Chapter 12
After Kim Se-ah and Kim Young-jae’s duel, the rest of the duels were a wash.
Although the battles were between moderately talented guys there was definitely a flavor to watching each of them that made it easy to see why they were Ji-hyun’s favorites.
Except for one, Choi Kang-hyun, who was the second to arrive at the classroom after me, having flown in by helicopter yesterday.
He started off with a bang, spraying seawater over his opponent’s nose, forcing him to surrender.
His unique weapon, a trident, was merely a walking stick but his duel was over in less than a minute.
He must be blessed by the sea.
As I was thinking about the dungeon we’d be tackling later, and how I’d have to include him at some point, the instructor looked at us and clapped her hands to get our attention.
“We’ve been training since this morning. Since today is the second day of class, and it’s a day I can use my discretion, I’m going to end class here. You can all go home and recap today’s battles.”
This is definitely a good thing.
I’m sure she’d be a popular teacher in a normal school if she could finish early as long as she got her work done.
As Ji-hyun announces the end of the class, the students stand up one by one and prepare to go home.
I was about to call Han Seo-joon to go home too, but then I remembered Jin-woo lying in the health center.
“……I should probably stop by.”
I would eventually recruit him into my organization and as the boss of the organization, I thought it would be a good idea to build up my goodwill in advance, so I decided to leave Han Seo-joon behind and go to the health center.
But……where is the health center?
I tried to ask Ms. Ji-hyun, but she disappeared so I could only look around, but I couldn’t find it at all.
Apparently, the terrain I know from the game and the terrain I experience in real life are different, so I can’t help but get confused.
So there I was, standing in the hallway, wondering.
“Hey, are you lost?”
Someone walked up to me and said.
“……?”
No, wait. Why is this person coming out now?
Piercing eyes, long black hair, and a black name tag pinned to his neat Academy uniform. He bore a striking resemblance to a figure in my memory.
“……?”
She tilted her head, apparently sensing the strangeness of my sudden daze.
“Oh, I’m not lost, I’m……looking for the health center.”
First of all, she’s like a senior I’ve never met before, so I’m polite and answer her. Then all of a sudden, she stamps her foot and then bursts out laughing.
“Isn’t that what they call getting lost? The health center is just down the hall on the left.”
“……Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. It’s the student council duty. I see you’re a freshman. Are you hurt or something?”
“Not me, but a guy I know got hurt and I’m going to see him.”
“Oh, I wish him the best. Well, don’t get lost. Bye.”
With that, she turned and started walking back the way she came.
I never thought I’d meet her, a member of the student council, so soon after entering the Academy.
Now that I’m a freshman, I’m also a newbie, so it’s not like I’m going to run into her like this…….
“I hope we meet as late as possible.”
I didn’t want to see her again because I didn’t know what our relationship would be like in the future.
With her already gone, I walked in the direction she gave me, and soon found myself in a room labeled as a health center.
Normally, the image of a health center is a small room with a health teacher waiting for you, but…….Seoul Hero Academy has one of the best facilities in Asia.
Unlike a normal school’s health center, it was equipped with specialized equipment that looked like a real hospital ward.
As I walked in and looked around, I saw Jin-woo lying on a bed, fiddling with his smartphone.
“Wow, he’s really fucking good. Is this the Divine Movement? No, it’s not, is it?”
Giggling and fiddling with his phone, he seems to be completely fine.
“Ha.”
I couldn’t help but smile at how excited he was, not realizing the class was over.
He must have heard me, because he looked up from his phone.
“Heh, heh!”
He freaked out and clung to the wall of the bed like he’d seen a ghost.
“Why, why, why again!”
I didn’t do anything to him, but he’s shaking and making strange noises to himself.
“Didn’t you promise me before the duel?”
“Huh? What!”
“Club.”
“The……club? Ah, ten million credits, is that what you came for?”
I nodded at his question.
The period for new students to create clubs was about a week from tomorrow, so it was essential to have a definitive answer in advance.
“I won the duel, so I assume you’re joining my club?”
“……I lost, so I can’t help it. Ah……my ten million credits!”
This guy is surprisingly cool about conceding. Luckily, he didn’t seem to be the type of person who wouldn’t accept the outcome.
“For 10 million credits, I could have gotten all the skins…….”
No, this one’s just a snarky one.
“……That was money for club activities to begin with. It’s money we’ll all share in the name of club welfare, so you shouldn’t be too sad.”
After hearing my words, Jin-woo’s head snaps up and he looks at me.
“What, you’re just going to spend 10 million credits on club activities, no questions asked?”
He asks, surprised.
“There’s no reason for me to keep the money if I have it, and I’m also planning to give bonuses to the club members based on their performance, so they won’t have to worry about not getting paid.”
“Oh, bonuses? That’s a no-brainer! There’s an old saying my dad used to tell me. ‘The boss you serve must be rich and powerful.’ Can I call you boss from now on, boss?”
At the mention of money, Jin-woo’s eyes sparkle and he looks at me with respect.
Judging from the activation of [Trait: Baby Boss] in the corner of my vision, he was genuinely admiring me now.
