The men in black uniforms searched the cramped room without taking off their shoes.

Black footprints were left all over the floor.
Items I cherished were searched one by one and broken in the process.
Some of them even called out Lee Dayun’s name, threatening that it would be better if he came out right now.

Tears welled up at the corners of Lee Dayun’s eyes.
His tail drooped onto the floor, and his wings lost their strength and sagged.

While Kim Hwarin stood on standby and the Bureau agents focused on their search, tears began to fall from the girl sitting alone at the table.
One drop, then another.

Before long, the sound of tears hitting the floor changed from drip, drip… to patter, patter.

“Uh… uuh….”

Then, the sorrowful cry of a dragon whose lair had been invaded filled the room.

“Waaahhh!”

Everyone searching inside and outside the room turned their gaze toward Lee Dayun at once.

At the sudden, heart-wrenching cry of the girl, Kim Hwarin judged it to be a dangerous situation and immediately used Flash Step, vaulting over the window and entering the room.

“What happened?!”

What she found was a cup rice growing cold in the middle of the room, a winged girl wearing clothes torn across the back, and agents who were still focused solely on their search.

“Ha… seriously. This is driving me insane.”

She gathered every scrap of knowledge she had to figure out how to calm the child, but for someone who usually got annoyed just looking at kids and avoided them, this situation was a problem more difficult than an A-rank monster.

“Um, hey… you remember me, right? I took the item earlier.”
“Uuuuh….”

Even while crying, Lee Dayun nodded his head.

“It looks like you were in danger because of bad people, so these agent uncles came looking for you. You understand, right?”
“Waaah!”

Lee Dayun’s brain had already lost about half of its functionality.

A newly born dragon wyrmling required an enormous amount of calories.
Compared to that, its stomach was small, so it needed to eat in six divided meals per day.

And Lee Dayun had barely eaten even before transforming, and since waking up, he had been completely starving.

With an adult mind gone, a child’s instincts had taken control of his body.

In his head, Kim Hwarin’s words sounded like this.

[You look like □□ □□ □□ □□ □□ □□ □□, so these agent uncles came. You get it, right?]

“Sorry… sorry… I’m sorry….”

Afraid that the girl might cry even more, Kim Hwarin couldn’t even get angry and cursed inwardly.
If she hadn’t liked cute things, she would have left immediately.

“No, it’s not that you did anything wrong… haah, this is insane.”

After some deliberation, she chose to take the girl outside first.
The golden horns, wings, and tail might draw attention, but she couldn’t leave a crying child among indifferent adults.

“I’m taking the kid out for now.”
“Ah, yes! Thank you for your hard work!”

Kim Hwarin carefully took the child’s hand.

“Uh… let’s go out for now. You want to leave here, right?”
“N-no. I don’t want to.”

An unexpected answer came back.

“Huh?”
“Th-this is my home…. I don’t want to go out….”

Kim Hwarin pressed a hand to her forehead as the situation grew more complicated.

‘She’s been properly gaslit.’

In situations like this, you were supposed to start by getting to know each other, right?
Kim Hwarin recalled something she’d once seen somewhere on the internet.

“My name is Kim Hwarin. What’s your name?”
“Lee Dayun….”
“There’s talk that there might be bad b— people here. Let’s just go out for a bit, okay?”
“I-I live alone…. There aren’t any bad people….”

Even as he said that, Lee Dayun was slowly led along by Kim Hwarin’s hand.

They left the studio apartment hallway and carefully went down the stairs.
The moment they stepped off the last stair and came outside, Kim Hwarin felt irritation surge up sharply.

Several onlookers had already gathered around the building, pulling out their phones.

“Stick right next to me.”

Kim Hwarin drew up her mana and spoke quietly.

“Shared Stealth.”

The two of them scattered like mist and vanished from sight.
With their forms hidden by stealth, Kim Hwarin led Lee Dayun to a van that had been prepared in advance.

“Move out.”

The van carrying the two of them left the house where Lee Dayun had been and began driving far away.

Just as the van entered a main road, a loud sound came from Lee Dayun’s stomach.

Grrrrrlll….

“Are you hungry?”

Without opening his mouth, Lee Dayun nodded stiffly.
From Kim Hwarin’s bag came an isotonic drink and several energy bars.

From the moment the food was placed on the seat beside him, Lee Dayun couldn’t take his eyes off it.
Like a puppy that had been told to wait, he swallowed his saliva and stared only at the food.

“…You can eat.”

The instant permission was given, Lee Dayun quickly grabbed an energy bar.
With his small hands holding it, he devoured it in no time.

When his throat felt dry while eating the energy bar, he drank the isotonic drink, then went back to another energy bar.
Only after finishing a total of four energy bars did Lee Dayun come to his senses.

“Huaa….”

Being suddenly turned into a girl, people barging into his house out of nowhere—after filling his stomach, which had been empty through all kinds of chaos, his mind finally felt a bit clearer.

As he soaked in the happy fullness of a stuffed stomach, he belatedly realized the situation he was in.

‘Wait. I think I’m in serious trouble.’

For reasons unknown, the Bureau seemed to believe that ‘I’ was a vicious criminal.
And ‘I’ was the pitiful child victimized by that vicious criminal.

