## Chapter 194 – Negotiation
***
“Aah! Master! Can you hear me?”
While sitting in the Chief Director’s office, briefly discussing the current situation with Dohwa, Aquamarine’s urgent voice came through the communication device in my ear.
“Huh? What’s wrong?”
“Well… a woman claiming to be the Chief Director has arrived.”
The fact that a woman claiming to be the Chief Director had come was why Aquamarine urgently contacted Siyoon.
“Chief Director…? Are you talking about the Hero Alliance’s Chief Director?”
“Yes! She claims to be the current Chief Director of the Alliance, and she says she has something to say to you, begging to meet you just once.”
“Did she come alone?”
“Yes! She was captured alone by the brainwashed hero unit stationed around here. She didn’t resist even after being attacked or captured and followed us willingly.”
The sudden news that the Chief Director of the Alliance had come in person was quite surprising.
The fact that the Alliance, which prided itself on being uncooperative and high-handed, was making a request to meet just once, as if they had something desperate to say, was quite astonishing.
“Give me a moment to think.”
It was expected that they would send additional heroes and agents to retake the headquarters, but it was unexpected for the Chief Director to come alone and request a conversation.
Siyoon needed some time to consider what purpose she could have for coming so confidently alone.
“J-Just… let me meet… once…”
“Stay where you are! We haven’t received Master’s orders yet.”
Another voice came through Aquamarine’s communication device.
Knowing that she was reporting the situation to her superior, he approached and heard the desperate voice of a woman begging to meet him just once.
‘A woman…? Wasn’t the Chief Director a man…?’
The image of the Chief Director that he remembered was a middle-aged man.
Recalling the Chief Director’s last appearance in public, it was hard to imagine such a delicate and beautiful voice.
‘After that man disappeared… did this woman become the next Chief Director…?’
The moment he drew a line of thought from what he had been thinking while examining the interior of the Chief Director’s office.
He thought that the Chief Director, who many remembered as a man of integrity, had stepped down for some reason, and the powerful Executive Director had set this woman up as a puppet Chief Director.
Of course, it was unknown whether the woman who came was really the Chief Director or not, and his thoughts were just speculation until confirmed.
But in the end, those were also problems that could be solved to some extent, if not entirely, by meeting the person who came in person.
“If what you say is true, it’s certain that the Chief Director has no intention of resisting… but just in case, hold her tight so she can’t do anything else and bring her to me.”
***
After receiving the news from Aquamarine that the Chief Director of the Hero Alliance had arrived, Siyoon was leisurely looking around the Chief Director’s office.
– Knock knockㅡ
“Master! As you ordered, I’ve brought the Chief Director!”
About 10 minutes after ordering Aquamarine to bring the woman who claimed to be the Chief Director, she lightly knocked on the closed door of the office to announce that she had carried out the order.
“You’ve come. Come inside with her.”
The door opened under Siyoon’s permission, and two women appeared.
Next to Aquamarine, whose sky-blue hair swayed, a woman with neatly trimmed pink bobbed hair stood before Siyoon with a nervous expression.
“You seem very nervous… First, sit down in front of me.”
Siyoon got up from where should have been her place as the Chief Director, and greeted the enemy commander who had walked into the heart of the enemy camp on her own.
But the woman immediately walked up to where he was standing and knelt down, desperately begging for something with a tearful voice.
“Please… please stop this….”
“Huh…?”
Suddenly, she burst into tears and sat down in front of Siyoon like a child, and he and the slaves couldn’t hide their bewildered expressions.
‘Is something wrong…? Do I look that intimidating?’
He could tell that she was nervous, but it was unexpected for someone as high up as the Chief Director to suddenly react like that.
Even if she was expected to be a puppet, he didn’t expect her to be such a fragile person.
“I have no intention of harming you here… so relax and get up.”
The woman seemed unable to control her body properly due to tension and fear. Siyoon helped her up and sat her on the sofa to wait until she calmed down.
“I-I’m sorry… I’ve been rude…”
She knew that she couldn’t control the emotions that had overwhelmed her, and she bowed her head to him, apologizing for her rudeness.
“So… the reason you wanted to meet me just once was to do this?”
Even after calming down to some extent, the woman couldn’t easily answer Siyoon’s question and only bowed her head.
Seeing her face slightly red while bowing her head deeply, it seemed she knew that her actions as soon as she came to him were shameful as the Chief Director.
“Are you even the Chief Director? I’m sure the Chief Director was a man. I remember him as a well-built middle-aged man?”
“T-That’s… I can prove it with this.”
At Siyoon’s question of whether she was really the Chief Director, she slightly raised her head and took something out of her pocket to prove that she was the Chief Director.
“This man… is my father, the former Chief Director.”
What she showed Siyoon was a photo on her cell phone.
It was a photo of the former Chief Director, who was known to many as a man of integrity, standing with a woman with pink hair and two little girls who resembled her.
“My father… passed away a few years ago. And now, I, his daughter, am in the position of Chief Director.”
In fact, that one photo was not solid evidence that she was the Chief Director.
But the reason Siyoon didn’t particularly question her explanation even after hearing those words was because he saw the sadness and wistfulness in her expression when she showed the photo.
He still had some questions that hadn’t been properly answered, but he didn’t press her any further as she was feeling down while looking at her father’s photo.
“The reason I came alone into the heart of your enemy territory is because I want to negotiate. In this situation… it might be closer to a one-sided request than a negotiation.”
“What is it that you want to ask?”
Siyoon asked what the Chief Director wanted. At that question, the Chief Director stood up politely from the sofa and bowed deeply.
“Please… please stop this here, no matter what you do to me. I can endure any harsh things that happen to me… please.”
She was asking him to stop the terror, no matter what he did to her as the Chief Director.
She had no power or authority to lead the Alliance, and she didn’t have the ability to face Siyoon and the slaves in this place.
Even if she was subjected to terrible torture, or even if she lost her life in severe cases.
She didn’t want to see the Alliance, which her Chief Director father and countless heroes had protected with their blood and sweat, being trampled under the hands of villains, with the headquarters, the heart of the Alliance, being destroyed in vain.
“Keuh… hehe… hahahahahahahaha!”
After receiving that earnest message, Siyoon twitched his lips for a moment, then couldn’t help but burst out laughing loudly in front of the slaves and the Chief Director.
That Hero Alliance, which was said to have a powerful force to protect South Korea, was only this much. The leader of the Alliance had no power or authority and bowing her head to the enemy commander was the best she could do.
From the perspective of a villain like him, he couldn’t help but laugh.
Moreover, the words ‘you can do whatever you want to me’ had a completely different meaning to him than when heard by the leader of any other villain organization.
Other villains would only torture or kill her in various ways, but in his case, it was possible to make her a slave and use her.
“Haha… this has become quite interesting.”
He couldn’t stop laughing for a long time, but after regaining his composure after a while, he slowly began to consider how to use the Chief Director’s request.
The first thing that came to his mind was to say that he would accept the Chief Director’s request in this place, and then quickly turn her into a slave and break the promise.
‘Ah… that’s not very interesting.’
He stroked his chin with his finger and turned all sorts of simulations in his head, then smiled and nodded as if he had come up with a good idea.
“Okay. I’ll grant your request as the Chief Director. I won’t attack any more citizens and heroes and I’ll withdraw from here.”
