Chapter 62
The papers that had been floating in the air gently settled back into place. Among them, Baek Yi-heon calmly uttered,
“The greater the power, the greater the karma. You need not worry about us causing harm to this camp.”
Kim Seo-min’s glasses slid down his startled face.
“Such mana control, I’ve never seen… It’s remarkable.”
The whites of the man’s eyes flashed for a moment, visible outside his glasses.
But only for a moment.
Hurriedly pushing his glasses back up, Kim Seo-min asked,
“How on earth did you contract with such a powerful god?”
“It was merely heavenly fortune.”
To Baek Yi-heon’s humble statement, Kim Seo-min muttered softly.
“Heavenly fortune… Indeed, heaven only helps those who help themselves. Right?”
His tone was strangely sorrowful.
However, despite his words, Kim Seo-min still wore a kind smile. Seeing this, Baek Yi-heon hesitated before speaking.
“…I happened to hear. About your second son.”
“Ah.”
The man just laughed lightly.
“I express my deepest condolences.”
“It’s alright. I was lucky in this chaos. My wife, first, and second child—we all managed to escape to this camp together.”
“Oh. Then…”
“But in the process of fleeing, my wife and first child were badly injured.”
Kim Seo-min continued, still maintaining his light, laughing smile.
“There’s no way to get proper treatment in a place like this. Shortly after arriving at the camp, we had to say goodbye.”
“That can’t be…”
And now, to lose even the second child.
Baek Yi-heon sighed sympathetically at the misfortune of this man who appeared so simple and kind.
Surely, his insides must be rotting with grief, yet the man just laughed lightly and continued organizing papers.
“Ah, just a moment with the papers. As you can see, they’re quite disorganized…”
“Take your time.”
For a while, only the sound of papers being shuffled and tapped into order echoed in the room.
Sehun, sitting with his chin on Baek Yi-heon’s thigh, started nodding off, seemingly bored.
“…What did you do before?”
“Ah, I was a researcher working at the National Institute of Auditory Research.”
Kim Seo-min answered with a bright smile, even as he busily worked with his hands.
“Haha. After 15 years of study, I got a job at the research institute, and suddenly the world turned out like this. Talk about bad luck.”
“When you say ‘like this’…”
“Power. Just a world where power is supreme. A world where even kindness is a privilege of the strong…”
Kim Seo-min, who had been muttering, suddenly came to his senses and laughed lightly.
“Ah, I must have left the new resident papers in the next room.”
He then crossed over to another room attached to the side.
There seemed to be a separate room serving as a storage area.
Left alone, Baek Yi-heon lowered his head, seized by a strangely unsettling feeling.
What could it be?
This feeling of missing something that had been vaguely present from earlier.
“…Sehun-ah. This won’t do. We should tell Noah…”
As Baek Yi-heon whispered softly and stood up abruptly from his seat.
Gone.
The child had disappeared.
How on earth?
He hadn’t sensed any presence or sound.
Moreover, this was a child who had navigated this chaotic world well until now.
There’s no way he would disappear without saying anything.
“This…!”
Struck by a strange intuition, Baek Yi-heon immediately ran to the side room and flung open the door with a bang.
An empty room.
Kim Seo-min had vanished.
Discovering an open door leading to a pitch-black corridor, Baek Yi-heon gritted his teeth.
💎
“Sniff.”
“Don’t cry. You’re an older man. So, listen when I say it nicely.”
As I said this while raising the magic stone, the sniffling man pitifully covered his mouth.
“Hic...”
I surveyed the politicians kneeling before me.
“Sob sob…”
“Mommy… I’ve never even been hit by my mom, sniff.”
On the outside, they all looked like ordinary middle-aged men.
They were so weak they couldn’t even overcome one woman holding a magic stone.
‘…Of course, Yu was behind me, but still.’
It left a bitter taste in my mouth that these people had given such inhumane orders to kidnap children.
I straightened my bent knees with a grunt.
Then I tilted my head at the Messenger, which had been silent all this time.
Isn’t this enough to complete the mission?
Do I need to get a confession and punish them more thoroughly?
‘I even hit them lightly on purpose, worrying about karma and causality.’
“Alright, gentlemen.”
As I raised my hand holding the magic stone, the kneeling politicians all flinched in unison.
“Whoever is the real culprit behind the children’s disappearances, raise your hand. If you confess now, I’ll go a little easy on you.”
Just a little.
At my cold interrogation, the men kneeling in a line all shook their heads in terror.
“We, we didn’t do anything like that!”
“Yeah! We have plenty to eat, why would we kidnap anyone?”
Tsk.
Seeing signs of defiance, I raised the magic stone again, and they flinched once more.
Not beaten enough, huh?
There’s no need for sophisticated persuasion techniques to make them spill the truth.
Fists and whips are more effective.
As I was about to swing the magic stone mercilessly, a low voice suddenly crossed my mind.
“Behave well.”
“……”
My raised hand stopped in mid-air.
Geez, I must have unconsciously assimilated after spending time with the moral protagonist.
Seeing as I’ve developed even a sliver of compassion in my heart.
Fortunately, even though I only made a gesture, the men panicked and hurriedly blurted out excuses.
“It, it’s true! Sniff. We’ve been receiving reports but couldn’t find the culprit.”
“Of, of course we didn’t search very hard… Honestly, we thought it might be for the best since there were fewer mouths to feed…”
“Please put that stone down. It’s really too hard…”
Among them, I noticed something strange.
“…You said you received reports about the incident? From whom?”
“Who else. From, from Kim Seo-min…”
“What?”
At this, Choi Kkang-kang, who had been watching the situation with a relieved expression, couldn’t hold back and shouted.
“Didn’t that man’s second son also disappear! But you made him report?”
“Pu, public and private matters should be separate…”
“We didn’t order him, he volunteered first! Said he wanted to catch the culprit quickly…”
That’s when it happened.
Suddenly, an inexplicable strange premonition crossed my mind.
Was there such content in the original work…?
Clearly, in the original, it said these people had ordered their subordinates to carry out the kidnappings?
With a more serious face, I muttered.
“You said the first to disappear was Kim Seo-min’s son. …When was that?”
“How would we know that?”
“I, I know. It was… right after a strange woman in all white clothes came to the camp.”
Freeze.
I stiffened in my pose, still holding up the magic stone.
“…What?”
Noticing my reaction, one of the men quickly added an explanation.
“She was an inhumanly beautiful woman. That’s why I remember her so clearly.”
“…Did she have a mole under her lip?”
I asked urgently.
“Uh… yeah. I think she did.”
It’s that woman called ‘Hannah’.
In that moment, my heart froze, and my hands and feet turned cold.
It felt like someone had poured ice water over my head.
“What is it? Who is she?”
“Do you know her, Noah?”
Yu and Choi Kkang-kang, unaware of what happened at Hwacheon Prison, looked puzzled.
Unable to turn around, I lowered my head with suddenly frightened eyes.
Those two still don’t know that I’m Yoo Hyun-min’s daughter.
They’re treating me so kindly now, but if they find out I’m that man’s daughter, they’ll surely change too.
💎
Thank you for reading! ♡
