Chapter 153

Chapter 153

I Became the Academy Mafia Chapter 153“──Choi Kang-hyun. The person who must defeat you and become the top-ranked student.”

Wow.

This is going to be fucking fun.

A smile spread across Choi Yeon's lips after hearing Choi Kang-hyun's words.

“Yeah. You. You seem like you'll be fun.”

“Likewise.”

They moved almost simultaneously.

“Bisect.”

“Sea Breeze.”

Choi Yeon raised her sword above her head, while Choi Kang-hyun transformed the water gathered in his hand into a blade and sent it flying.

The instant their attacks collided, a shockwave swept through the area and kicked up a tremendous wind around them.

“Looks like he went to Busan and learned properly?”

The techniques and movements he was using now were things that normally wouldn't appear until the second year at the Academy.

I never imagined he'd already be able to fight Choi Yeon this evenly.

“Full Ship.”

The moment Choi Kang-hyun brought both hands together, the water scattered across the ground surged upward and formed the shape of a massive ship.

“A technique of this scale in a place without seawater?”

His ability should definitely only activate with seawater.

I wondered where he'd gathered this much water.

“...

No way. Did Young Hoem give him that?”

A treasure Young Hoem should originally possess.[Salt Jar]

An utterly useless item whose only ability was to turn fresh water into seawater.

But the moment it entered Choi Kang-hyun's hands, it became something capable of displaying its true power.

An artifact practically made exclusively for him.

“And that thing was ridiculously hard to obtain, despite being so useless...”

He actually managed to get it.

The situation was getting more and more interesting.

“──Fall just like this, top-ranked student.”

The massive fleet of seawater Choi Kang-hyun had created advanced toward her.

Ships possessing tremendous volume and mass charged forward. In response, Choi Yeon lowered her body and gripped her sword hilt in reverse.

Then.

“Water-Cutting.”

At the tremendous speed of her draw slash, the ships distorted and began collapsing.

Perhaps because control over the seawater had been severed by that attack, the ships fell apart helplessly.

As the collapsing ships cluttered her vision, she didn't miss the opening and began charging toward Choi Kang-hyun.

The surrounding seawater churned and surged according to the path she moved along.

At that, Choi Kang-hyun stomped his foot and spread a defensive wall of water before him.

“Water-Cutting.”

But Choi Yeon sliced even that apart effortlessly as though it were laughable, then raised her sword above her head.

“Aren't you underestimating me too much?”

Choi Kang-hyun, who had already prepared a counterattack stance within the barrier, charged forward and threw a punch.

Neither could back down at that moment. Attacks and defenses continued exchanging for a long while.

Choi Yeon twisted her head from side to side like a cat avoiding a snake's strikes.

And Choi Kang-hyun shortened the distance to maintain his own pace.

Realizing she had entered Choi Kang-hyun's range, she stepped back once to maintain her distance, but.

“You won't get away.”

What awaited her after already surrendering the distance was only the relentless assault of a snake that had seized its opportunity.

Another fist flew toward her head. She ducked her head left to avoid it, but a stream of water fired from Choi Kang-hyun's hand and covered her eyes.

“Kh!”

Choi Yeon squeezed her eyes shut as her vision was suddenly blocked.

Choi Kang-hyun didn't miss the opportunity and drove a knee toward her face.

But merely taking away her sight wasn't enough to break through her senses.

Choi Yeon rolled her body to evade his attack and swung her sword toward Choi Kang-hyun's arm.

The blade rushed in as though it would sever his arm immediately. But he caught that attack with both arms as though it were nothing.

Clang!

Sparks flew between his arms and Choi Yeon's sword.

Was that really the sound that should come from a human arm meeting a sword?

Even I found myself wondering at the sight when Choi Kang-hyun spoke first.

“A man of Busan. His body and heart alike are made of steel.”

Ah, it's that thing.

He was basically saying in a chuunibyou way that it was a technique he'd learned from Young Hoem.

For reference, his hometown was Daejeon.

“You can't beat me with a sword.”

He declared as though saying that since she couldn't cut steel, she couldn't win.

At that, Choi Yeon closed her eyes as though it were nothing and smiled.

“Steel isn't enough.”

“What?”

