Make Our Family Great Again – Chapter 123

Chipra and Azis.

Two rat-men with peculiar yet simple names.

These two were shivering with excitement at having the opportunity they had all longed for in the Rat Hole.

A scoop.

How endlessly they had wished for this and how tirelessly they had worked for it.

Though there may be regrets, Chipra and Azis weren’t going to leave anything to chance. They even borrowed pricey cameras and filming equipment from their boss.

Hebili: the simultaneous movements of the new Five Families ruling this city had been captured.

Fortunately, Chipra and Azis had verified all these individual bits of information, and they sensed something suspicious.

There was a whiff of something big about to happen!

The Five Families had a long history, but there had never been a precedent for filming a meeting where all their bosses gathered together.

“Are you sure the bosses are really going to meet in one place? It could just be a coincidence.”

“I could understand if it was one or two. But five bosses moving simultaneously? There’s something going on!”

The two rat-men gulped, pondering the possibilities they were discussing.

If their guess was correct and they actually filmed the meeting.. selling it to government agencies or blackmailing the Five Families would surely be lucrative!

Finally, the day was coming when a stream of fortune would cascade down on the lives of Chipra and Azis.

“Damn, if it turns out to be nothing, I won’t let it slide.”

Chipra said this while secretly holding onto quite a bit of hope himself.

Thus, the two rat-men were currently stationed in front of a house located in the eastern part of the city.

After following the car of Vito Marinelli, the boss of the Marinelli Family, they had arrived here. They didn’t want to think about how many alleys they had turned down or how many streets they’d raced through to get here.

At one point, when they had to perfectly match the signals to throw off the tail, both of them even thought this opportunity was flying out of reach.

In fact, when crime bosses meet, they don’t leave room for exposure.

From that perspective, it wasn’t surprising that Vito Marinelli had such a needlessly complicated route.

But that wasn’t all.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“Those guys over there.”

Azis started the car and immediately exited their current position. He acted as if he were leaving the alley but instead switched to the opposite side.

“Isn’t that too far?!”

“No, this is just right. If we had done it wrong, we would’ve been caught by them!”

Chipra and Azis raised their voices as they talked, a common trait seen in rat-men.

Azis made a correct choice.

Of course, the sudden movement of their vehicle might have caught their attention.

But it was better than being discovered by the Five Families members scouting around the house.

Besides the bosses taking perplexing routes to their destination, some of the gang members were conducting surveillance around the place where the committee meeting was taking place.

If they spotted any suspicious vehicles or individuals… the bosses of the Five Families would cancel the meeting.

“Azis, look over there!”

“What?”

“….”

Chipra and Azis could only gasp in shock.

The number of gang members conducting surveillance around the house began to increase. They seemed to expand the concept of ‘surrounding’ the house as if they didn’t know when to stop.

It was highly likely that the new location the two rat-men had just moved to would also fall within their surveillance range.

In the end, Azis made a decisive call.

“Let’s pull back for now!”

“What?! What are we supposed to do if we pull back now?!”

“Be quiet!”

As Azis covered Chipra’s mouth, he started moving the car again.

They created enough distance to not even enter their surveillance area.

“Phew… Good. That’s settled.”

“Settled? What’s settled? We can’t take any pictures now! What do you plan to do, huh?!”

“Even though I don’t know what time the meeting starts, it can’t happen now. With so many people around, how can we take pictures?”

“Then? What do we do?!”

Azis remained calm, but Chipra couldn’t quite settle down.

“It can’t be helped. While we’re giving up on going in, we can catch them as they come out.”

“….”

Ideally, they wanted to capture both, but these weren’t easy targets at all.

Later, Azis and Chipra waited patiently. It seemed the gang members were leaving for a short meal.

While they remained tense, ready to respond to any crisis situation. The vehicle they were in was rented, leaving no track behind.

As they thought the time was approaching, they inched closer to the mansion.

“Azis! Azis!”

“What?!”

In that brief moment when Azis was looking elsewhere, Chipra called out loudly to him, and Azis turned his gaze to where Chipra was pointing.

A clear sign of something off.

What they were witnessing was different from just taking a break to eat. Members from inside the mansion were starting to exit.

Azis and Chipra followed their initial plan.

The Chipra in front moved to the passenger seat, and Azis in the backseat followed him. The passenger seat was closer to the mansion.

“Did you put on the zoom lens?!”

“I did! Be quiet!”

A zoom lens is one that can magnify faraway objects. Usually, a lens with a focal length over 70mm is considered a zoom lens.

The characteristic of a zoom lens is that it has a narrow field of view and is sensitive to hand tremors. In other words, a tripod is essential, but unfortunately, neither of them had brought one.

It would have been impractical to open a tripod in a vehicle, and furthermore, they had already spent quite a bit of their budget on other parts of this shoot, leaving no room to also bring a tripod.

