The Villainous Director Is Raising a Child!

In a calm, even tone, Sea-ah began to recite the terms of her deal with the Deputy Director, one by one.

And the moment I'd heard all of it, I nearly lost my reason and started shouting.

"Drop your barrier in the middle of the evaluation? What the hell is that—!"

Dropping her barrier at an evaluation where every kind of attack would come raining down was no different from just telling her to die.

"He says he'll control the evaluation himself so I only get hurt 'a little.'"

Sea-ah let out an incredulous, breathy laugh.

"Just how much of a brainless idiot does he take me for, to think I'd fall for such an obvious ploy... I had a hell of a time keeping my face straight the whole time I listened, it was so absurd."

Sea-ah gave a light shrug.

"He's probably planning to cripple me for good at this evaluation... or kill me."

I'd expected him to try some trick, but I'd never dreamed he'd go after one of the kids at an evaluation again.

He drove Sihyeok right up to death's door last time, and now again—!

As my face hardened, grim, sharp-eyed Sea-ah added a few words.

"For now, I told him I'd cooperate. Because if I'd refused right there... he had the look of someone who'd cook up something else."

The child's composure brought me back to my senses, just a little.

"...Good. You did well. Very well. Refusing would have been dangerous."

While I praised her out loud, my mind was working fast.

The truth was, 'Park Wonjin's early exit' hadn't been part of the original plan.

I hadn't wanted to take on the risk of going against the broad current of the original, so I'd meant to just keep him in check and leave him be.

But...

My gaze sank cold.

He'd crossed the line, and crossed it by a long way.

He dares try to kill Sea-ah?

I no longer had the faintest intention of sparing him with the original's flow as my excuse.

Simply steering clear of it isn't enough. Isn't there some way to bury him for good, and leave no doubt about it?

That was when it happened. A memory flashed through my mind like a bolt of light.

The event from the original I'd recalled a few days ago, the moment I got back to my quarters after hearing the warnings from Chae Ganghyeon and Han Jewoon.

[ The Nest Research Institute Government Raid Incident ]

The timing is right around now... if I use this...

While I was rapidly sketching out the plan in my head, Sea-ah looked up at me, studying my face.

"So what should I do?"

She was asking with her eyes, and I set the tangled calculations aside for a moment and spoke firmly.

"You do nothing. Act exactly like always. If Park Wonjin approaches you again, tell me right away. I'll handle the cleanup."

Sea-ah nodded without a word of complaint, then, as if she had nothing more to say, turned to go.

The training room door opened and the dazzling light from outside came pouring in.

She started out, then stopped short, and slowly looked back.

The backlight threw a shadow over Sea-ah's turned face, and I couldn't make out her expression.

"By the way, Director... just maybe."

"?"

"...Do you know anything about my parents?"

"..."

The unexpected question sent an ache through my chest.

That a child who had never once gone looking for her family would ask something like that, at this very moment.

I wanted to tell her something, anything, right away, but no matter how I ransacked my memory, nowhere in the original was there any mention of Sea-ah's parents.

Swallowing the bitterness, I honestly shook my head.

"...No. I don't."

At that, the gaze that had been raking doggedly over my face in the dark dropped away.

Was she disappointed? Just as I moved to speak, worried, Sea-ah's voice reached me.

"Never mind, then."

It was unexpected.

Sea-ah's voice sounded not so much disappointed as, if anything, a good deal lighter.

"Lucky for me, I made the right choice."

She left that riddle of a remark behind and vanished without a backward glance.

The right choice... what's that supposed to mean?

It was a puzzle, but right now I had no time to dig deep into what she meant.

I had a fire to put out at my very feet first.

I hurried my steps toward the Director's office.

Since I knew the event from the original inside and out, everything from there went off without a hitch.

The scenario I'd put together overnight, heads together with the three Head Researchers, was flawless.

