Chapter 199

Chapter 199

I Became the Academy Mafia Chapter 199Deep within the forest, where only vague shapes could barely be seen under the moonlight.

There, someone wounded was desperately making his way downhill.

“Damn it! Just how far are they going to chase me...!”

Behind him, as he raced through the forest without even enough strength left to recover the accumulated damage, a huge pack of red wolves came charging.

-Awooo──!

-Wooo──!

The wolves' signal that they had found their prey.

At that, Covert Shadow forcibly swallowed the pain wracking his entire body, increased his speed, and tightly gripped the dagger in his left hand.

-Grrrr! Bark bark!

At the sound of a wolf beside him, he quickly turned and swung his arm.

-Yelp!

His dagger plunged into the neck of the charging wolf, but Covert Shadow couldn't withstand its weight and fell to the ground.

“Huff, huff, just how many unknown abilities does he have...!”

Covert Shadow had always obsessively investigated anyone connected to his requests.

And this had been no different when it came to Eugene Han Calione, the true owner of the café Cielo notturno(Cielo notturno)

.‘Calione's successor, attending the Academy while hiding his identity.’When he had first discovered Eugene's identity, even the great Covert Shadow couldn't help being shocked.

After all, the things Eugene had done at the Academy while hiding his identity were nothing short of unimaginable.

But at the same time, he had thought that was all there was to it. He had judged Eugene to still be only at the level of an Academy cadet.

He had even believed some of those achievements had been exaggerated by Calione's power.

From the entrance exam, where he had earned points through the sniping of an organization member, to various points throughout the semester where Calione's capital seemed to have been involved, it had been natural to assume his achievements had been embellished.

The bastard was only a first-year Academy student, after all.

Unless he had started life over from the beginning, even the greatest genius had limits.

But...‘That wasn't it!’He had thought something was strange.

Though Eugene attended the Academy, in truth he was Calione's successor.

Then there should naturally have been information about his activities within Calione as well, yet for some reason there had been none at all.

At the time, he had simply assumed Eugene was still only receiving successor training, but now he understood why.

Because he had seen it clearly with his own eyes.‘They hid it! They deliberately hid him!’If Calione had seriously decided to conceal information, then it made sense that he hadn't been able to find anything.‘To think they were secretly hiding such a monstrous successor──’At that moment.

Booooom───!

The tree he had just passed exploded, sending splinters flying.

“Ghk!”

Covert Shadow quickly raised his hands to shield his face.

At the same time, he instinctively opened his hand toward the direction the tree was falling.

“Darkhole.”

A black mass shot from his fingertips and struck its target, forming an enormous crater as the trees and soil there were sucked downward.

But.──! ──! ──! ──! ──! ──!

“Ghk!”

This time, a hail of bullets began raining down from somewhere he couldn't even identify.

Each one felt like being struck by a large-caliber round.

Feeling the wounds he'd barely managed to recover while racing through the darkness tear open again under the impact, Covert Shadow activated Shadow Step once more and surveyed the surroundings.‘Stay calm. Darkness is my domain. As long as I can pinpoint his location, I'll have the advantage.’Realizing he had been deeply shaken until now by the unexpected ambush and firepower, he regained his composure.

There were seven movements detectable within the darkness. One of them had to be Eugene.‘The fact that he personally followed me in pursuit is fortunate for me.’Unlike the cramped cabin, this place, filled with countless pieces of cover and darkness, could truly be called his territory.‘Found you!’He had caught the bastard within his radar.

He had pinpointed Eugene's location through the disturbances in the darkness spread around him.

A supernatural feat possible only because he was a spirit of darkness.

The moment Covert Shadow confirmed Eugene's location, he melted into the shadows and rose from the darkness.

It was the shadow cast directly behind Eugene.

And then the dagger swung.

He did not shout some pointless phrase like ‘Die!’ during such a decisive attack. Doing so would mean it could no longer be called an ambush.

But.

“You fell for this again?”

As though he had predicted it once again, Eugene pulled the trigger behind himself.──────!!

With a deafening roar like the firing of a cannon, Covert Shadow's body was blasted away and slammed into a tree.

The difference from before was that this time, rather than simply being struck and sent flying, the bullet penetrated him and tore a huge hole through his body.

“Ghk, guuh...”

His body went limp with a sound like air leaking out.‘Whew-’A short whistle clearly marked the end of the brief chase.

______________

“Kagh! Cough!”

In the end, Covert Shadow was dragged back miserably in the wolves' jaws.

Freed from the enormous wolves' teeth, he fell to the ground and immediately began twitching and turning his body over.

“Just... just what are you...”

“Oh, you're still conscious.”

The face visible beneath the completely torn black cloth was utterly unlike that of an ordinary human, resembling a doll formed from gathered darkness.

“You already know, don't you? Eugene Han Calione. Calione's successor, and the target your client is after.”

Leaving the bastard still sprawled on the ground behind me, I dragged over a nearby chair and sat down.

“Don't make me laugh...! You throw bombs practically equivalent to divine artifacts like trash, and you broke through traps I never told anyone about just because you're Calione?”

Ah, that's what he meant.

From his perspective, it certainly must have been full of mysteries.

The bastard never left any information about himself, much less his hideout.

