Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I Became the Academy Mafia, Chapter 5All I could see around me was sand, rocks, and a gray sea.

“...

Where is this?”

The guys around me were already engulfed in confusion, looking utterly bewildered.

Of course, who would have expected to suddenly be sent flying to some remote place?

Except for me.

“That damned instructor...”

The yellow-haired delinquent beside me was biting his lip as he looked around.

Oh, was he still observing his surroundings because he was a hero candidate after all?

“Damn it! Why isn’t the internet working!”...

Apparently, he was acting like that because the internet wasn’t working.

Besides him, I could see a few others seriously trying to determine where we were, but after examining the dark gray color of the surrounding sea and the angle of the rising sun, I was able to deduce our current location.

“The West Sea.”

More precisely, a remote island in the West Sea, a little ways off the Korean Peninsula.

It was a random event that occasionally appeared during the Academy’s first class.

At the same time, my smartphone notification sounded.【Main Story Opened】[You, who will become the Emperor of the Underworld, must first engrave your power upon others! Make your classmates respect or fear you!][Target: 0 / 10 ]

“...

Main Story?”

I’d found a clue. CS’s endings focused on living out the life of that character.

And this Main Story pointed toward becoming the Emperor of the Underworld.

If I followed the Main Story, I would surely find some clues.

“Hey, you.”

While I was thinking that, the yellow-haired delinquent approached me with a grin.

“Why are you looking at some boring phone encyclopedia at a time like this? Does it say something like how to survive on a deserted island?”

He muttered that after looking at my smartphone. An encyclopedia?

“This looks like an encyclopedia to you?”

“Then what is it, an academic journal? Figures someone calmly reading that kind of crap at a time like this would say that. Hey, stop looking at that. I’ve got some important information for you...”

He said that and gave a wicked grin.

“Information?”

When I asked with a puzzled expression, he smiled.

“Yeah! Information. I thought I recognized that reef over there, and it turns out I’ve seen it in the West Sea before. In other words, we’re in the West Sea!”

I already knew that.

Still, that crazy instructor really sent her students all the way to the West Sea and told us to get back by four.

Actually experiencing it made it even more absurd.

“But here’s the thing. I’m originally from Incheon, so I know quite a few people around the West Sea. You looked like you’ve got some money earlier, so how about it?”

What kind of nonsense was this guy about to spew?

“One million credits. If you give me just one million credits, I’ll let you ride along too. Well, a thousand dollars works too. I have to pay those fishermen, so barely any of it goes to me, you know? Here, look over there.”

Saying that, the delinquent pointed toward one side of the island. The others were gathered there holding some strange meeting.

“You don’t seriously want to join up with them, right? If you take a boat with me, we can get to the Academy by four at the latest. Nice and comfortably.”

I answered him flatly.

“You. What’s your name?”

“Huh? My name? Jin-woo Vivald. Vivald is the family name. Wait, are you asking because that bitch instructor told us to introduce ourselves?”

Jin-woo Vivald. I’d thought from his appearance that he didn’t look entirely Korean, and apparently he was also a Korean of immigrant descent. And if his name was Vivald...

“Are you part of a ‘Family’?”

When I asked calmly, his eyes widened before he slapped me lightly on the back.

“What the hell. I thought you looked mixed. You’re from ‘that side’ too? Then we can understand each other. Yeah, I’m from the ‘Vivald Family’ under Calione. Huh, looks like we might get along better than I thought.”

Then the ‘fishermen’ he was talking about were probably people connected to Calione.

As I thought that, he put an arm over my shoulder and said.

“If you’re from that side too, you’d better stay on my good side, don’t you think? Who knows, maybe I’ll get you a position someday? Hahahaha!!”

I casually shrugged off his arm and headed toward the group where the others were gathered.

“Ah. You’re here to help too?”

As I approached, the bespectacled guy who had been directing the others spoke to me.

“Not really. I’m just curious what the plan is.”

The man smiled at my words.

“You’ll definitely be satisfied once you hear it. You know this is a deserted island in the West Sea, right?”

I nodded.

“Fortunately, one of the people here apparently knows a little spatial magic.”

The woman the bespectacled guy looked toward lowered her head shyly.

“I only... know a little. Ah! I’m Kim Se-ah.”

