Chapter 123 - Caught You (2)

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“This... footage has nothing to do with the incident.”

The director’s voice trembled for a moment.

As though he had expected the denial, Hyeonyul opened a file and played it alongside the video.

<... Are you sure we can do this, Director?>

It was Jihae’s voice.

She flinched, then glared fiercely at Hyeonyul.

“My recorder! Y-you saw that, didn’t you, Director? I told you he stole it!”

“Shh.”

Hyeonyul placed a finger against his lips.

“I would appreciate some quiet. This is simply material I happened to find.”

“What do you mean, happened to find? That audio is from my recorder!”

“Oh, did you record it yourself?”

“Yes!”

Jihae blurted out the answer, then faltered. She looked at the director in alarm, only to lower her head the instant she met those wide, glaring eyes.

“Th-that’s not...”

“Let’s keep listening for now.”

Hyeonyul resumed the video and the recording. They might not be perfectly synchronized, but the audio did belong to that footage.

<Do it.>

At the sound of the director’s voice, she bit down hard on her lip.

<B-but this is the children’s information. We’re not supposed to let it get out.>

On-screen, Jihae looked at the director.

<Ms. Lee Jihae?>

<... Yes.>

<Did you think I didn’t know you had already sold information on the child, ‘Lee Serin’?>

Jihae’s lips trembled in the video. Her mouth hung open, but she could not say a word.

<...>

<I can ask the Black Eagles myself whether you really had nothing to do with the kidnapping incident, Ms. Lee.>

<P-please, you can’t do that!>

On-screen, Jihae immediately dropped to her knees. The sound of her rubbing her hands together could be heard.

<Then do it.>

<But still... the children could be in terrible danger.>

<Ms. Lee, do you know why these children are trained from such an early age?>

<Because they can’t control their powers, and they have no primary caregivers, so we protect them until they’re ready to enter society...>

<No. The purpose is to raise Black Eagles.>

<What...?>

Yujeong, who had been holding her breath in silence, was just as startled as the Jihae in the recording.

<No matter how hard we work to raise these children, they end up as Black Eagles. We are... trampling their dreams and driving them to their deaths.>

The director clenched both fists while listening to the recording. The look previously kept hidden was now directed squarely at Hyeonyul and Nayun. It seemed close to contempt.

<... Ms. Lee. I’m exhausted. No matter how often I appeal to the Empire, these children cannot escape this cycle. If that’s how it’s going to be, I will... put a stop to it.>

“Enough. You can stop it now.”

At the director’s almost shouted words, Hyeonyul readily stopped the playback.

“... What does that mean?”

Nayun stumbled over the words, barely managing to get them out.

“It means exactly what was said in the recording. I don’t know anything beyond that.”

It was the only answer Hyeonyul could give. He knew the kindergarten was run by the Black Eagles, but how was he supposed to know whether it had actually been established to raise future Black Eagles?

“... Did you say you don’t know?”

The director looked incredulous. Despite the stare demanding how he could possibly not know, Hyeonyul had only one answer.

“Yes. I don’t.”

“Why not claim you didn’t know this place was run by the Black Eagles, too?”

“Then were all public kindergartens established for the Empire? Does everyone who attends one grow up loyal to the Empire, living solely to serve it? That is a leap in logic. You’re reasoning backward from the outcome.”

Hyeonyul challenged the director’s argument.

Even if the children were being trained to become Black Eagles, what was wrong with that? Sports were a prime example of a field where early training was essential. Many other industries did the same thing, so why should the Black Eagles be forbidden from doing it?

“The entry requirements are extremely demanding to begin with. Not everyone can become a Black Eagle. They would assess the children’s aptitude from an early age as well. If you’re going to call that dangerous, does the Empire kill the children who fail to become Black Eagles?”

“Are you insane? What are you saying?!”

The director’s immediate outburst reassured Nayun. Hyeonyul tilted his head slightly.

“Then what is the problem?”

“Becoming a Black Eagle leads to nothing but death! My children will die! How could I bear to watch that? I won’t! I could never bear it...!”

Even as the director beat a fist hard against their chest and voiced that despair, Hyeonyul looked at Nayun, his brow faintly furrowed.

Throwing children to villains to keep them from dying?

“Am I failing to understand something? I have no idea what this means.”

“... No. I don’t get it either. I think this logic is impossible to understand.”

Nayun shared Hyeonyul’s doubts.

“Yes, being a Black Eagle is dangerous, but that’s a reason to leak the children’s information? From a place where a kidnapping has already happened? The only people who would want that information are villains. So this sounds like saying it makes no difference whether they die now or later, and we should send them to their deaths before they grow any older. Who could understand that? I certainly can’t.”

Even after breaking it down point by point, Nayun reached the same conclusion. What kind of logic was this? It was so bizarre she did not even know where to begin.

“... Have you both lost your minds?”

Yujeong could no longer hold back what she had been suppressing. Nayun nodded in agreement.

“Honestly, Ms. Lee was acting strangely earlier. But she’s my colleague, so I tried to protect her somehow. I shouldn’t have. I’m truly sorry for only making things more confusing for you both.”

Apparently done worrying about the others’ reactions, Yujeong apologized to Hyeonyul and Nayun without hesitation.

This concerned the children. However much one pitied them, how could anyone throw them to villains like prey?

“How could you make that choice, Director? These are the children’s futures.”

