Chapter 187

Chapter 187

I Became the Academy Mafia Chapter 187As soon as class begins, Jin-woo naturally walks over to me.

“How are we supposed to catch a villain who contracted with thirty-three demons? Boss, you got any ideas?”

Of course I had a method.

After all, this was a villain the heroes had already captured in reality.

The problem was...

“Why are you asking me like it's the most natural thing in the world?”

This bastard was trying way too hard to cheese it.

“Dun?

no.”

So now you're not even thinking before asking.

“The Instructor told us to discuss, not to ‘share the correct answer’... think about it yourself first.”

“Hmm... the heroes' side has a lot of people, right? Then wouldn't they win if they just gang up on him?”

“There’s no way the Instructor would give us a problem that easy.”

“Is that so?”

Anyway, one thing was certain.

Jin-woo wasn't an intelligence-type character.

“Ah, President.”

Young-je, the class president, approached with someone beside him.

Se-ah was over there clutching her head by herself, so who was this?

When I checked the face with that thought─“H-hello...!”

It was a familiar face.

“Marie?”

“Ah, haha, ha...”

Whether she was embarrassed or awkward, she lowered her head deeply and let out a strange laugh.

“Everyone else is grouping up to discuss, but she was alone. President, you were in the same group with her last time, so I figured it'd be fine.”...

Is this the class president's role?

This guy is needlessly considerate, just like he looks.

Well, there was nothing bad about it, so she was welcome.

Someone who controlled puppets like her should also have quite extensive knowledge of tactics.

“Oh. It's the girl who's always sitting in the corner with her head down.”

At the very least, she was definitely better than this guy.

“If it's Marie, she's trustworthy. Take care of us, Marie.”

“Ah, yes...”

Apparently her introverted personality was unchanged, because she answered with a slight bob of her body without even making eye contact, then naturally joined our side.

“Aaaagh! I don't know! I don't know! Help! Help!”

Of course, Se-ah, who had been clutching her head, joined us too.

She's a mage too, but surprisingly, she's not really an intelligence-type character...

“I-it's been so, so long since I've been in a group with this many people that I'm really n-nervous.”

Marie spoke while fidgeting intensely with her hands.

Me, Jin-woo, Se-ah, and Young-je.

Somehow, we'd ended up with about the same number as the other teams.

Choi Kang-hyun... did he join another team?

“First, let's make a basic strategy board. Se-ah, can you check the surrounding terrain and make a field?”

“I don't know if it'll work inside the Instructor's magic, but I'll try.”

Saying that, Se-ah placed a hand on the ground and closed her eyes.

A moment later, a model of the Forbidden City made of purple mana slowly began forming in the center of our group.

“Fortunately, it looks like the Instructor designed things up to this point. Making the field itself isn't a problem.”

A terrain map marked clearly enough to tell at a glance what was where.

Such a clean output...

She had recently been skipping some club activities to go mentor people, and it seemed her training under Ji Su-hyeon was showing proper results.

“Next, Marie.”

“Y-yes?”

“Could you make models of the heroes and ordinary civilians currently around us, and Kurus?”

“Uh... inside this?”

“Yeah. Please.”

Hearing me, Marie moved her fingers and instantly created puppets from the ground.

There were thirty-one hero puppets in total.

Across from them stood a black puppet, apparently representing the villain Kurus.

“This gives us the basics. Then, who wants to go first?”

The first to raise his hand at my question was Young-je.

“I'm not certain, but I have a plan.”

As Young-je said that, he raised his mana and began moving the puppets.

From facing one another, the formation gradually changed until the heroes completely surrounded Kurus.

“Wouldn't surrounding him be better? If we attack from every direction, then regardless of whether he has thirty-three demons or whatever, there must've been some kind of attack that could definitely get through. It'd also be hard for him to respond to everything one by one.”

The others nodded, apparently finding Young-je's explanation plausible.

“Well, it's not a wrong method.”

They actually did swarm him like that and catch him.

The problem was...

“There'd be quite a lot of casualties, though.”

“A lot of casualties?”

Once you've gone through the Academy route several times, you end up memorizing most things.

Including how this incident turned out.

“First, forming an encirclement around a single target like this is good. It'll make it harder for the opponent to escape. But this is only an ‘encirclement.’ It's not a formation suited to capturing or defeating the enemy.”

If this many people all rushed one person, they'd not only obstruct each other's paths, but they could even end up attacking teammates on the opposite side.

And considering his abilities... that became even more obvious.

“...

Yeah, that does make sense. If we let the enemy attack in that kind of situation, the formation would collapse instantly. So this isn't it after all.”

At that, Se-ah raised her hand second.

“I'm not completely sure about this! But wouldn't there be a list of participants somewhere around here?”

“A list of participants?”

Jin-woo looked puzzled at the sudden mention of a list.

“Yes! Think about it. This place is ultimately a reconstruction of the past, right? All of Instructor Park Yoon-ho's classes until now had hints in them. There's no way this one doesn't!”

