Chapter 179

"You've come."

In the empty café, Chae Ganghyeon — leisurely sipping his coffee — smiled and welcomed her.

Except, sitting beside him, there was one more unexpected guest.

A young woman in a crisp suit, with sharp eyes.

Who's this?

While Sea-ah panicked internally, the woman stood and politely presented a business card.

"It's an honor to meet you. I'm Park Jiyoon, Awakened Management Bureau correspondent for Hunter Daily."

A reporter?

She hadn't expected a reporter to be standing by for a private father-son reunion.

For a brief instant, Sea-ah's razor-sharp mind spun furiously.

Is the Bureau trying to get out ahead with an interview? Cashing in on the Director's news value and flexing how close they are to him, all at once?

Thousands of calculations and possibilities ripped through her head, throwing sparks as they went.

And in the very next moment, without a hint of fluster, Sea-ah tilted her chin at an angle and slid perfectly into Chae Junhyeok's signature delinquent-son act.

"…Ah, so you're a reporter."

Sea-ah shoved the card carelessly into her pocket and dropped onto the couch.

Combined with a patient's slumped posture, the arrogant attitude came across less as arrogance and more as bone-deep exhaustion from a serious wound.

"If you were setting up something like this, you could've given me a heads-up. What are you trying to pull, dragging a patient out here?"

"Well, well — you were dodging me so thoroughly, what else could I do?"

Chae Ganghyeon parried, sly as an old fox.

"Taking down the trafficking ring was a tremendous achievement — but with the star of the show tucked away out of sight, wild speculation was flying everywhere. So I arranged this exclusive interview specially, you see."

Exclusive interview my ass. He just wants the story running the Bureau's way.

Sea-ah scoffed inside her mask and sank deeper into the couch.

"Well, if you insist. But it can't run long. I'm still not fully recovered."

"Thank you! I'll get straight to the essentials — quickly."

Reporter Park's eyes lit up as she switched on her recorder.

The interview moved on to questions about the whole story and scale of the operation.

Sea-ah shut down anything touching the twins' parents or the kids, clean and firm, and gave only textbook answers.

At which point, the questions gradually swerved toward the Bureau.

"The Bureau has announced that going forward it will step up front to take charge of aftercare for the trafficking victims and pursuit of the remnants, carrying on Nest Guild's noble mission. What does the Deputy Guild Master make of the Bureau's stance here?"

Dressed up in pretty words, but at heart a brazen question meant to snatch up the momentum and news value Nest Guild had ignited.

The transparency of the maneuver was laughable, but slamming it head-on here was something only a rank amateur would do.

The Director needs rest anyway. If the Bureau takes it all on, he won't get any more tangled up in this.

For Sea-ah, who wanted the Director to stay clear of any more draining cases, dumping the whole aftermath on the Bureau was a hundred times better.

But she also didn't want to just quietly hand over the credit the Director had killed himself to earn.

"Carrying on the noble mission, huh… well, we welcome that with open arms. We've already handled the hardest, most dangerous part, so it's a good look for the Bureau to handle something like the cleanup."

At the subtle jab in her tone, the reporter's typing hitched, and Chae Ganghyeon's brow twitched.

Same moment. The Sunshine Room.

Listening in real time through the bug set in the puffer coat's button, Lee Jinwoo, Han Soeun, and the kids all had their mouths hanging open.

"I-is it — is it really okay to push his buttons like that…?"

"W-well… the Director's always been the ungrateful son to his dad anyway… so it should be fine, right?"

While the two adults broke out in cold sweat, ashen-faced, the kids were completely dazzled by Sea-ah's fearless verbal footwork.

"Sea-ah-unnie ish sho cooool…!"

"She talks way better than the Director!"

Reporter Park, who'd stalled on her typing, snapped back to composure quickly — every bit the veteran.

"Ah…! So what you're saying is, we need a perfect division of roles and mutual trust — Nest Guild risking lives at the front, and the Bureau backing them up from the rear!"

"Well, you're free to interpret it however. Write it up as you see fit."

