Chapter 40

Chapter 40

I Became the Academy Mafia, Chapter 40“So this elevator goes underground, huh? Wow... This is seriously something else.”

“Could you stay still for a bit...! We’re about to enter a dungeon, you know?”

“Come on, dungeons aren’t as big a deal as you think~ They’re basically just hunting grounds where monsters gather. It’s nothing, I’m telling you.”

Jin-woo was visibly excited about entering a dungeon, while Se-ah was clearly nervous.

Leaving the two completely opposite reactions behind, I looked at the [1] and [2] buttons.

“This was the sequence, right?”

Treating Basement Floor 1 as down and Floor 1 as up, I entered the command.[↑↑↑↓↓↓↑↓↑↓↑↑↑↓]

At the same time, the elevator began moving with a jolt.

“I-it’s moving! The elevator is going down!”

As the elevator descended farther and farther below Basement Floor 1, which should have been the Academy’s lowest basement, Se-ah tightly gripped the handrail.

Leaving Jin-woo snickering at her behind, I opened the cube and checked what was inside.

Normally, to check the contents of the cube, I had to take things out one by one, but thanks to the [Smart Lens], I could now check everything directly as though it were an inventory.

“This should be enough to prevent anything serious.”

The elevator, which had seemed as though it would descend forever, finally stopped, and an eerie notification tone rang out inside.[This is Basement Floor @#!%.]

The doors slowly began to open, revealing a dark space.

“Wow, this place looks seriously creepy.”

At the sight, Jin-woo looked around and shuddered.

Unlike the club room, which had at least looked like somewhere people might use, this was an enormous space resembling a cave.

Perhaps they were moving through magic, because scarlet flames flickered above candleholders, and the surroundings were only dimly visible because of them, but that was no obstacle to me.[Would you like to switch to Night Mode?][Y / N]

Perhaps it wasn’t called a Smart Lens for nothing. The instant I pressed Y, the surroundings brightened as though it were broad daylight.

“Se-ah, can you use Light magic?”

“Pardon? Ah, yes! That’s a basic spell.”

“Jin-woo, you──”

“Ah, I can see pretty well at night, so I’m fine. I’ve got skills in that line too, so I can see clearly.”

Hearing that reminded me of what Jin-woo had said at the end of his last spar.‘I’m an assassin, dumbass.’Apparently, he had received separate training from the Vivald Family.

Since he said he could see well, there didn’t seem to be any need to prepare a lantern for him.

“Good. Then I’ll explain this dungeon right away.”

With that, I began briefly explaining the dungeon beneath the Academy.

“This is an artificial dungeon created in the past by the ‘Dungeon Ecology Research Club,’ which used Room Z.”

“Pardon? Th-the Dungeon Ecology Research Club? You mean the club from that ghost story where every member suddenly disappeared one day, and supposedly the legacy they left behind exists somewhere in the Academy?”The ‘Dungeon Ecology Research Club’ ghost story was fairly famous within the Academy.

The ‘Dungeon Ecology Research Club’ had once been one of the Academy’s higher-ranked clubs.

The story went that the club president suddenly disappeared one day. And that none of the instructors questioned the disappearance. The usual sort of cliché.

“Ah, that ghost story. The entire club was simply scouted by a classified national organization and withdrew from the Academy.”

“Huh?”

The truth behind the ghost story was actually nothing special.

The ‘Dungeon Ecology Research Club’ had suddenly vanished one day. Where had they gone, and what was the legacy they supposedly left behind...? In reality, they had simply been recruited by a government institution, and the legacy they left behind was this very dungeon.

All of this had been possible because of a man who Awakened and gained an ability called ‘Dungeon Maker,’ but...

Well, by now he was probably doing research while receiving a generous government pension.

“Anyway, this dungeon we’re in right now is their legacy. The dungeon has ten floors. And the place we’re standing in is the first layer, the Insect Chamber.”

“Th-the Insect Chamber? That name sounds ominous...”────...!

At the same time, a sound came from the distance.

At the unpleasant noise that sounded like sharp spikes scraping against stone, the others’ gazes turned beyond the cave.

“Perfect timing. The guardians of the first layer are coming.”

“Pardon? The guardians of the first layer are── E-eek?!”

In the distance.

A black mass was slowly approaching us.

Enormous insects, each one as large as a small child.

At the sight, Se-ah recoiled in horror.

“Wh-what kind of insects are that huge!!”

Perhaps this was her first time seeing insect-type monsters, because Se-ah’s eyes even began filling with tears. Jin-woo quickly drew his daggers and grinned.

“Hey, why are you freaking out so much? Boss is here. Boss, you can mow those things down with the machine gun, right?”

“I can.”

“...

Huh?”

“But you and Se-ah will handle those yourselves.”

“W-we will?”

“B-Boss?”

Had they forgotten?

“Didn’t I tell you? This is training for you and Se-ah.”

So.

“Try to survive. I’ll only command from behind.”

Because those small fry weren’t what I was after.

“Se-ah. First, use your magic to disrupt the flow of mana in the dungeon that’s moving toward us. If those things detect mana through their antennae, they won’t be able to approach us.”

“Pardon? Ah, yes!”

After hearing my order, Se-ah quickly put on her gloves and stretched a hand toward the insects.

For someone who used spatial magic, disrupting the mana within the dungeon should have been easy.

As if proving it, the insects that had been approaching us soon began moving strangely and tangling with one another.