There was only one way.

Azis put the camera and zoom lens on Chipra’s shoulder.

“Don’t move!”

“Got it! Stop shouting!”

“Don’t move! Don’t talk!”

The two did their best to minimize noise, just like they could.

And so, they sat there, waiting.

One hour.


Two hours.


Three hours.

“Damn it! No one is coming out! Was it all just nothing?!”

“Shut up! I’m sure! I’m sure! If it wasn’t the bosses, there wouldn’t be this many people!”

Chipra and Azis were now on edge.

Their voices were rising, and it felt like Chipra might leap at Azis at any moment—this was indeed a tense situation.

“…!”

Suddenly, they appeared.

*

The mansion’s door opened, and it was like a painting that came to life, swaying the scenery set by the windows.

A massive vampire emerged from the mansion, taking several steps to call over nearby gang members.

The gang members rushed to bring the car for their boss in front of the mansion.

“Get in, Boss.”

“Alright, let’s head back.”

At that moment, the vampire’s head suddenly burst into flames.

The boss of the Russo Family, without hesitation, donned a peculiar helmet that controlled his flaming head as he got into the car.

Azis used Chipra’s shoulder like a tripod.

Chipra could hardly breathe, while Azis began taking pictures without considering the small risk.

Click! Click!

Following Darius Russo, someone else came out.

This next character was microscopically smaller compared to the previous giant vampire. He was a hamster-man, smaller vertically than the rat-men, but heftier horizontally.

When Little Dom Solomon came out, Chipra couldn’t move, afraid his camera would shake.

Unlike Russo, Solomon quickly walked to a nearby car and hopped in.

Click!

Just as Azis finished shooting Solomon, he had to pay attention to another boss exiting the mansion.

“That’s not a boss?!”

“Shut up! Just shut it!”

As Chipra said, the next figure wasn’t a boss.

It was Manfredi Marinelli, acting boss of the Marinelli Family and the eldest son of the boss Vito Marinelli.

His appearance was quite different from the widely known image of a golden dragon. His golden hair was cut short, and there were no visible horns.

If it weren’t for the thick tail wrapped around his waist, they might not have recognized him as a descendant of the golden dragon at all.

“He’s out!”

“….”

Chipra wanted to toss back the “shut up” line to Azis but held it in.

Among the bosses, the biggest player was making his appearance. taller than Solomon yet still short for an elf.

Luke Felini was the boss of bosses, the new Godfather.

He got into a car parked right in front of the mansion without a moment to take pictures. It was a metaphor, but Azis almost missed capturing a photo of the Godfather.

The commonality among the four bosses was that their respective gang members also began moving as they appeared near the mansion.

Some bosses even came out with a whole gang of their own.

…This is a historic moment. The committee meeting was unfolding right in front of the two rat-men’s eyes.

Two insignificant rat kids were accomplishing something no one else in the world had. They were the first to take a photo of a committee meeting.

But it was still too early to relax.

One final missing piece of the puzzle remained. Rita Carmen, or rather, Veronica Carmen.

The boss of the Carmen Family had still not made an appearance.

While all the other bosses had come out of the mansion and gotten into vehicles, she was nowhere to be found.

“What’s going on?!”

But something felt off.

The gang members around the mansion seemed to be withdrawing, as if they had finished their business.

“Move aside! Quick!”

“What?! Why all of a sudden?!”

Azis suddenly recalled another possibility. She might exit through the back door, not through the front!

He hurriedly started the car, heading towards the back of the mansion, but it was already too late.

There was a high probability that the vehicles visible in the distance carried Carmen Family members and their boss.

“Damn it!”

As the two rat men experienced a blend of fulfillment and emptiness in life, they suddenly heard the sound of breaking glass.

“What?!”

Figures with strange bags on their heads approached, holding traditional wooden clubs known as Silaili used by orcs.

“Run! You rat bastard!”

“Ahhh!”

With that one cry starting it all, the rat-hunters who had approached around the car began their assault.

Chipra was struck by a swinging club and fell dead on the spot, while Azis desperately tried to drive the car.

While an unexpected and tense scene unfolded in an unlikely location.

I was speeding through the eastern streets in an armored car, right after the committee meeting ended.

“Brother, should we head straight to the mansion?”

At the question from Carso, who was in the passenger seat, I nodded.

“Yeah, the Carmen Family should be alright by now.”

“It seems the lady and the wife can’t hold back any longer.”

“….”

There were no good options, as Carso said. Veronica would be saddened, but it would be better than having to endure tireless pressure from Elena and Felicita.

“Alright, let’s head straight to the mansion.”

“Yes.”

I also needed to inform Elena and Felicita about the outcomes of this committee meeting.