Chapter 180

"…Sorry? You, Director?"

Lee Jinwoo's rattled voice shot up.

"But you can't even see — why on earth—"

An entirely reasonable reaction, but I had no intention of backing off.

Wanting to see my own past for myself was a big part of it, sure… but there was also another motive I wasn't letting on.

I want to get out!

Since the trafficking incident, I'd been under a kind of house arrest inside the guild building — safety as the pretext — for two whole weeks now.

If I didn't get a breath of fresh air soon, the stifling was going to make me physically ill.

But I couldn't lay bare that motive to the people worrying about me.

"Thanks to training with Hunter Dokgomin lately, walking's no problem… and core data cut off from any external network is obviously locked down with top-tier security. It might need biometric authentication — my fingerprint or iris."

At the excuse I'd cobbled together on the spot, Lee Jinwoo groaned and turned it over.

"That does hold up. The institute's empty anyway, so there's not much real danger. Understood. Let's go together."

Just as I was about to inwardly cheer, Lee Jinwoo tacked on a condition.

"On one condition — if you're going outside, cover your face. Thoroughly."

"My face? Why bother?"

At my comeback, his answer came back a beat late.

"Ahem! Well, right after the incident, opinion's still noisy… and, well… not many people are paying attention to you specifically, Director, but just in case!"

Fair enough — there had been that one weirdly persistent reporter tailing me like a tick.

Getting dragged into hassle was the last thing I wanted, so I quietly accepted his proposal.

But the outing party we ended up with was a lot larger than I'd bargained for.

On top of me, Lee Jinwoo, and Kang Taemin, Dokgomin — who happened to have shown up for training — appointed himself escort and joined in.

And then, having just seen the older ones off, the three little ones left behind — Hayun, Hajun, and Suho — clung to my pant legs going Direektuh, where you going?!, and in the end the little ones all had to be piled into the car too.

This is starting to feel like a big-family outing…

The rowdy back of the van.

Listening to the kids chattering, I let out a dry little laugh.

Some time later, the car pulled up in front of a familiar building.

Just as I was about to step out, I picked up Lee Jinwoo urgently whispering to Kang Taemin in the front seat.

"…around the back… out front there's… a reporter…"

The stopped car changed direction and started moving again.

I knit my brow.

"Why go around back instead of using the front?"

"Ah — ha ha ha! There's road work at the front! And for security, the back entrance is closer to the elevator too. Ha ha!"

The tail end of Lee Jinwoo's overblown laugh was quivering ever so slightly.

"Hmm?"

Before I could press on the suspicious note, the car eased to a stop.

Soon there was a click of the door opening and Lee Jinwoo's voice.

"After you, Director!"

I'd lost the timing to press further, and figuring it couldn't be that big a deal, I obediently stepped out.

Out of the car, I pulled the collapsible cane from inside my coat with practiced hands and flicked it open — shwip.

The E-rank artifact Number Three had won at auction on my behalf: [Wayfinder's Cane].

Grand name aside, the functions weren't much.

The material was hard enough to double as a blunt weapon in a pinch, and if it picked up an obstacle ahead, it warned you with a vibration. That was it.

The guild's interior was familiar and, thanks to Dokgomin's training, I could walk without much trouble — but outdoors, with all the variables, this little thing was still essential.

Tap, tap, tap.

Tapping the ground with the cane, I used the dull sound as my compass and moved down the familiar institute corridor.

Soon Lee Jinwoo threw the main breaker, and with a heavy humming of machinery, the dead institute drew breath again.

"This way! There's an elevator down to the basement over here."

I followed his call and stepped into the internal elevator.

Left neglected for so long, a musty dust smell rushed in and stung my nose.

Soon, with a jolting clunk, the elevator arrived at the lowest floor — basement three.

Ding—

Clunk.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened.

A chill of basement air pushed in, but the cane groping in front of me caught on nothing.

I could tell by feel it was a perfectly empty space, cleared out of every last thing.

"The location definitely traces to the institute basement… but there's not a computer — not any hardware — down here at all?"

Just as Lee Jinwoo's baffled voice came through — that was when.

"There'sh more bashement down here, though?"

A very small, muttered voice.

Dokgomin and I whipped our heads toward the sound at the same time.

"Mmp! Mmph!"

Along with the sound of someone hastily clamping a hand over a mouth, there was a rustle of kids tangling.

"What was that just now? What do you mean, more basement?"

I asked, but instead of an answer, only tight little held-breath sounds circled.

I dropped to one knee and gently reached my arms out toward the kids.

"Come here."

Small footsteps hesitated, then crept over and touched my fingertips.

I gathered the kids into a light hug and coaxed them, warm.

"I promise I won't get angry, so how about you tell me the truth?"

There was a pause of fidgeting, and then Suho, as the representative, cautiously opened his mouth.

"Um, actually…"

After hearing Suho out, I let out a hollow breath, stunned.

"So, on basement three… there's a hidden elevator that goes down to basement seven?"

That was when the puzzle of the past Sunshine Room escape incident finally clicked into place perfectly.

I'd wondered why on earth the kids had ended up huddled asleep in a corner of this dark, musty basement three — turned out, they'd been running around the deeper, secret area and had collapsed exhausted.

But who moved the kids up here, then?

As the questions chained one after another and I stood with my brow furrowed, deep in thought — that was when.

Mistaking my silence for anger, the kids spoke up in tearful little voices.

"Direektuh, are you… really mad…?"

"Sorry we kept it a secret."

I could feel the kids, thoroughly deflated, clutch my sleeve tight.

Oh, damn. I hurriedly stroked the heads of the kids burrowed against me.

"It's all right now. It's all in the past. Just — from now on, whenever you're going anywhere dangerous, tell me. Got it? Promise?"

