Chapter 157

Chapter 157

I Became the Academy Mafia Chapter 157Club time after all the morning classes had ended.

Unlike usual, Yuli came through the club room's front door instead of the window.

“Junior? The Head of Club Affairs says she'll meet you.”

“Things seem to have gone more smoothly than I expected.”

Yuli leaned back against the sofa in the president's office as though she were used to it by now.

“Ah, and congratulations.”

“Pardon?”

When I looked puzzled at the sudden congratulations, she took a document envelope from her clothes and placed it on the table.

“What is this?”

“Club promotion certificate. You're a Silver Club now, aren't you?”

She said with a grin.

At that, I opened the envelope and checked the contents, and sure enough, there were papers and a certificate announcing that we'd been promoted to a Silver Club.

“...

They handled it faster than I expected? I thought it would take a little longer.”

Right now, we were practically at odds with the student council.

Considering that student council president bastard's twisted personality, I'd expected it to be rejected once or twice, but it seemed to have passed more easily than expected.

At that, Yuli looked at me in disbelief.

“Junior. Are you saying that after remembering who you've brought to the Academy recently?”

“Ah.”

Was she talking about when Old Man Kwak Chun-sik and the Sword Saint caused a scene?

The Old Man even ended up settling in as an Academy instructor, and recently Han Yeo-eun came as well, didn't she?

Certainly, they couldn't openly ignore our club when it was protected by people of that caliber.

“...

I was already planning to visit the elders immediately if it got rejected, so that's fortunate.”

“What? Seriously... you're shamelessly saying you'd tattle on them.”

“Wouldn't that be solved by simply not doing anything worth tattling about?”

It's not like I want to do it.

They could just operate things fairly and properly.

“That's true, but... anyway! I delivered the item properly, and getting back to the point, the Head of Club Affairs wants me to tell you to meet her at the café a little later.”

“Which café do you mean?”

“Is there another café at the Academy besides the one that just opened?”

“Ah.”

Business must really be booming.

______________

Even though afternoon classes should have been in progress, the café was absolutely packed with students.

Apparently they had come out during breaks or were doing club activities.

Then suddenly, I felt something different from yesterday.

Wait a second.

Didn't the hamsters get a little bigger?

“Ratte.”

“Yes~ Customer. One café latte── ah? Young Master?”

Apparently she'd completely adapted to the café by now, because Ratte, who had been about to take my order with practiced ease, jumped in surprise and looked at me.

“Ratte. The hamsters look a little bigger. Did something change?”

No, they weren't just a little bigger.

Hamsters several times their original size were carrying trays around with plump bodies.

At that, Ratte smiled as though it were nothing.

“Ahh. That. Since there are more customers now, the hamsters can't carry large quantities at once, so I recruited some guinea pig employees too.”

“...

Guinea pigs?”

No wonder they looked too big.

Looking closely, I could see the hamsters moving around the café and cleaning various places.

“This is actually pretty good. They seem a little faster too.”

“Right?”

Once again, I thought giving Ratte discretion over operations had been the right decision.

It would be nice if she used more good ideas like this to make the café prosper even further.

“But what brings you here at this hour, Young Master? I've already recorded everything that seemed like important information.”

“No, no. Not that. I have someone I'm supposed to meet here. I just stopped by.”

“Aah, is that so? I thought you'd come to check whether I was doing my job properly. Hahahaha.”

Ratte scratched her head with an awkward laugh.

What kind of person did Ratte think I was in her head?

Then I realized that whenever she'd been around me, we'd always been in the middle of combat, and decided not to say anything.

Hmm.

I can see why she'd be scared.

“Then keep up the good work.”

“Yes! Thank you!”

Leaving her behind, I went up to the second floor and found an enormous number of people sitting around, watching the guinea pigs with delighted expressions.

And in the corner.

“There she is.”

The person I was looking for was there.

A woman taking picture after picture on her phone of a hamster posing on the table.

“Sorry for making you wait.”

She flinched in surprise at my voice and shoved her phone into her pocket.

“You came earlier than I expected.”

Then, as though nothing had happened, she lifted her coffee cup and took a sip.

“I was the one who asked to meet you.”

As I said that and sat down, she looked at me with sharp eyes.

“I'd like you to tell me why you called me.”

Perhaps because of what happened when I'd driven off the student council audit recently, her expression toward me wasn't particularly pleasant.

“If it's something pointless, I won't let it slide.”

The hand gripping her phone was trembling...

Surely she wasn't angry because I'd interrupted her taking pictures of the hamster?

Still, I decided to get to the point first.

“First, I'm glad you seem to like the café. I'm happy that so many people are enjoying it too.”

“...

What are you talking about?”

She looked unable to understand.

“You didn't know? This café belongs to me.”

“What?”

She looked genuinely shocked, as though she'd never heard that before.

“No one told you separately?”

“All I heard was that Hanwol Group had obtained the business rights... now that I think about it, you're connected to Hanwol Group too.”

Only then seeming to understand, she nodded and looked at the hamster that had somehow climbed onto my shoulder.

“The business idea was innovative. Creating a café that didn't exist separately in the Academy, then bringing in an Awakened employee and using rodents as labor. I'd heard rumors of similar things overseas... but this is my first time seeing it in person, so I was pretty surprised.”

Overseas, wasn't it cats?

I thought I'd heard somewhere that those places were packed with people even though cats were difficult because they didn't listen very well.

