just a dull thud, like he'd hit a slab of iron.

"Huh? Nothing?"

The instant Kang San, thrown, showed an opening.

Sshhk—!

The hideous serpent tail on the boss's back curled like a whip and shot in for Kang San's unguarded rear.

"Watch out!"

Cha Yul shouted and launched himself.

The kid planted himself in front of Kang San and crossed his arms up to meet the incoming snake's fangs.

Kwaaang—!

Not just a tail-slap.

A monstrous mass attack — a siege ram slamming a city wall.

Chaang-grang—!

A pure, hopeless shattering sound rang out across the field.

The [Warding Jade Talisman] glowing in Cha Yul's coat couldn't take the impact, and shattered into pieces, scattering into the air.

"Kh-uk!"

The instant the ward broke, Cha Yul's body was thrown backward like a cannon shell.

"Yul!"

I screamed.

Thankfully, the talisman had absorbed most of the shock, but Cha Yul rolled across the ground with a pained groan.

"Hard as hell... and fast!"

The boss was nimble in a way that didn't match its huge frame.

Shwushuk!

Every time it swept a forepaw, space tore open in five directions at once, and in the blind spots, the serpent tail danced without pause, fangs bared.

The pressure was like fighting two monsters at the same time.

"Take this! Sonic Impact!"

Kang San ground his teeth and shot in again. Circling the boss at a speed that left no afterimage, he rained sonic booms in combo.

Kpokpokpok!

But the golden fur bounced off every impact like plate armor.

Taking the opening, Cha Yul wrapped himself in red mana and went for the blind spot — the beast's hind leg.

"Break!"

Kwang—!

But this time the serpent tail whipped around Cha Yul's fist and stopped him. If anything, the hind-leg kick that followed sent Cha Yul rolling across the dirt and away.

Hit, blocked, thrown back.

However hard they pounded, not a scratch — absolute defense.

"Damn it! Nothing's getting through!"

Kang San panted and crushed a potion between his teeth.

The tide had clearly turned against them.

This is bad...

I watched the fight, stomach knotting.

Overwhelming as it already was, if we poured mana on top of it and forced a breach... could we actually handle what came out?

That was when—

"If we're going to feed him, we should clear the table first."

Han Jewoon murmured, lazy, and stepped forward.

"Cleaning up the flies first."

Zzzzzzz—!

A skin-crawling shriek scraped down my eardrums.

Behind Han Jewoon, space itself screamed and twisted, rough as crumpling paper.

A rift in dimension he'd forced open.

Out of that pitch-black abyss, black iron blades laden with dark mana began to lift their heads, savage.

Kuguguguung.

One, ten, a hundred...

Every single edge trembled, cold, waiting only for its master's order.

Overwhelming force, made manifest.

"Go."

Han Jewoon lifted one finger, indifferent.

Kwagagagagang—!!!

"Poured down like rain" was far too romantic for it.

That was closer to a bombardment — disaster-scale.

The rain of black steel struck the earth with the force of leveling it.

"Kkae... eng!"

Not even room for a scream.

The dozens of lionesses guarding the boss were ground to nothing by the overwhelming firepower before they could resist. Gone without a trace.

One strike. One second.

The area was cleared, chillingly clean.

"Kraooooong—!!!"

Watching his own pack wiped out in an instant, the king lost his mind and roared.

Kwaaaaang—!

That wasn't just sound.

The killing intent an enraged A-rank boss put out took physical form and burst outward like a massive storm. The bedrock tore, the air ripped.

"Kh-uk!"

Even Kang San and Cha Yul — A-rank Hunters standing nearby — couldn't hold up under that monstrous shockwave and were thrown backward.

Even at my distance, the pressure was enormous enough to shatter one of the Warding Jade Talismans I was wearing.

But.

At the eye of that raging storm.

Where everything else in the world was being blown back.

One man alone stood — coattails snapping in the wind, otherwise motionless.

He swept his flying red hair back and looked the boss's bloodshot eyes dead-on.

"What's got you so prickly? Ah — hungry, huh? Cranky when you skip a meal?"

He grinned and threw his arms wide, exaggerated, in welcome.

"Come on — open up. I'll cram you full till your belly bursts."

Kwaaang—!

The boss's roar came the same instant a crimson mana erupted off Han Jewoon's whole body.

Tools weren't required.

He himself was a massive reservoir of mana, a tidal wave that could break the dam.

"Kh-uk!"

At that overwhelming pressure, my hand went to my chest on its own.

The [Candy of Calm] was melting in my mouth, but it wasn't enough.

The pure mana pressure an S-rank Hunter put out on purpose was physically squeezing the heart of a non-Awakened.

Breathing itself made my lungs burn.

"You've got to open wide, don't you?"

Han Jewoon extended a hand, and the black mana spilling out of him became a massive torrent and poured, forced, straight into the lion's mouth.

"Kraoooong—!!!"

The lion let out a scream of pure agony.

Not an attack.

That was torture by overeating.

Energy the body couldn't handle was flooding in, and the lion's golden fur stood on end, muscles swelling like they were about to burst.

And in that instant.

Wuuung—. Wuuuung—.

Space started screaming.

Centered on the lion, the air in every direction shimmered and rippled like heat haze, and the pitch-black ceiling of the dome above wavered into a grotesque purple.

The unmistakable signs of a Gate breach setting in.

The beast writhed and thrashed in agony, but Han Jewoon didn't stop.

"Still not enough. Eat more."

If anything, his aura only turned more vicious, and he kept pumping his mana into the beast's belly like a piston.

"Until you burst."

"Kraooooooong—!!!"

The more Han Jewoon's black mana was forced in, the more grotesquely the lion's form warped.

The once-brilliant golden fur charred over into a scorched black-red and gave way to hideous hide, and between the muscles swollen to bursting, veins of livid blue mana bulged out, popping like tendons.

The serpent at the tail thrashed in pain and bit and burrowed into the hide of the lion — its own host.

Wuuung—. Wuuung—.

Space's scream grew even sharper.

The boundary between reality and the Gate was breaking down.

"Nng...!"

In that instant, a pain like a fist squeezing my heart hit me.

Not simple mana pressure.

Something... a strange sensation of scraping at the very bottom of my soul.

Or, more precisely, the skin-crawling feeling of a soul being drawn out.

"Dir... ector?"

Beside me, Sihyeok was tugging urgently at my coat, shouting something.

But in my ears, the sound only came through as a muffled underwater hum.

My eyes were fixed, nailed in place, on one thing — the fissure beyond the rippling space.

As if something I absolutely had to see was on the other side, I couldn't tear my gaze away.

I have to look.

And through that purple-warped crack... I saw something.

"...Huh?"

It wasn't a monster. It wasn't mana.

An altar heaped with white chrysanthemums.

A solemn quiet that seemed to carry the smell of incense. People in black mourning clothes, sobbing.

And in the middle of it, a memorial portrait ringed by a black ribbon.

The man in the photograph smiled warmly, unaware of his own future.

"......!"

My breath jammed in my throat.

That's...

Me.

Before I'd fallen into Chae Junhyeok's body — me, back in my kindergarten teacher days, in the moment after I'd saved a child and died for it.

Every inch of me went stone-still, and I stared, blank, at my own death.

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