Chapter 197

Chapter 197

I Became the Academy Mafia Chapter 197“First, let me ask. Did it feel like the surroundings got darker? Or did it feel like the light disappeared entirely?”

“Huh? Uh, um, I pride myself on having really good night vision. But it was completely pitch-black. I couldn't see anything!”

“So you couldn't see anything at all?”

“Yes! Seriously, nothing! I thought I'd gone blind!”

Ratte trembled as she spoke, apparently still vividly remembering what had happened.

“You did go blind.”

“Exactly! My eyes... huh? I went blind?”

“Yeah. You were working at the café, so you probably didn't have mana wrapped around your body, right? You were exposed directly to dark magic.”

And as far as I knew, there was only one bastard at this point in time who could casually enter the Academy and pull something like this.

“Covert Shadow. Looks like that bastard made a move.”

“C-Covert Shadow is that person, right! The villain whose identity no one knows, who they say no one has ever seen and lived to tell the tale...!”

The moment she realized the person who had blinded her was Covert Shadow, Ratte practically jumped.

Her reaction was so intense that I couldn't help laughing.

“You know him well. Was he famous in Niflheim too?”

“F-famous doesn't even begin to cover it! He's someone racing toward becoming a legend! When I was in Niflheim, there were so many rumors about him!”‘Not a single person exists who has seen Covert Shadow's face. Because everyone who saw his face died.’‘Covert Shadow does not exist in this world. Because he has never been ‘observed.’’‘Only two things remain on the path Covert Shadow has walked. Blood and darkness. Nothing else exists.’“See! Now you understand how terrifying a villain he is!”

Ratte spoke as though telling a scary story to a little child.

Even adding, Scary, right! Scary, right! at the end made it perfect.

“Yeah, he sounds like the kind of villain people would be afraid of.”

“Right? Right?”

“Then why do you think people are afraid of someone no one has ever seen?

Ratte's eyes widened as though she'd never considered that.

“Huh? That's what I just said, isn't it? Because no one's ever seen him... huh? Why are people scared if no one's ever seen... huh? What?”

“Exactly. That's it. The unknown always brings fear. But conversely...”──If you know exactly what it is, there's nothing scary about it at all.

______________

A secluded cabin located in Gangwon Province.

A man dressed entirely in pitch-black clothing was maintaining the weapons he would use for his missions, just as usual.

Screech── screech── screech── screech──As he carefully sharpened the blade of a black dagger, he suddenly raised his head and looked at the stack of papers on the table.

An anonymous request that had arrived on his contract phone the previous night.

Along with fifty million credits, the details of the request were written there.[A café located inside Seoul Hero Academy. Rob the entirety of ‘Cielo notturno's’ safe.]

Although it meant infiltrating the dangerous Seoul Hero Academy alone, it wasn't an assassination request, but a request to retrieve items.

Since he didn't need to fight inside, and fifty million credits for robbing an ordinary café rather than an Academy facility seemed profitable enough, he had succeeded in emptying the safe as requested.

And what had come out of that safe were those documents.

Tap

-He put down the dagger he had been holding, slowly walked toward the table, and picked up the documents.

“...”

What exactly were these papers to warrant such a request?

Though he had gone years without touching any client's requested goods, for some reason, this particular request had given him a strange experience.

Covert Shadow had definitely blinded the café employee and even all the rodents around her.

But.‘My eyes...! My eyyyyes! Thief! You're a thief!’In a situation where an ordinary person would have panicked and collapsed, the café worker had tried to kill him with the bread knife in her hand.

And it hadn't been a wild swing, but an attack aimed at where vital points should have been.‘That was absolutely no coincidence.’How could someone who could accurately swing toward a person's vital points without being able to see anything possibly be an ordinary café worker?

Of course, because bloodshed inside the Academy would've made things complicated, he had hurriedly completed the mission and left, but the incident had shocked even him.

It had been a long time since his life had been threatened like that.

“Phew...”

He set the documents back on the table and returned to his seat.

The reason he had survived in this business for so long was because he followed two rules.

The first was never allowing anyone to see him.

The second was never becoming curious about a client's request.

Because the price of unnecessary curiosity could be his life.

This time too, all he had to do was follow those principles.

Just as he returned to his seat and was about to resume maintaining his weapons.

-Clatterrr. Tap.

“...

Hm?”

At the sound of something falling, he turned his head.

Since the cabin was in the mountains, it was common for nearby stones to fall because of animals or wind.

But what had rolled into his cabin just now wasn't a stone.

It was a translucent blue sphere.

And that was.

“You've got to be fucking───.”

-Boooooooom!!

With an enormous roar, flashes of light rained down as a tremendous explosion and flames engulfed the place where he had been.

The roof collapsed, the walls shattered, and what had been a cabin moments ago was reduced to something resembling an abandoned ruin.

“Ghk...! Ghhhh!”

From within the wreckage, Covert Shadow desperately crawled out.

