Chapter 53

Chapter 53

I Became the Academy Mafia Chapter 53The rules of an all-out war were simple.

Pour every capability of the club into waging war.

Number of members? Irrelevant. Equipment? Irrelevant.

It was essentially an event where the full strength of one club clashed against the full strength of another.[Before beginning the all-out war between Familia and the Ranger Club, all club members, under the command of their respective presidents, please enter the field.]

And because it was an event of that scale.

Naturally, other students would gather to watch...

But since the club presidents could agree not to allow spectators, this match was being held without a single audience member.

Well, there was that woman in the corner, supposedly our club advisor, spouting nonsense like, ‘Now kill each other~’... but if I started paying attention to people like that one by one, I'd only stress myself out, so I decided to ignore her.

The Academy's outdoor field that I entered with the kids could only be described as enormous.

Even the visible area alone was at least the size of a soccer stadium.

If the field activated and spatial magic came into play, it could be considered more than ten times its current size.

“Wow, Boss. Look over there. I didn't notice earlier, but it looks like they scraped together every freshman who joined this time too.”

Jin-woo muttered while looking at the members of the ‘Ranger Club.’

“Looks like it. I can even see the faces of kids who were interns when I infiltrated them.”

If Young-je was right, that meant they had accepted every kid they'd been using as an intern as full members just for the fight against us.

After all, only club members could participate in an all-out war.

“So what? If what Young-je says is true, they're kids who barely received any proper training and just worked as interns before joining. If I think about the training we went through... ugh, there's absolutely no way we'll lose.”

Se-ah shuddered as she remembered the training from the past few days.

I agreed with her and nodded.

Just how much had that training changed her? At first, she'd trembled just from seeing an insect and barely managed to cast magic, but now she could grab bugs with her bare hands while shouting, ‘At this size, I could get fifty thousand won for it!’ That could certainly be called a huge change.[The field will be selected at random, and the all-out war will begin the moment the field changes.][Then, we will begin the field selection.]

At the same time, a giant electronic display appeared on the ceiling of the field, and accompanied by cheerful music, the text began moving so quickly that it was impossible to read.[~♬ ~♪]

At the sight, Se-ah muttered in disbelief.

“Why is a field selection this flashy?”

I agreed.

The text on the display, which had been spinning rapidly along with the music, gradually slowed until the words appeared.[Incheon Port][The field for this all-out war has been selected as Incheon Port.]

Incheon Port.

It was an extremely familiar place to me after I'd fought the Triads there not long ago.

Seriously, I really do have good luck with things like this.

The field became enveloped in white light and began to change.

A familiar smell, carrying salt and moisture.

After the light completely disappeared, the image of Incheon Port appeared, lined with containers and warehouses.

“Fortunately, we got a place with plenty of obstacles just like the plan.”

“Yeah. We can proceed according to the operation we decided on earlier.”

Before we were transported to our respective sides, one of the guys who had been staring at us for a while spoke up.

“It'll be over in the blink of an eye, so why are you spending so long planning?”

A Ranger Club member sneered at us with a chuckle.

Judging by his equipment, he seemed to be one of the Ranger Club's mages.

“Right? Even a guy like you who's about to close his eyes and die is still blinking because he wants to live. Since I'm such a kind and handsome guy, I should show a little generosity... What kind of ranged dealer picks a fight with an assassin? I'll come stick a knife between your eyes before you even have time to blink, so why don't you spend the time scouting out a grave site while you wait?”

Then Jin-woo drew a thumb across his throat toward the guy, making the smile disappear from his face as he stared blankly at Jin-woo.

“You think I'm joking? Pray that I am. I'll find you soon.”

“Ptooey.”

Having lost the battle of nerves to Jin-woo, the guy eventually spat on the ground and turned away.

At the same time, white light enveloped us, and the surrounding scenery shifted.

We had been transported to our respective starting positions.

Apparently the other side had finished being transported too, because Seo Yeon-su's voice immediately came through the speakers.[The victory condition is either the elimination of every opposing member or the elimination of the opposing president. If the president is eliminated, all remaining members will also be eliminated.][Then, the all-out war will begin.]

At last, the all-out war began.

The first to move was Se-ah, who looked around, smiled in satisfaction, and placed her hand on the ground.

“Any problem with detection?”

“No. I only need to detect things that are moving.”

At the same time, a map made of purple mana formed in front of us.

By using spatial magic to recognize the shapes and coordinates of surrounding objects and visualizing them so they could be seen, it was a spell that revealed both our location and the enemy's in real time.

It was a spell most spatial mages who worked in the field could use, and this was where the results of the elixirs and training she'd undergone over the past few days to maximize her mana control became apparent.

“This is what the surrounding map and the enemy positions I scanned look like.”

The distance between us and the enemy was roughly one kilometer. If we ran at full speed, it would take less than a minute to arrive.

But if they had any sense, they wouldn't sprint at full speed from the start and make themselves obvious targets.

“Good. Then, as planned, Se-ah and Young-je will snipe the enemy, while Jin-woo will assassinate their freshmen and key personnel. I'll draw the attention of their formation and target Kwon Su-hyeop. If anything unusual happens, notify me immediately even if it means revealing your position.”

After hearing my briefing, the kids all nodded and began moving according to plan.

After memorizing the nearby map through the Smart Lens, I climbed onto the roof of the warehouse in front of me and surveyed the surroundings.