“The Black Eagles were the first to throw their futures away! You don’t understand, Ms. Park Yujeong! I may not have given birth to them, but I raised them as well as anyone could. You have no idea how happy I was when they finished elementary school, went on to middle school and high school, and came back as Black Eagles. But... they died! All of them died!”

The director gripped the hem of their clothes, both hands trembling. It was hard to accept those deaths when the director still had the children’s photographs.

“The Empire shoved those children, who had dreamed of such brilliant futures... into a place of horrors. And I was helping it happen. Because of the fantasy of the Black Eagles I planted in them from childhood, those children, those children... were dying.”

None of the director’s words resonated with Hyeonyul. All he heard were excuses and contradictory reasoning.

“I don’t understand. To me, all you’re doing is admitting that you did sell the children’s information.”

“You don’t need to understand this. You don’t need to sympathize, either. It isn’t worth attaching any sob story to it.”

Nayun spoke decisively.

Honestly, how many people even remembered what happened in kindergarten? Still, she understood part of the director’s grief. Who wouldn’t grieve upon hearing that children they had raised with such love had died?

“... I-I was against it.”

After watching the way things were going, Jihae abruptly spoke up. Nayun glared at her.

“Be quiet. We’ve already heard that you sold a child’s information.”

“I did do something wrong, but still, I, um... only sold information on one child. Look at the director. The director sold information on all of them! How strange is that? It was almost like being possessed by something.”

Jihae gave an awkward smile. Surely she was better for selling only one child’s information than the director, who had sold them all.

“Shut your mouth. One child or several, trash is still trash.”

Nayun looked as though she wanted to hit Jihae right then and there.

The number was not what mattered. What mattered was that she had done something that endangered even a single child, and a kidnapping had ultimately occurred.

“Director, do you experience delusions?”

The director’s eyes widened at Hyeonyul’s blunt question.

“Delusions...?”

“Isn’t it called a delusion when someone insists their own thinking is correct without any evidence or logic? You speak as though you’ve done something great, and I find that extremely strange.”

That had been bothering him for some time. The director was claiming those actions were justified, yet there was no basis whatsoever for that supposed justification.

“I broke the cycle of tragic death that had befallen the children myself. If not for me, they would have become the adults they so desperately wanted to be, only to meet that horrific fate.”

“That is why I asked whether you might be caught up in a delusion. Frankly, there are plenty of other kindergartens besides yours. All—no, most kindergarten directors would never even think that way.”

“They simply can’t do it. They don’t have the courage. But I did it because I had that courage.”

The corners of the director’s mouth rose.

“Do you consider yourself special?”

“Of course. Who else has done what I did?”

“Who made you special?”

For the briefest moment, the look in the director’s eyes changed.

Could it be brainwashing?

“It was a video!”

Jihae started blabbing.

“A video?”

Nayun could not believe her ears.

“Ms. Lee Jihae? What are you doing?”

The director’s mouth grew rigid.

“I saw the director watching a video. It looked strange even at a glance. Oh, and the director has been taking psychiatric medication lately, too.”

Jihae spilled everything. She had realized that doing so was her only way to save herself now.

“It’s true that I sold the child’s information. I bragged about it to a friend, and the director overheard. But the director didn’t ask me about it that day.”

“Then when did the director ask?”

With Jihae so readily spilling everything, Hyeonyul followed up with a question. If only villains would talk this easily.

“After the kidnapping, the director brought it up and asked me about it. How much I got per child, who bought the information. The director talks as though it was some noble act, but how is that any different from what I did? In the end, it’s about money.”

Jihae broke off with an incredulous snort.

“Honestly, I did it before the kidnapping. I never even suspected that place had ties to villains. But the director saw everything. The director knew about the incident. I suspect it was done despite knowing all that.”

“You’re right about that.”

Hyeonyul agreed. Both were crimes, but doing something without knowing who was involved was different from doing it knowingly.

“Did you happen to see any records of money changing hands? Or...”

“I never took any money!”

The director shouted before Nayun could finish her question to Jihae.

“This was for a greater cause...! I had to protect the children! Rather than let them grow up in this filthy world, shouldn’t they go somewhere beautiful before any of that filth can taint them?”

“Then are you saying it doesn’t matter if the recipients are villains? That you would accept them doing unspeakable things to the children?”

Hyeonyul simply asked.

The children must be protected.

The children must die soon.

Did the director not realize those two ideas contradicted each other?

“Those people aren’t villains! They promised to let the children pass on without pain! They’ll go to a beautiful world. I made it happen!”

The director smiled broadly, imagining something as though lost in a hallucination. There was a certain conviction in those eyes, much like that of the people Hyeonyul had seen in the earlier cult incident.

“You tried to kill the children. In the cruelest way imaginable. There is only one place they will go. An experimentation facility.”

“... What do you mean?”

Doubt stirred in the director, while Jihae and Yujeong wore expressions of disbelief.

“I know the mention of experiments must seem strange to you. But they still happen, even now. Director, you have driven the children into the most horrific hell. Countless drugs will ravage their little bodies, and they will die without even retaining a human shape.”

“... Don’t lie to me.”

“I guarantee you, they will all die. They will cling to hope until the moment they die, begging over and over to be spared with voices torn raw. Who do you think they will blame then?”

After finishing, Hyeonyul pointed at the director.

“You.”

A smile so bright it was cruel spread across his lips.