Rule 4: The Disciplinary Committee Leader Monitors the Prospective Villain (1)

This is Academy City—Neo Seoul.

And the villains who hold Neo Seoul in their grasp are known as Great Evils—a term meaning exactly what it says: wrongdoers of colossal scale.

The villains I had to catch were precisely the ones destined to become Great Evils. To name my targets explicitly: the Six Sinners, all six of them. Also called the Six Criminals, their number included my childhood friend, Kim Dal-bi.

In the game, an event for subjugating the Six Sinners had existed apart from the main story. It was an open-world title, so whether you took that event on at all was the player's choice—which is to say, the original protagonist, Lee Tae-sung, was unlikely to get involved, unless he abruptly flew into a rage and made some dramatic vow like, "I will capture the Six Sinners, no matter what!"

Subjugating the Six Sinners... right, that was endgame content. Brutally hard at first, too. The Six Sinners event ranked among the most difficult content in the entire game.

Thankfully, I had every one of those events—and exactly when each was supposed to occur—stored away in my head. Perhaps because it was endgame content, it had stuck in my memory second only to the main storyline, and the events themselves left a deep impression.

Somehow, I have to take them all down.

If the ending arrived without the Six Sinners defeated, each of them would become a Great Evil in their own right, overturn Neo Seoul, and entrench themselves as the city's ruler. Whichever of them managed it, the result was the same: the city's order collapsed, and a dystopia dawned. Beyond the academy city's borders lay nothing but an apocalyptic wasteland crawling with magic beasts. To protect the ground I stood on, I had to stop the Six Sinners—there was no way around it.

Which left the question of Lee Se-ah.

Se-ah, too. Not one of the Six Sinners, but a girl who ends up a Great Evil all the same.

Lee Se-ah. First-year at Ahseong High School. Age, seventeen. Affiliation, the Volunteer Club. A girl slated to become the next boss of the Dohwapa, one of the syndicate-type organizations of Academy City.

She would become a villain—the Great Evil of the Black Market—and not long afterward, she would lose her life. Which was why, event villain or not, there was never a timeline in which Lee Se-ah turned the academy city into a dystopia.

Even so, that was no reason to write her off.

By now she's bound to be planning something illegal. Even if she hasn't lifted a finger yet, she needs watching. Nothing guarantees this world will unfold exactly as the game did.

In this world, there was an interfering variable the game never had: Disciplinary Committee Leader Ahn Woo-jin. Me. So what if the butterfly effect cooked up some new variable, and Lee Se-ah slipped past her fated death? What if she went on to entrench herself as a great blight upon the academy city?

Unacceptable.

I could not allow that.

Which made surveilling Lee Se-ah the only proper course of action.

"In other words, you are ordering me to keep Lee Se-ah—my own classmate—under surveillance?"

Disciplinary Committee executive office. A first-year girl asked me that, and I nodded.

She was the junior I'd summoned here—a new member who had joined the Disciplinary Committee this semester.

I'd had my eye on her since the final interviews, where I'd sat in as an interviewer; her mastery of the poker face had been plain at a single glance. Looking at her again, that deadpan is still a marvel. Not a flicker of emotion could be read off the girl—it was practically an art form, the sort of face that made you wonder whether she'd come back from assassin training somewhere.

With a poker face that flawless and a careful, deliberate personality to match, she would handle the surveillance of Lee Se-ah far better than most members could.

"Let me say it again: Lee Se-ah is a student affiliated with a large secret organization, and she was even targeted by Anomia recently. I judged that she warranted close attention."

"Then may I ask why you are assigning this task to me?"

Because your poker face is absolutely superb.

But—better not answer that honestly. No sense making her self-conscious about her own expressions.

"You're in the same first-year Class C of Maehwa Hall as Lee Se-ah. You simply stood out the most of anyone available."

"...Understood. Thank you for entrusting me with this, Leader. I will bring back the finest results."

"Hmm, good. I'm counting on you."

The expressionless junior saluted with crisp precision. Look at that confidence—it made me oddly proud. When the Vice Leader came around, this kid could brag all she liked about how I was the one who'd picked her.

...

One week later. The day I was due to receive the first report on the Lee Se-ah surveillance.