Creak. Creeak. Creeeeak.

Little by little, very little by little, her sword began digging into his arm.

Blood trickled down Choi Kang-hyun's arm.

Startled, he immediately gathered the surrounding streams of water and tried to wrap them around Choi Yeon's head, but they couldn't penetrate her body, which was already entirely coated in aura.

In the end, he changed methods and gathered all the surrounding water toward himself.

When his trump card failed, he shifted strategies, gathering the surrounding moisture to create a wave and widen the distance.

“Sea Spear.”

At the same time, he created dozens, even hundreds of seawater spears around the water's edge.

Apparently, the moment he realized close combat wouldn't work, he decided to fight her from range.

The strategy wasn't bad. Against someone like her who specialized in close combat, magic pouring down from outside her range was practically something she'd have no choice but to take head-on.

The only problems were that among swordsmen, she specialized heavily in speed as a swift-sword user, and that the sword she currently held wasn't an ordinary sword.

“You can't run anymore.”

Choi Yeon tried to rush in and seize the advantage.

But at that moment, she flinched to a stop.

Splash──Looking down, she saw the surroundings were already flooded with seawater up to her ankles.

The seawater infused with mana caught around Choi Yeon's ankles and slowed her down.

“He used his head a little?”

I applauded while looking down at the scene from a comfortable position.

“But there's no way it ends here. Right?”

I couldn't help admiring a technique of his I'd never seen before, but that admiration was only for the creativity behind it.

Could she really not overcome this situation?

The answer came quickly.

She naturally stepped up onto the surface of the water and began lightly bouncing her body.

She had climbed onto the water's surface like a ninja from some anime.

Considering Choi Seon-ho could leap through the air by stepping on a single leaf, it wasn't that strange... but one thing was certain.

Choi Kang-hyun looked quite surprised.

“So ordinary techniques really don't work on you?”

Choi Yeon shook her head at Choi Kang-hyun's muttered words of disbelief.

“No. I have to keep concentrating aura in my feet. It worked a very little bit.”

“So barely at all.”

“Yeah. Barely.”

“Whatever. This field wasn't created only for you in the first place.”

As Choi Kang-hyun lightly stomped his foot, a pillar of water erupted in the distance.

-Aaaaaagh!

-How did he notice us?!

The students hiding all across Hangang Park were either recalled by the sudden attack or forced to reveal themselves.

And.

“I didn't think you'd fire one at me too.”

Feeling mana beneath my feet, I twisted my body sideways, and a pillar of water erupted from the spot where I'd been standing moments ago.

“Honestly, can you even say I was hiding?”

Well, true.

I'd been openly commentating, and he probably knew I was here anyway because of the Rank 2 title floating above my head.

“Huh? Eugene? Hi.”

Meanwhile, Choi Yeon greeted me as though she'd genuinely had no idea I was there.

Just how focused on the fight do you have to be to miss this flashy title?

It felt very much like her.

“Choi Yeon. If we fight each other like this, we'll only end up getting taken down by that guy who's still perfectly fine. Before that, how about we deal with Rank 2 first?”

So there was a reason people on the community said things like, ‘Does Choi Kang-hyun's IQ go up by about 30 during combat?’

But Choi Yeon shook her head and raised her sword.

“No?”

“What?”

“Why bother? We have to take everyone down eventually anyway.”

Choi Kang-hyun's expression filled with shock at her words.

He really didn't understand Choi Yeon's personality.

He probably never expected it would turn into a three-way struggle like this.

“See? You attacked me when I was just standing there and created this situation.”

I had planned to leisurely watch while taking care of any interferers, but after being attacked first, there was no way I could just stay still.

“Let's clean up the surroundings first.”[「Skill: Aura Sonar」 activates.]

Before entering the three-way fight, I scanned the surroundings once, and the locations of the hidden rats began appearing one by one.

Excluding the three of us, there were three people left.

“Anyone want to leave after taking a shotgun blast? I'm giving you a chance to walk outside the zone on your own right now.”When I poured aura into the ‘Ancient Berserker's Ring(True)’ and spread fear, the hidden students began running toward the zone one by one.

-R-run!

-Eek!

Of course, there were also some who stubbornly stayed behind...─Bang! ──Bang!

