Chapter 4: The Lee Family’s Pet (4)

　　Dana was cared for at the boy’s house. People came to check on her, but they all wore uneasy expressions, as if they found the very idea of touching her repulsive.

　　“Ugh, a contaminant. Who knows what might happen if we keep her here? And the young master is being so stubborn, not like him at all. She’s an ominous child, ominous indeed.”

　　Dana listened to the woman’s muttering before drifting back to sleep. When she next opened her eyes, the boy was sitting beside her, reading a book. She quietly watched him. He seems older than me.

　　Three years? Four? The pages turned silently. The book’s title was in English. She tried to read it, then gave up. At school, she had only just been learning the alphabet. Watching him, Dana was struck again by how captivating he was—far more so than the boy her classmates had a crush on.

　　“What’s a contaminant?”

　　The boy’s gaze shifted to her, his eyes widening slightly. It was the first time she had spoken since being brought there. But he wasn’t one for grand emotional displays. His expression quickly returned to its usual calm.

　　“A contaminant is a human infected by a demon beast.”

　　Thump. Her young heart pounded. After the Gates appeared, countless fake news stories and rumors had run rampant. The sky opens, monsters appear, and they bite humans, turning them into werewolves or vampires. These nonsensical stories terrified young children, becoming modern-day fairy tales. They feared the dark, feared being alone, but no child truly believed the stories were real or that they could happen to them. Dana had been the same, until now.

　　She had almost become a monster like her parents. No, judging by people’s reactions, she was already halfway there. She was too young to understand exactly what a contaminant was, but she sensed it was nothing good. An ominous child.

　　Her heart hammered with shock, and it became hard to breathe, but Dana forced herself to face her new reality. She’d spent enough time running away during the silent days after her rescue. In her short life, she had always managed to solve her problems, whether it was a boy who bullied her or a conflict with a sixth-grade senior.

　　But those were trivial compared to this. Her parents were dead, and she was a contaminant. Her family had been happy but not wealthy. She had no relatives to turn to. On top of losing her parents, she had no idea how she was going to survive.

　　Am I going to an orphanage?

　　The boy waited patiently for her thoughts to settle. When she was ready, she looked at him. Young Master Doha. That’s what the staff called him.

　　“Young Master Doha.”

　　He looked at her with a flicker of curiosity. Most people who discovered they’d become a contaminant broke down, wailing in despair—even adults. But this girl, not even half his age, was calm. She didn’t cry. He found that impressive.

　　“Am I… going to an orphanage?”

　　“Why do you think that?”

　　“My parents are gone. I don’t have a guardian, so I have to go to an orphanage, right?”

　　The boy closed his book. He seemed to consider his words for a moment before speaking slowly, ensuring she would understand. “The Lee family is going to sponsor you.”

　　She was silent.

　　“It means you don’t have to go to an orphanage.”

　　He watched her, as if curious to see her reaction.

　　Dana didn’t rejoice. Instead, she swallowed and asked cautiously, “What do I have to do in return?”

　　“…Obey me.”

　　A strange light glinted in his brown eyes. It was as if a universe was expanding within his pupils. He was only five or six years older than her, not yet an adult, but he possessed more authority than any adult she had ever met. “You just have to do as I say.”

　　“Ah.”

　　“What’s your name?”

　　“Dana. Dana Jeong.”

　　“From today, you are Dana Lee. I’m giving you our family name. Can you follow my orders?”

　　He looked at her, waiting for her answer.

　　To Dana, his request didn’t feel like a difficult task. She was too young to grasp the full meaning of following orders or having her name changed. Only one thought mattered. From now on, can I stay here, with him? Though she acted calm, she was just a child. She had unconsciously come to rely on the boy who had saved her, the first person she saw when she woke up. She knew his offer was a lifeline. There was no reason to refuse.

　　“I will.”

　　He watched her without a word.

　　“Young Master, thank you for saving me.”

　　Doha watched her without blinking, as if studying a strange specimen. Dana felt her words were not enough. She had expressed her gratitude, but it felt inadequate.

　　“I don’t have anything to give you, but…”

　　She unclasped the necklace from her neck and put it around his. The thin gold chain with a small cross suited his delicate, pale neck perfectly. Her mother had given it to her when she started elementary school. It was her only remaining link to her parents.

　　“I will repay your kindness. I swear it, as long as you have that necklace.”

　　Her voice was firm, belying her age, and in her heart, she made a solemn vow. She would never betray this boy.

* * *

　　Like most people caught in the aftermath of a Gate, Dana still found it difficult to recall that tragic time. The memory of losing everything was a cruel, gut-wrenching agony.

　　She avoided it, the way one avoids picking at a wound. Only a few intense moments ever surfaced, and her memories with Doha were among them. The boy who appeared when her family—the people she had shared blood, happiness, and time with—had turned into monsters. Doha’s appearance, shrouded in shadow, had driven away the nightmare.

　　And so, Dana had fastened the chains on herself. Ten years later, the cross necklace she had given him still hung around his neck, its weight incomparably heavier than it had been in the past.

* * *

　　Dana came to live at Yangundang, the Lee family’s main residence. It was a massive estate with twenty-five buildings, including reception quarters, the main house, and various villas. The boy who had saved her was Doha Lee, the family’s fifth-generation sole heir and an Esper who had awakened in the sixth grade.

　　As was evident from their adherence to traditional Korean architecture on the cusp of the new millennium, the Lee family was deeply conservative. They took great pride in their lineage as a prominent scholar family from the Joseon Dynasty, even displaying a plaque with classical Chinese characters in their reception hall.

　　That wasn’t all. The family had a shaman with whom they had maintained ties for generations, and they consulted him for every important matter as if it were an annual rite. It was a strange contradiction for a noble scholar family to so frequently seek the counsel of a lowly shaman, but they took his advice seriously. It had been the same when their heir was born.

　　“This child will be a hero. He will bring prosperity to the family! To do so, he will need his family’s help.”

　　In a world reeling from the unprecedented catastrophe of the Gates, a “hero” could only mean someone with supernatural abilities. President Lee and his wife had been skeptical that their son would become an Esper—a talent on par with a national treasure—even if a trusted shaman said so.

　　When Doha started elementary school, they secretly invited an expert from overseas to test him. Though South Korea had an official Awakened Center, they feared losing their precious son to a high-handed state institution that was beyond their influence.

　　They didn’t have high expectations. Espers were a one-in-a-hundred-thousand phenomenon, and those ranked C-class or higher were rarer still. But the results were astonishing.

　　“Our Doha… he’s really an Esper?”

　　"And he’s only a B rank?"

　　"Good heavens!"

　　Their delight that their son had been chosen quickly soured as they focused on his rank. "It’s not bad, but the rank is a bit disappointing."

　　Though more than twenty years had passed since the awakened first appeared, much about them was still shrouded in secrecy, leaving the unawakened largely in the dark. They did, however, know one thing: an awakened being’s rank rarely changed.

　　Consumed by greed, they were spurred into action by a single remark from Chairman Lee, the head of Yangwoo and Doha’s grandfather. "The heir to the Lee family must be number one. Are you going to fall behind the Parks?"

　　And so began their relentless pursuit of A-rank.