I Become a Mafia in the Academy

Chapter 85

Foreign Area.

A place within the Republic of Korea where the laws of the Republic of Korea cannot be fully enforced.

However, this place has fewer violent crime statistics than any other place in the Republic of Korea.

The reason for this is...

"You're quite bold. Robbery in the Calione Territory, of all places."

"Urk... Ugh...!"

It was because the laws of the Calione do not appear in the statistics.

"I, I'm sorry! Please, just one chance...!"

A dark back alley in the entertainment district of C Territory.

There, a man was desperately begging for his life, pinned down and subdued by a maid.

Although I didn't know his name, I could guess he was a gang member from the tattoo on his face. He was caught trying to rob a passerby drunk, and that's how he ended up in this state.

"Young Master. What shall we do with him?"

Alessia asking how to dispose of the man.

In situations like this, it is the rule of the Calione and the law of the Foreign Area for me, as a superior, to decide the man's fate.

"Break the hand that wields the knife."

"Understood."

Without a moment's hesitation, Alessia twisted his arm at my command.

"Arrrrrgh!!"

With a crunching sound, a new joint was formed in his arm, and a scream echoed through the alley.

Passersby glanced over to see what was happening, but upon seeing me in a black suit and Alessia in her maid uniform, they continued on their way as if nothing had happened.

"Hngh! Hngh...!"

"Looks like a new face. Did you come in recently?"

After signaling Alessia to step aside, I crouched down in front of the man.

"I believe you understand why you're in this situation."

"I know...! I know...!"

The man answered, trembling.

I tapped his bald head with my palm and said.

"There won't be a next time. Go tell your friends, your comrades, your boss. If you dare to pull this stunt again in the Calione Territory, I'll turn you into a beehive. Be prepared and come back. Got it?"

"...Yes! I'll tell them! I'll definitely tell them!"

That should be enough.

"Get lost."

"Thank you! Thank you!"

At my command to leave, the man got up with his remaining hand, bowed deeply, and ran away.

As I watched his retreating figure, Alessia's voice came from behind.

"Aren't you going to kill him?"

"I don't particularly want to see blood."

And there was also the intention to use him as a warning.

If we had killed him and disposed of the body, today's incident wouldn't have been known. But by letting him go, we could better control them.

And at my signal, a few members of the organization began to follow him.

"Since word has spread that we're here, let's check the other side a bit before we head back."

"I will follow."

Still, today was relatively better than usual.

The last time I came out with Parnello, a street vendor got caught in a gang fight, and Parnello cleared out everyone present, using the gang's money to pay for the vendor's repair costs and compensation.

After dealing with the men, there were no incidents during our night stroll.

Just the occasional greetings from passing drunkards and part-time workers from entertainment venues?

'The atmosphere seems more subdued than usual.'

There are fewer people out and about than usual.

The place where the robber appeared would have been a location where crime was unlikely to occur due to the usual pedestrian traffic.

Considering the influx of new faces and other factors, it feels like the atmosphere has changed.

"Young Master."

As I was lost in thought while slowly patrolling the area.

Alessia, who was walking ahead, suddenly stopped.

Was there another incident? But the surroundings were very quiet.

Seeing my puzzled expression, Alessia pointed somewhere and spoke with a serious look.

"...That."

That?

Looking where Alessia was pointing, I saw a small shop.

The name of the store written there was [Egg Bread].

"Buy it for me."

She... demanded egg bread from me very confidently.

"...Buy it?"

"Yes. I actually left my wallet at home."

"You can pay with your phone these days."

"I left it at home."

"You had it earlier."

"It's gone."

...Is she just trying to get me to buy it for her?

Well, it's not expensive, and she drove us here, so I let out a light sigh and bought her a bag of it.

She hugged the bag with a bright smile and immediately bit into one.

"It's good. It's warm. Ah, would you like one, Young Master?"

She handed me an egg bread as she said that.

I bought them, and she was planning to eat them all by herself?!

"...Yeah. Thanks."

Anyway, since I gave it to her, it doesn't matter.

I took one and put it in my mouth.

The taste of an ordinary egg bread.

But Alessia, walking beside me, was eating it with great enthusiasm as if it were delicious.

"Did you always like egg bread?"

Alessia tilted her head at my question.

Gulp. She swallowed the egg bread.

"Egg bread? Well... I guess I like it. I have good memories associated with it."

"Good memories?"

"It's a secret. It's a precious memory."

Alessia smiled sweetly as she answered my question.

"Well, we've enjoyed our little deviation enough. The patrol is almost over... Shall we head back?"

"Yeah, we should head back."

I said that and turned around.

"Young Master? The motorcycle is over here..."

Alessia was surprised to see me suddenly walking in the opposite direction and reaching out to the roadside.

I turned my head to look at Alessia and gave her a playful smile.

"Taxi."

To be honest, your motorcycle scares me a bit.

* * *

The next day.

"Based on the research so far, it can be said that dungeons are created under the influence of this thing called 'mana'. Aura and mana were observed in earnest after the dungeons appeared, and thus, their concepts began to be gradually defined."

The children of Class A, who had to face the lecture on dungeon studies, known as a sleeping pill from the first class.

The gentle voice of the instructor and the extremely boring content of the lecture were already draining the children's energy.

But what can they do? Dungeon studies is a mandatory subject for heroes who enter dungeons.

"There is no complete understanding of how dungeons occur. However, scientists speculate that dungeons are a sign of the world's unification process. That is, our world is gradually merging with other worlds. The increasing mana and aura are evidence of this."