Another flawless deadpan today, I see. The expressionless junior had come to see me wearing a face from which nothing whatsoever could be read, and her magnificent blankness left me thoroughly satisfied. She snapped to a crisp salute.

"Leader, I have come to deliver my report."

"Good."

"This is a report compiled after cross-verifying my direct observations against information I obtained discreetly."

The expressionless junior handed over the report she had written with her own hands. It was cleanly designed, with excellent readability to boot. I didn't even ask for this? A report this polished, on top of a deadline this tight...? Guess she really is a promising one, my pick.

"Walk me through it," I said, hiding how pleased I was.

"Yes. First: Lee Se-ah moves at the head of a pack. Her talent for drawing others to her side is exceptional, and she is widely tipped as a leading candidate for class president."

Well, obviously. Lee Se-ah was, after all, a villain destined to become the magnate of the black market—of course she'd have the savvy, and the networking instincts to match.

"And?" I asked, already reading through the report she'd handed me.

"Second: she frequently performs good deeds."

What? My head came up on its own.

"Good deeds?" The girl destined to become the worst villain of all—a Great Evil—performing good deeds? That was a snake draping itself in lamb's wool and playing innocent, wasn't it?

"Yes, that is correct." The expressionless junior answered without a shred of hesitation.

"It's not just club activities, is it?"

"No, it was not."

I speed-read through the report on the spot. No wonder it ran so long—the bulk of it dealt with Lee Se-ah's good deeds. I read through them.

One day, Min Ha-na had overslept and been forced to sprint all the way to school for the sake of avoiding a tardy mark. In the rush, she had forgotten to bring money, and she had no lunch box either. Too timid to have made a single friend yet, she had ended up skipping lunch altogether.

Min Ha-na did her best to endure the hunger without letting it show to anyone.

Then, without warning, four girls swarmed up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to her desk. Lee Se-ah's pack.

"Kukuk..."

"Kikik..."

Witch-like laughter spilled from Lee Se-ah and her group, and an ominous, scheming smile flowed across Lee Se-ah's face.

The fact that Lee Se-ah belonged to an organization known as the Mafia was common knowledge throughout Ahseong High. Her entourage even filled what passed for the resident delinquent crowd of the first-year Class C.

Min Ha-na had always averted her eyes around them out of sheer fear—and now they were approaching her first? Why me...? Her heart went into a frantic gallop. Were they looking to make her their next bullying target? A sense of crisis gripped her: her high school life might go off the rails before it had even properly begun.

"Mind sparing us a moment? Because from what I saw earlier, it looks like someone hasn't had her lunch yet, hmm?" Lee Se-ah leaned in close, her tone drawling and sly.

"Eep...!" Min Ha-na jolted so hard she hiccupped despite herself.

"Y-yes...! I haven't... eaten lunch. B-but why do you ask...?" Tears seeped into Min Ha-na's answer entirely against her will.

Lee Se-ah grinned.

"Well then, why don't you buy yourself some bread with this?"

Tap. Lee Se-ah set the money down lightly on Min Ha-na's desk, a mean-spirited smile playing across her lips.

"Ah...!"

It was over. Those words just now—anyone could see they amounted to a declaration that Min Ha-na would be kept as her personal 'bread errand girl' from here on out. Was she to become some plaything for her Mafia classmate to toy with? Condemned to days of torment, hemmed in by a delinquent pack?

Her chest heaved. On an empty stomach, the sorrow seemed to press in all the harder. She never should have come to Ahseong High—if she'd known it would be like this, she wouldn't have studied so desperately to pass the entrance exam.

Nursing that regret, Min Ha-na welled up as she pictured the very worst of futures unfolding before her.

And then—

"...Huh?"

Min Ha-na looked at the money Lee Se-ah had left on her desk and tilted her head. The bill was green, bearing the face of King Sejong the Great: ten thousand won. Given that a single piece of bread from the school store ran about one to two thousand won, it was a remarkably generous sum.

Bewildered, Min Ha-na looked up at Lee Se-ah.

"If you're buying anyway, get something expensive and tasty. Being hungry makes everything feel sadder, you know. Kukuk..."

"Kikik..."

"Kikik..."