“Jin-woo, charge.”

“Huh? Y-you seriously want me to charge in there?”

“Charge.”

“Ah, damn it... I’m not even a frontline fighter...”

“Charge.”

“I’m going! I’m going!”

At the same time, Jin-woo gripped his daggers and began running toward the insects.

“Se-ah, stay where you are and focus on blocking attacks that would land clean hits on Jin-woo. They’ve already designated Jin-woo as their target, so unless the aggro shifts badly, they shouldn’t target you.”

“Yes!”

“Ugh! They’re even more disgusting up close! Stay away, you bastard!”

At first, Jin-woo darted around and fought while focusing on evasion, but once he realized Se-ah was supporting him, he began hunting the monsters much more aggressively instead of focusing on dodging.

“Damn, slicing these things feels good. This is my first time doing team play, but it’s better than I expected. You said you hated bugs too, but you’re doing better than I thought.”

“I’m barely holding back from dry-heaving, you know? Ah! The aggro over there shifted toward us!!”

After fighting for a while like that, the insects apparently realized they couldn’t win against them and began slowly retreating.

Realizing that fewer and fewer insects were attacking him, Jin-woo drove a dagger into the jaw of the final one trying to attack and looked toward me.

“Boss, should we chase them?”

“No. That’s enough. The ones you just dealt with were scouts, so the main force will head this way soon.”

“Really? No wonder they were so damn weak.”

Jin-woo pulled his dagger from the insect’s jaw, shook off the green fluid coating the blade, and approached us.

“Ugh... the smell. But Boss, wouldn’t it normally be easier to wipe things like that out with magic?”

“That would be easier. But because of the characteristics of this place, if we used a large-scale attack, the ceiling would collapse.”

Hearing me, Jin-woo looked up at the ceiling. Seeing that it was only about three meters high, he nodded.

“Hmm... True.”

For reference, the reason I knew this was because I had once died in the game after having the exact same thought and using magic.

That damned ‘Dungeon Maker.’

He had designed it so that if you used an area-of-effect attack against that kind of swarm, the ceiling collapsed...

For reference, I had even gone to find him personally to take revenge for that.

“Then let’s keep moving. It’s wider farther inside than it is here, so we’ll be able to use magic there. Se-ah, can you read the mana flow around us while we move?”

“Yes, that much is a piece of cake.”

And so, we began walking deeper into the first floor of the dungeon.

Of course, this was also my first time experiencing a dungeon in reality, so I didn’t let down my guard and moved carefully.

“Boss. You said this place has ten floors, right? How far are we going today?”

Jin-woo, apparently hot from moving around so violently, pulled his shirt back and forth to cool himself as he asked.

“Today, we’re only scouting. If it looks dangerous, we’ll run away immediately, so you don’t need to worry.”

“Really? If only things like those show up, the first floor doesn’t seem like much.”

Just as Jin-woo said, if only monsters like those appeared, the dungeon’s difficulty would clearly be quite low.

But...

“We still don’t know what the Boss looks like, so it’s better to stay cautious. A Boss... is on a completely different level from ordinary monsters.”

It had been that way in the game too.

Since this dungeon was designed to operate by absorbing the mana used within the Academy, and because CS was a game where circumstances constantly changed, the bosses that appeared always had different levels of strength.

In other words, the dungeon grew according to the amount of mana being used by the Academy.

Considering he could make a dungeon like this, maybe it wasn’t surprising that a government institution had recruited him.

“Wait.”

Se-ah, who had been sensing the surrounding mana until now, closed her eyes and placed a hand against the wall.

“I’m detecting vibrations from the coordinates up ahead. Roughly... huh?”

She suddenly opened her eyes and stared blankly.

“We... might be screwed. There are at least several hundred.”

“What the hell── Boss, what do we do? Should we run?”

“...

No. Everyone wait. Get behind me.”

“Boss?”

Passing the startled pair, I moved to the front and pulled [Al Capone’s Tommy]

out of the cube, aiming it forward.

“There’s something I’ve wanted to test.”

When we had encountered dozens of scouting insects just before, an alert had appeared before my eyes.[「Bloodline Ability: Calione」 is active.]

And the mana that had surged explosively at that time had definitely recognized every single one of those creatures as an individual enemy.

In other words, if everything charging at us now counted as an enemy, then my ability would also increase explosively.

“For now, I’ll handle this one.”

Besides, what was charging at us was clearly the main force, so I decided to deal with it myself this time.

As long as the Academy existed, the dungeon would restore itself and create monsters again anyway.

But perhaps it was true that nothing in the world was ever easy.

“E-eek?! Wh-what is thaaaat?!!”

“B-Boss? Shouldn’t we run?”

In the distance, mixed among the countless insects crawling toward us, was an enormous centipede.

If I were still my original self, I would probably have freaked out and run the moment I saw the centipede, but thanks to [Trait: Hitman], I could remain calm.

“Everyone calm down.”

The centipede’s fangs alone looked unimaginably large. I wasn’t even sure whether [Al Capone’s Tommy]

could pierce the dark navy shell surrounding it.

Right, normally.

The instant the countless insects entered my field of vision, an explosive force wrapped around my body and began emitting a crimson aura.[「Bloodline Ability: Calione」 is active.]

A torrent of power unlike anything I had ever felt before. I poured that energy into [Al Capone’s Tommy]

and pulled the trigger.

“Adios, you bug bastards.”