"Yeess!"

At the perky answer, I dusted myself off and stood.

"Good. Now — shall we go find this hidden elevator?"

"We know where! It'sh over here!"

The kids grabbed hold of my hand and cane, one on each side, and marched out ahead, bright and brave.

We crossed the vast basement three floor and walked for who knew how long.

Only when we'd reached a wall so deep inside it felt like the very edge of the space did the kids' footsteps stop.

"Hah! It — it's actually here…! There is a hidden lift! Even a button!"

Along with Lee Jinwoo's startled voice at my side, a deep mechanical hum rolled out heavily.

Long-dormant gears meshed and turned, and then — ding! — the aged elevator door slid open.

"I'll go in first."

Kang Taemin at my side moved into the elevator first, footsteps heavy.

Tap, thud. Then the sense of him tapping the interior walls here and there, checking the structure carefully, and after that a dry report.

"It's safe. Come in."

Cane tapping the floor, I stepped into the elevator with the kids.

Soon the door shut, and with an unpleasant lurch in the stomach, the elevator began descending toward the fathomless depths of the earth.

Was it because losing my sight had sharpened my hearing and smell?

The nose-stinging musty smell and the sharp metallic grinding hit my head unfiltered, enough to bring on motion sickness, but thanks to the bright, unbroken chatter of the kids beside me, I just barely held it together.

"Down there there'sh a shooper nice robot!"

"Uh-huh. Last time we got lost, that robot gave us cheesecake and cookies too!"

A kindly robot baking cake in a basement facility no one knew about.

Well — I'll find out when I get down there.

While I settled my churning stomach, at some point the descending sensation stopped.

Ding—

The door opened, and a sharp, cold, dry air rushed against the tip of my nose.

"Pitch-black. Let me find the light switch…"

Lee Jinwoo felt along the wall — click.

Fwap— An old fluorescent tube came to life, and in the very next instant.

"Hhh—!"

"…!"

A strangled cry burst from Lee Jinwoo's mouth.

And not just him.

Even Kang Taemin, always as expressionless as a stone, sucked in a rough breath and went stiff — the shift so palpable it carried clear through to me.

Just what was in front of them, to draw a reaction like that?

Unable to check with my own eyes right that moment, I pressed them.

"What is it? What's going on?"

"D-Director. This place is…"

Lee Jinwoo's trembling voice was sunk very low.

"It's just like the old institute. Chillingly identical to the central lab where the kids were experimented on."

"…What?"

But breaking through that crushing weight of an atmosphere, the kids scampered out with the ease of coming home.

"Robot! Robot!!! We're here!!!"

"We came to visit again! Come play with us!"

Soon, as if barely coming back to himself, Lee Jinwoo called out, urgent.

"Th-there's a central computer at the back. Power's still coming on."

Fumbling forward, he soon started hammering at a keyboard — clack, clack.

I felt my way ahead, cane in hand.

I stretched my free hand into the air, waving to map the space.

Eventually my fingertips brushed a cold, industrial steel chair and something that felt like a cool piece of lab equipment.

"Number Three. Describe the surroundings for me."

"…Monitors covering every wall, a steel chair fitted with restraints, and a huge picture window across the front."

It really is just like the central lab.

Just as my brow was drawing tight at Kang Taemin's rundown —

"Huh…? What's this…? 'Subject Zero-Zero Experiment Record'?"

"Zero-Zero? What are you talking about?"

"There's an old experiment folder still on the main server. Yul was 'Zero-One,' so this must be from before him… good god, the first entry is dated thirteen years ago!"

"Thirteen years ago?"

An instant chill rippled down my spine.

The original had only mentioned that Chae Junhyeok was Director of the Nest Research Institute — no details on when he'd taken the post, no backstory on the institute's origins whatsoever.

Since Cha Yul had been Subject Zero-One, I'd vaguely assumed the institute couldn't have been standing all that long.

But it went back this far?

Just as an ominous premonition brushed my mind, Lee Jinwoo let out a heavy sigh.

"Hm… this encryption… cracking it is going to take some time. Just hang on a bit."

"Got it. Don't push. Take your time."

While Lee Jinwoo dug into the hack, Dokgomin — who'd been keeping his presence quiet at my side the whole time — spoke up out of nowhere.

"Benefactor. From deeper in… a faint breath of air is leaking out."

"Air? Down here in the basement?"

"Just so. Very faint, but a definite airflow. It seems to connect to some other space, so I'll take a look."

"I'll go with you. Nothing for me to do here anyway."

Getting a better grip on my cane, I moved deeper into the corridor with Dokgomin and Kang Taemin.

In place of eyes for us who couldn't see, Kang Taemin described the surroundings in fine detail as we went.

"Where are we?"

"A corridor connected to the central lab from earlier. The layout matches the upstairs perfectly."

Matches?

I swallowed the surprise and, following his guidance, went in deeper.

The way Kang Taemin described the space, it really did feel like the upper floor's layout had been copied down here into the basement, faithful to the last detail.

As I walked, mentally reeling at the scale of the underground facility — far bigger than I'd expected — that was when.

Creak—

Having pushed open yet another door, Kang Taemin's footsteps came to a dead stop.

Even to me, the way his always-steady presence lurched hard came through, unmistakable.

"What is it? What's in there?"

"…Looks like a child's room."

"A child's?"

"A small bed, toys, books scattered around. Signs someone was living here."

A child's room right next to the lab.

At the familiar, unsettling feeling, I bit my lip.

I could hear Kang Taemin rummaging through the room.

Rustle. Flap.

"There are books… and a diary…"

Kang Taemin's report cut off, abrupt.

"What is it? What?"

"…Director."

There was an unfamiliar note of shock in Kang Taemin's voice.

"This diary… I think it's… yours, Director."