I didn’t think there was any need to give my full name, so I simply told her what was written on my name tag.

“...

Han Eugene. So?”

After casually returning the introduction, I asked the bespectacled guy again, and he continued.

“According to Se-ah, if we can get a mana stone to make up for the mana she lacks, we can return to where we came from. The problem is...”

“Where we’re supposed to find a mana stone on this deserted island.”

The bespectacled guy answered as if I were exactly right.

“Exactly. The problem is how we obtain a mana stone. If we had one, all of us could return by four.”

He spoke in an exceedingly serious tone.

At the same time, three people came running from the distance and shouted.

“There’s a dungeon with goblins here!”

“A dungeon? Wait, if there’s a dungeon, we should be able to get mana stones... Did Instructor Ji Su-hyeon plan for this too?”

The bespectacled guy smiled, apparently seeing a possibility in the news that a dungeon where mana stones could be obtained had been discovered.

And I couldn’t help smiling either when I heard that a dungeon had been found.

Goblins were monsters that signaled the beginning of an adventure, creatures you could use to test your own specs.

Then just how far would my current strength go?

As excitement already began surging through me, I finally realized that the story had truly begun in earnest.

______________

In front of the Calione mansion, Parnello, Don Vito Calione’s right-hand man, and several other members of the organization had gathered at the smoking area and were chatting.

“Haah.”

Parnello let out a sigh. At the sight of him sighing for the first time in their lives, one of the members asked.

“For the great Mr. Parnello to sigh, are you worried about the Young Master?”

At the member’s words, Parnello slightly raised his head and exhaled cigarette smoke.

“Is it that obvious?”

“More than obvious. It’s written all over your face that you’re worried about the Young Master.”

At the member’s words, the other members began laughing. And as though swept up in the atmosphere, Parnello laughed along with them.

“Hahaha! You saw right through me. Hasn’t the Young Master grown up entirely within the Calione household until now? And now that Young Master is going to the Academy. How could I not worry?”

Another member spoke as though trying to reassure Parnello.

“Still, isn’t he the Young Master of our Calione? I don’t think he’s the sort of person who would ever get beaten up or bullied anywhere.”

After hearing the member’s words, Parnello let out an even deeper sigh.

“Haah, do you think I don’t know that, man? That isn’t what I’m worried about.”

Saying that, Parnello ground his cigarette out in the ashtray. His hand was wrapped in a plaster bandage.

“No matter how much he was raised in the Calione household, he is still the boss’s son. I only hope he doesn’t cause trouble from the very first day.”

For some reason, Parnello’s face wore a smile filled with anticipation as he said that.

____________

“...

What in the world.”

The bespectacled guy watching me from behind muttered in a trembling voice.

Well, I probably would have reacted the same way if I saw this scene.

“Kieeeek...”

“You’re noisy.”

Saying that, I crushed the head of the goblin in my right hand with my grip.

With a wet crunch, an unpleasant sensation filled my palm.

“You insect-like bastards.”

I threw the goblin’s head I was holding toward another one and crushed it beneath my foot.

“I should have brought a gun.”

I shook off my hand and looked behind me.

“This should be enough, right?”

“...

Huh? Ah, yeah... more than enough.”

Fourteen goblin corpses lay scattered around me. Every one of them had been twisted, broken, or burst apart.

I hadn’t expected to achieve this much.

It was my first real battle in my life, after all.‘This is more than enough for a passing grade. I’m relieved that it doesn’t seem like you’ll go around getting beaten wherever you go.’I had once managed to land my first effective blow against Parnello while he was teaching me close combat.

I’d barely managed to hit him once while he was going easy on me like he was handling a baby, so apparently it wasn’t that I was atrociously bad at fighting. That old man was simply absurdly strong.

Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to do this much with only the close combat techniques Parnello taught me. What supported them was this.[Name: Eugene Han Calione】[Gender: male][Occupation: Heir to the Underworld][Traits: Bad Boy, Heir to the Underworld][Bloodline: Calione]

It was a bloodline ability that had appeared only after I was beaten into a bloody mess several times during my training with Parnello.

Normally, bloodline abilities manifested when someone was born as a different race, a monster, or into a special family.

But I never dreamed that the Calione Family

would possess a bloodline ability too.[Bloodline: Calione]

- Monsters weaker than you have a high chance of becoming afraid.