For now, they were treating me kindly because they thought I was the victim, but what if my true identity was exposed?

‘Add identity fraud to the charges, and it’s straight to prison that very day.’

At worst, I might end up spending my entire life having my scales pulled out every day, doing nothing but pressing the crafting button.
Forever.

Just thinking about it made my body tremble on its own.

“What’s wrong?”
“Ah, it’s nothing.”

Now that I thought about it, I’d wondered why the name Kim Hwarin sounded familiar.
Only now did I remember who it belonged to.

An A-rank hunter who specialized in assassination techniques, ranked within the top ten in the country.
She was famous for her vicious personality.

And that very hunter was sitting right beside me right now.
And I was deceiving her.

With anxiety like walking on a blade, the van continued onward.
Toward the center of Seoul where Awakened gathered in the greatest numbers—the Awakened Management Bureau.

The van stopped in the employee parking lot behind the Awakened Management Bureau.

“We’re here. Get out.”
“Yes.”

At Kim Hwarin’s words, I got up.
As I stepped out of the van, the sight of the Awakened Management Bureau came into view.
A massive building built in a modern, geometric style.

“Gulp.”

Now I had to deceive the people inside this place.
I clenched my fists tightly to overcome the tension.

“Follow me.”

As I hurried after Kim Hwarin into the building, countless people moving about with their work caught my eye.

Every time people passing by glanced over, their gazes fixed on me.
It was probably because my entire body was shining gold.
I shrank in on myself, feeling like I stood out too much.

As if she already knew where she was going, Kim Hwarin moved quickly, leading me along.

“Huff… huff….”

I barely managed to keep up before arriving in front of a cute-looking door.

“Oh, perfect timing. Do me a favor.”
“Hunter Kim Hwarin. The child behind you is…?”
“A rescued kid. The agents were leaving the kid behind, so I brought them along. We haven’t identified them yet, so take them in for now. I’ll send the details separately.”

Leaving those words behind, Kim Hwarin slipped away down the opposite end of the hallway.
As if she’d used a stealth skill, her figure couldn’t be found anywhere in the corridor.

Before I could even grasp the situation, another woman approached me.

The woman, with brown hair and a warm impression, crouched down to meet my eye level.

“Hello?”

From Kim Hwarin’s words about ‘identifying’ me, this woman was probably an interrogation specialist.
The Bureau might already be suspicious of me.

From here on out, I had to hide information as much as possible.
I was confident in acting, so I’d act taciturn.

“My name is Jang Heeyoon. There are snacks in that room over there—want to eat them together with me?”
“Yes! I want to eat snacks!”

…

By the time I came to my senses, I was already inside a cute room.
I was sitting on a round orange chair, with Jang Heeyoon seated across the desk from me.

‘I’ve been had!’

I never expected her to use food as bait.
I’d lost the opening move to an unexpected attack.

No, I was still safe.
I hadn’t given up any information yet.
If anything, refusing here would have looked more suspicious.
What mattered now was hiding information from this point forward.

Ding!

A notification rang from Jang Heeyoon’s phone.
She skimmed the contents quickly, put the phone away, then took out a bag of chocolate cookies from a drawer behind her.

“Want to play a game with me? It’s a really fun game.”
“…What kind of game?”
“For every answer you give to what I say, I’ll give you one of these cookies. Sounds fun, right?”

Did she really think I’d fall for such a shallow trick?

No matter how I looked, what was inside me was an adult man who had graduated college and worked all kinds of part-time jobs.
I wasn’t simple enough to fall for this.

“Let’s try a practice round first. My name is Jang Heeyoon—what’s our friend’s name?”

Just as I was about to say I didn’t want to answer, the chocolate cookies on the desk caught my eye.
The wrapper was already open, fully revealing the inside.
Inside the plastic waited plump, richly brown cookies.

The moment I put one in my mouth, the sweetness of chocolate would fill my head, and the cookie would melt away.
An expensive snack I hadn’t eaten in a long time.
If only I could eat just one. Just one.

‘Come to think of it, Kim Hwarin already knows my name anyway.’

So this wasn’t revealing information.
It was simply a rational action to plunder snacks.

“…Lee Dayun.”
“Dayun, that’s a really pretty name. Here, have one.”

Jang Heeyoon picked up a cookie and handed it to me.
Careful not to drop it, I took it and quickly put it into my mouth.

The instant it entered my mouth, the rich sweetness and nuttiness of the premium cookie struck my senses.
The cookie part melted as soon as it touched saliva, and the chocolate satisfied me with its deep aroma.

“Hehe….”

Trying to savor it, I didn’t even chew, just let it melt.
In an instant, it dissolved and disappeared in my mouth.
…Could I maybe have just one more?

At that moment, Jang Heeyoon spoke again.

“Dayun, do you know what kind of place this is?”
“A place that manages Awakened people?”
“That’s right. You know it well!”

Unfortunately, this question didn’t seem to count as one that earned a cookie.
No snack was given.

…No, no! Get a grip, Lee Dayun!
You absolutely must not give out information.
One wrong step and it’s slavery for life.

From now on, I will not answer.
Absolutely not.
No matter what happens.

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