In other words, to him, I was like a ghost.

An incomprehensible existence.

“I can show you something even more surprising.”

He'd probably be shocked if he heard it.

“Dark Spirit Jin. I demand a Spirit Question-and-Answer

of you.”

At the same time, his body rippled violently.

“What? H-how! How do you know my True Name

!”

He shouted at me in a voice completely different from anything before.

He was so shaken that the body he'd shaped into human form kept rippling continuously.

“Shut up. What's important is that I've invoked your True Name and demanded a Spirit Question-and-Answer.”

Spirit Question-and-Answer.

A tradition among spirits originally used to strengthen trust and bonds with those they had contracted with.

It was like a kind of forced confession made by staking one another's names...‘If I demand it like this without putting my own name into it, then he can only answer instead of asking questions.’That was also why spirits only revealed their True Names to their contractors.

But what can you do?

I already know your True Name.

“What the hell are you? Are you some dragon amusing itself among humans?!”

“I ask the questions. You shut up and answer.”

That was why I hadn't killed him completely.

“First, the person who sent you the request to rob the café. Who was it?”

At my question, the bastard's body rippled again.

A burden was being placed on him because he was trying not to speak.

“You know that if you refuse to answer during a Spirit Question-and-Answer, immortality or not, you really will die, right?”

I smiled as I said that.

In the end, the bastard painfully opened his mouth.

“...

The president of Seoul Hero Academy. Ray Pendragon. He! He's the client!”

“Really? Just as expected.”

Well, if I asked who in the Academy hated me this much, he was one of the people right at the top of the list, so I had more or less guessed.

The reason I asked him anyway was to obtain ‘definitive testimony.’

To turn suspicion into certainty.

“Then the next question. Other than me, is there anyone else who knows your true identity?”

At this question, the bastard shook his head.

“...

No. I can state with certainty that I have left no trace of myself anywhere in this world.”

“Is that so.”

That's fortunate.

This will make things easier.

“...

Brat of Calione. What exactly are you planning?”

“Hm?”

The bastard suddenly looked up at me with a twisted smile.

“Don't tell me, because I'm a spirit, you're thinking of making a contract with me or something?”

“What?”

“Fine, I'll admit it. Among dark spirits, I am a high-ranking spirit. Even among all spirits currently existing in the human world, I belong to the highest tier. I understand why you'd be this greedy. If you show me favor even now──”

“You've written a whole scenario by yourself, you crazy spirit bastard.”

-Click.

I drew the handgun from its holder and aimed it at his head.

But the bastard merely smirked as he looked at me.

He seemed convinced my goal was to make a contract with him.

“Have you forgotten? I am a spirit. Even if my body in the human world dies, my spiritual body will──”

“──Not long ago, there was another lizard bastard who said something similar to you. Fafnir. Ever heard of him?”

“...

What?”

The bastard's body flinched.

“Judging by your reaction, looks like you know him. Well, he was a named evil dragon, so there's no way you wouldn't. But you know something?”

As I slowly pulled the hammer back, a click sounded.

“That bastard died to me too──.”

At the same time, the arm engraved with the Dragon Engraving began heating up, and new words appeared in the air as though someone were carving them there.[Engraving: -Dragon (Reaper of the Immortals): He drove a dagger into the heart of the one who ruled the flames of the abyss and devoured the blood of an immortal amid a rain of fatal blows. He is the reaper of death who granted rest to an immortal.]

I understood.

Another activation condition of the Dragon Engraving.

It was having an immortal's life within my grasp.

Indeed, the bastard who had been meeting my gaze until moments ago now lowered his head and trembled like someone suffering from hypothermia.

“Remember that the only reason you're still breathing right now is entirely because of my mercy... understand?”

The power of the Engraving amplified my aura even further.

The half-materialized pressure wrapped around him and slowly constricted him.

Then, as he reflexively nodded, I gradually began to feel fear from him.

“...

Last question. Plague. Where is that bastard?”

“V-Venice! He said he's stockpiling new power in Venice. I've told you everything I know!”

His desperate, pleading attitude made me snort.

What lay beneath me now was no longer the proud being from the beginning.

Just a single spirit consumed by fear.

“Good. Since you answered honestly, I should give you a gift as well.”

I sneered as I spoke to him.

“Just once. I'll answer any question you ask with the truth. You'd better think carefully.”

“H-ha...”

The bastard let out a hollow laugh.

The sound didn't stop.

It grew louder and louder.

“Ha. Hahaha. Hahahahaha! Hahahahahahaha!”

Soon, he was laughing like a madman.

I watched quietly as his body shook and he shouted.

“You never had any intention of letting me live from the beginning. If you had, you wouldn't be speaking like this in the first place! Ha! Hahahahahahaha!”

Then suddenly.

His body stopped moving.

“Fine, I'll ask. Eugene Han Calione. What exactly is your ‘true’ identity?”

His voice sounded like someone determined to learn the answer to one last thing before dying.

“That really isn't anything special.”

“...

What?”

Still, since it was his final wish before death, I decided to sincerely tell him the truth.

“A veteran player.”

“What? What does that──.”

“─Just an ordinary veteran player with a lot of grudges against you.”──Bang!