Chapter 33

Chapter 33

I Became the Academy Mafia, Chapter 33“Who would’ve thought he’d write a post like this on the internet...”

I furiously moved my fingers, firing off messages filled with anger at Jin-woo, who was probably eating lunch. But the number never disappeared.

Only after I called Jin-woo in the group chat did he hurriedly delete the post.

“There hasn’t been a single quiet day since entering the Academy.”

After confirming the situation had been settled, I rubbed my face dry and looked at Lee Haru in front of me.

She was blankly chewing her food, mechanically moving only her jaw and cheeks.

Perhaps conscious of my gaze, she swallowed everything in her mouth, wiped around her lips with a handkerchief, and spoke.

“I thought it was fine. What a shame.”

“That post I just told him to delete?”

“Yes. One day to establish the club, one day to be assigned a club room. Unless they’re complete idiots, I think they would at least realize that you’re not ordinary, Young Master, and refrain from recklessly climbing over you.”

For a moment, the corner of my mouth twitched.

“...

Was there something funny?”

“No, it’s just that your name is Haru, and you keep saying ‘one day, one day’...”

“...

That suddenly reminds me of the past. Back then too, Young Master, you kept bringing me songs with ‘Haru Haru’ in the title and──.”

“I’ll apologize, so I’d appreciate it if you stopped talking about the past...”

“What a shame. I still had plenty to say. So, was laundering the money the only reason you came today?”

Haru glanced at her wristwatch and asked.

There wasn’t much of lunch break left.

“Ah, besides that, there were some items I needed, so I was planning to make a request. They’re things I want to put in the club room.”

Saying that, I handed Haru the list I had prepared in advance.

Haru scanned the list with an expressionless face.

“...

Are any of them difficult to obtain?”

“No. They are all obtainable items, but... are you truly planning to place all of these in the club room? They will take up considerable space.”

Apparently she was wondering whether I could actually use the items I had written on the list.

“That won’t be a problem, so just get them as listed. Ah, you can deduct the cost from the account I entrusted to you.”

“It may cost quite a bit.”

“The cost? Does something like that matter?”

“Hmm, that was a careless remark.”

For the current me, financial considerations weren’t something I had to worry about at all.

When it came to rapid growth, spending money was obviously the answer.

“It certainly puts my mind at ease to have an allied club backed by a chaebol family. But are you truly planning to handle future requests as written in the post? Judging by what you ordered, these look like pieces of equipment that would normally be used by a large guild.”

Perhaps because she now considered us to be working together, Haru asked about our future direction, so I explained briefly.

“We’ll probably do a wider variety of things than that. Collecting unpaid debts like the post said is... what are we, some neighborhood errand service?”

That was why I had named the club [Family]

.

A word meaning family or clan.

I had chosen it partly with the Calione Family in mind, but I also thought it would be easy to submit while explaining that we aimed to be a family-like club and that our activities would focus mainly on camaraderie.

More than anything, it sounded very refined.

Names like Mafia Game Club or Bodyguard Club would be beyond childish and outright tacky.

At that moment, a new message appeared in the Smart Lens interface.[Kim Young-je: Instructor Ji Su-hyeon just said the club room has been assigned and left a document with us. Want to go together?]

It seemed the club room had been assigned sooner than expected. When I replied asking which room we had received, a short response arrived a moment later.[Room Z.]

“I should get going. I just got word that Room Z has been assigned as our club room. You can probably send the cargo there too.”

As I said that and stood up, I suddenly remembered something I hadn’t said and looked at Haru, who had stood up with me.

“Ah, I really enjoyed the meal. It was so delicious that I’d like to eat it again next time.”

At my words, Lee Haru’s lips curved upward ever so slightly.

“Thank you. I will contact you as soon as the matter you requested is completed, so there is no need to worry. As it happens, we already have several of the items in an external warehouse... I will have them delivered in order, starting with those we already possess.”

“I’m counting on you.”

Leaving the ‘International Trade Club’ behind, I returned to the classroom and saw Jin-woo looking depressed, while the others stared at him as though he were pathetic.

“Why is Jin-woo like that?”

As I sat down and asked Se-ah, who was seated in front of me, she snorted in disbelief.

“Ah, Jin-woo? Apparently while deleting the post like you told him to, he also deleted the phone number of a girl who left it in the comments. Seriously pathetic...”...

So it really was something completely pointless.

“Ah, this is the thing I contacted you about!”

Saying that, Se-ah handed me the paper that had been sitting in front of her.

Written on it were the words [Club Building Move-In Confirmation]

along with the address of the club room our club would occupy.

“Basement Floor 1, Room Z. It worked out properly.”

After putting the document into the cube, I immediately looked at the others and spoke.

“You all know that, except for sparring, every afternoon class at the Academy can be skipped for club activities, right?”

“Of course.”

“Obviously.”

“Huh? Really?”...

One guy didn’t know.

I sighed and explained it to Jin-woo.

“Yeah. So since there’s no sparring this afternoon, we can skip class for club activities.”

