The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

The kids stared at the red letters on the wall and tilted their heads.

"B... three? What does that mean?"

Suho murmured it, small, but no one could answer.

They only felt, on instinct, that whatever those letters gave off was something cold and alien — nothing at all like the Sunshine Room or the training halls upstairs.

"N-noona... here... can we hide here?"

Hajun asked, voice trembling.

It was, without question, the perfect place to hide.

A dense forest of packed-in robots.

Crouch down in the middle of that, and the adults would never find them.

But it was just as terrifying for the same reason.

The robots sunk in darkness looked like they might swivel their heads with a grinding shriek any second and fix their eyes on the kids.

"All right, everyone hold hands. Don't you dare let go."

Ari, the oldest, put on a brave front and held her hands out to the others.

When they gripped each other's hands tight, the cold sweat beading on their palms felt clammy.

"Sihyeok, let's go."

Ari said it, grim.

Ari and Sihyeok took the front row.

The two of them hid their younger siblings behind their backs like shields and stepped slowly into the dark.

Step... step...

In that silent space, even their small footsteps rang out like a huge roar.

The robots lined up on both sides stretched on endlessly, like ranks of soldiers standing at attention.

"Ngh... noona, this place feels like a ghost's gonna pop out..."

Suho whimpered and clutched at Ari's clothes harder.

At that, Ari shook her head hard and cut it off flat, in a deliberately grown-up tone.

"Don't worry. My grandma said so. There's absolutely no such thing as ghosts in this world."

"F-for real?"

"Yeah! And the really scary thing isn't ghosts, it's... uh... um..."

Ari put a finger to her lips and tilted her head.

"What was it again? Poverty, was it... or tigers..."

"..."

"Anyway! She said ghosts aren't even scary! So it's fine."

The kids were baffled by Ari's odd comfort, but since it came from their senior at life, they decided to take her word for it.

The path the kids walked was as tangled as a maze.

Every time the old fluorescents in the ceiling sputtered on and off, the robots' shadows stretched grotesquely long and shrank back again, over and over.

As if this vast underground space were itself the belly of a living monster.

Leaning on each other's warmth, the kids stepped carefully into the deep abyss of the unknown third basement.

They walked on past the forest of robots — for how long, who could say.

At the edge of that darkness that had seemed to have no end, the kids found a single tightly shut iron door.

"...It's a door."

Unlike the other doors, this one was crude and rusted.

It was cleverly tucked away behind a massive pillar, as if someone had hidden it in the corner on purpose.

Creeeak—

When Sihyeok and Ari shoved at the heavy iron door, straining, it opened with an unpleasant scrape of metal.

The kids' eyes went round at the space revealed through the gap.

"Huh? An elevator?"

Astonishingly, there was an elevator standing there.

But not the gleaming silver lift they'd ridden upstairs.

This was a hideous lump of scrap, its paint entirely flaked off and dented all over, with cables that looked ready to snap at any moment.

"Does this thing... even work?"

It looked, by any reckoning, like it had been left to rot for decades.

"I'll... give it a press."

Ari worked up her courage and pushed the dust-caked call button, firm.

Kudududung...

From somewhere deep inside the wall came the roar of rusted chains dragging themselves up, laboring.

The instant the kids held their breath.

Ding—!

With an arrival chime so crisp it made their skin crawl, the old doors rattled open to either side.

Chik, chik-chik—

The fluorescents inside flickered like they were having a fit and barely coughed up any light.

Dark-red mold bloomed in the cracks between the broken tiles, and the mirror on the far wall had been painted over, eerily, in black paint, reflecting nothing at all.

Cobwebs strung across every corner, and the sour, musty reek of iron stinging their noses.

It was less an elevator than a giant steel coffin bound for the depths of the earth.

"Ugh... let's not go in th—"

Just as the kids were about to back away.

Wiing— ka-chunk.

From far off in the darkness behind them came the sound of machinery locking into gear.

