Bedtime Chaos and Building Demolition
I was about to drift into sleep, lying beside her. I’d just changed into a nightshirt to match the one I’d dressed Kabe in earlier and tucked her in.
A low, rumbling voice slithered up from under the bed.
“Mother. Do not concentrate mana around the child. Stop it.”
Do I look like the type who actually knows how to concentrate mana?
“What are you talking about? I’m trying to sleep over here.”
“What? Then what? This high-purity mana… concentration…? Wait…?!”
The moment Keru’s voice spiked, I bolted upright too. Or at least I felt it—the way something heavy and oily, like dark ink spilled across the room, slammed down from above. And right in the center of it all was Kabe.
A vortex of that same pitch-black, thick energy swirled tighter and tighter around her sleeping form. The kind of power that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my skin prickle with sweat.
“Mother! Move!”
Keru’s warning split the air, but instead of running, I lunged across the mattress and wrapped my arms around Kabe as tightly as I could.
The explosion hit like a thunderclap right after I did. The sound shook the windows and sent a tremor through the floor. The whole room lit up with a blinding flash that left after-images dancing across my retinas.
Kids always underestimate how much power they can dump.
They don’t know what happens when they accidentally crank it past a certain level. Adults have to keep them from finding out.
“Mommy—!”
Our room was now so close to ground zero I could barely see the walls through the soot. Every surface was streaked with black scorch marks. Even the ceiling looked like it had been hit by a flamethrower.
Kabe, still half-buried in my arms, blinked up at me with huge, confused eyes. The moment she saw the wreckage she grabbed the collar of my nightshirt and yanked.
“Mommy… ?”
“I’m okay, Kabe. Really. Nothing’s wrong.”
I smoothed her messy hair while I pulled us both up. There wasn’t exactly furniture left that could stand on its own, but the bed had at least been pretending to hold its own until tonight. Now it was just a pile of splintered wood and springs scattered everywhere.
“Boss!”
The Main minions poured into the room in a clumsy, sleepy stampede. Even half-asleep they still moved with that instinctive loyalty, and seeing it made something warm bloom in my chest—until I realized what I was actually supposed to do now.
Ding-dong.
Ding-dong.
Ding-dong.
“We know you’re inside! Come out right now! The police are here!”
“Gwak Doosik! We can see you’re home—come out!”
I twisted the ruined door handle until it finally gave way and let the flood of police officers and the building manager rush in.
“Boss. I’m counting on you with the cops.”
“Got it. Good luck.”
I carried Kabe toward the officers while Kwak Doosik strode over to the manager with her usual dignified expression.
We were about to do some serious begging.
“This was just an explosion,” the manager said, voice tight. “Surely there’s something you can point to?”
“I don’t know anything! Look at how scared the kid was! As a representative of the people’s police, should you really be chasing us like this?”
“It’s not a people’s police, it’s the actual police. Anyway, may we take a look inside?”
Kabe kept staring up at the officers with wide eyes, and when I tried to use her as a shield she just clung tighter. The officers’ interrogation mode was clearly starting to fade.
“Yes, of course. Feel free to look around. There’s nothing strange here at all.”
Keru had said the remodeling didn’t count as illegal construction. They’d probably filed the proper paperwork. I was being completely honest. The production equipment had been warded with welcome magic, so to anyone outside it looked like ordinary furniture.
“Hey, Doosik.”
“Sorry… I… I…”
“Sorry isn’t going to fix this! I told you so many times this isn’t a reading room! What if the students get noisy and we have to shut it down? Do you think we can explain it away then?”
“I’m sorry…”
While the officers were inside, I approached Kwak Doosik, who was still groveling to the manager while clutching sleepy Kabe.
“Listen here, new neighbor.”
What?
“You said you wouldn’t make noise, so we let all of you live here together, and this is how you repay us?!”
…Landlord on top of boss. No place to go if we get kicked out. The “new neighbor” title was a little too much, but the moment I remembered the helpless child in my arms, I decided I wasn’t about to argue with the new title.
“Excuse me, the girl is sleeping—could you lower your voice? And this explosion… we don’t know what caused it. It might even be a building defect, right?”
“A building defect?!”
“Lower your voice while the kid is sleeping.”
“You’re telling us how to run our own place now?!”
No, but seriously. I gently passed Kabe to Kwak Doosik, who cradled the sleeping girl like she was made of glass.
“Excuse me, aunty.”
“What? A-aunty?”
“Yes, aunty.”
“I’ve said everything!”
“You said you didn’t! Look, you’re a person, wearing human skin. At least check if the child is hurt or not. That’s the first thing we need to know! Are we actually at fault or did the building leak gas? None of us know, but if you keep yelling at poor Doosik like this, we’re done! You sane?!”
“You! You’ve said everything! Hey, Gwak Doosik!”
“Yes!”
“Call the coroner! This collapsing building, where else are we supposed to go?! Huh?!”
Nowhere.
“Just in time! Hey, officer! Whatever you are—police, or people’s police—come over here!”
The officer was just coming back from the inside tour and was heading for the door. I waved frantically, and he hurried over.
“What the hell are you doing standing around?!”
“What’s going on?”
“Officer, is this explosion because we messed up, or is it a building defect? Can you tell?”