Lee Se-ah and her pack drifted away, snickering darkly all the while.

For a long while afterward, Min Ha-na floundered in confusion, unable to decide how to take what had just happened. When she bought her bread from the school store, Lee Se-ah and the others ate their snacks alongside her and chatted away happily.

And then Min Ha-na understood: these are good kids! It was the moment her wariness finally melted.

This was what the expressionless junior had recorded in her report—after covertly observing the scene and hearing Min Ha-na recount her feelings from that day.

Kim Deok-su had been patrolling the outskirts of the school district with two junior Committee members in tow.

Vrooom! An exceptionally loud engine roar seized the patrol team's attention.

"What is that? Motorcycle engines?"

"Senior, over there!"

Several bikes were rumbling down the road, engines blaring—girls in Ahseong uniforms riding them along the asphalt like a biker gang.

"Kukukuk!"

"Kikikik!"

Laughing wickedly all the while, they rode their bikes in perfect compliance with the posted speed limit. Each bike towed a cargo trailer behind it, every trailer loaded down with heavy, bulky freight. At the head of the formation, a girl in sunglasses led the convoy on a four-wheeled cargo bike—an ATV—its trailer heaped with even more cargo still.

"Those people look suspicious, don't they...?"

Just as the junior said, they looked suspicious no matter how you looked at them. Were they transporting banned goods, perhaps? Going by the Disciplinary Committee's incident logs, it wouldn't have been unusual—of all the academies in the city, Ahseong High School sat closest to the Black Market, and every year several of its students were arrested on suspicion of working as illegal couriers.

Besides, a single organized group cruising around on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bikes like that was out of the ordinary in itself. It was the patrol team's duty to intervene the moment they caught wind of anything suspicious. Verification was needed: were these people about to step out of line, or not?

Kim Deok-su shouted urgently.

"Cut them off!"

"Yes, sir!"

The patrol team blocked the path of the bike convoy—which, to its credit, had been observing the speed limit. Screech. The bikes ground to a halt in unison.

"Oh my... and who might you be?" The girl leading the ATV convoy removed her sunglasses and asked with easy composure, her foxlike, narrowed eyes sweeping over the Committee members. Lee Se-ah. First-year of Ahseong High School.

"We're the Disciplinary Committee!"

"I see. Now then, if you'll step aside?"

"Ha, the sheer gall of—!"

Clack! Kim Deok-su flicked out his expandable baton, leveled it at Lee Se-ah, and shouted.

"Where did those bikes of yours come from, huh!? And what's with the massive cargo haul! Planning some illegal deal down in the black market? Or moving banned goods?"

Kim Deok-su's juniors, taut with tension, snapped into combat stances all at once. If it came to it, they might have to subdue Lee Se-ah and her crew on the spot.

"Hmm, now this is troublesome. Whatever could this misunderstanding be about?"

Lee Se-ah glanced at the burly, muscular girl who had been riding beside her.

"President, help us out, would you?"

"Hoh!"

At Lee Se-ah's request, the muscular girl fixed Kim Deok-su with a threatening glare. She was the head of the Volunteer Club—and one of Ahseong's strongest.

"We are the Volunteer Club. We were delivering food, rice included, to our less fortunate neighbors. If you'd rather not get hurt, clear that road. Now."

"Kukuk..."

"Kikik... Get in our way, and we'll turn you into a pile of meat...!"

The Volunteer Club snickered viciously.

"Don't make me laugh! Since when do people like you ride bikes fit for organized gangsters...!"

"Organized gangsters? These bikes were a generous donation from the Dohwapa—the family of our newest member, Lee Se-ah—given so that we might help our less fortunate neighbors. Slander our benefactors, and the Volunteer Club will not stand for it. Not while its honor is at stake."

"Kikik...!"

The Volunteer Club radiated the air of a group ready to leap into battle at any moment. Lee Se-ah gave a foxlike laugh and idly twirled her sunglasses between her fingers.

However supreme the Disciplinary Committee's standing as the city's No. 1 in combat power, Kim Deok-su and two rookie members could not beat that crowd. If things went south, they might have to call for backup.

"You people..." Kim Deok-su seethed; his pride had taken a hit. But the Disciplinary Committee's authority was absolute.

