Chapter 176

In that instant, the hand carefully working around my eyes stiffened for a split second.

An extremely subtle catch — but to me, relying entirely on my senses in the dark, that brief hitch came through with strange clarity.

But before long, as if nothing had happened, he was back to his usual steady rhythm, working my muscles again.

"All rounded up, they said. Right after we escaped, the police cleaned out the remnants on the ship and the mainland hideout too, from what I hear. The investigation identified them as a lower branch of the Awakened Liberation Front."

"A lower branch, huh…… Figures. Cut loose to protect the head."

Still, an enormous relief.

With a branch cleaned out, the main body couldn't move rashly for a while — they'd have no choice but to lie low.

Just as I was about to breathe out in relief, the face of the silver-haired woman lunging at Hayun like a wild thing, and her husband's face too, flashed through my head.

"Also… you know what happened to those pieces of trash?"

Without me having to spell out who I meant, Kang Taemin caught the reference perfectly.

"Those two were picked up too. They're under investigation."

I raised my eyebrows slightly and asked back.

"How? I thought they'd gotten away."

"A reporter caught them."

"What? A reporter?"

"A reporter who'd been tracking your movements, Director, got hold of the café CCTV and caught the couple at the airport as they were trying to flee overseas."

"Ha…"

Dazed and relieved at once — but part of me went heavy too.

"The kids? Even so, their parents got hauled off — weren't they shaken?"

"Actually they were pleased — said it was the villains who'd endangered you getting caught."

The classic kid-answer knocked the tension out of me, and a dry laugh slipped out.

Amid the crossing currents of relief and bitterness, a nagging question suddenly crossed my mind.

"But… why was a reporter digging into my movements? Did my name come up somewhere?"

Kang Taemin's heavy hand at my temples pressed down a touch harder.

"The Police Chief only mentioned it lightly in the briefing, but this particular reporter is unusually persistent — seems he dug into it on his own."

Whether it was his flat delivery or the pressure work dissolving my fatigue so perfectly, I found myself buying it.

Fair enough — what kind of big story was I ever going to become.

If I was going to quietly slip away from the kids someday, the sooner the public forgot me, the better.

"Right… good, then."

The pleasant massage carried on over my mutter.

As the steady pressure kneading my eyelids drained the strength from my body and I went languid, another figure suddenly surfaced in my head.

"Come to think of it…… what happened to the masked guy? Did they catch him too?"

At my question, the hand working my eyes didn't stop, but the answer came back short and clipped.

"He wasn't found at the scene."

……Of course not.

Under the warm cloth, I clicked my tongue softly.

No way that man would let himself get caught somewhere like that.

Jin Chahyeon.

As I turned my memory of the original over, the name rose up heavy in my head.

Overwhelming force.

Blood-red eyes.

A mask he never took off.

And……

Yul's biological brother.

The moment I placed who he was, a deep sigh slipped out before I could stop it.

He shouldn't be showing up yet at this point in time.

According to the flow of the original, he wasn't supposed to appear until much later.

Around the time Cha Yul had grown a bit more, escaped the institute, and joined Han Jewoon's guild.

Honestly, I desperately wanted to pretend I didn't know a thing whether he turned up or not.

But he wasn't someone I could easily ignore.

Because he was the decisive trigger for 'that incident' — the one I had to stop no matter what.

The very incident that had driven Han Jewoon into a tragic retirement.

Could my meddling have sped the original's pendulum up somehow?

At the omen of ruin arriving earlier than I'd expected, my mouth went dry and grainy.

……No — the original just didn't describe him at this point, that's all. Think positive.

Either way, it was a task I'd have to face and deal with eventually.

If anything, catching wind of him this early might be an enormous stroke of luck.

I'd bought myself time to prepare.

I'll keep a close eye on him for now.

Right — take it one thing at a time, calmly.

The man wasn't going to show up on the spot. Stewing over it now wouldn't change anything.

And there was another priority right now — one far more urgent than that.

"That's enough massage. Go and get Number One."

"Yes."

The soundless presence receded, and not long after, calm, measured footsteps came in.

"You called, Director?"

I turned my head toward the voice and tossed it out, offhand.

"How's work? You swamped, since I can't help much?"

"It's fine. Honestly, you should be setting even the sign-off work aside and resting — I'm the one who should be apologizing."

"The Deputy Guild Master has to do at least this much."

After some light guild talk with him, I got to the point.

"Remember when you dug up Teacher Kim Sunja's past for me before? I've got another ask along those lines."

"Sounds like it'll need some hacking. What is it?"

"Look into 'Chae Junhyeok' for me."

"……Sorry?"

A tiny crack ran through the calm voice.

"You're saying…… a background check on yourself, Director?"

"That's right."

Like Teacher Kim Sunja had said — if I was going to use my ability, I first had to figure out what kind of ability it was.

Which meant I needed to dig through the past thoroughly.

Given Chae Junhyeok's love of showing off, the odds were high he'd left some kind of trace of it when the ability first manifested.

Even if it had manifested in early childhood, that wouldn't change much.

He was nominally the Awakened Management Bureau Chief's son, after all — no matter how trivial, there had to be at least one record of it somewhere.

After a short silence, Lee Jinwoo asked back, cautious.

"……Would you mind telling me why you're suddenly ordering a background check on yourself?"

Since I couldn't reveal the real reason, I launched into the reformed-prodigal act I'd prepared in advance.

I deliberately mixed bitterness and self-mockery into my voice and let it drop low.

"Between the Icarus stuff and all the rest of it… going through it all, I've been thinking. I lived like an absolute mess for so long. If I don't at least try to make it up to the people I hurt — as far as I can — I'm not human. But my memory of the old days is fuzzy. So dig up everything about my past — every place I went, everything I did. Just so I can get a sense of the damage."