No enemies were visible yet. Since they didn't have a spatial mage, the standard approach would be to scout the terrain directly by looking around or running through it, and the fact that they were still nowhere in sight meant they were still grouped together.

In that case...

“I'll have to make them spread out.”

I pulled [Al Capone's Tommy]

from the Cube and pointed the muzzle toward the sky.

“Now, try doing what you're most confident in.”

It was time to fire the signal flare announcing the beginning of a true war.──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!/──!

The proud sound of my typewriter echoed throughout all of Incheon Port.

Until they all heard it, until they focused their attention on me, I continued pulling the trigger and made my presence known across the entire field.

“This should be enough.”

I took my finger off the trigger and looked again toward the warehouse where they'd last been detected.

Looking carefully, I could see a few of them peeking their heads out to observe this side.

“That's right. You must be curious too. Why the president is exposing his position this openly.”

The reason was simple.‘To force them into predictable behavior.’

In a game where capturing the president ends everything, the opposing president reveals himself?

No matter how suspicious it looked or how bizarre they thought my actions were, they had no choice but to come after me in the end.

And the way Rangers hunted prey was painfully obvious.

“Encirclement.”

Once they spotted me, the twenty of them would spread throughout Incheon Port and slowly tighten the net around me.

They would attack me from every direction to wear me down, and once they judged that I'd exhausted myself, they would all rush in at once to finish me.

That was the typical Ranger combat style.

The oldest, most reliable, and most effective method.

Its weakness was that you needed to know the enemy's location precisely, but the efficiency of the operation was excellent enough to compensate for that.

Break through one point? The enemy wasn't stupid. If I advanced to break through the encirclement, they would simply move backward and keep attacking.

And if I forced my way through anyway? The guys aiming at me from every direction would already be behind me, ready to stick knives into my back.

But the reason I volunteered to play the bait in this operation was simple.[Trait: 【Enforcer】 activates.][Bloodline: 「Calione」 activates.]

Because I was the only one capable of handling it.

That was all.

“Looks like ‘Familia’ really has been placed under Calione.”[Trait: 【Enforcer】]

A truly broken skill that inflated my physical abilities by 1.5 times when fighting enemies of the organization.

I still couldn't forget the message that had appeared when I became a Calione executive and simultaneously designated ‘Familia’ as my Family and the Academy as my territory.[New content has been unlocked!][The Family System has been unlocked!][Name: ‘Familia’ (Calione)][Rank: Bronze][Family Members: 4 / 5 (Rank increase required!)][Subordinate Organizations: 3][Environment: Very Good][The club members are extremely satisfied!]

It was a system window that looked exactly like something lifted straight from the game.

The moment I first saw it, I became certain that from now on, even at the Academy, I would be able to use [Trait: 【Enforcer】]

.

The moment someone became an enemy of ‘Familia,’ which was registered under Calione, it became no different from making an enemy of Calione itself.

The aura rising around my body due to [Bloodline: 「Calione」] gradually grew denser.

It was proof that they were getting closer. But the distance still wasn't close enough to feel clearly.

That was because the members of the ‘Ranger Club’ still didn't feel fear toward me.

“But I suppose it's about time they did.”

Muttering that, I pulled the trigger toward the sky once again.──!/──!/──!

Exactly three shots.

This was the signal to begin the operation.

And just as promised.

Boooooom!!

At the same time, a container far in the distance exploded and shot high into the air.

It meant Se-ah and Young-je, hidden away, had begun bombarding them.

Of course, they probably expected something like this to happen. This wasn't a one-versus-many battle in the first place, but a many-versus-many battle.

Even so, judging that they only needed to take my head despite the losses was perfectly rational, so they couldn't afford to abandon this strategy.

Well, it was the correct answer.

“If we were an ordinary club, it would've worked.”

But the club they were facing was ‘Familia,’ with me as its president.

There was absolutely nothing ordinary about us.

The explosion didn't end with just one.

Boom!!

Thud!! Rumble!! Booooom!!!!

As chain explosions erupted continuously throughout the harbor, screams from the ‘Ranger Club’ members who had been suppressing their breathing and presence began ringing out one after another.‘Where the hell are these attacks coming from?!’‘They're not flying in, they're exploding from the ground!’‘Booby traps? But explosions are happening where there's nothing there!’Yeah, that's the natural reaction.

A chain of explosion magic occurring where the caster couldn't even be seen.

Seen from above, the scene was no exaggeration to call an actual battlefield.‘Jerit got caught in the explosion!’‘Don't panic, you bastards! Find the caster first!’“...

You won't find them.”

Se-ah and Young-je were definitely hidden in some completely secluded corner right now, working hard to cast magic.

Unless the opposing side had a mage, finding them would be almost impossible.

Of course, the enemy did have a mage, and they probably had the capability to detect them... but...‘Rudra is deaaad──!’‘You idiot! How do you die inside a field?!’‘What am I supposed to do when there's a dagger stuck between my eyes?!’That was something our assassin could handle just fine.

He really went and kept his promise in the middle of all this.

Chaos erupted the moment the club all-out war began.

Explosions, assassinations, screams, and... fear.

After confirming that all the conditions were finally in place, I climbed down from the warehouse roof and looked toward the forest of containers where they would be.

“Shall we go?”

It was time to show them how the real ‘Calione’ fought.