# Chapter 129
D.S’s voice was of a kind never heard before. She stared blankly at the floor with an expression that suggested she wanted to strangle herself.
“I thought that house would be safe.”
Her gaze, dropped down, was unfocused as if looking through the concrete at something beyond.
“Mirae said she didn’t want to, but I forced her in, insisting it would be fine. I thought it would be better. I thought it was the choice for all of us. Just a few more years to endure. Because it was a better environment. Even though she said she wanted to live with me so badly. Even though I knew how crazy the family was…”
Her voice, stained with self-loathing, rambled incoherently before fading to a thin whisper.
“I should have realized when I found out Lee Seeun was Jin Heesu’s party partner, but I acted so stupidly. Not only did I show my face to Lee Semi, but I personally put her behind bars. Those girls must have known about my situation.”
D.S’s voice increasingly resembled a scream. Her back, always standing firm though crooked, was collapsing.
“If Mirae has been put in danger.”
She panted as if lacking air. Her clenched fists were so tight that her knuckles had turned white and were trembling.
“I, with my own hands, pushed my daughter into danger…”
Guilt and remorse became self-hatred, stabbing D.S. It’s because I thought wrong. It’s all my fault. If I had made a different choice then. The regrets pouring down indiscriminately seemed so tangible.
A pale hand gently touched her wrist.
“D.S-ssi, look at me.”
Iyeon knew the words needed in such moments. He had experienced this himself. It was an action he could take as someone who had already been through the sea of self-hatred where countless hands pull you down.
“It’s okay. You didn’t know. It’s not your fault.”
The firm words held D.S steadily. Iyeon pronounced each word distinctly and forcefully, as if engraving them into her.
“We can save Mirae. It’s not too late.”
These were words he had once hoped to hear himself. Words he never heard, but words someone needed to hear.
“Let’s go save her.”
D.S remained motionless for a long time even after hearing those words. A thousand-pound silence pressed heavily on her shoulders.
But very slowly, the tension in her hands relaxed.
Her lanky body soon slumped into the chair as if collapsing. After a moment, D.S raised her head and looked at Iyeon.
“You owe me a debt.”
It was a quiet voice. At this unexpected statement, Iyeon looked back at her with round eyes, and D.S muttered somewhat awkwardly.
“I’ll consider it fully repaid if you do this, so pay up.”
While Iyeon owed D.S many emotional debts—it was a miracle their business relationship hadn’t been severed yet—this was the first time she had mentioned it directly. It was proof of her desperation.
It was a clumsy request for help.
“Of course.”
Iyeon’s answer was quick. There was nothing to consider.
“You’re a good client, so I’ll give you special service.”
D.S stared at Iyeon, who deliberately smiled reassuringly, and soon turned her head away, but the tense atmosphere had noticeably relaxed.
Hyegang arrived after that. As soon as he heard the situation explained, he frowned with an “Hmm.”
“We need to move quickly. Is the house very large? There won’t be surveillance cameras inside, right?”
“No.”
The one who answered was D.S. She added with an “Ah.”
“There weren’t any when I was living in the house. About… 19 years ago.”
“…That… might not be very helpful.”
Iyeon muttered glumly. Hyegang responded in a deliberately lively voice as if to lighten the mood.
“It’s okay. Even without knowing, infiltration itself shouldn’t be a problem.”
Contacting Heesu to check on Mirae would take too long. They didn’t know if he would receive their message in time after leaving on urgent business, nor whether he would move as quickly as they hoped. They couldn’t just wait blindly without knowing the situation.
That left only one option: to sneak in forcibly and bring Mirae back.
With Sano’s and Iyeon’s abilities combined, they could get in no matter how tight the security. Naturally, the roles were divided so that D.S and Hyegang would handle overall situation assessment and action guidance from outside, while Iyeon and Sano would infiltrate the Jin family home to extract Mirae.
“Still, it would be good to know the internal structure of the house in detail. D.S noona, are you good at drawing?”
When Hyegang smacked his lips in disappointment, D.S responded.
“We can know without drawings.”
“How? You said there are no surveillance cameras.”
D.S typed on the keyboard for a while and opened a window. The screen displayed some coordinates along with a loading bar. Checking the indicator that showed ‘0.2%’, D.S explained.
“This is the current location of the doll. Probably Mirae’s room.”
Iyeon looked at D.S with an expression that said, “How do you know that?” She shrugged lightly. She definitely seemed more at ease than before.
“I made it, you think it would only have a camera?”
The doll’s name was FT-7. It was a state-of-the-art surveillance robot equipped with video transmission, location tracking, and environmental scanning functions.
“So it is surveillance…”
“I told you, it’s a baby monitor.”
D.S stubbornly insisted as she rummaged through a drawer and tossed something to Iyeon. Upon catching it, he saw it was the goggles he had left with her.
“Oh, you fixed them?”
“It was simple, just reattaching the connection jack.”
Iyeon promptly put on the goggles. The familiar fit was welcome.
“The house is quite large, so rendering will take some time. I’ll send it as it’s done.”
“Okay.”
Iyeon turned to look at Sano. He could see the other two also looking at Sano behind him. People always seem to gather around wherever he goes. Sano gave the others a displeased glance before pulling Iyeon to his side.
“We’ll be back.”
With that farewell, the two disappeared into the ground.
The Jin family’s main house was near Mirae’s elementary school. That made sense, but… As a result, it was quite far from D.S’s workshop, which was located in an area with affordable property prices. The underground elevator moved quickly enough, but not fast enough to arrive in one breath, so the two received a crash course on the Jin family from D.S as they traveled.
– Our family was already quite well-off, but not with a deep history. But when my grandmother married in, the power became tremendously strong.
The power structure of the Jin family quickly centered around Choi Heewon. She didn’t pay great attention to family politics, but she had natural charisma and led relatively smoothly without much discord, D.S said.
– Grandmother had a total of three children. Two sons and one daughter. Surprisingly, all three were superhumans.
That miraculous coincidence ironically both strengthened Heewon’s influence and became chains binding the family.
– Among them, the oldest, Jin Jeonguk, is my father. And the second, Jin Jeongwon, is my aunt and Jin Heesu’s mother.
“So the director took his mother’s surname?”
While it’s common enough these days to take the mother’s surname, it probably wasn’t so universal back then.
– My aunt was particularly proud of the family, even among family members. So she was also very ambitious about the family. I heard her husband was practically an adopted son-in-law.
In this situation, her only son, Heesu, was also rated as a Mugunghwa 5-tier. Jin Jeongwon’s standing within the family kept rising.
“What about the youngest?”
– My uncle has ambition too, but he’s not very capable. He had many children. Of course, there were bound to be non-superhumans. That seems to have held him back.
“What a ridiculous place,” D.S grumbled.
– Since my father also had me, a non-superhuman, he couldn’t compete with my aunt. So my aunt is practically the family head. Not quite a dictator, and there are a few other elders, but still. If Lee Seeun and Lee Semi are in the family, certainly…
“Your aunt must be behind this.”
D.S said the security at the main house was quite strict. Even if the information was 19 years old, security would have been strengthened over the years, not weakened.
This meant Semi wasn’t wandering the corridors of someone’s house as a trespasser.
If she had been invited by the family, there must certainly be some purpose. Seeun and Semi hiding in the shadow of Chohosi’s most prestigious family, and Morpho too. It wasn’t a combination likely to be doing anything good.
“…Could the director have known?”