"Huh...?"

The kids turned reflexively. And what met their eyes were hundreds of red lights studding the dark, packed close.

Pat! Pat! Pa-pa-pat—!

The eye-lights of the robots, dead and dark until now, lit up one after another like falling dominoes.

[ Beep— beep— beep— ]

[ Warning. Warning. Restricted zone. Intruder approach will be stopped. ]

Ka-chunk.

The steel legion that had been standing in ranks and files wrenched their heads toward the kids all at once, grinding out a bizarre mechanical whine.

In an instant, the stillness turned to catastrophe.

Kuuuuung—!!!

Hundreds of robots began charging at the kids like things gone mad.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

This was no simple march.

They flailed their limbs grotesquely, joints straining to the breaking point, and slammed off the floor at a full sprint as they came.

"Wh-what is it all of a sudden?!"

"Kyaa! They're — they're coming! All of them are running at us!!"

The far-off red dots swelled up before their eyes in a heartbeat.

Terrified, Hayun screamed in a panic.

"Hajuna!!!"

"Noona!!!"

The two kids snatched each other's hands as if they'd rehearsed it.

Kuung—!

A bluish pulse of psychokinetic force burst out of the twins' small bodies.

Kigigik! Kwang!

"...!"

The legs of the lead robots snapped together mid-charge, as if bound by an invisible rope.

The robots lost their balance and pitched to the floor like bowling pins with a crashing clatter.

The robots coming up behind them caught on the fallen wreckage and toppled too, one after another, like dominoes.

"Now's our chance!"

"Get in! Hurry!!"

The terrified kids flung themselves into the elevator.

The moment the five of them tumbled in a tangle into the cramped space, Ari mashed the close button like a lunatic.

"Close! Close, come on! Please close!!"

Wiing... ka-chunk.

But the worn-out elevator doors moved with a cruel slowness.

In the meantime, a red-eyed robot's huge hand bore down right in front of their faces.

[ Warning. Warning. Securing target. ]

With a chilling mechanical whine, a steel arm stretched toward the kids.

"Kyaaaak!"

"Get away! Get away from us!"

Hayun and Hajun's clasped hands shook until they went white.

Once more the pulse rippled out.

Kwajijik! Udduk!

A gruesome splintering sound rang through the cramped space.

The steel arm that had been braced against the elevator door, holding it open, buckled and crumpled the wrong way against its own joints.

"Press it! Press a button! Just press anything, hurry!!"

"There's only one button!"

"Then press it! Fast!!"

Sihyeok lunged at the pad and slammed his palm down on the one and only red button.

[ B7 ]

Kiiiik—!

The rusted cables screamed like they were about to snap as the door forced itself shut with a slamming bang!

Thud! Thud! Kwang!

Outside the door, the sound of the robots pounding on the steel rolled out like thunder.

But as the elevator rattled downward, that horrific roar slowly faded away overhead.

"Haah... haah... hnk..."

In the wake of the terror that had torn through and gone.

The kids clutched at their pounding, hammering hearts and slid slowly down to the floor.

"What... what in the world was that?"

Suho asked, voice shaking.

"Why did the robots suddenly turn on? They were definitely powered off!"

"I don't know either... it was so scary... hnng..."

Why the alarm had gone off out of nowhere, why the robots had charged at them like they meant to kill.

There was no way for the kids to know.

They could only stare, dazed, at each other's frightened faces.

Kirik... kigigik...

They descended for what felt like an eternity.

Ding—!

An arrival chime, clear and cheerful, rang out — utterly at odds with the grim mood.

Slllide...

The rusted door dragged open all the way to either side with a dull sound.

The kids gripped each other's clothes like lifelines and stepped carefully outside.

"This place is..."

The scene that opened up in front of them was horrifyingly familiar.

A cold steel chair sitting alone in the middle of the room.

Dozens of surveillance monitors covering the walls.

And a huge pane of plate glass blocking the whole front of the room.