“Um… well…”
“Right? You can’t tell from looking at it, right? Hey, aunty. Even the officer doesn’t know, so what exactly are you? Yelling at poor Doosik like this?!”
“Even so, in the circumstances…”
When the police get involved like this, they actually help. If the officer can’t even figure out the cause, the manager’s shoulders drop. I seized the opening—
“Alright, that’s enough. Since this is an explosion, we’ve already filed the report. No fire, no further damage—thank goodness. It’s best to let the investigation handle the results and stop fighting.”
The shouting had stopped, but the cleanup worry remained. Fortunately the damage seemed limited to my room. Even just stepping into the hallway, everything looked fine.
“Kabe really isn’t a normal Main.”
“Really?”
My arm ached from holding her, so I switched sides. When I finally set her down, the hallway floor was just bare concrete. There wasn’t anywhere flat enough to lay her.
That’s why I ended up sitting on the office sofa, Kabe still curled in my lap.
“That high-purity dark mana isn’t something anyone can control. From what I’ve seen, only a few people can. The first time I’ve ever seen a child like Kabe handle it. And the concentration…”
“Yeah.”
I wasn’t even impressed. What was I supposed to say?
“Mother, this is all thanks to you.”
“What did I do?”
“At the exact moment the mana explosion happened around Kabe, the fact that you threw yourself over her cut the power down a lot. If you hadn’t been there, it would have spread and leveled the entire floor. The building would have collapsed too. As expected…”
“As expected, I’m the boss.”
“Mommy’s amazing.”
“Hey, you brat.”
“Anyway, what now?”
“Save the excuses. The forensics team is coming tomorrow. We’ll have to clean up accordingly. Once they know the cause, we’ll just say it’s on us, so we should tidy up properly, right?”
“I guess.”
Keru curled up on the office floor and started snoring like an engine.
“Should I call Eve?”
“Yeah. Tell her to come in the morning. Kabe and I are going to the hotel right in front of the building. You can sleep here, right?”
“I’ll just sleep on the floor.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I could have crashed in the office chair, but I couldn’t sleep with Kabe like that. I needed to eat and sleep properly. She was already dozing off beside me anyway.
I stood up with Kabe in my arms.
“Ah… corporate card…”
Hold on. The corporate card I’d put in my wallet last night… the one I gave her to buy new toiletries. That card is probably still on the office desk. The corporate card itself is in my wallet.
My wallet is in my jacket.
My jacket is hanging in my room.
And my room… is gone.
“…”
“Th-that isn’t my fault, Mother.”
“I know… I know…”
But the more I listened to Keru insisting it wasn’t his fault, the hotter I got.
“Four hundred fifty thousand won, thank you~”
“Single payment?”
A text notification pinged. My card statement. The balance was still plenty. I don’t have a habit of spending money, so every paycheck just piled up.
That didn’t mean I could just spend it however I wanted, though.
I accepted the toiletries and headed back to the room. The bed was still standing—sort of—so I laid Kabe down. She sniffed the air once, then tugged my shirt and tried to bury her face in it. The faint smell of scorched fabric made me peel off my clothes, open the window, and shake everything out.
“Ugh. Mommy’s done.”
I stripped too and shook my own things. I hung Kabe’s and my clothes neatly on the rack, then decided I needed a shower. I stepped into the bathroom.
“Whew…”
No time to stare at myself in the mirror. I’d seen enough already. I rushed through the shower, wrapped a towel around my wet hair, and came back out.
I had no idea when Kabe would wake up. Luckily she was still snoring softly. I’d heard kids sometimes wake up in the middle of the night if they think Mom isn’t there, but Kabe didn’t seem to be that type.
She was just so naturally good at being a mom. I didn’t have that kind of family growing up, but I’d always wanted one.
Even if this wasn’t a child I’d given birth to and I probably never would have any of my own, if I’d created this life, then she was my daughter just the same.
I thought that and lay down beside her, staring at her peaceful face until sleep finally pulled me under.
“So this is it.”
Kabe, tucked against Eve, was tugging on Eve’s long silver hair.
“Daddy’s hair is so long.”
“Kabe’s.”
The little wolf was now patting Eve’s chest.
“Daddy’s chest is soft.”
What, Eve looked annoyed…
“…Kabe, you don’t say things like that.”
Eve had arrived earlier than expected and was checking the room while holding Kabe.
Kabe reached out to touch her, and I caught the hand before she could get too close and tugged her back.
“Kabe, battery violence is bad.”
“Battery what?”
“There are things like that. It’s not good to say things exactly as they are.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You don’t have to know yet.”
While I was holding Kabe and listening to the mother-daughter conversation, Eve’s face scrunched up, clearly annoyed.
“Daddy’s mad?”
“No, no. Anyway, this explosion that Kabe caused… that’s what happened, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So why did you call me?”
“To clean up.”
“Hey, you and I didn’t even meet yesterday!”
“Kabe, Daddy said… Mommy and Kabe have to live on the street…”
“Street? So now we have no house?”
“Looks like it…”
“Ugh.”
The explosion has left a trail of destruction, and the building is now under investigation.
Kabe’s mana concentration may have been the trigger—but the real cause is still unknown.
Stay alert and report any unusual activity.