And in the field of dungeon studies, one of the authorities is none other than the instructor who is passionately speaking before us now, 'Park Hak-soo'.

"Well, let's look at some of the papers that are commonly cited... huh?"

Park Hak-soo, who was focused on his lecture and speaking, suddenly stopped talking upon realizing that the children were quiet.

"Tsk... everyone looks half-asleep. Yeah, dungeon studies is definitely boring, isn't it?"

The children shook their heads as Park Hak-soo muttered with a gloomy expression.

"No? It's interesting?"

But when the 'yes' answer Park Hak-soo was expecting didn't come, he shook his head with an expression that said, "I knew it."

"Yeah, it's not like we're at some academic seminar, so I've been talking too much about the lecture. So... shall I tell you a story that might wake you up a bit? Have you all seen the news about the prisoners who escaped from Niflheim?"

The children, who had been slumped over due to the boring content so far, began to lift their heads or brighten their eyes as the topic of recent issues came up.

"Ha, look at them. Their eyes clear up as soon as I talk about something else, huh? Yeah, well, everyone's been going crazy over this story on TV and the internet lately."

As Park Hak-soo, the instructor, said, the issue currently heating up the Republic of Korea was the story of the villains who escaped from Niflheim.

With the recent investigations by the prosecution and police revealing that the villains had illegally entered Korea, both society and the academy were paying close attention.

Of course, all the prosecution and police did was announce the information submitted by the Dike Law Firm as if they had investigated it themselves.

"Anyway, among the ones who escaped this time, there's a guy called 'Miner'. His ability is 'Excavation'. It's an ability that can crush even the hardest ore as easily as a sponge cake."

At that time, Korea was overwhelmed with dungeons.

It's not a great ability for conquering dungeons, but if he had used it well, it could have been very helpful. But he didn't do that.

"Instead, he took advantage of the chaos to rob the most secure places. For example... bank vaults."

At that time, Korea could be said to be in a dark age, it was so bad.

Compared to other countries, the damage was less due to the small size of the country, but with dungeons appearing all over the country, the few heroes available were deployed in large numbers, and it was hard to stop them with laws that were not yet properly established.

"And among the places he robbed was the Korean Mana Stone storage facility. It was a place that stored mana stones, which are practically called treasures, of the highest grade in the Republic of Korea. But do you know what happened there...?"

As the story became more and more interesting, the children began to focus, and Park Hak-soo, who was heightening the tension, suddenly clapped his hands and shouted.

"Bang!!"

The students were startled.

He smiled, looking very satisfied with the children's reaction.

"Hahaha! Yeah, that was everyone's reaction. Those expensive mana stones got caught in the explosion. But the surprise didn't last long, why? Because mana stones, unlike other minerals, are not affected by ordinary explosions."

They are only affected by attacks using aura or mana, so they don't even crack from normal impacts. So the Miner thought.

'Nothing will happen anyway.' he thought.

"But here was the problem. Signs of a dungeon emerging started to appear at the explosion site.

That's how we were able to catch the Miner. Because he got trapped in that dungeon."

He laughed as if he found it amusing. The students also snickered at the story of the villain with terrible luck.

"Well, so this Miner guy became quite famous in dungeon studies. Because the timing was perfect, everyone focused on that phenomenon afterwards. Wondering if a pure lump of mana, when strongly stimulated from the outside, might cause a rift in reality and turn into a dungeon?"

That is, they thought, could dungeons be created artificially?

A student sitting in the front raised his hand and asked a question.

"So what happened with that hypothesis? Did it succeed?"

"Haha, did it succeed? Have you ever heard of someone creating an artificial dungeon like that?"

At that, Park Hak-soo smirked and gave the answer.

"Of course it failed. Many people tried to study it, but a hypothesis is just a hypothesis. Such a thing never happened. Even with high-purity high-grade mana stones. But from that incident, we were able to obtain a lot of research results on mana stones, which led to the development of many artifacts recently. So, doesn't dungeon studies seem quite interesting now?"

Unlike before, this time, the sound of 'yes' came from the children.

Park Hak-soo smiled contentedly at the sight of the children.

"Well, now that everyone seems a bit more awake, shall we continue with the lecture? To see what effect the broken mana stones have on the atmosphere, you should look at the paper I was about to mention earlier..."

As if everything he had said so far was just a buildup, he naturally connected it to the lecture, and the other children sighed.

* * *

-Whirring. Thud. Whirring. Thud.

Only the repetitive sound of the conveyor belt could be heard in the warehouse.

Countless vacuum pistons were working hard, making repetitive noises and continuously emitting white steam that spread subtly in the air.

"Haah... this is troublesome. Troublesome."

And in the midst of such steam, a dark figure began to move.

A man dragging dirty, tattered bandages on the ground suddenly stopped and looked up at the sky.

"One dead, three missing. Do you think that makes sense?"

With a swift turn, the features of his face became visible.

A man wrapped tightly in old, tattered bandages, his identity unknown.

With one word from him, the ground trembled and the steam began to surge.

"Move up the schedule. Make sure no one interferes anymore. Let everyone know our message."

At his words, everyone around him looked at him with fearful eyes, clenching their fists to avoid trembling and nodding their heads.

In front of his anger, the only freedom they were allowed was to nod their heads.

Amid such a cold atmosphere──

"Ring around the rosie──"

The man in bandages began to hum and sing.

Ring around the rosie.

A pocket full of posies.

Ashes! ashes!

We all fall down!

Despite being a song with a cheerful atmosphere, the mood grew even colder.

He then solemnly declared.

"──Let it be known that the great plague has begun."