Chapter 33
“I can’t believe you put this shit on the internet…….”
I furiously moved my fingers, shooting messages of anger at Jin-woo, who was probably eating. But the words never went away.
Eventually, after I called Jin-woo, he hastily deleted the post.
“You haven’t been quiet since you joined the academy.”
Satisfied that the situation had been resolved, I turned and stared at Haru who was chewing her food, moving only her jaw and cheeks mechanically.
After swallowing all the food in her mouth, she wipes her mouth with a handkerchief and says, “I thought I was good.”
“The one you just told me to erase?”
“Yeah. One day to start a club, one day to get a bad assignment. You’d think that anybody but an idiot would realize that you’re not normal and wouldn’t try to creep up on you.”
I blinked, and my mouth moved for a moment.
“Did you think of any……hilarious moments?”
“No, it’s just that you, with your name being Haru, just keep doing it day in and day out…….”
“……Suddenly, I remember the old days, even then, you brought the same song with you every day and kept asking me to──.”
“I’ll apologize, but I hope you’ll stop talking about the past…….”
“That’s a shame, we still have a lot to talk about, so I assume the only thing you came here for today is to do laundry.”
Haru asks, glancing at her wristwatch.
“Oh, there are other things I need, and I was hoping to ask you for a favor, too, since I have some things that I’m going to put in the storage room.”
I said, and handed Haru the list I had prepared in advance.
Haru flipped through the list with an expressionless face.
“Are there any items that are hard to get ……?”
“No, they’re all available, but…… are you sure you want to leave these items in the storage, they’re quite large.”
She seemed to be wondering if I could really use the items on the list.
“That’s fine, I just need to get them back intact. Oh, and you can pay for the items from the account I left them with you.”
“It might cost a bit of money, though?”
“How much? Does that matter?”
At this point, money was the last thing on my mind since the answer to fast growth is the status quo.
“I’m relieved to hear that your club is rich. By the way, are you sure you’re going to fulfill your future requests as posted? From what you’ve ordered, it looks like it’s equipment that only large clubs would use.”
Is it because of the idea of working together? When Haru asks what’s next, I give her a simple explanation.
“I’ll be doing a lot more than that. It’s not like we’re just going to be……neighborhood errand boys.”
That’s why I decided to name the club Famiglia.
In Korean, the word means family or clan and I wrote it with the idea of the Corleone family in mind, but I also thought it would be a good idea to explain that the club aims to be a family-like club, and that its activities are centered on socializing.
Above all, it’s a very classy word.
Things like mafia game clubs and bodyguard clubs are childish and too tacky.
At that moment, a new message popped up through the smart lens.
[Kim Young-jae: Instructor Ji-hyun has just left a piece of paper, saying that the club has been assigned a room. Would you like to come with us?]
It looks like the club has been assigned a room already. When I sent a reply asking where I was assigned to, I received a short reply saying, “Room Z.”
“I have to go, I just got a call that we’ve been assigned to Room Z. Maybe you can send my luggage to Z as well.”
As I stood up to leave, I suddenly remembered what I hadn’t said and looked at Haru, who stood up with me.
“By the way, I really enjoyed that meal and I hope to eat it again.”
Hearing my words, the corners of her mouth lifted slightly.
“Thank you. As for your request, don’t worry, I’ll contact you as soon as I’m done. I also happen to have a few things in stock at an off-site warehouse, so I’ll be happy to deliver them to you in order from…….”
“Please.”
With that, I left the ‘International Trade Club’ behind and went back to my class, where I saw a depressed Jin-woo, and the other kids looking at him as if he was pathetic.
“What’s wrong with Jin-woo?”
I asked Se-ah, who was sitting in front of me as I took my seat, and she snorted in disbelief.
“Oh, Jin-woo, it seems that when he deleted the post after listening to Eugene, he also deleted the lady’s number in the comment. Pathetic, really…….”
……What a bunch of crap.
“Oh, by the way, this is the form we received!”
Se-ah said and handed me the paper in front of her.
On it, the words [Club Hall Move-in Confirmation] were written, along with the address of our club’s room.
“B1F, Room Z. Good.”
Stowing the papers in my cube, I immediately looked at the kids and said.
“You all know that you can take off all of your afternoon classes at the Academy for club activities, except for duels, right?”
“Of course.”
“Of course.”
“Huh? Really?”
That……guy didn’t know.
I sighed and turned to Jin-woo.
“Okay, so if you don’t have a duel this afternoon, you can skip it for a club activity.”