On the day of the evaluation, the smoke bombs went off as arranged and cut off all sight, and the laser cannon fired at the barrier-less Sea-ah was blocked by the Warding Jade Talisman I'd prepared in advance.

When the fake blood flung through the air staged a ghastly scene of carnage, Kang Taemin dashed in fast and carried out Sea-ah as she acted out a fatal wound.

The deliberate incompetence I'd put on display in the midst of that chaos, the ugly rumors I'd stoked inside the institute ahead of time, and the finishing blow — Lee Jinwoo's document forgery.

Every beat fell into place perfectly.

The memory of Park Wonjin's back as he was hauled off in a pathetic heap, delighted with himself and never even knowing it was a trap, rose up, and a satisfied smile settled onto my lips all on its own.

"Director? Director?"

At Lee Jinwoo's voice, his hand waving in front of my eyes, I snapped out of the memory.

"Ah, ahem. Just, uh, off in my own thoughts for a second."

"So what's your next plan, Director? Now that you've cleared Park Wonjin out too, is it time for you to take complete control of the institute again?"

Lee Jinwoo's voice was brimming with anticipation.

But I clicked my tongue and looked at him as if he were hopeless.

"Tsk tsk. Number One. You've got less nerve than I figured, hm?"

"...Sorry?"

I clicked my tongue and looked at him as if he were hopeless.

"You think I kicked up this whole storm just to swallow one measly speck of a research institute?"

"...Then?"

"Dream a little bigger. Bigger. What I'm after is far greater and grander than that. I'm going to throw the whole world into an uproar, you see. Heh heh heh."

At my nasty laugh, Lee Jinwoo, Han Soeun, and the children looked at one another, faces blank, utterly unable to make sense of it.

It's about time to take the first step toward escape.

I ran back through the plan I'd simulated in my head countless times, one more time.

"For a while, things are going to be pretty noisy in and around the institute. The government poking around, an investigation coming down from up top — it'll be an absolute mess."

But I cocked my head to one side and put on a confident, arrogant smile.

"Don't worry, though. I'll take care of all those piddling little things myself."

I lifted my chin, playing it haughty, and drove the point home.

"You lot don't think about a thing — just trust me and follow along. Got it?"

Even after my grand declaration the room still looked dazed, but the first to break the silence was Kang Taemin.

"Yes. Understood."

A blunt affirmation without a single objection.

At that, quick-witted Lee Jinwoo threw up a playful salute, as if to lift the mood.

"Yes sir! Loyalty! We're going forward trusting nobody but you, Director!"

At that over-the-top gesture, the children, who'd been tense, burst into peals of laughter.

Not to be outdone, they copied Lee Jinwoo, pressing their small fern-frond hands to their foreheads and shouting stoutly.

"Loyaltyyy!"

"Loyalty!"

One kid put the back of a hand to their forehead, another raised the wrong hand, every one of them with a face set dead serious.

The sight of them throwing up crooked salutes, each one grave in their own way, like a peeping flock of chicks, was more lovable than I could stand.

Pressing that dazzling scene deep into my eyes, I clenched my fist tight.

I'll protect them, no matter what.

Whatever anyone said, even if it meant I had to become the villain.

These children's laughter, at least... that I would guard to the very end, even if I had to stake my life on it.

An interrogation room hung with a chill.

Uniformed investigators bore down on him day and night without let-up, but far from shrinking, Park Wonjin only lifted his head all the more brazenly.

"No, how many times do I have to say it before it gets through your thick skulls?! I wasn't the one running it! It was all the Director's doing, I'm telling you?!"

Bang—!

He hammered the desk with his cuffed hands and screamed.

The cringing air he'd worn right after his arrest, dragged in with no idea what was happening, was nowhere to be found now.

All that was left on his face now was fury that they'd dared to throw him into an interrogation room like this, and the arrogance of a man certain he'd be released before long.

"I'm just a good, decent victim who did what he was told when the Director said jump! You're all making a huge mistake right now. You dare lay a finger on a research institute under the Bureau?"