- Your abilities increase in proportion to the number of enemies around you.

- Your abilities increase in proportion to the duration of combat.

It was practically the ability of a berserker. An ability specialized in slaughtering the weak.

“That crazy bastard is looking at his phone with blood-covered hands in the middle of all this...!”

A voice came from behind me.

So that was how it looked to the others.

Buzz. I felt a vibration. Glancing down, I saw an alert.【Main Story】[You, who will become the Emperor of the Underworld, must first engrave your power upon others! Make your classmates respect or fear you!][Target: 5 / 10 ]

Apparently, that display alone had earned me their fear.‘An unexpected gain.’According to the original story, we were supposed to gather mana stones from the goblins and escape the island together.

But in a test where rankings were explicitly being decided, there was no reason to do that.

I planned to use a shortcut.

At that moment, Kim Se-ah was saying something to the others up ahead.

“Starting now, I’m going to reverse-calculate the traces of magic and open the passage that brought us here. Since it’s the instructor’s portal, analyzing it will take some time... but all of us can get back.”

“How long will the analysis take?”

When the bespectacled guy asked, Kim Se-ah spread all five fingers and answered.

“With the mana stones we have right now, five hours. It’s ten o’clock now, so everyone can return by four.”

The expressions of the others brightened at Kim Se-ah’s words.

But there was one thing I didn’t like.

“What about the others? Are they going to do nothing?”

I asked while glaring at the guys who had done virtually no work at all and had only stood to the side watching.

“If we have more mana stones, we can shorten the time, right?”

“Pardon? Ah, yes.”

After hearing Kim Se-ah’s answer, I turned around and began walking back toward the dungeon.

“W-wait. Where are you going?”

One of the guys from our class shouted at me.

He heard all that and was still asking?

“What, are you planning to stand around sucking your thumbs for five hours?”

“What?”

“If you’ve got time to stand there spacing out, kill even one more goblin. You’re Academy cadets too, aren’t you?”

Leaving only those words behind, I continued toward the dungeon.

Murmurs rose behind me.

Then, before long, I began hearing the footsteps of the other students following me.

“Yeah, we’re Academy cadets too!”

“This is still part of an Academy activity, isn’t it? Let’s go!”

Most of them followed me, except for Kim Se-ah, who was reconstructing the spatial coordinates, and a few students who remained behind to guard her.

Our opponents were goblins, said to be the weakest of all monsters, but for people experiencing what was virtually their first real battle, killing a living creature would not be easy.

However, violence was ultimately contagious.

The instant I entered the dungeon, I grabbed the head of the first goblin I saw and ground it into the wall.

“Kiiit-!”

The goblin let out a death cry as it was crushed flat against the wall. I immediately grabbed the head of the one beside it and smashed it downward with all my strength, crushing it vertically.

Lastly, the goblin that witnessed its companions being flattened in an instant collapsed onto the floor where it stood.

Proof that my bloodline ability had caused it to feel fear toward me.

Crunch! With that sound, the goblin was trampled beneath my foot and died instantly.

Then, after confirming that I could feel fear from behind me as well, I turned my head and looked at the other students staring blankly at me.

“...”

Perhaps because they had just watched three goblins die brutally in an instant. Most of them were staring at me with bewildered expressions.

“Are you planning to just stand there and watch?”

Drip. Drip.

Shaking the goblin blood dripping from my hand, I deliberately spoke in a mocking tone to motivate them.

“...

How much do I have to spoon-feed you?”

And those words acted as a catalyst, turning the emotions of those swallowed by fear into anger.

“K-kill them all!”

“Let’s hurry up and get back!”

“Kill them all!”

A moderate amount of fear makes one afraid, but overwhelming fear drives one mad.

Thinking I had done enough to create the proper atmosphere, I stepped outside the dungeon.

“You’re stronger than I thought.”

Unlike the others, the yellow-haired delinquent apparently hadn’t entered the dungeon. He approached with his arms crossed.

“Don’t you want to stick with me? Huh? It’s convenient having someone dependable backing you up, right?”

Apparently, he still thought I would take the boat with him.

“No need. I’ll be leaving soon too.”

Ignoring the guy trying to recruit me, I pulled an emergency phone from my pocket.