Even in the suffocating atmosphere, Sea-ah kept Chae Junhyeok's rhythm perfectly, right to the end.

After a few more questions and answers, Reporter Park finally closed her laptop and stood.

"Thank you sincerely for your time today. I've come away with a proper understanding of the operation and Nest Guild's role."

She gave Sea-ah a deep bow, then turned and addressed Chae Ganghyeon with equal deference.

"Bureau Chief, thank you for arranging this. The article will run as tomorrow morning's lead headline."

"Very well. Good work. Get home safe."

Click. The heavy door shut behind her, and the reporter's footsteps faded away completely.

Inside the café, a cool, strange quiet settled — enough to make the fuss just moments earlier feel like it had never happened.

Sea-ah stole a glance around, then irritably brushed off her clothes and rose from her seat.

"Ambushing a sick man with an interview like that. I played along out of respect for you, Dad, but don't call me out for anything like this again. I'm heading out."

Maintaining the perfectly insolent son act, she was just about to spin on her heel — when.

"Come here a moment."

An endlessly warm, gentle voice.

Sea-ah flinched, knitted her brow, and started to snap back — "What—!"

In that instant.

Riiip—!

A large hand shot out, seized the button on Sea-ah's puffer coat, and crushed it with a brutal twist.

"…!"

The button-shaped bug shattered pitifully in his hand.

Chae Ganghyeon tossed the wrecked pieces onto the table, and his lips curved, cold.

"If Junhyeok is sending a stand-in to meet me, he must be hurt worse than I thought."

"…!"

Sea-ah's heart dropped straight through the floor.

Chae Ganghyeon slowly leaned forward, toward Sea-ah — frozen in panic.

"Clever little lady. When you go back, would you pass on a message from this old father to our Junhyeok?"

"…"

"Tell him the preparations for our 'fun time' are almost complete. So — as soon as he's recovered, he's to come to the Bureau."

The tone was a doting father's, but the low voice carried a thick, skin-crawling wrongness beneath it.

Rising from his seat, Chae Ganghyeon lightly patted Sea-ah's cold, stiff shoulder.

Leaving behind that odd sensation — comfort or warning, hard to say — he turned without a second thought and walked off, heavy-footed.

Just as he opened the door to leave, he half-turned his head and tossed out one more line.

"Oh — and congratulations on the second awakening. See you again soon."

He knew it was me from the start…?

Sea-ah's eyes went huge.

The performance she'd trusted as a perfect disguise had been seen through from the very beginning.

Chae Ganghyeon was not a man to be taken lightly.

The moment that hit her, a cold hunch crawled down her spine — that the caring, tender father he'd presented to the Director might also, when it came down to it, be nothing but a carefully built mask.

And… 'fun time'? What on earth is that supposed to be?

What he was really scheming underneath, she couldn't say.

But her instincts were screaming an alarm.

That an enormous, unidentifiable danger was closing in on the Director's throat.

Out of nowhere, a past conversation with Han Jewoon flickered through her mind.

"Sho — if the Direektuh getsh shtronger, will he shtop getting threatened?"

"The Director getting stronger? Well now… honestly, you kids getting strong enough to drag the Director up alongside — that sounds a whole lot more likely."

"See… when your guild's name value goes up, naturally the pull your guardian Chae Junhyeok carries goes up too. By clearing dangerous Gates no one else would dare touch, or sweeping up rare artifacts, that sort of thing."

Sea-ah balled her small, firm fists tight enough to cut off circulation.

We have to build up our strength. So no one can touch the Director on a whim, we've got to grow the guild's power far bigger than it is now!

The answer was simple.

We have to get stronger.

Only then can we protect the Director.

"Ugh… I'm dying…!"

Several days had already passed since I'd started Dokgomin's special coaching, but for someone like me, who'd spent a whole lifetime with both eyes open, adjusting to this pitch-black wasn't easy.

Still, the hellish training hadn't been for nothing — I could now roughly sense whether there were people or objects around me.

Nowhere near what Dokgomin called reading ki, but when I really concentrated, I could faintly pick up the flow of air, or a subtle sense of presence.