“……Duel. I can skip basic English, mamma mia.”
It’s just skipping a class, but is this the kind of thing that makes you roll your eyes and love it…….
After leaving the classroom, we headed straight to the hallway of the club hall where Room Z was located.
It was just past lunchtime, so there were tons of students heading to their respective clubs and among them, our ‘family’ was a bit of a heretic.
“What’s with those guys, aren’t they freshmen? Why are freshmen in the hall?”
“Hey, they’re the ones from yesterday, the ones from the Fund Investment Club. I heard they started a club this time, so I guess that’s why they’re here.
“What? They haven’t even been in school for a week.”
“They’re special. Wow, I wonder what it’s like to be the president of a club less than a week into school.”
We start to hear things about us around.
In a way, it was a natural situation and by now, our club was a regular part of the academy.
“Jin-woo, why do you walk with your shoulders down? You haven’t done anything.”
“I didn’t do anything! I posted that and you say I didn’t do anything!”
“I’m watching you to make sure you don’t get into an accident, I’m doing it for you!”
“Someone got in an accident!”
“You! You!”
The two start to get loud again but Young-jae was able to defuse the situation by stepping in between them. After all, it’s better to leave the husband and wife to Young-jae…….
“We’ve arrived.”
I walked quickly to avoid the embarrassment of the two loud people and arrived in a flash.
The iron doors are bigger than any other club room I’ve ever seen and are designed to open on both sides.
“Boss, this place is really old, isn’t it? Does it look like a boiler room?”
Jin-woo asks worriedly, having been intimidated from the start by the different appearance.
“Yes, this is Room Z, the far corner of the lowest floor of the Academy’s club hall. And……the widest room.”
Grabbing both handles and opening them wide like wings, a cool breeze blew in from the inside.
At the same time an empty space spread out in front of us.
“Wow. It’s as big as the president……said it would be.”
Young-jae was the first to enter and turn on the lights. At the same time, we heard the sound of lighting that could only come from a warehouse, and the interior turned bright.
The space was reminiscent of an empty warehouse, with nothing but concrete pillars lined up in the middle.
Judging by the lack of dust and cobwebs, it was clear that the warehouse had been cleaned out of its previous storage.
“Wow, it’s really empty. There’s only one table in there.”
Jin-woo looks around and points to the center of the room.
True to his word, there’s a table sitting in the center of the room, out of place.
As I slowly approach, I notice a note on the desk.
[I had the others clean it up. I heard somewhere that you can’t have a mess when you come into the office, so I left a desk behind. -Ji-hyun]
“It was left by the instructor, so at least it’s clean.”
“Boss, I have a question.”
Jin-woo sat across from me in the chair with his hands on the desk.
“I don’t think the boss would have simply asked for this place, right? There’s more to this place besides the fact that it’s spacious, right?”
He chuckles and asks me.
“I know, something good.”
“Hahahaha! Of course! So, what is it?”
I point behind me as he looks like he’s going crazy with anticipation.
“There.”
“That?”
In the back of room Z where I pointed to was a giant iron gate, completely out of place in this room.
“Huh? Isn’t that an……elevator?” It was a freight elevator.
“That’s right, it’s an elevator. That’s one of the reasons I wanted this place.”
An elevator designed to provide more space and carry heavier cargo than any other.
It also meant that the space could be repurposed into anything.
“Wow, we definitely need one of these so we don’t have to turn around and go outside.”
……That’s one way you can think of it.
“So, where does this go?”
“From what I understand, it’s connected to the incinerator in the back of the club house.”
Because that’s how it was in the game.
Why is Room Z bigger than everywhere else and why is it the only one with a freight elevator?
The reason for this is that it was the first room the player would receive when they started their own club.
The elevator was set up because they couldn’t give up on the idea of having a base for players, content-wise, but…….there was no way a game as big as CS would include an elevator just for that reason.
I slowly walked to the elevator with only two buttons to go up and down like any other normal elevator. And here’s where the astute player realizes something.
You can see the underground through the gap in the elevator. This means that the elevator also connects to the second floor of the basement.
It’s a secret subterranean space that players can’t wait to explore. However, we were not ready to go there yet, so I wanted to make sure we were prepared.
“Come on, let’s clean up the incinerator first, the luggage will start arriving soon.”
“Luggage?”
Se-ah tilted her head as I grabbed the elevator to get her attention.
“We can’t live in a place like this, can we?”
It’s too stale for anyone to use.
