I Became a Mafia in the Academy
chapter-244

Chapter 244

……Hmm. It must be an illusion, right?

Just like that, I’d gotten out of the water for a quick dip and was relaxing under the umbrella.

“Isn’t Eugene playing anymore?”

Choi Yeon dried her hair with a towel and casually laid down on the sunbed next to me.

“Yeah, it’s fun to play in the water, but…… it’s kind of tiring.”

Playing in the water is fun, especially if the people you’re playing with are awakened.

“Hahahaha! It’s a tsunami!”

Young Hoham slaps the ocean with both hands and everything around him is swept backward as if a bomb had gone off.

Even as the children caught in the wave are swept away into the distance, Kang Hyun is maneuvering the water as if he’s used to it, effortlessly staying in place.

To think that I was stuck in there……made me feel exhausted just thinking about it.

“Wow, this is really fun, Youngho, one more time, one more time!”

“One more time?! Hahahaha! Okay, one more?!”

“Yeeeee!”

The title ‘Brother Youngho’ that Jin-woo was calling him was like a nickname for Young Hoham.

I heard that he only calls people he’s close to, but I can’t believe he did that after 20 minutes of playing in the water.

……I wonder if it’s too easy to get close.

When I was thinking about that.

“Kkkkkkkk!”

Jin-woo is swept away by the current again.

Se-ah yells, “If you fly too far, you’ll just float away!” but Jin-woo doesn’t seem to care. In the distance, he smiles.

“Hey, you think an Incheon man would succumb to the sea like this?! Don’t worry, even if there’s a real tsunami, not just this one, we’ll be able to fight it off—Pooh!”

With that, Jin-woo suddenly disappeared under the water.

Se-ah laughs in disbelief.

“No, you’re going to pull a prank like this as soon as you tell me you’re a sea man? Okay, let’s see how deep you can go.”

Se-ah watches as Jin-woo disappears, but……for some reason, Jin-woo doesn’t come out.

“Wait.”

I get up from the sunbed and rushes to the beach, activating my skill [Aura Sonar].

It was a skill that I activated out of a sense of doubt, but…….

“Jin-woo. He’s really gone?”

For some reason, I couldn’t sense Jin-woo’s aura around me at all.

“What? Jin-woo disappeared?”

Se-ah, who had been floating in the water, turned toward me in alarm, and the others began to gather toward me one by one.

This time, I expanded the area by spreading my aura a bit wider.

Two more auras are caught just barely at the edges.

“……A huge mass of magic is dragging what appears to be Jin-woo. It looks like the monster dragged Jin-woo with it.”

“What, a monster popped out, then we’re in trouble, kid!”

Monsters jumping out of dungeons was an occasional occurrence.

That’s why nations have been raiding and managing dungeons in a big way. However, in dungeons that were left out in the open, monsters would occasionally pop out, just like now.

Of course, the nature of the beast is that it will eventually return to the dungeon, the environment it is most familiar with.

That said,

“It seems like Jin-woo was suddenly taken away, do you think he can hold out until we get there……?”

The question, as Se-ah said, was whether Jin-woo could hold on.

“If he was taken, we have to act right now!”

Young Hoham, who had made a quick judgment call, glanced at Kang Hyun in the back.

“Kang Hyun. Take the boys and follow me.”

“Yes, Master. Everyone, gather her for a moment.”

Everyone gathers around Kang Hyun, as he is the specialist in the marine dungeon.

“I’ll go first!”

Young Hoham dives into the water.

At the same time.

“Just keep your balance.”

Kang Hyun, who moved the seawater around him to form a giant sphere, started sprinting through the water after Young Hoham.

“And…….”

It was reminiscent of an aquarium as we literally ran through the middle of the ocean. We forgot our purpose for a moment.

After a moment of being mesmerized by the beauty of our surroundings, all eyes were on the creature swimming at breakneck speed in front of us.

“……Eugene. What kind of fish is that?”

“No, I don’t think it’s a fish.”

It was none other than Young Hoham, writhing and moving furiously in the distance.

“Wow……can a person swim like that?”

Se-ah’s jaw dropped at his uncanny swimming ability, and Young-jae watched his movements with interest.

“Master is the fastest man in the world, in the sea. He’s using that speed so we can keep up.”

“That speed is not full power?”

Young-jae is dumbfounded that this is not his top speed.

We followed Young Hoham for about three minutes through the water.

In the distance, I could see the back of a huge shark that was moving ahead of us and Jin-woo being dragged by its fins.

“Hey, Jin-woo is there!”

Jin-woo gestures as he tries to fight as hard as he can while being dragged away.

However, he was unable to resist the current against his body due to the tremendous speed, and his attacks were not powerful enough.

The monster’s hard skin blocks the attack.

The only saving grace was that the shark’s teeth were also unable to penetrate his aura-clad legs.

“Kang Hyun. Can’t you speed up any more?”

“……This is the maximum speed. Judging by its speed, it’s not an ordinary shark.”

At that moment, Jin-woo, who had turned around with difficulty, began to flail his arms furiously.

At first, I couldn’t make out the message, but as I concentrated, it started to make sense.

It was a sign he’d learned at the academy.

‘I’m okay.’

Apparently, he’s letting us know he’s okay to hang on.

The shark and Jin-woo disappear downward at a tremendous speed.

I start to see something down below where they’ve disappeared.

“What is that?”