I'd just dragged my aching body back to the office and collapsed onto the couch — when.

Knock, knock.

"Come in."

Lee Jinwoo opened the door, came in, and started his report, flipping through his notes.

"Director, the guild admin hiring and staffing you ordered — the whole thing's complete. And we've locked in the Gate for the kids. Inho will be going along as chaperone."

"Ah — tomorrow, is it?"

"Yes. They're scheduled to enter tomorrow morning. The guild members going in are Inho, Cha Yul, Lee Sea-ah, and Kim Sihyeok."

I nodded.

It was the first hurdle — to test the kids' abilities in a real fight and to sync up their teamwork.

"Haah… their first official Gate run, and I can't even go with them. Damn."

As I let out a deep sigh, bitterness mixing with guilt, Lee Jinwoo — flipping through his papers — muttered something in a very small voice.

"…Honestly, in a lot of ways it'll help the kids more if you don't go."

"Hm? What did you just say?"

"Ahem! N-nothing."

Lee Jinwoo covered it with a cough and hurriedly pushed his glasses up.

"The Gate they're going to is only a D-rank, and we've already mapped out the monster patterns inside completely. The kids will handle it without any trouble."

"That's true, but… the kids aren't putting up a fuss about it?"

By rights, the kids' first field Gate run should have happened much earlier.

But between the twins' kidnapping and my losing my sight, the schedule had gotten pushed back indefinitely.

Ever since I'd been hurt, the kids had been reluctant to leave my side and had flatly refused Gate entries.

Then, a little while back, the older ones had come to my office with hard faces.

Director. Let us go into a Gate. Now.

Thrown, I'd scrambled to line up a D-rank Gate the kids could clear safely — and the deployment date they'd landed on was tomorrow.

"Putting up a fuss? They can't wait to get in. Even today at the training hall, the way they were drilling with murder in their eyes — it was seriously grim."

The moment I heard that, pride and a strange emotion churned in a corner of my chest.

The kids… are growing up.

Watching them shoot up into proper, full-fledged hunters made me proud — but at the same time it was bittersweet, like a parent watching kids leave the nest.

But I shook my head and quickly brushed off the weakening emotions.

It was a good thing.

The kids growing strong enough to stand on their own and become independent — that was something to welcome without reservation.

"Right. Raid the storehouse and load them up — armor, artifacts, potions, anything that'll keep them from getting even a scratch. And drill it into Inho that the kids' safety is the absolute priority."

"Understood. And, Director…"

Finished with his report, Lee Jinwoo snapped his folder shut — then paused on his way to the door.

"What? Is something wrong?"

"The thing is, I'll probably need to make a trip out to the old institute soon."

At the word institute, my head snapped up.

"The institute? Why? We cleared everything out — there shouldn't be a thing left."

"The past-activity investigation you assigned me. I've been through every server on the network, and I found traces of data that was deliberately hidden. Except this data appears to be completely cut off from any external network — stored only on physical hardware."

Lee Jinwoo pushed his glasses up and pressed on, serious.

"And the last access and storage path for that hidden data traces straight back to… the basement of the old institute."

"…The institute basement?"

My brow drew in on reflex.

I dug through my memory.

"The basement… wasn't that the storeroom where we stuffed all the robots and junk?"

"Yes, that's right. I'm planning to go there myself, confirm whether there's a hidden terminal or server, and — if any equipment is still there — pull the data off physically, by hand."

At that, I slowly brought back to mind the last look I'd had at the basement.

When we moved, we'd taken even the robots and the junk with us, so it should be nothing but an empty storeroom by now.

Where in that hollowed-out space could secret files or a computer possibly be hidden?

The more I dug through the memory, the more vividly the place's peculiar, oppressive stillness came back — not a speck of light in it.

For what should have been just an abandoned storeroom, there was something spine-chilling and unsettling about it.

Making a trip down there with no sight was clearly a huge risk.

But it might be where Chae Junhyeok's secret past lay buried.

A strong feeling gripped me — that this was something I had to face myself.

After a short beat of thought, I lifted my head, resolute.

"I'm going too."