“So, why did you ask to see me?”

As she said that, she cut into the cake on the table with a spoon and ate it.

She must have liked the taste quite a bit, because the piece of cake, which looked as though it had originally been fairly large, was already almost gone.

“I'm planning my next business venture, and it seems I'll need your opinion and approval, Head of Club Affairs.”

“...

Your next business?”

“Ah. That cake you're eating right now. Do you like it?”

At my sudden question, she tilted her head, looked at the cake once again, then spoke.

“Yeah. It's a good cake. The texture of the sponge is excellent, and the basic ingredients are good, so the flavor itself is excellent too. I think it would've succeeded even if it were sold commercially.”

“That cake was made by the Pâtissier Club.”

“...

Hm? This?”

But it didn't end there.

“The coffee you're drinking right now also uses beans roasted by the Barista Club.”

I'd personally selected and chosen the beans themselves, but in the end, they had been roasted through that club.

“In other words, more than half of the food sold downstairs isn't mass-produced goods, but items purchased wholesale through club activities. Do you understand what that means?”

“What, you're not going to say something obvious like your business can coexist with the Academy's clubs, are you?”

“Similar... but no. What's truly important is that the products made by the clubs are good enough to succeed in the commercial market.”

The quality of the items and food produced by Academy clubs was extremely high.

After all, Seoul Hero Academy gathered some of the finest students in the entire country.

It was true that this place's fundamental philosophy was to serve as an institution for nurturing future talent for combat.

But that wasn't all.

There were those who became exhausted by fighting and gave up, and there were also those whose talent or disposition lay not in combat, but in production.

More than anything, Awakened society couldn't function with only those who fought.

The suppliers who supported them also needed to be strong, like plants and herbivores supporting the bottom of an ecological pyramid.

But what was the Academy's current stance?

“As you know, Head, the current club structure overwhelmingly favors combat-oriented clubs. While they can participate in combat, hunting, and even receive commissions from outside, production-oriented clubs can do little more than participate in festivals or school events.”

That was why weaker clubs couldn't survive for long.

The Recipe Development Club, which created extraordinary recipes and had its achievements recognized, was actually the unusual case.

They received support funds from the Academy, but that was literally only the minimum amount necessary for survival.

To grow, they had to invest money, and to do that, they had to produce new results.

And to produce those new results, they ultimately needed ‘money.’

A vicious cycle.

That was why many clubs eventually deteriorated into mere hobby groups.

Like the Board Game Club, which had fallen into tremendous debt, they ended up being consumed purely as ‘hobbies.’

“That's why I intend to use the business rights I obtained from the Academy to sell their products. In other words, I'm saying I'll become a distributor.”

I declared that confidently and placed a document envelope I'd kept inside my clothes in front of her.

“This is the business plan I drew up.”

The contents themselves were extremely simple.

Purchase goods from production-oriented clubs.

Then sell them outside and return the sales revenue to the clubs.

Seo Yeon-su let out a hollow laugh after reading it.

“You think we didn't do this because we didn't know how simple it was? We tried it last year too. And the result was──”

“──A complete disaster, right?”

“You know that and still want to do it?”

Just as she said, last year's student council had attempted the same thing as me.

But the result had been a total failure.

The reason was simple.

“Failure to secure distribution channels and insufficient promotion. All you had to advertise was ‘Produced by Seoul Hero Academy,’ so wasn't that an obvious result? And wasn't the biggest reason for the failure this?”

Commission fees.

This damn student council had taken disgustingly high commission fees.

“To improve accessibility, we had no choice but to lower the distribution price, and even then we reduced the commission as much as possible while accepting the loss. What else were we supposed to do?”

“No. That wasn't enough.”

This was one of the Academy student council's weaknesses.

Their thinking was far too rigid.

“If it were me, I would've used a premium strategy. People won't buy something because it's expensive? That's been outdated thinking for a long time. People don't simply like things that are cheap and good. They want something special that not just anyone can possess.”

The method known as a premium strategy.

“I'll sell Academy products outside for a very ‘high’ price. I'll exploit the public's fantasy surrounding the Academy. And.”──I have the power to distribute it and dress it up thoroughly.

She swallowed hard at my words.

“Now, all you have to say is that you reviewed and implemented it. Then... congratulations. This becomes your achievement.”

I slowly began putting more force into my voice.[Trait: 【Orator】 activates.]

“If this plan succeeds, weaker clubs will have a chance to escape their deficits. The Accounting Department's headaches will disappear. Future generations will call this the first and greatest era in Academy history! What do you think? If it's me, I can make everyone prosper together.”

I could see her pupils shaking violently, unable to settle.

Fame, achievements, and the future.

Important things that couldn't be given up.

But that wasn't all.

She would probably understand my words perfectly.

Because before joining the student council, she herself had belonged to a club that had fallen apart because of those chains of ‘money.’

That was precisely why I'd sought out the Head of Club Affairs instead of anyone else.

“Please. I hope you'll make a good decision.”

With those final words, I bowed my head and rose from my seat.

She was still staring at the business plan with trembling eyes.

By now, she was probably thinking this.

If only something like this had existed back then.

If, if, if...

As I turned away, her quiet voice came from behind me.

“...

If this works exactly according to the plan. I'll consider it positively.”

“Yes. Please do.”

I was serious about this plan too.

If this plan passed, it really could help a great many people.

And────because the clubs would begin relying on me, instead of the student council.