The entrance to the dungeon is blue, reminiscent of a black hole.

It looked very similar to the place we commonly call a ‘blue hole’.

“Is that all the entrance……?”

“I think so.”

Judging from the waves and magic power around the entrance, it didn’t seem to be a very dangerous dungeon, but its size alone could be called epic.

“I wonder if this is why the military couldn’t touch it.”

It’s so big that it’s hard to know where to start, and yet it’s not particularly dangerous?

It was a dungeon that the government didn’t want to touch.

“Oh, Mr. Hoham just went in first.”

“We’ll be right in.”

We follow Young Hoham into the blue hole, and as we enter, we hear a loud crack.

“……wah.”

A new world opened up before us.

“I never knew there was another ocean under the sea…….”

We thought the water was blue enough in the East Sea, where we had just been swimming and playing, but as soon as we entered the water, it was a brilliant emerald color.

It was the kind of crystal-clear sea you only see in movies or abroad, where you can see everything around you.

And at the bottom of it all, a giant red castle that I could never have imagined.

It looked like something out of a fairy tale.

“Guys, I can breathe now!”

At that moment, Young Hoham, who was swimming toward us with a strong bubble, shouted out from the water.

Young-jae stuck his head out.

“Oh, it’s really relaxing.”

As Young-jae, who was the first to realize it, slipped out of the bubble, Kang Hyun made the bubble that was covering us disappear.

It was a strange feeling.

We were obviously in water, so we felt like we were scuba diving, but we could still breathe.

I knew that dungeons were places that didn’t follow the rules of reality, but…… it was a strange feeling to experience it with my own body.

“Eugene. Look.”

Just when I was getting the hang of moving, Choi Yeon walked up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and pointed somewhere.

It was hard to make out the landscape in the direction of her fingertip at this distance, but it was clearly a shark entering the dragon palace with something that kept slapping at its body.

“That, Jin-woo.”

“Master. Do you want me to go right away?”

Kang Hyun immediately turned his arm to run over.

“No, wait.”

Unexpectedly, it was Young Hoham who stopped him.

He took a moment to look around, then continued.

“Can’t you tell,” he said, “by the way the buildings around here are so stiff, these aren’t the usual suspects.”

Young Hoham was right, it would be foolhardy to make a beeline for Jin-woo’s rescue right now.

Given the massive, well-lit castle architecture, it’s likely that the creatures in this dungeon are intelligent. It’s also possible that there are defensive forces lurking throughout the castle.

Provoking them could end up hurting Jin-woo.

─────!!!

A huge storm of magic power emanated from the dragon palace that the shark had entered.

It was inanimate, but the strange aura I sensed was unmistakable, a demonic battlefield.

“From now on, it’s the real thing.”

Everyone obeyed the order, nervously and cautiously landing on the outer shell of the dragon palace.

‘I’ll save you soon, just hold on a little longer.’

I clenched my fists tightly as I sat down on the ground, knowing that the Jin-woo I knew would be able to hold on.

* * *

“Zeueounhaaaaa! General Shark has entered the palace!!”

“That’s right! Listen up!”

“The Shark General is entering, ahhh!”

The center of the royal palace is beautifully decorated with pearls and coral, jewels and stars.

In the center of the palace, in a room called the Throne Room, countless subjects gathered to await the entrance of the Shark General.

The giant gates opened with a clang. Then, the shark general who was biting Jin-woo enters, gulps down Jin-woo, and spits him out.

“Aaaah! OMG? uh?”

Jin-woo immediately grabs his feet and checks to see if he’s okay.

He opens his eyes and is dumbfounded by the colorful sight before him.

“Your Majesty, I was investigating the impact near the Dragon Palace as you requested. I’ve captured a creature that seems to be connected to the incident!”

After spitting out Jin-woo, the shark stays still, bowing its head to the giant before him.

He had a long beard covering half his face, eyes unseen by his eyebrows, and a crown of coral, jewels, and pearls adorning his head but it’s his massive body, reminiscent of a whale, makes it all pale into insignificance.

“Yes, you’ve done well.”

Just by opening his mouth, he made the surrounding waters tremble.

Jin-woo jumps back in surprise.

“Yi, what the hell is this? Where am I?!”

“Calm down, little fish.”

“What, bird or fish?”

Jin-woo’s face tightens at the man calling him a fish.

The dragon king, however, thinks he’s scared and curls up the corners of his mouth under his beard.

After all, instilling fear in his opponent is the best way to get information.

“If you answer well, you won’t die, so open your little mouth. Fish.”

Jin-woo squirmed at the dragon king’s words.

“Hmph. You’re not willing to talk. I see. Perhaps we should start by eating an arm or a leg. Here, take the left arm of this little fish──.”

“Fish fish fish fish fish fish fish fish!”

A strange current began to rush into the center of the throne room.

The sea water begins to stir with the magic power emanating from his body due to his uncontrolled rage.

“Who the hell are those damned monster bastards, call fish──”

Just like that, before Eugene and his friends arrived, he was about to slaughter all the monsters in this place.

“Gah!!!”

The dragon king sitting in front of Jin-woo shouted, and a huge surge of magic power swept through his body.

“Eh……?”

It took him a moment to realize that the power that had slowly taken control of his surroundings was gone in an instant.

His head began to spin at a tremendous speed, and Jin-woo next course of action was──

“Let this fish head explain everything, Your Majesty the Dragon King!”

──It was a struggle for survival.