How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 140

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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How to Survive as the Second Son of a Magic Family (140)

Right? You want to fight?

“Now?”

“Yeah.”

I was so dumbfounded that I just stood there quietly.

‘…Let me think.’

First, he was pissed because he didn’t expect me to actually become 2nd place. So he’s really thinking something like ‘A guy who’s only learned for four months is chasing after me?’

‘Is he kidding?’

He’s the one who taught me to become like this, so what’s he talking about? This doesn’t even count as a possibility.

Second, he saw many flaws while watching the broadcast and was disappointed. He probably wants to fix them right away.

But why would he call me out so menacingly like he’s picking a fight?

Third, just because he’s bored.

Fourth…

‘I don’t know.’

At least I know the second one is most likely.

“I think I did what you taught me. Was there something I moved wrong? Even if there was, we can do it later when we go to Bavaria.”

“…”

Leo didn’t answer. His face was complex with mixed thoughts, so I couldn’t read his expression.

After a while, he quietly opened his mouth.

“How did the training with Julia go?”

“It went well.”

“How was it? Tell me exactly.”

“She’s definitely skilled. Her movements were worth learning from.”

“Exactly.”

I smiled as I looked at him.

What more exactly should I say? Leo probably already knows how Cheringen moves.

They’re friends who’ve spent a long time together since the 3rd Education Institute before being competitors, so he can’t not know.

“She complemented my movements to produce good results no matter how I moved. I didn’t need to worry about other things, so it was comfortable. Is that enough?”

“So, she matched you well?”

“Something like that. She was kind too.”

It’s definitely a shame. Missing the opportunity to train with Cheringen, I mean.

‘I should ask to do it together on weekend mornings.’

As I was lost in thought, Leo quietly spoke after a while.

“I’ll do that too.”

“What?”

“I said I’ll do that for you too.”

‘…Hm?’

Wait.

Even though it was a statement blurted out without context, I suddenly thought of the most likely hypothesis.

“I think there’s some misunderstanding.”

But I didn’t have time to ask more.

Because Elias immediately warped over with his hands pressed against the ground.

“Uhahahahahaha!”

“What’s with him?”

Elias kept giggling and then punched Leo’s leg with his fist.

“Oh my, our seventeen-year-old is doing such things~ Ah, what did I just witness.”

“Are you going to keep bringing up age over a six-month difference?”

Elias didn’t even pretend to listen and just laughed, then suddenly raised his head and said.

“Hey, the kids think you two are fighting right now. Even the Class 1 kids are in an uproar.”

“Then why don’t you stop them.”

At my words, Elias’s eyes sparkled.

“Who would stop such an interesting spectacle? Everyone’s completely curious about who would win.”

“…Right… That makes sense. Leo, what’s the reason you called me out knowing this would happen, and what exactly is the reason you want to fight.”

I have a guess, but it’s better to hear it directly.

With things like this, guessing only creates bigger misunderstandings, and above all, I can’t focus because of Elias.

“Did you really ask to fight? I’ll tell you from the beginning. He definitely cuts off half of what he says.”

At Elias’s words, Leo flicked his finger and cast a silencing spell in reverse. Elias looked bewildered as he pounded the air.

Leo spoke as if it was nothing.

“That’s enough. We don’t need to go that far.”

Crash—

Before I could finish speaking, Elias, who was stuck to the floor, grabbed Leo’s leg and pulled him down.

Elias covered Leo’s mouth with one hand and pressed down on his arm with magic power.

“Ah, now the silencing is broken. No, Luca, you’ve been ignoring all our contacts lately. Suddenly going to visit Hans!”

“It wasn’t sudden, I put him in the hospital so I had to go see him…”

I said while watching Leo trying to remove Elias’s arm.

Leo can’t get out of this right away.

I’ve never sparred with Elias so I couldn’t gauge his skill, but now I can really feel it.

As Elias was gradually having trouble handling Leo’s attacks, he spoke rapidly like rapping.

“So I said you weren’t answering contacts because of Leo.”

“I wasn’t answering contacts because of Leo?”

