I Became the Mafia in the Academy — Chapter 15
Returning to the classroom and taking my seat, Jinwoo dragged his chair over to my desk.
“Boss, where did you go?”
“I went to offer Instructor Ji Su-hyeon the club advisor position.”
“What? You actually asked her that? So, what did Ji Su-hyeon say? Did she tell you to get lost?”
……Just what kind of person was Ji Su-hyeon inside his head?
“She told me to bring three club founding consent forms by tomorrow. If I do, she said she’d take responsibility and get us through the Student Council review.”
“What?! That crazy bitch actually said that?”
Because he suddenly yelled, all the eyes in the room darted our way.
“……How about you lower your voice.”
“Ah, sorry. So, that crazy bitch really said she’d pass us through the Student Council review if you bring the 3 consent forms?”
I nodded at his question.
“Wow, seriously. That’s insane. She definitely only said that because she thinks you can’t do it, right?”
“Rather than that, she probably thinks that if I can’t even do this much, I’m not worth her time to care for. Instructor Ji Su-hyeon is a thorough meritocrat.”
“She doesn’t come cheap, huh.”
Could you put it like that?
Well, he wasn’t wrong, so I didn’t correct him.
“So, to get 3 consent forms, it means you have to rob a Bronze, Silver, and Gold club by the end of the day. Is that even possible?”
“If I couldn’t even do that much, I wouldn’t have even tried in the first place.”
“Wow…… as expected of the boss.”
Since I had already planned out how to get the 3 consent forms from the start, obtaining them wasn’t going to be too difficult.
The problem was…… I had to recruit those two over there first.
Now then, shall we slowly move on to the next step?
I looked at the two people who would soon become my comrades—no, the two I would make my comrades.
Then I immediately got up from my seat and approached Kim Se-ah.
“Kim Se-ah.”
“Yes? Uhh? Han Yujin?”
She looked at me with a pretty flustered expression, as if she hadn’t expected me to speak to her. At the same time, I felt the surrounding gazes gather in this direction.
Well, it wasn’t something to hide anyway, so it didn’t matter.
“Kim Se-ah. Do you have any thoughts of joining a club?”
“A club? Yes. Originally, I was planning to join a hunter club, but…….”
A hunter club would definitely be a club that borrows the academy’s name to reserve dungeons, and then makes a profit off the byproducts that come from them.
Having joined one a few times while playing as a Ranger, it remained in my fragmented memories.
“If it’s a hunter club, isn’t that a Platinum-ranked club? You’ll have to take a separate exam to get in, won’t you?”
“Of course I know that. That’s why I was planning on taking the exam today, you know?”
Kim Se-ah blinked and answered nonchalantly.
Because her spatial detection ability and the finesse she showed in the spar were absolutely necessary for future events, I recalled the information written in her file.
The reason she was trying to join a hunter club was definitely for financial reasons.
If so, I just needed to attack that point.
“I know of a club that pays better than that one. Are you interested?”
“……Excuse me? There’s a club that pays better than a hunter club?”
The moment money was mentioned, Kim Se-ah showed interest and her eyes sparkled.
“Yeah, there’s not even an entrance exam, and it’s a club where you receive bonuses proportional to how hard you work.”
“Th-there’s a club like that? When I looked into it, no such club existed…….”
“Right. It doesn’t exist yet.”
“……What do you mean, it doesn’t exist yet?”
“I’m planning to create a club. One with a very lucrative income.”
“What? Creating a club… Don’t tell me, was that why you asked the instructor those questions in the classroom earlier?”
“Yeah, I’ve already finished all discussions with Instructor Ji Su-hyeon. She told me that if I just bring the 3 club founding consent forms, she wouldn’t only take responsibility and become our advisor, but she’d also get us through the Student Council review.”
“Th-the instructor really said that?”
“Yes, which is why I want to make you a proposal.”
Right after the spar yesterday. If the notification that popped up on my smartphone was true, Kim Se-ah was one of the people who was feeling a small bit of fear toward me from that spar.
In that case, the sub-effect of my trait [Heir of the Underworld]—[An Offer You Can’t Refuse]—would automatically be applied.
When I discreetly checked the notification, there was an alert showing that [An Offer You Can’t Refuse] was active.
Then the only thing left to do was to make the offer.
“If I manage to get the 3 consent forms by the end of today, I want you to join my club.”
“Huh? Me?”
Kim Se-ah panicked at the scouting offer, rolling her eyes this way and that.
Riding this momentum, I laid out conditions that would be profitable for her.
“As far as I know, the monthly income for a new recruit in a hunter club is around 4 million credits.”
“Uh…… Yes, that’s correct.”
“Then you probably don’t know the fact that a new recruit in a hunter club has to give up 50% for referral fees, equipment rental fees, and the club development fund?”
“What? 50%?”
50% of 4 million credits a month. That meant 2 million credits a month, which was on a similar level to an ordinary person’s part-time job wage.
A hunter club was practically a quasi-mercenary club, meaning it was also a club with significant restrictions and regulations.
So she probably couldn’t believe she’d only get that much after suffering so much.
It was a loophole stemming from an information imbalance: the rule that you couldn’t withdraw until the end of the school year once you joined, and the fact that freshmen could only get fragmented information about clubs.