He flung a viper's glare at the investigators, spit flying.

"Just wait till I get out of here. I'll have the uniforms off your backs first thing! Think you can handle that? Huh?"

There was only one reason he could be this cocksure.

Bureau Chief Chae Ganghyeon.

There's no way the Bureau Chief lets me get dragged off like this.

It wasn't simple loyalty.

This was something far stickier and filthier — the certainty of an accomplice.

'Project R.'

He himself had been in deep from the earliest days of that secret experiment.

The instant I open my mouth, the Bureau Chief's career is finished too. Even just to save his own skin, he'll move heaven and earth to get me out.

So all he had to do was keep his mouth shut here and hold out.

"And what was it — full authority? Right, that idiot Director botched the evaluation so spectacularly that I stepped up and took the reins for a bit to clean it up! Since when is wiping an incompetent superior's ass a crime?!"

Locked in a holding cell though he was, Park Wonjin bellowed away as if he were some grand lord.

"So bring me someone in charge, right now! I've got nothing to say to small fry like you!!"

That was when it happened.

Kzzt—

A radio voice came through the investigator's in-ear.

"...Understood."

The investigator gave a short reply, then threw Park Wonjin a strange look.

"Wait here a moment."

They filed out like a receding tide, leaving Park Wonjin alone in the interrogation room.

As silence settled over the empty room, Park Wonjin broke into a triumphant smile.

Just as I thought. That's the Bureau Chief for you. Looks like he's pulled some strings.

The investigators had clearly tucked their tails and fled.

Just wait till I'm out. I'll pay this humiliation back many times over. Especially... that bastard who hauled me in at the institute.

The commander with the 'Black Eagles' emblem on his shoulder.

You dare screw me over? I'll have you stripped of your uniform and out on the street.

How much time passed?

There came the clank of the heavy iron door opening.

"Finally decided to sho—"

Park Wonjin turned his head with an arrogant look, then caught his breath short with a hup.

The one standing there was the very target he'd been grinding his teeth and swearing revenge on just moments ago.

The very man who had put the cuffs on him at the institute.

A cold, expressionless face, as if all feeling had been cut out of it.

The [Black Eagles] emblem glinting coldly on his uniformed shoulder.

Thud, thud.

The steady tread of boots echoed through the cramped interrogation room.

The man walked in without the slightest regard for Park Wonjin's frozen stare and dropped heavily into the chair across from him.

Following behind him like a shadow, a hulking adjutant came up soundlessly and stood at Park Wonjin's back.

Park Wonjin hunched his shoulders before he knew it, but the reminder that he was the one on top soon had him puffing up with rage again.

"Well, well, you son of a bitch, glad I caught you!"

Bang!

Park Wonjin slammed the desk and jabbed a finger at him.

"I was looking for you anyway. You kicked me at the institute back then, didn't you? Huh? You know that's assault of a civilian in the middle of official duty, or don't you? The second I'm out, yours is the first uniform I strip, you hear me! If you knew who's behind me you'd be pissing yourself, and here you are—!"

Just as Park Wonjin was screaming, veins bulging, frothing at the mouth—

The man flicked a single finger, as if it were a bother.

Thwack!

"Guhk?!"

With a dull sound of impact, Park Wonjin's head snapped forward.

There wasn't even time to scream.

Slam—!

Park Wonjin's face was driven mercilessly down onto the cold steel table.

"Nnngh...!"

His crushed cheek mashed against the table, hideously distorted.

"Wh... what is th-this...?"

"Shut your mouth."

The adjutant bore down with even more force in the hand pinning him, growling. It was a terrifying grip, strong enough that you could hear his skull creak.

"Bark out of turn one more time and I'll make it so you can't talk at all."

"Nnghh...!"

Park Wonjin gasped, breath choked off, and could do nothing but roll his eyes wildly, seized by terror.

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