“Why, that day…”

Crash—!

Leo swung his foot instead of his caught arm. Light blue magic power flew toward Elias. At the same time, a tree branch came from somewhere, wrapped around Elias’s arm, and flung him far away.

‘Oh.’

It’s been a while since I’ve seen this.

Leo’s unique ability to freely amplify or withdraw the life force of plants.

I last saw it when we caught the Chimera Werewolf and haven’t seen it since.

Leo preferred developing his inherent strength rather than relying on his unique ability, both in the novel and here.

Bang!

Elias used magic power to land before crashing into the floor. Of course, he was still covering his mouth, surprised by being thrown.

Leo shook off Elias’s remaining magic power from his face and muttered as if fed up.

“How long has it been since we graduated from the 3rd Education Institute and you’re still acting like this? So much for liking intellectuals.”

“Isn’t it better for me to speak? You’ll just fail to say what you need to say properly and create more regrets. Even now, what is this, just asking to fight.”

“…”

Leo pressed his lips tight as if he had nothing to say about that part.

More than that, I think I just caught the root cause of all this?

“Elias, what do you mean I wasn’t answering contacts because of Leo.”

“What you did to Hans is what Leo usually does to you. Actually, what Hans went through is mild in comparison. Until now there was nothing to compare it to so it was overlooked, but from now on it would probably feel unfair somehow?”

That’s true.

How does he know so precisely.

Elias looked at Leo, who turned his gaze away with a troubled face, and laughed as if it was amusing.

“I was already really confused when I usually watched you two train. But Luca, you probably thought that was normal~”

“So.”

“So I joked that Luca was pissed because of Leo’s sparring style and it turned out like this.”

“…”

I smiled as I looked at Elias.

Elias also smiled gently as he looked at me.

“What are you smiling about?! You’re the cause!”

“No, even so, I didn’t know Leo would suddenly run off like this. Usually when this happens, he just ignores it!”

That’s true.

It’s a prank they can pull among themselves, and Leo also lets all of Elias’s nonsense go in one ear and out the other.

This time, Leo must have felt stung by something too.

Elias cast a sound-blocking spell and whispered.

“And this is something Narke and I speculated together – were we wrong? You were about to tell him to go easy during training.”

Even Elias must have thought it was too much.

Well, I know well that the purpose wasn’t to beat me up, and thanks to that, I caught up to 15 years in 4 months, so I don’t think much of it now.

It seems a misunderstanding arose from talking with Narke on that exact day when I hung up the phone because my fists were itching.

When Leo tried to break the sound-blocking spell, Elias removed the spell first and teased him.

“Just when Luca is training with a friend who’s as skilled as Leo but kinder than Leo, I already found out the truth through recent sparring with Hans, so what if he won’t spar with me anymore…”

“Cut it out. I wasn’t thinking anything that childish.”

Leo grumbled.

“…is what you’d like to think. Anyway, didn’t you drag him out suddenly because you were worried he’d spar with Julia from now on? The timing was incredible~”

“…”

“Wouldn’t it be better to resolve everything through conversation right away?”

There was an edge to Elias’s playful voice.

Even if he didn’t know that Leo had given up magical medicine and switched to combat after seeing Luca’s magical power, he knew well that the usually calm Leo wasn’t someone who would carelessly hate someone and show it.

This meant that Elias had long known that Leo wanted something from Luca, and that Leo was expressing his intentions in the wrong way.

He definitely came to prevent such incidents from happening again.

‘Well, this time it wasn’t really a situation where emotions would deepen.’

In the first place, before Elias came, hadn’t Leo directly said ‘I’ll do it like Julia too’?

Unlike the childish way from freshman year, this time his expression was quite clear.

Elias now looked at me with serious eyes. Then he rolled his eyes hard toward Leo, giving me a signal.

‘Hmm.’

He means I should speak my intentions directly with my own mouth.

Now that I think about it, Elias spreading the story even while knocking Leo down must have been for Leo’s sake.

Because Leo had passed over the really important part.

