Chapter 37

Chapter 37

I Became the Academy Mafia, Chapter 37“This guy’s fucking crazy, huh?”

“Could I be crazier than some bastard who comes into someone else’s club and demands food? Starting today, ‘Family’ is protecting this place, and I’m here as the person in charge, so security is my responsibility. So get lost.”

“Family? Security? What kind of fresh bullshit is this, Lee Se-ri?”

At the voice of the man calling her, Lee Se-ri poked her head out from behind Jin-woo and shouted.

“O-our ‘Recipe Development Club’ made a contract with the ‘Family Club’! Th-this counts as a threat, so... please leave!”

“What? A threat? Ha, seriously. This is ridiculous. Did I hit anyone? Curse at anyone? I got hurt on a mission and I’m asking for some food. Isn’t that what a support-type club is supposed to do?”

“Th-that isn’t an obligation! What we do is support, not tribute!”

The man made an incredulous expression after hearing Lee Se-ri’s words.

“Tribute? Ha, anyone hearing you would think we’re the bad guys. Is it wrong for a combat club to expect support from a support club?”

“It becomes wrong the moment you force it on people who don’t want to support you.”

For Jin-woo, who had grown up around the members of the Vivald Family since childhood, this fact was important.

He had always been extremely proud of the fact that he belonged to the ‘Vivald’ Family under ‘Calione.’

And Calione and Vivald did not force things upon those who supported them.

“I’ll say it one last time. Get lost if you seriously don’t want to die.”

“You brat... Looks like you think your senior is a joke. What are you going to do if I don’t leave?”

If that happened, Jin-woo would simply carry out his mission faithfully.

“For the mission of the ‘Family’ Club, I’ll have to beat the living shit out of you.”

Because his mission was to protect the ‘Recipe Development Club’ from threats.

“Ha, you’re going to fight me? Because of some club called ‘Family’ that I’ve never even heard of? Are you seriously saying that?”

“If you leave, that won’t happen. But you’re not planning to leave anyway, are you?”

Jin-woo spoke while glaring at the man. At that, the man burst out laughing as though amused.

“Ahahaha! You really are one ridiculous bastard. Yeah, I was also told not to come back until I got a definite answer from the president today....

Follow me to the sparring arena. I’ll give you the fight you want.”

Leaving those words behind, the man immediately turned around and left the club room. Just as Jin-woo was about to follow him, something grabbed the back of his clothes.

“A-are you really going? Just like this?”

Lee Se-ri and the members of the ‘Recipe Development Club’ looked at Jin-woo with worried expressions.

At the sight, Jin-woo smiled as though there was no problem at all.

“We’re part of the same Family now. Trust me. If you want, coming to cheer for me would be even better.”

After saying that, Jin-woo also left the club room following the man, briefly leaving a message in the club group chat about the current situation.[Me: Some Ranger Club bastard came to pick a fight again, so looks like we’re gonna have a match. Fighting in the sparring arena. Anyone who wants to watch, come lol]

It was Jin-woo’s first spar since his match against Eugene, the club president.

That first spar could only be called a crushing defeat, but Jin-woo felt not the slightest anxiety about the spar that was about to happen.

The opponent he had just argued with was not a monster like Eugene.

The two headed toward the sparring arena, entered the sparring room, and borrowed the arena from an instructor under the pretext of club activities.

“Let’s make the field a forest. That way you can’t make excuses that you lost because it wasn’t a forest.”

Before entering the arena, Jin-woo brought up the field settings in advance.

At the sight, the man ground his teeth and replied in an incredulous tone.

“You seriously think you can beat a Ranger in a forest?”

“Yeah.”

“...

Instructor, please set the field to forest.”

After changing the interior into a forest through the arena control panel.

The moment the two entered the arena, the pure white sparring field began to ripple and gradually take the shape of a forest.

Birdsong came from the sky, the cool sound of wind brushing through leaves, and even the texture of the ground felt as though they had entered a real forest.

Jin-woo only spent a brief moment marveling at how realistic it was.

Having properly learned the danger of letting down his guard through his spar with Eugene, Jin-woo drew the two daggers at his waist and quietly closed his eyes.[Sparring Begins]

The instructor’s voice rang out from the sky, and Jin-woo immediately leapt into a tree, hid himself among the leaves, and surveyed his surroundings.

Amid the chilly wind and rustling leaves, an unnatural sound reached his ears, and Jin-woo quickly turned his head.───!

An arrow grazed Jin-woo’s cheek and lodged itself in the tree behind him.

Despite hiding among the leaves, the opponent had discovered his location.

Realizing that his position had already been exposed, Jin-woo began moving across the trees while searching for the Ranger’s location.

“Tch.”

Arrows continued flying toward him even then. Since the leaves obstructed his vision, even trying to see and dodge them was difficult, so he could only evade them by relying on instinct and hearing.

But he couldn’t just keep taking it.

Before long, Jin-woo roughly determined that the arrows were coming from a consistent direction and began charging straight ahead.

Jin-woo ran across the treetops with movements close to acrobatics, gradually closing the distance. At the same time, something appeared in front of his eyes and erupted in a brilliant white flash.

“You stupid bastard, did you think I was standing still without thinking?”