I'd tossed it out with confidence, but inside I was pretty on edge.

Ordering him to dig into my own past out of nowhere — too random? Wouldn't it just make him more suspicious?

It was a hastily made excuse — I'd fully expected him to catch me out on it right away with a sharp follow-up.

Bracing hard inside, I waited for Lee Jinwoo's next line.

But instead, only a strangely heavy silence settled thick in the air.

"……Honestly, you……"

"Hm?"

The mutter hovering at the edge of his lips was too soft to catch fully.

"I could talk myself hoarse and never break that stubborn streak of yours… Understood. I'll pull everything, from when you were born right up to now."

"Ah — right. Than—"

"But bear this in mind."

Lee Jinwoo's firm voice cut me off.

"Whatever happened in the past, that doesn't mean the you standing here now is the problem, Director."

Huh? If I'm not the problem, who is…?

Before I could ask back, thrown —

Rustle. The whisper of clothing, the sense of a polite bow, and then measured footsteps receding.

He wasn't…… being sarcastic, was he?

With no sight, there was no way to read his expression.

With a nagging feeling, I sank into the sofa.

Coming out of the Director's office, Lee Jinwoo headed straight for the Sunshine Room.

"Teacher! What did the Director say?"

Since the guild's move, the renovated Sunshine Room had doubled in size — a fully customized space just for the kids.

Sihyeok's indoor garden and teepee, the twins' extravagant treasure chest, Sea-ah's huge bookshelf, a forest of animal plushes for Suho, and Cha Yul's mini gym too.

In that space, drenched in the Director's affection, the kids — who'd wrapped training early and been hiding from him — all lit up as one.

But unlike the eagerly waiting kids, Lee Jinwoo's face was sunk dark.

The wreckage of the conversation he'd just had in the Director's office was pressing down on him like a heavy stone.

Lee Jinwoo let out a sigh heavy enough to cave the ground in, then slowly laid out the conversation from the office.

"Just as I thought……"

The first to sigh was Sea-ah.

"I figured the Director would be like this. When we met the gladiators, he was in agony all day too. I knew he'd be tormented by guilt!"

In the gloomy air, Cha Yul folded his arms and snorted.

"What's the point of digging up the past now. Don't tell me he's planning to hunt down every last person he's hurt and haul them into this guild by the armload."

"Th-that can't happen…"

"Right! It's already crowded enough…"

Terrified imaginary rivals might steal the Director from them, the twins whined, faces crumpling.

In the middle of the chaos, Han Soeun clenched a resolute fist.

"This won't do. All the more reason we've got to take better care of the Director. Not one second to think about anything else."

At her declaration, the kids — and Lee Jinwoo too — all nodded together, faces solemn.

"All right, then, now……"

The instant Han Soeun's signal dropped, Sihyeok's shadow snaked out and flicked the light off — click.

Into the darkened room, with a whirrr of machinery, a large screen descended.

Dazzling light lit up the wall — dozens of photos of the Director's most private everyday moments.

His defenseless sleeping face slumped against a chair, him lifting a spoon to his mouth, even a split-second shot of him twirling a pen with a faint frown.

And across the top of it all, in big letters: 'C.J.P.C.'

Standing in front of the screen, Lee Jinwoo pushed up his glasses and cried out, solemn.

"The 2nd 〈Director Chae Junhyeok Personal Protection Committee〉 — 〈CJPC〉 for short — regular meeting is now in session!"

"Whoooo—!"

Clap-clap-clap-clap!

The kids' enthusiastic applause poured in.

The origins of this gathering — the so-called 〈CJPC〉 — were quite humble.

What had started as Lee Jinwoo and Han Soeun's venting sessions over the Director's lost sight had drawn in the kids, one by one, and before anyone knew it, grown into a massive covert organization dedicated to 'systematically isolating the Director from danger.'

Their core mission was, unmistakably, to 'perfectly protect the Director from every external threat — stress, information, villains, Ma Dohee, and so on — and share every scrap of intel on him down to the last detail.'

In this, Number Three — Kang Taemin, in sole charge of the Director's round-the-clock care — was absolutely indispensable.

Because whenever he crossed paths with Lee Jinwoo, he'd give a detailed briefing on the Director's daily activities.

Of course, to any outsider this was blatant stalking, but the people involved had zero awareness of that fact.

Or rather — even if they'd known it was stalking, they wouldn't particularly have cared.

"Teacher! Sho how was the Direektuh today?"

Hayun asked, eyes shining, and Lee Jinwoo — up front — gravely pulled up the observation log.

"According to the log Number Three passed on: breakfast, half a bowl of rice with two slices of rolled omelet. Plus stir-fried sausage. He tried to skip the seasoned spinach, but under Number Three's pressure he got down about three stalks. Indoor walk of about fifteen minutes. Mood generally seemed calm."

"Sleep status?"

At Sea-ah's question, Sihyeok slowly raised his hand from the corner.

"He sleeps… fine. But sometimes he groans."

"Whaaat?! The Direektuh's groaning in pain?!"

"Are his eyes hurting? Is he having nightmares?"

"He can't be hurting…!"

The little ones burst into shrieks and stamped their feet.

Lee Jinwoo hurriedly pushed his glasses up and tapped at his tablet.

"I'll tell Number Three to act on this right away. A warm glass of honey milk before bed, and bump the room temperature up one more degree."

"Teacher! Let's put our fluffy teddy bear in too! If he hugs it he won't be scared!"

"Right, tucking teddy bear into his arms — added."

Lee Jinwoo nodded gravely and moved on to the next item.

"Next, external reactions to the Director."

At Lee Jinwoo's gesture, the projector screen changed, and today's major news poured out.

The world was, quite literally, in the grip of Chae Junhyeok Syndrome.