Instead of having a conversation, Leo arbitrarily decided my thoughts on his own and concluded that I would choose Cheringen.

Then he suddenly blurted out that he’d spar with me Cheringen’s way.

‘Now that I think about it…’

Saying let’s fight, that is, let’s spar, might have been an attempt to immediately prove that ‘I can do it like Cheringen too.’

No, it doesn’t just ‘seem’ right – it appears to be correct.

‘…’

He just said he wasn’t thinking anything that childish…

Of course, I’m glad we didn’t end up fighting. If he had really tried to fight me, I would have already gone to the afterlife during the sparring.

I nodded and opened my mouth.

“Right, I’ll tell you the truth. After sparring with Hans, I was momentarily dumbfounded, that’s true.”

“…!”

Leo’s shoulders flinched for a moment.

I didn’t even mention that I avoided contact because I thought I might want to hit him if we met, but even just this got an interesting reaction.

“But it was only momentary. Whatever the case, the fact that I could achieve this result in 4 months is entirely thanks to you.”

“…”

“You honestly think your method wasn’t wrong too, right?”

“Yes.”

Leo nodded.

His conviction could be felt in that answer without a trace of hesitation.

“The method you chose was definitely effective. I was able to approach it desperately, trying to hit you even one more time. You said you’d do it Julia’s way, right? No. You don’t need to do that.”

“I don’t need to do that.”

Elias giggled while looking at Leo in the middle, but Leo asked seriously without caring.

Right, since I’m going to say it anyway, I should say it more clearly.

I looked into his sky-blue eyes and spoke seriously.

“I have no intention of changing sparring partners, and I have no intention of asking you to change your teaching method.”

“…”

“Is that enough now?”

Leo remained silent, then smiled faintly after a long while.

“That’s a relief.”

“…”

I felt a hint of coldness in that smile. He’s definitely smiling, but I strangely feel a sense of crisis.

‘I feel like I’ve crossed a river of no return.’

Why is that?

I don’t know why it had to be now, but it seemed like Leo’s fanatical preference for magical power was felt from that answer just now.

Actually, though not to a level comparable to Leo, Cheringen also looked at my magical power with interest.

It seems that not only Leo, but those who approach magic seriously have interest in unusually outstanding magical power.

Maybe these are the kind of people who research magic for decades and become professors.

‘How on earth didn’t he go to graduate school?’

“Hey, how refreshing~ Huh? Don’t dig holes by yourself and have a conversation~”

Elias laughed refreshingly.

Leo looked at Elias and smiled with many emotions.

“But what’s with suddenly knocking someone down? And we were having a good conversation before you came.”

“Hmm~”

Elias shook his head and played dumb.

Still, without Elias, he would have absolutely insisted he couldn’t say anything.

The situation seems to be over, so I should go back.

“I can go back now, right?”

“Why are you trying to leave? After exams it’s free time, so you don’t have to go.”

“I should give Julia an answer, shouldn’t I? I came out without being able to answer because of you.”

At those words, Leo answered with indifferent eyes.

“I’ll tell her tomorrow. Is that okay?”

“Hahahaha!”

“…”

Leo’s cold question made me laugh awkwardly.

Tell her what. I’m planning to do it together on the weekend.

There’s no law saying I have to train with only one person. I’ll also do it with Cheringen.

‘It would be beneficial to absorb from both.’

Since I’ve become quite close with Cheringen too, it would be good to become more intimate while sparring.

While I was thinking of calling Cheringen directly later to give my answer, Leo shook his head.

“Lucas. Actually, I called you because I had something to discuss while we were at it.”

“While we were at it~?”

Elias openly scoffed.

I understand, but I asked anyway.

“What is it?”

“We need to go to Bavaria. I got contacted last night – for the first time, there are victims who can’t be treated.”

Can’t be treated?

My face hardened instantly.

It means they die even when subdued and taken to the hospital. Until now, they recovered their original state when treated after attacking the Vitriol mass inside their bodies.

Elias, who had quickly become serious, said.