"Then in the name of the Disciplinary Committee's authority, we are seizing control of this road and conducting an inspection! We're going to find out what's in those bundles. Unpack all of it. Here. Now!"

In that instant, the air grew heavy, and every face in the Volunteer Club went rigid.

So they aren't so confident after all.

The rumor that Lee Se-ah was Mafia had long since spread far and wide through the school. That organization was a potential threat—one substantial enough to lock horns with Anomia, an illegal armed group. Whatever the organization actually was, what idiot alive didn't know that 'Mafia' meant a criminal outfit?

In other words, with Lee Se-ah involved, the Volunteer Club might well have been bought. The club's president had put the word 'donation' in her own mouth, after all. Kim Deok-su weighted the odds toward them serving as couriers, procuring illegal goods for the Dohwapa.

"My, my... this really is a pickle..." Lee Se-ah perched her sunglasses on her chin and heaved a deep sigh.

"Then all these lovely packages I wrapped up so prettily, just to see people's happy faces, will gooooo~ completely to waste? Disciplinary Committee members, could you possibly find it in your hearts to let this slide, just this once?"

"I believe I told you to cut the comedy."

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear..."

Lee Se-ah went 'Hmm,' as though deliberating—then, 'Oh!' as though something had just come to her—and began to smile with open cunning.

What scheme is she cooking up this time...? Kim Deok-su broke into a cold sweat.

"Disciplinary Committee members, might you happen to be patrolling the outskirts at this very moment?"

"So what if we are?"

Lee Se-ah tilted her head sideways and pointed at herself, her face brimming with sly mischief.

"How about patrolling it together with us, then?"

"What?"

Kim Deok-su could not make heads or tails of it.

Afterward, the Volunteer Club took Kim Deok-su's team aboard their bikes and rode the roads in scrupulous observance of the speed limit. Lee Se-ah's proposal had gone as follows: the Disciplinary Committee's outdoor patrol jurisdiction covered every corner of its assigned district anyway, did it not? So the Committee members would ride along with the Volunteer Club, patrolling and surveilling them as they went—and the Volunteer Club would carry on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with what it had set out to do.

Try a single shady move, and you're finished. Kim Deok-su had steeled himself thoroughly—to flip over every stone of whatever crooked operation these people were running.

Huh?

But his resolve came to nothing. Like so many Santas, the Volunteer Club actually handed out the gift boxes from their bundles to citizens genuinely struggling to get by.

A disabled student, unable to hold proper work after an accident. Dropouts and students on leave, driven into poverty by one hardship or another. Every one of them opened their gifts and offered the Volunteer Club their thanks.

A few treated the kindness as an entitlement, accepting their presents as if they were owed—but the club paid it no mind. Along the way, the Committee patrol even asked the citizens' pardon and sampled a tiny portion of the rice and other foodstuffs.

It's real...? It was all perfectly ordinary food. The quality didn't look like much on the surface; even so, those receiving it were grateful for exactly that.

Perhaps the whole affair displeased her—Lee Se-ah's brow would crease now and then—but the patrol took no notice. Finally, the Volunteer Club donated a generous share of the food to the united volunteer association that spearheaded aid for the less fortunate.

That day, Kim Deok-su's patrol team completed its shift with a warm revelation cradled in their chests: the world was still kind.

This, too, was what the expressionless junior had recorded in her report—after secretly obtaining the Volunteer Club's activity schedule and hearing Kim Deok-su's account of the day.

...

Beyond that, the report contained nothing but heartwarming tales about Lee Se-ah. How she'd been the first to carry an injured girl on her back to the nurse's office during PE. How she'd found a lost child on the street and tracked down the child's home. How she volunteered three days a week at a free meal center...

What is this? Why is it nothing but heartwarming stories...? That couldn't be right. Lee Se-ah was destined to become a Great Evil, of all things...!

Don't tell me she noticed she was being watched? I might not know Lee Se-ah well, but one thing I knew for certain: the girl had a snake-sly streak.

Somehow I doubted that leaving the expressionless junior on surveillance duty would produce anything more than a growing collection of heartwarming stories.

This wouldn't do.

"You can stop the surveillance as of today."

"Were the results not to your satisfaction?"