“...

Amazing. We can skip Basic English? Mamma mia.”

It was only skipping a little class. Was that really something worth rolling his eyes back in joy over...

After leaving the classroom, we headed straight toward the corridor of the club building where Room Z was located.

Since lunch break had just ended, countless students were heading toward their respective clubs.

Among them, our ‘Family’ was practically an outlier.‘What the hell, aren’t those guys first-years? Why are first-years in the club building?’‘Hey, hey. Those are the guys from yesterday. The ones who buried the ‘Fund Investment Club.’ I heard they made a club this time, so I guess it’s because of that?’‘What? Haven’t they been enrolled for less than a week?’‘Guess that means they’re special. Wow, what does it feel like to become a club president before even a week has passed since admission?’Conversations about us began coming from all around.

In a way, it was only natural. Our club was basically an irregular existence within the Academy right now.

“Jin-woo, could you lower your shoulders while you walk? You didn’t even do anything.”

“What do you mean I didn’t do anything! I posted the message! You’re the one who actually did nothing!”

“What do you mean I did nothing! If I’m keeping watch so you don’t cause trouble, that counts as doing my share!”

“Who causes trouble!”

“You do! You!”

The two started getting noisy again.

Young-je tactfully stepped between them and managed to settle the situation for the moment.

Maybe I really should make Young-je the vice president...

“We’re here.”

Thanks to the noisy pair embarrassing me, I walked quickly and arrived in no time.

A steel door even larger than the other club rooms we had seen so far, designed to open to both sides.

“Boss, this really is a club room, right? From the outside it looks like some kind of boiler room.”

Intimidated from the start by its appearance, which was completely different from the others, Jin-woo asked worriedly.

“Yeah, this is Room Z. The farthest corner of the lowest floor in the Academy club building. And... the largest club room.”

I grabbed both handles and threw the doors wide open like spreading wings, and a cool breeze blew from inside.

At the same time, an almost refreshingly empty space spread out before our eyes.

“Wow... just like you said, President. It really is huge.”

Young-je was the first to enter the club room and turned on the lights. At the same time, a lighting hum like something from a logistics warehouse sounded, and the interior brightened.

A space resembling a completely empty warehouse, with nothing visible but concrete pillars standing here and there.

At least, judging by the absence of dust or cobwebs, it seemed they had finished cleaning while removing the things that had been stored here beforehand.

“Wow, it’s seriously empty. There’s only one table over there.”

Jin-woo, who had been looking around, pointed toward the center of the room.

Just as he said, there was a single table sitting there, completely out of place with the surrounding scenery.

I slowly approached it and examined the desk, noticing a note placed on top.[I had some other guys clean the whole place. I heard somewhere that a new office shouldn’t look empty when you first move in, so I left you one desk.

-Ji Su-hyeon]

“The instructor left this. I guess it’s fortunate that it’s at least been cleaned.”

“Boss, there’s something I’m curious about.”

Jin-woo perched his butt on the desk across from me as I sat in the chair.

“I don’t think someone like you would’ve just asked for this place for no reason. There’s something here besides it being big, right? Right?”

Maybe because he had been by my side the longest out of everyone here. The guy grinned as he asked me.

Seriously, he had good instincts.

“There is. Something good.”

“Hahahaha! I knew it! So, what is it?”

At the sight of him practically dying of anticipation, I pointed behind me and said.

“That.”

“That?”

At the back of Room Z where I pointed stood an enormous steel door that looked completely out of place in this room.

“Huh? Isn’t that... an elevator?”

A fixture constructed for convenience during the construction of the basement, found only in Room Z.

It was a freight elevator.

“That’s right. An elevator. One of the reasons I wanted this club room.”

A space larger than the others and an elevator capable of carrying heavy cargo.

In other words, this space could be reborn in any form we wanted.

“Wow, with something like this, we won’t have to go all the way around and outside.”...

Is that really the only way you can think about it?

“Then where does this connect to?”

“As far as I know, it connects to the incinerator behind the club building.”

That was how it worked in the game.

The reason Room Z was larger than the others. The reason it was the only room with a freight elevator.

Those reasons existed because, if the player created a club directly, this Room Z was the very first club room they received.

For the player, building up a base was content that simply couldn’t be abandoned, which was why an elevator like this existed in the setting, but...

Would a game on the level of CS really have included an elevator for only that reason?

I slowly walked toward the elevator.

Like an ordinary elevator, it had only two buttons, one for going up and one for going down.

And here, perceptive players would notice one thing.

That the underground area could be seen through the gap in the elevator.

In other words, this elevator was connected to Basement Floor 2 as well.

A secret underground space that was practically every player’s dream. However, since we were still insufficiently prepared to enter it, I intended to make thorough preparations before going down.

“Alright, first let’s get the incinerator side sorted out. The cargo should start arriving soon.”

“Cargo?”

Se-ah tilted her head when I drew everyone’s attention while holding the elevator.

“We can’t exactly live in a place like this.”

Whose club room did they think this was?