“There’s an embargo, so you wouldn’t have been able to read about it in today’s newspaper. In other situations it might be different, but right now, announcing this information wouldn’t help prevent contamination.”

“That’s right.”

If emotions weren’t involved, reporting would be right, but we can’t do that with this situation.

It would definitely amplify anxiety and increase the casualty rate.

“But why didn’t I receive a report about this?”

“I said I’d deliver it personally before dinner. There’s no point finding out early if you can’t even skip the exam to come.”

Leo answered.

“Mm, right. How many deaths so far?”

“Three up to now.”

I nodded and warped.

Since the royal family had provided emergency warp coordinates, I no longer needed to stop by the border checkpoint to warp.

I checked my watch and used divine power to change my hair and eye color.

‘About a 2-hour gap.’

I had promised to train with Adelbert, so I had to keep that appointment.

“Who’s been covering until now?”

“The head of the Disease Treatment Department.”

Leo handed me the file on my desk.

It contained the instructions given by the substitute and the investigation status up to this morning.

‘Everything looks good, but…’

It still hadn’t been determined at which stage the problem occurred.

I needed to find out whether it was an issue with the victims’ individual constitutions, or if Pleroma had changed the medicine they put in the water and soil.

“We’ll need to check the scene as well, not just the hospital.”

“Right.”

If not the former, then the latter…

‘They’re planning to kill all the unqualified ones.’

I stood up from my seat and said.

“I should go directly to the areas where reports are coming in.”

Leo nodded, took off his school robe, and grabbed his wand.

* * *

‘Ah, damn…’

One hour before the exam started, Adelbert, who had been trying to get up from his seat, sat back down and cursed inwardly.

His eyes kept closing.

It wasn’t time to sleep, and he had slept enough because of the exam.

Actually, he hadn’t slept well, but after Senior hit the back of his neck, he fell asleep and woke up refreshed.

He said he was Elias’s friend, and sure enough, his methods were strange, but anyway, he had slept enough, so there was no reason to be tired.

‘But…’

Crash―!

Adelbert, who had knocked over his chair and collapsed on the floor, blinked slowly.

He couldn’t understand it.

Had someone slipped him sleeping pills?

But who would have the nerve to do such a thing? And at school, breaking into my locked room?

His thoughts didn’t last long.

Like a few days ago, he felt all his magical power surging in reverse.

Adelbert’s vision turned black.

* * *

I checked if there were any differences from the previous rampage scenes and returned to school when it was time for my appointment with Adelbert.

It was still too early to draw conclusions, but for now, there were no differences at all in the cases of non-mages.

‘He’s not at the training ground.’

It was already 50 minutes before the exam started.

I went out again and warped to the dormitory.

Standing in front of Adelbert’s room door, I knocked.

Knock knock―

“Junior.”

“…”

No sound came from inside.

I knocked on the door harder.

Even when I concentrated my magical power, I could only feel strange wavelengths from inside, not proper signs of life.

Don’t tell me…

‘Is this bastard sleeping?’

One hour before the exam? Are you serious?

I knocked on the door with magical power, then quickly turned the doorknob.

‘He’s not the type to do that.’

Anyway, I don’t know the warp coordinates to get inside the room. If I ask the administrative office, they might open it for me…

‘The wavelength is quite unusual.’

It’s definitely a wavelength that shouldn’t be possible in this school with its five-layered barriers.

“…”

It’s really unlikely, but if what I suspect is true, the administrative office would be a bad move.

The administrative office would probably send a staff member to assess the situation instead of letting me, who they consider half a risk factor, enter.

If that ‘one in a million chance’ is real, it would be the worst experience for both Adelbert and the staff member.

But at times like this, there should be a witness. If something happens, I shouldn’t be framed as the culprit, right?

I tapped the artifact hanging by my ear and called the guy most likely to be suspected.

“Elias.”

Fortunately, he answered the phone right away.

[Oh, why~?]

“Have Narke tell you your cousin’s room location. And you stay next to Leo.”

[Huh?!]

First, I need to break down the door.

I slammed magical power into the doorknob.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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