"No. From here on, I'll be doing it myself."

The expressionless junior had already hit game over for this job anyway. I would watch Lee Se-ah with my own two eyes.

"S-spare me, please...! Lady Se-ah...!"

A dark night. A certain building in the neutral zone—the Black Market. With only a faint lamplight to illuminate the room, a man lay prostrate on the floor, trembling all over. A high school dropout, he was a businessman operating in the Black Market.

His bodyguards lay bleeding around him. The scene bore all the marks of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a battle.

Crunch.

"Ughk...!"

A girl in a black uniform was grinding her foot down on the man's head. Then, slowly, she pressed—until his nose was a hair's breadth from being flattened against the marble floor.

"Observing proper market ethics is a very serious matter, even in a place like the Black Market. And yet: manipulating prices, gouging your customers, passing off cheap junk dressed up to look the part... You've gotten far too full of yourself, haven't you? Did we look like easy marks to you?"

The girl's narrowed eyes curved like drawn bows as she gazed down at him. Lee Se-ah. First-year of Ahseong High School. Two students dressed in black stood guard at her sides—each of them a strongman who had reached the realm of converting mana into elemental force.

"N-no! I was wrong! Please, forgive me...! I'll do anything, anything...!"

The same man who had carried himself with such arrogance during their negotiations had felt the overwhelming gap in force the moment his bodyguards were swept aside. Hence the pitiful begging for his life.

Se-ah smirked.

"What a line for a nameless extra. Hmm... very well, then. Shall I spare you?"

Color flooded back into the man's face. The moment Se-ah lifted her foot, he hurriedly looked up at her, blood streaming down his face—wearing the expression of a drowning man who'd just spotted a rope.

"Th-thank you for this chance! If you'll truly do that, then I really will do anything...!"

Se-ah crouched down, knees together, and peered at the man—chin propped in her hands, smiling sweetly all the while.

"Then why don't you stroll naked through the Black Market's busiest streets? Saying 'I am a piglet, oink oink' once every five seconds. The duration is... one week?"

"...What?"

Bewilderment rippled across the man's face. He had been certain she would demand money. But wasn't that order tantamount to commanding him to cast aside his dignity as a human being? A refusal to extract so much as a scrap of profit, despite holding total superiority—which could only mean one thing: you are no longer of any use to me.

Se-ah let her laughter spill out.

"You might get done for public indecency, but I'm sure you'll manage. This is a neutral zone, after all—enforcement is lax."

"L-Lady Se-ah... please!"

"If you're nothing but a piglet, then at the very least, you ought to amuse me, shouldn't you?"

The man was struck speechless.

"This is me being merciful, in my own way. Do you object?"

"Th-that's..."

"I've already let it slide once. If you won't do anything at all, I'm afraid there won't be a second time."

The man bowed his head, tears falling.

"I-I'll do it..."

"Good—a wise choice. Then starting tonight, for one week, I'll be watching with great interest."

Se-ah rose to her feet with a radiant smile. Bzzzt. Right on cue, the smartphone tucked in her uniform pocket vibrated, and Se-ah checked the sender.

"Let's go."

Se-ah led the man and woman in black out of the building.

A certain abandoned factory in the Black Market district. Standing with her back against a pillar, incongruously elegant amid the dereliction, was a woman in a crisp uniform of indigo and gold—a Hanyang Federal Academy uniform, a uniform coat draped over her shoulders.

Before long, the click-clack of heels echoed through the space, and the woman pushed off from the pillar.

"Oopsie—have I kept you waiting, Jeong-mi unni?" Se-ah's voice rang through the abandoned factory. Wearing an artlessly playful smile, she approached Lee Jeong-mi, the Hanyang Federal Academy student. This was the place they had agreed to meet.

"Not at all, Lady Se-ah." Jeong-mi bowed her head lightly in greeting.

Se-ah fetched over an old chair, swung it around, and sat astride it with the backrest facing her.

"By the way—did you find it? The means our dear Disciplinary Committee Leader uses to keep the organizations under watch?" Se-ah folded her arms atop the chair's backrest and rested her chin upon them as she asked.