A crude-looking phone with an antenna. The delinquent chuckled when he saw it.

“You think a phone’s going to work? There aren’t even any base stations nearby.”

I casually ignored him. After a brief ringing tone, someone answered.[Yes, Young Master.]

“Where are you?”[We’ll arrive shortly.]

“Understood.”

I ended the call and looked up at the sky. The delinquent beside me asked.

“What the hell. Don’t tell me that’s a satellite phone?”

I nodded and folded the satellite phone before putting it back into my inner pocket.

He stared at me in disbelief.

“You carry something as expensive as a satellite phone, but you don’t have money to give me? I’m telling you, just take the boat with me.”

As I peeled the clingy delinquent away from me, I pointed toward the distant coastline.

“I’m taking that.”

“Hm? That?”

From far away came the thudding sound of helicopter rotors.

If I already knew I was coming to the West Sea, why would I bother collecting mana stones just to return to the Academy?

I was the heir to the underworld. I had more money than I knew what to do with.

“Huh? A helicopter?”

The delinquent’s expression froze when he saw the helicopter approaching from far away.

Perhaps he hadn’t expected one to come all the way out to a place this remote. Leaving him behind, I slowly walked toward the beach where the helicopter was about to land.

“My apologies for making you wait so long, Young Master.”

Han Seo-jun stepped out of the helicopter and offered me his hand as he spoke.

I roughly nodded, took Han Seo-jun’s hand, and climbed into the helicopter.

“Huh? Hey, hey! Let me ride too. Huh? W-we’re friends, right? Huh?”

Han Seo-jun stopped the delinquent as he tried to cling to the helicopter.

“Step back.”

“Wait, I’m—huh? Huh? You’re really leaving? Seriously?!”

The helicopter’s rotor noise grew louder. Beneath the slowly rising helicopter, I could see the delinquent staring blankly upward.

I would have liked to take him along if I could, but unfortunately, this was a small helicopter and there were no seats available.

Since he couldn’t ride it anyway, surely he would somehow escape using his own power.

More importantly.‘He should at least be able to handle something like this.’He didn’t seem ordinary, so I intended to use this as a way to check.

If he truly belonged to a Family under Calione, there was a possibility he was hiding something.

While thinking that, I suddenly remembered something I had nearly forgotten to say, so I stuck my head outside the helicopter and looked down.

“Ah, tell them they can use the mana stones from the goblins I killed however they like.”

“What? Hey! Hey!”

After saying that, I gave the delinquent a faint grin and sat back in my seat.

The helicopter continued rising.

Looking out the window, I could see the group still reconstructing the spatial coordinates staring in our direction.

Right, I wonder what happened with the Main Story.【Main Story Completed!】[You, who will become the Emperor of the Underworld, must first engrave your power upon others! Make your classmates respect or fear you!][Target: 19 / 10 ][Overachieved! Rewards will be granted according to your achievement.]

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

My smartphone alerts continued going off. Wearing a satisfied smile, I relaxed into the helicopter as it flew toward the Academy.

_____________

An empty classroom. Inside it was a woman watching the situation on the island through holograms floating in midair.

“Wow, that bastard is seriously fucking ridiculous too.”

It was Ji Su-hyeon, who had deliberately left behind the coordinates when she returned so that all the students could make it back.

She had also known there was a goblin dungeon on the island.

During an orientation designed to make everyone cooperate and return together, that guy had shown off every bit of his ability and then leisurely left the island by helicopter as though his work was finished.

“Understanding monsters, hand-to-hand combat, a personality that knows how to use his background, and the ability to dominate those around him through fear...”

The way Eugene had ruthlessly torn apart the goblins at first had been nothing short of calculated.

As though he already knew that goblins were cowardly, he killed them with what seemed like excessive brutality.

The goblins that witnessed the scene right in front of them became no different from trembling children, completely consumed by fear.

What followed was nothing more than a one-sided massacre.

Even the way he carried it out in front of the students, leaving fear behind in the other students as well, resembled that man far too much.

“As expected of that old man’s son.”

Ji Su-hyeon chuckled as she said that, then looked at another screen.

“Hm? Hah, seriously. Looks like this semester is going to be overflowing with promising students for once.”

Ji Su-hyeon smiled wickedly as she said that.