“Yeah, they conveniently leave that part out when recruiting newbies, and the moment you sign the club application, those dirty bastards immediately show their true colors. What, you don’t believe me?”
I said that and pointed out the window.
“If you don’t believe me, go downstairs and ask them. They’ll probably cover your mouth right away, tell you to stop spouting nonsense, and try to kick you out.”
“W-wait a minute. Then how do you know all of that, Yujin?”
I knew it because I’d suffered through it in the game back when I was a newbie, but…… it wasn’t like I could blatantly say I saw it in a game. I pulled out the answer I had prepared in advance.
“It’s because there’s an academy graduate among the people I know. I heard it from them.”
“……An acquaintance, huh.”
“Yeah. An acquaintance.”
I was already in a position where I’d told her to go outside and check for herself if she didn’t believe me.
If I went this far, she would at least think that my words might not be a lie.
And at this timing, I drove the wedge in.
“5 million. If you join our club, I’ll secure you 5 million credits.”
“What? 5, 5 million credits?”
“Of course, bonuses are separate.”
“B-bonuses, too……?”
“How about it. Are you a little interested now?”
Kim Se-ah fell into thought after hearing my story. On the outside, she looked like she was pondering it seriously, but I already knew.
With this, she had completely fallen for it.
“Y-you said you’d gather 3 club founding consent forms, right? Alright! If you really gather those 3 consent forms, I’ll accept that proposal!”
As if she had no choice, she nodded and held her hand out to me, and I grabbed it and shook it lightly.
“Good.”
“But wait, wasn’t the minimum number of people to make a club 4? Excluding you and me, what about the other people…….”
“What? Five million? Fiiive millliooon?! Boss! What about me? I’m getting that much too, right?”
Suddenly, Jinwoo, who had been quietly watching from behind until now, got incredibly excited at the mention of 5 million credits and started questioning me.
“……Including this guy, that makes three.”
“Ah…… So that’s why Jinwoo was calling you Boss. Then what about the other person?”
“The other person, you ask. I’m going to ask him right now.”
Right after saying that to Kim Se-ah, I immediately approached Kim Yeong-je’s desk, who was sitting in the seat in front of her.
“Glasses.”
“……Glasses? I’m the Class Representative now, so you can just call me Class Rep, you know.”
Kim Yeong-je muttered, letting out a sigh at my call.
“Is that so? Then I’ll call you Class Rep. Well, you probably heard everything, so I won’t explain it separately. I’d like you to join the club I’m going to make.”
“You’re going to fill the 4 spots right away? You’re in a huge rush.”
“As you just heard, Instructor Ji Su-hyeon told me to bring three consent forms by tomorrow. So, any thoughts?”
“It’s a shame, but I don’t have any intention of joining a club. I───.”
“You’re thinking of joining the Student Council. That’s probably why you became Class Rep.”
Of course, it wasn’t like I genuinely thought, ‘Ah, he must be trying to join the Student Council,’ just from seeing him run for Class Rep.
It was simply a fact I knew because he joined the Student Council in the game, too.
And his purpose for joining the Student Council was always just one thing.
Power.
The power to find the person he was looking for.
The power to access the information he wanted. That was why Kim Yeong-je always wanted to enter the Student Council.
And the information he sought was always the same.
“You’re looking for the whereabouts of your master, aren’t you?”
“What?”
Hearing my words, Kim Yeong-je kicked his seat back and stood up.
“How do you know that?”
“……Is that important?”
Information that wasn’t even written in the intel from Callione’s secretariat.
But only I know it.
Kim Yeong-je. He was a dungeon orphan who had lost his family to a dungeon in the past.
And the one who took him in and raised him was none other than the master he was looking for.
“The mage widely known by the name ‘Conductor of the Rainbow’. Arcobaleno. He is currently trapped inside a dungeon.”
I calmly told him the information he had been searching for.
“……What?”
“One of the dungeons known to be uncleared. He’s sealed inside Dante’s Hell (La Divina).”
“Dante’s Hell……? My master is there?”
Yeong-je’s pupils began to shake. I rode that momentum and kept pushing him.
“Why, can’t you believe it? Because there’s no proof? Of course, since it’s just verbal information without any evidence, you naturally wouldn’t be able to trust it. I understand. But, I will promise you this one thing.”
Bzz── Bzz──
The smartphone clutched in my left hand began to vibrate violently.
“There is not a single ounce of a lie in my words.”
My intuition was telling me.
That he had started listening to my words seriously.
“Your enemies will become my enemies. Your friends will become my friends. Because the club I seek to build is exactly that kind of place.”
Bzz── Bzz── Bzz──
The smartphone started ringing like crazy.
It meant [An Offer You Can’t Refuse] was being applied.
“If you join the club I’m going to make, I swear that I will join you in rescuing your master, a task no one else would join you in.”
So.
“Join my club. Kim Yeong-je.”
────.
Finally, the vibrations stopped, and Kim Yeong-je, opening his eyes slowly, looked into mine.
“……Seriously, if you go as far as saying that, I have no choice but to consider it deeply.”
Haa— The guy let out a short sigh.
Just as I was thinking, ‘Did it fail in the end?’, he grabbed my hand.
“Alright. If just joining a club provides all of that…… I’ll join your club. Han Yujin.”
“……Welcome. Kim Yeong-je.”
With this, I’ve gathered all 4 club members.
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