The Ranger had deliberately continued firing from one location as a trap to lure Jin-woo in.

“Die right there.”

As the Ranger pulled back the bowstring, a strange creaking sound rang out.

According to his plan, Jin-woo’s eyes had not yet recovered their vision. Having lost his sight at this distance, there was no way he could dodge the arrow.

If he had lost his sight, that is.

“Predictable.”

Jin-woo, who had been keeping his eyes closed, immediately opened them and charged at the Ranger.

Startled, the Ranger hurriedly released the bowstring, but Jin-woo casually knocked the arrowhead aside with the dagger in his left hand.

“How...?”

“You think you’re the first bastard to come up with something like that? I’d already closed my eyes from the moment I started running this way.”

Jin-woo came from a Family.

And he was someone who had grown up watching fights in the streets since childhood.

To Jin-woo, street fighting was about ‘dirty tricks.’

A fight where you used any method necessary to disable your opponent. A fight that began with fists would eventually involve stones, and if a child was crying, enemies were waiting in ambush.

That was the kind of ‘fight’ Jin-woo had seen while growing up.

That was why Jin-woo respected his father, and ‘Vivald.’

Because even in fights like those, his father and his Family never tolerated a single defeat.

And Jin-woo knew it himself.

That he too was ‘Vivald.’

And that once his Boss had given him a mission, he could not afford to lose the fight.

“Got you.”

He immediately thrust the dagger in his right hand toward the location of the man’s lung.

Even a small hole there could become a fatal injury. But realizing his plan had failed, the Ranger immediately discarded his bow, drew the machete at his waist, and knocked Jin-woo’s blade aside.

“You think you can beat me if this turns into close combat!”

“Yeah, I win.”

At the same time, the two crossed their feet and struck each other’s bodies hard.

Both were blown away by the impact.

Jin-woo immediately reversed his grip on his dagger, stabbed it into a tree to stop his fall, while the Ranger concealed himself behind another tree.

In the meantime, Jin-woo retrieved his blade and landed on the ground.

“What are you going to do by running away without your bow?”

Even while looking around, Jin-woo did not let down his guard.

Thinking that the Ranger, now without his bow, would try to ambush him with the machete, Jin-woo followed his traces.[You got hit because you lack experience, chick.]

Suddenly, the arrows embedded in the trees pulled themselves free and began rushing toward Jin-woo from every direction.‘Telekinesis?!’As the barrage of arrows suddenly began moving, Jin-woo swung his daggers and knocked aside the arrows flying toward him.

There had been quite a number of arrows fired by the Ranger so far, so even for Jin-woo, knocking away all of them should have been impossible.

For the usual Jin-woo, that is.‘Huh? I feel like I can knock all of these away?’Even though the attack was practically an ambush, Jin-woo was deflecting nearly every arrow perfectly.

The sight surprised not only the Ranger watching from above, but Jin-woo himself.

But then Jin-woo remembered what he had eaten just moments ago and understood the situation.‘Recipe Development Club.’

A club consisting of Awakened individuals capable of creating food with buff effects.

Considering how much of the food they had made for him he had eaten, it was only natural that his physical capabilities differed from normal.

“What kind of nonsense is this...”[Skill: Reverse Attack]

A unique skill that allowed arrows fired at a designated target to be launched at that target one more time regardless of the situation.

Seeing every arrow from his skill blocked by a first-year brat, the man was so shocked by the unrealistic sight that he forgot he was hiding and spoke aloud.

And that became Jin-woo’s opportunity.

“──Found you.”

“You crazy bastard!”

Seeing Jin-woo swinging two daggers in a reverse grip toward him, the Ranger hurriedly swung his machete and forced Jin-woo back.

Just as he intended, Jin-woo dodged the attack and disappeared from sight.

“My weapon has more reach!”

The Ranger shouted at the top of his lungs to announce that he was still fine, then looked around in search of Jin-woo.

Jin-woo was nowhere in sight, so he tried to determine his location by listening for the rustling of leaves, but───!──/─!──!/───/!───/───!

He quickly noticed something strange.‘I’m hearing leaves rustling from every direction?’When wind blew from one direction, the other leaves naturally swayed in that same direction.

And among them, identifying the place where the sound was abnormal in order to locate the enemy was basic procedure.

But what about now?

Irregular winds were blowing across the entire field as though they were coming from all four directions, east, west, south, and north.

“Where are you! Where the hell are you!”

Flustered by something that should have been impossible in a field that perfectly replicated the natural environment, the man wildly swung his machete around him while shouting. And soon, he realized.

If it was something that could not occur in nature, there was only one possibility.

An ability.

This was the brat’s ability.

“You damned little bastard! If you’re holding knives, fight me fair and square from the front! Aren’t you ashamed to do this against an archer!”

As his final hope, the Ranger shouted at the top of his lungs in an attempt to provoke Jin-woo. This spar would be visible to the people around them as well.

He desperately hoped Jin-woo would fall for the provocation and rush into a frontal confrontation.

Convinced that at least in a head-on fight, he had a chance to win.

But there was one fact he had overlooked.

“──I’m an assassin, dumbass.”

Along with the cold voice whispering beside his ear.

The Ranger lost consciousness.