I couldn't help raising the corners of my mouth at Se-ah confidently laying out her deduction.

“Good idea. Then should we look around?”

“Yes!”

The kids naturally began looking around the Forbidden City and the frozen heroes.

Then a startled voice came from Marie, who had been examining the heroes.

“I-I found it! I think I found something!”

The others immediately crowded around Marie.

Maybe it was the sense of accomplishment from having done something herself.

Marie pointed at the chest of one hero with trembling hands and spoke.

“A-a name! There's a name!”

When I looked where she was pointing, I could indeed see characters that appeared to be a name engraved there.

“Se-ah and Jin-woo, could you walk around and check the names of the others? Marie, assign the names to the puppets as they are.”

Young-je immediately figured out what needed to be done and put it into action.

As a result, names were quickly engraved onto each puppet.

“Wow, looking at it like this, there are quite a few heroes I know?”

“They're probably seniors who actually participated back then, right? This definitely makes things easier to see.”

Among the names written on the puppets were even heroes still active today.

With this, we'd practically reached the answer.

Just as I was wondering who would be the first to say it.

“Wouldn't it work if we just send the strongest people?”

Jin-woo casually blurted that out, then slowly stepped in front of the field and pushed most of the surrounding puppets backward.

The names of the four heroes left were.[Kwak Chun-sik], [Young Hoem], [Park Yoon-ho], [Loti]

“Wouldn't this be enough?”

At that, Se-ah and Young-je shook their heads.

“Come on, there are so many other heroes. You're only going to use four?”

“That's going a bit too far. It'd probably be safer to──.”

“Correct.”

The moment I said it was correct, everyone's eyes snapped toward me.

“What? This is the answer?”

“President. Seriously?”

“Yeah. This is the best method.”

Handling it with a small elite team whose combination and teamwork matched.

That was the most efficient way to deal with Kurus.

“See! I told you this was right! Why bother swarming him and ganging up? You'd only get in each other's way. Just send elites on the same level as him!”

Jin-woo sometimes made instinctively sharp judgments like this.

Whether that was due to Antonio Vivald's genes or the education of the Vivald Family, I couldn't say.

But one thing was certain.

Guys like him survived for a long time in actual combat.

“You can see the details by checking the records of those four from back then. Honestly, just ‘Young Hoem’ and Elder Kwak Chun-sik would've been enough... but adding the other two members improved the stability.”

Of course, the absolute best method would be to pit someone stronger than Kurus against him one-on-one and turn everyone else into support.

And that was also one of the methods I'd used.

One of Kurus's traits from contracting with demons was ‘Immortality.’

He was an annoying bastard who came back no matter how many times you killed him.

“At this rate, we'll get proper points. Jin-woo, how about you go report it?”

“Hm? Me?”

“The final opinion came from you, after all.”

At my words, the others nodded in silent agreement.

Jin-woo covered his mouth as though deeply moved, looking ready to burst into tears.

“Guys...!”

“Cut the bullshit and hurry up.”

“Yes.”

Though he immediately left after Se-ah snapped at him.

A short while later, Jin-woo walked back toward us with a blank expression.

“Jin-woo, what did the Instructor say?”

“He asked whose idea it was and how we came up with it, so I told him we made the field, figured out the heroes' names, and reached the decision that way?”

He answered Young-je's question, then returned to his original spot and dropped down.

“Huaaa... Still, since he didn't chew me out, I guess we did reasonably well. We won't get yelled at, right? Boss?”

Maybe he was still anxious.

I nodded at the bastard who looked at me and asked.

“Absolutely not.”

According to the experience of multiple playthroughs and the big data I'd collected from community life, there was absolutely no better answer than this.

And as though proving it.

“The group whose opinion came closest to the correct answer was Jin-woo Vivald's group.”

At Instructor Park Yoon-ho's declaration, the kids began murmuring.

Amid faint voices saying things like, Jin-woo? What? Is this a dream?

“I could roughly guess what the other groups would say. And you gave exactly those expected answers. Surround him and attack, have the front line hold him while the rear line pours in attacks, and so on... well, those were indeed the methods used to capture him in reality. Thanks to that, countless people died or were injured.”

For some reason, he sounded bitter.

Then Park Yoon-ho slightly lifted his foot and stomped the ground.

With a ‘Bang─!’ the frozen Forbidden City began moving.‘The front line charges first! Rear line, support from behind!’‘Front line, charge!’‘W-wait! Why are you firing magic here!’‘Aim properly!’‘Don't get in my way! Our blades are getting tangled!’‘Ghk──!’In an instant, the Forbidden City turned into a scene of hell.

I had known it in theory, but seeing it directly made it obvious just how horrific the situation had been.

“An attack by many against one usually looks like this. Everyone interferes with everyone else, making it difficult not only to attack properly, but even to defend. Given our forces, we should've been able to overwhelm him, yet for some reason, we suffered considerable damage.”

And again.

Time in the Forbidden City stopped.

“Now then, let's apply the method Jin-woo Vivald proposed.”