“Boss……do as you please, but aren’t you the heir to the Bevalt Family? If you’re the heir to a mafia organization, you should have enough pocket money, so why are you so obsessed with money?”
It was an innocent question.
The Bevalt family, he belongs to, is an organization under Corleone’s umbrella. They should have enough money, so why is Jin-woo so obsessed with money?
“In my family, it’s kind of like, ‘You have to earn your own money,’ so in high school, I was just eating school lunches and robbing weirdos who came to take over the school, but since this is the Academy, I don’t think I can do that.”
Was this the truth of his story?
“…… That’s a lot of work.”
“Right, so what is our club doing, and how are the members going to get paid?”
“Club? It’s a club for a good cause.”
“Huh?”
Jin-woo decided to join my club anyway and it wasn’t too difficult to tell him what we would be doing at the academy.
“We’re going to be the club that protects the clubs.”
“……The club that protects clubs?”
“Yes, the club that protects the clubs. Do you know anything about the academy’s clubs?”
I ask Jin-woo, just in case.
“Not at all.”
“Then let me give you a brief explanation…….The Academy’s clubs operate on the logic of strength, and only the strongest survive.”
Strength was the very characteristic and essence of the Hero Academy. As such, club activities at the Academy are driven by the logic of power.
“Only the strongest clubs survive? That sounds very different from what I thought clubs were like……?”
“Of course.”
This was the Hero Academy, not a normal school.
It was not a place to raise ordinary students, but to produce heroes to save the world in the future.
“This it’s the Hero Academy. After all, we are the ones who will be going out into the battlefield where the logic of power works.”
As such, I saw an opportunity in the system of these clubs.
“And we’re going to exploit the loopholes in the system.”
We’d take a small amount of protection money from the weaker clubs and protect them from the stronger clubs.
And in the process, through the “club wars” that take place, we raise our club’s ranking.
Only when we became the best club and wielded more power than others could we see the Academy’s strategy.
“Using the system loopholes? Like hacking or something?”
He suddenly went off topic.
No matter how I look at it, I don’t think he really understood.
I smirked and shook my head, knowing that even if I told him my ultimate goal now, I’d have to do it again later in front of the club members.
“We’ll talk about that later, after the club is formed.”
“Oh, that makes me even more curious. Can’t you just tell me?”
“It’s something we’ll have to talk about later anyway, so wait a bit.”
“So, to summarize what you’ve said so far. We get paid to protect other clubs. Is that it?”
“Good to hear.”
“But isn’t this what the mafia does? It’s kind of like what my dad does.”
He’s really the son of a mafia family after all. It didn’t take him long to realize that our club’s system is based on the activities of the mafia.
“Well, if you put it that way, I suppose it is. If you look at foreign areas, they’re operating similarly.”
“That’s true, but…… you. You do know that, right?”
Jin-woo’s eyes narrow at my answer.
“We can only protect them if we’re stronger than them, right?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“And we know that the system works because of the existence of the Corleone Family, who has more power than any other organization in the……Outer Area.”
“I see.”
“So you’re saying that you’re creating a club that’s even more overwhelming than the other clubs in the Academy?”
“You’re finally making sense.”
“……You think that makes sense?”
“Why not?”
“No matter how much-─.”
“Trust me.”
“──what?”
“By all means, I will show you how the club I will create will rise to the top.”
I tell him, putting weight in my voice, unlike the lighthearted way I spoke earlier.
“I will make it so that you can see the view from the top of the Academy, looking down on everyone, from my side, so──”
──Trust me.
I look him in the eye and say, “Trust me.” Trust in my skill, the skill that defeated you once before.
At this moment, I was not Eugene Corleone. I was me, the player who had saved this world many times before, the player who had plunged it into chaos, the player who had achieved most of the achievements in existence, the player who had been second in CS, and I was confident.
I could do it.
I reached out to Jin-woo, who was still sitting on the bed, listening to my story in a daze.
“If you’re with me, it’s possible.”
Jin-woo had talent and background.
And I was more confident than anyone in the world in rolling a bunch of characters and growing them.
I’d done it dozens and dozens of times already.
“Isn’t it tempting?”
And, after watching him for such a short period of time, I had a hunch── that he would take my hand.
“Ha, haha, hahahaha, hahahaha!”
As soon as I finished, Jin-woo started shaking and laughing.
He was laughing so hard that he couldn’t contain it, his body was shaking, and his eyes were filled with tears.
“Haha, ha, that’s a really unrealistic story.”
“…… Isn’t it?”
“That’s why. I like it!”
Jin-woo slowly stops laughing, wipes away his tears, and stands up.
“I’m going to be at the top of the Academy? Hahaha! I’m sure that would scare the crap out of my dad, who nags me every day. Okay, I’ll do what you say.”
Finally, Jin-woo grabbed my hand.
“Good.”
He said sincerely.
“Jin-woo Bevalt, I’m going to take you to the top of the Hero Academy. I want you to help me get to the top.”
“……You’re aiming too high, it’ll be a pain in the ass, but it sounds like fun.”
“Sure, it will be fun.”
He smiled at my answer and shook my hand briefly.
“Okay. Deal.”
“Deal.”
And just like that, Jinwoo Bevalt became the first member of the organization I would create.