The Anomia subway terror incident. Back then, Ahn Woo-jin had caught wind of Anomia's plan in advance and moved to counter it. What's more, he had to have arranged some means of tracking the movements of multiple organizations in real time. And so Se-ah had ordered her Dohwapa subordinate, Lee Jeong-mi, to hunt down Ahn Woo-jin's surveillance apparatus—if Ahn Woo-jin was still watching her, Se-ah would have no choice but to proceed with caution.

"...I have no face to show you."

One of Se-ah's eyebrows arched upward.

"Whether the Ahseong Disciplinary Leader has simply pulled out, or whether he's tracking our every move and toying with us... I could not uncover his surveillance methods, no matter what I tried."

"Oh dear... this is a bit of a problem."

Se-ah straightened her back, lowered her head, and let out a long, slow breath. Her narrowed eyes drifted open—and what they revealed were vivid, ruby-red pupils.

"He truly is not a man to be underestimated. I never dreamed it would be to this degree..."

Ahn Woo-jin's capabilities ran far past anything Se-ah had anticipated. This was the man who had beaten out Oh Baek-seo—a genius ranked among the finest in all of Neo Seoul—for the Disciplinary Committee Leader's seat; exceptional ability was only to be expected.

Even so—to wage an information war of this scale against multiple organizations at once... No matter how many times she turned it over, she couldn't bring herself to believe it. It felt like fiction—almost enough to make her wonder whether she was the one hallucinating. But with the plain evidence of the Anomia subway abduction case sitting right before her eyes, the confusion in her head only deepened. Se-ah felt like a clown cavorting on the palm of Ahn Woo-jin's hand.

"At this rate, my plan to swallow the Black Market whole will keep getting pushed further and further back."

This place—the Black Market—was one of the academy city's hidden faces: a market where illegal deals were struck at every turn. And precisely because of that, it was a treasure trove through which vast sums of dirty money flowed. Se-ah had already drawn up a plan to seize the Black Market the moment she became the Dohwapa's boss; her goal was to dominate the underworld, after all.

She would make herself the necessary evil, then use the underworld to pursue good works. To make the academy city a better world, even by a little—that was Se-ah's ideology. She couldn't build a utopia where everyone was happy, but she wanted a world where at least one person fewer was miserable.

"What a headache. The Anomia lot are nothing to worry about, but the Disciplinary Committee Leader is such a thorn in my side..."

She had crossed Anomia over the Black Market business, but they had proven no great threat. The real thorn was Woo-jin's intelligence network. Unless she could unravel his covert web of surveillance, spun through the academy city like spider silk, pressing on with her plans would be difficult.

The Black Market was a neutral zone belonging to no one's jurisdiction—but by the same token, it was ground any Disciplinary Committee could enter. With students committing crimes on its soil, the Committees of every academy had it in their sights. In other words, the moment Se-ah showed so much as a whiff of suspicion, she herself would become a target of the Disciplinary Committees.

"...Hmm."

As her deliberations wore on, a smile slowly spread across Se-ah's face. A thought that had smoldered like a tiny ember ever since the subway incident had finally caught flame, and now the fire was spreading through her mind.

"Lady Se-ah...?"

"Shall we put our plans on hold for a little while?" Se-ah's eyes narrowed once more, curving into a smile as bewitching as a fox's.

"I've just thought of something I want."

"Pardon? And what would that be?"

Se-ah pulled up the Ahseong High School Disciplinary Committee's social media page on her smartphone. She zoomed in on the official ID photo of the 45th Disciplinary Committee Leader, Ahn Woo-jin, posted there, showed it to Jeong-mi—then tapped the screen with her index finger.

"I've decided I want this one."

Se-ah smiled slyly.

In that instant, Se-ah's desire took concrete form. Her interest in the Disciplinary Committee Leader deepened—and that interest curdled into a possessive craving: the urge to own.

Going up against a monster who wielded both the Committee Leader's authority and abilities as outstanding as Ahn Woo-jin's was, plainly, a fool's errand. So rather than keeping him as an enemy or a threat to be watched, wouldn't it be far more profitable to fold him into her own camp?

"...Pardon?" Jeong-mi needed a long moment to grasp what Se-ah had just said.

Then—

"WHAAAT!?"

Her voice rang through the abandoned factory.