But they were merely guys who had barely survived by hiding until now.

In front of such an excellent negotiation tool, they had no choice but to leave.

“All right. Now it's just the three of us. What do you think, should we start immediately?”

I spoke while lightly warming up in preparation for the fierce battle ahead, and Choi Yeon nodded.

“Yeah. Good.”

At the same time, she charged toward me and swung her sword.

I'd expected it, but I hadn't thought she'd rush straight at me immediately.───Grrrrrrk!

I blocked Choi Yeon's sword by wrapping Midas's Gloves in aura.

Red aura and blue aura generated opposing force to push each other back, scattering brilliant sparks.

“I thought that was an opening.”

“You think I don't know you?”

Apparently she'd even forgotten that she'd taken the special training with me.‘If you see an opening, you charge first no matter what, don't you think?’‘I agree. Complaining that something is cowardly in actual combat only sounds like the excuses of losers.’She was faithfully putting into practice what the elders said yesterday.

As expected, she learns quickly.

But.

“That doesn't mean you can take your eyes off things.”

This wasn't one-on-one, but a three-way contest.

From behind her, Choi Kang-hyun rushed in with both hands wrapped in water, aiming for Choi Yeon's opening.

She hurriedly ducked and twisted her waist to attack behind herself.

But.

“Looks like you got caught between two angles?”

I aimed the shotgun muzzle at her back and placed my finger on the trigger.

“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”‘That way you can fuck up two people at once.’──Booooom!

The buckshot fired with tremendous force, as though sweeping away everything nearby, engulfed both of them.

This wasn't an ordinary attack, but one where I unleashed aura that had been matured for a long time under the effect of my Bloodline Ability.

As though proving its destructive power, Choi Kang-hyun, whose stamina had already been heavily depleted from fighting Choi Yeon, was recalled with an expression of shock still on his face, while Choi Yeon, who tried to evade somehow, was also blasted far away by the impact.

“As expected, once isn't enough.”

In that brief instant, she'd twisted her body sideways to reduce the hit area and even released aura to reduce the damage.

Her sense really was astonishing.

Before I knew it, Choi Yeon was slowly standing up using her sword as a cane.

“Eugene. That's cheap.”

“You heard what your grandfather said too, didn't you? Complaining that something is cowardly in actual combat is just an excuse from a loser. More importantly, you tried to ambush me too, so we're even, right?”

“...”

Verbal sparring was one of the fights I was best at.

For someone as bad with words as her, that meant she couldn't beat me.

“Can you still fight in that condition?”

Even though she'd avoided a critical hit, she'd already fought Choi Kang-hyun and then taken Billy the Kid's Shotgun properly.

In fact, perhaps because her leg was injured, her balance didn't look right either.

But.

“Yeah. I can keep going.”

As though this much were nothing, she nodded and aimed her sword at me once again.

As expected, I knew she'd say that.

And it wasn't even an entirely baseless claim.

After all.

Hissssss─Little by little.

I began seeing her body recover.

The healing ability of the new blade she'd shown me yesterday, the ‘Illusory White Holy Blade,’ had begun taking effect.

“...

Looks like I need to finish this quickly?”

I was also confident in prolonged combat, but I had no desire to drag things out against someone who became stronger the longer she fought.

“Choi Yeon.”

Calling her name, I began gathering aura into my right hand.

“I'll take the top rank this time.”

“...

If you can.”

Blue light began gathering around her sword as she took a middle stance.

That meant she didn't intend to drag the fight out either.[Bloodline Ability: 「Calione」 dominates 「Midas's Gloves」.]

Dark crimson aura began flickering from Midas's Gloves, which had already transformed into the shape of red knuckles, and at the same time.

“Bisect.”

The Azure Sky Sword Clan's secret technique began swinging toward me.

The old me would've simply allowed the attack to land while aiming for a counter, but...[Black Mist

activates!]

I hadn't exactly been sitting around doing nothing either.

I activated Black Mist and evaded the attack.

Then I slipped into her flank.

And drove my fist into her body with all my strength.

“Hngh─!”

At the same time, brilliant blue light filled the surroundings.[WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!][With this, the first-year midterm evaluation has concluded.]