Apparently he hadn't completely blocked the impact, because wounds from the explosion covered his clothes.

“What the hell... is this...”

At that moment, a sound that should never have reached his ears began coming from somewhere.

Clap

- clap

- clap

- clap

- clap

-“Wow. You survived that? I guess Covert Shadow really is Covert Shadow? Impressive.”

At the sight of the man walking out while clapping as though genuinely impressed, his expression turned incredulous.

“H-how the hell did you... no one should've known about this place.”

“Hm? Here? Ahh, would you believe me if I said I found it while enjoying a forest bath?”

Covert Shadow ground his teeth at the sight of the smiling man spouting nonsense from the very beginning and slowly examined him.

A neatly styled parted perm, a cold face, red eyes, and a black suit.

His mind began racing.

And among the people he knew, only one fit that description.

“Ghk! Khk! Calione's successor... Eugene Han Calione.”

“You got it right. Guess you investigated me after all?”

He was smiling, but Covert Shadow felt his blood run cold.

Because those eyes were chillingly cold, as though looking at an insect crawling on the ground.

“Well, doesn't matter. You're going to have to make your exit here anyway.”

The man, Eugene, said that while reaching into his pocket and pulling out another translucent sphere, shaking it as though giving him a closer look.

“This is basically a portable bomb. Honestly, I didn't think it would perform this well. Sorry if it hurt a lot.”

What Eugene held was the portable strategic weapon Ahn Byung-hoon had recently made as a prototype.‘President. You seriously have to be careful when you throw this. An ordinary Awakened would be finished in one hit.’Its power was enough that even the half-mad scientist who hadn't awakened yet had repeatedly warned him.

In a way, it was only natural for a building of this size to be half-destroyed.

“Hmm, still, it seems dangerous to approach yet. Should I throw one more?”

Saying that, Eugene casually rolled the bomb with an indifferent motion.

And that soon meant.──────!!A second explosion.

A tremendous wind swept past Eugene, who tightly gripped the doorway so he wouldn't be carried away by the blast.

“Wonder how he's doing this time.”

Eugene poked his head out and once again checked the situation inside.

The area had become scorching hot from the explosion moments ago.

“Gaaaaaagh──!! You fucking bastard!!”

And then came a furious roar.

Around him, a pitch-black defensive spell already hung in tatters.

So even this hadn't killed him?

Eugene finally sighed and stepped inside.

“I used everything I brought, so it can't be helped. Guess I'll have to handle the rest personally.”

Crack crack.

Eugene flexed his hands as he walked inside.

At the same time.

“Got you!”

The bastard stretched out his hand toward Eugene and shouted.

“abyss Blind.”

Covert Shadow's signature technique that robbed the target of sight.

Although it was one of the most basic forms of dark magic, its effects differed drastically depending on who used it.

And that magic...

“You done?”

“W-what the...”

Only proved utterly ineffective as Eugene stared directly at Covert Shadow.

“You're probably thinking something like this right now, aren't you? How did I make it all the way here through a place filled with traps, and why doesn't your magic work on me?”

And Eugene's answer was extremely concise.

“I ate something good before coming here.”

“You fucking bastard...!”

Thinking he was joking, Covert Shadow grimaced.

At that, Eugene looked at him curiously.

“So that's what you look like? Well, I guess if you looked like that, you'd hate showing your face to other people too.”

Because Covert Shadow's face had begun showing through the mask torn by the explosion.

Distorted eyes, sagging skin, and an ash-gray face.

All were commonly cited side effects of dark magic.

“Shut up!!”

Perhaps humiliated that his face had been seen, the bastard's expression twisted even further as he picked up the dagger lying on the floor and charged toward Eugene.

“abyss Blind!!”

He cast the spell toward Eugene once again.

But this time too, Eugene merely shrugged as though nothing had happened.

“Your magic doesn't work at all.”

“Ghhk!”

Perhaps because of the shock from the explosion earlier, his movements looked awkward, but he still tried to bring the knife down on Eugene.

But.

“Knives are scary, so let's put that down.”

Eugene fired the handgun already in his hand at the bastard's dagger, sending it flying far away.

“Why! Why, why! Why the hell!”

Covert Shadow possessed a certain pride.

He was a War Mage and a dark mage.

He had moved across battlefields, binding or paralyzing enemies with dark magic before defeating them with hand-to-hand combat and weapons.

He was practically a specialist in dark magic who had crossed countless lines of death and rivers of corpses.

No matter how strong someone was, they had always lost their lives before his dark magic and weapon skills.

“Why the hell doesn't my dark magic work! Are you wearing some kind of sacred relic?!”

That was why he couldn't understand it even more.

Why didn't his magic work?

And the answer to that was──“Hm? How did you know?”

“...

What?”

“I do have one, a sacred relic.”

Eugene answered by pulling a single chopstick from inside his clothes and showing it to him.