It was a place that had been nothing short of hell to the kids — laid out identically, down to the last detail, to the now-shuttered central laboratory.

"Th-this place is."

The instant they realized it, the kids' sense of time began to rewind to that hellish past.

"...Ah."

Chik—

The feel of a cold metal needle sinking into flesh.

[Look at this — this subject's responding beautifully.]

[It hurts? Bear with it. It's for the good of humanity.]

The white coats that had strapped them to operating tables and stared down at them.

The researchers' sneering laughter as they cackled at the kids writhing in agony buzzed in their ears and clawed through their heads.

And, beyond that.

The man who had stood behind the glass with his arms folded, watching all of it.

The one who, even as he watched them collapse coughing up blood, had cruelly twisted the corner of his mouth into a smile, like he was looking at some fascinating toy...

Chae Junhyeok.

"Uuk... uk..."

Suho's face went white as a corpse.

At a horrible surge of nausea, like his whole stomach was flipping over, he clamped a hand over his mouth and staggered.

The twins couldn't even manage a scream.

Hayun and Hajun clung to each other's heads and sank to the floor.

"N-no... it can't be..."

Even Sihyeok, always so unbothered, crumbled.

His eyes had lost their focus completely and were shaking hard, like the ground under them had quaked.

As the incomprehensible terror spread, Ari — who had no idea what was happening — cried out.

"Wh-what's wrong with all of you?! Why are you acting so scary?! Guys! Sihyeok, snap out of it!!"

Just as Ari grabbed Sihyeok's clothes and shook him.

Creeeak... ka-chunk.

From a dark corner deep inside the lab, something revealed itself along with a bizarre noise.

It was nothing like the sleek robots the institute used these days.

It had a bulky cathode-ray monitor for a head, with wires jutting out like exposed veins — a very old, obsolete model.

One arm, rusted a reddish color, had broken off, and the lump of scrap came shambling toward the kids like a zombie, clattering as it went.

A space that clawed at their trauma, and now a robot monster on top of it.

The kids' eyes were rolling blank and white, one breath away from their minds snapping clean off.

In that moment.

[ ^ ‿ ^ ]

A smiling mark appeared on the cathode-ray screen.

And from that lump of scrap flowed a warm woman's voice.

[We have guests!]

"?"

The instant the robot finished speaking, a dazzling flash burst out.

Paaat—!

As the intense light cleared and the kids cautiously opened their eyes, they stood there dumbstruck.

Instead of the disinfectant smell stinging their noses, there was the sweet scent of flowers; instead of cold tile, soft grass.

The hellish lab was nowhere to be found, and in its place spread a beautiful garden in full bloom with flowers of every color.

As if by magic, the world had flipped over in a single second.

"Huh...?"

The kids rubbed their eyes as if they couldn't believe it and looked blankly around them.

The moment the scenery changed, the fits stopped as if it had all been a lie.

Suho's dry heaving, Sihyeok's hyperventilating, the twins' aspen-leaf trembling.

All of it melted away like snow, along with the sweet flower scent tickling their noses.

Kirik, kiiik.

Then the old robot creaked its rusted joints and gestured gently toward the kids.

[Come this way, please. My cute little guests.]

As if under a spell, the kids followed after the robot.

When they reached the middle of the garden, a scene like a storybook flung open appeared before them.

"Whoaa..."

On a round table draped with a white lace cloth, desserts of every color sat piled high.

Bright macarons and cake on a three-tiered tray, the rich smell of freshly baked cookies, and steaming-hot black tea rising in wisps.

It was a perfect tea party — enough to make hungry kids' eyes go wide.

[You must have been hungry after coming such a long way. I put together the sort of things little guests might like.]

An eye-smile ( ^ ‿ ^ ) rose again on the robot's cathode-ray screen.

Gulp.

Hayun swallowed dry, without meaning to.

But.

"Don't."

Sihyeok said it, firm, and stepped in front of his younger siblings.

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