How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 148

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

How to Survive as the Second Son of a Magic Family (148)

As soon as I said our team was Ainsiedel, all my friends pressed themselves against the wall and held their breath.

Meanwhile, I could just warp back to my room, so I don’t know what they’re doing.

When I slightly opened the door, that friend I saw during the day was right in front of me.

“…Haike.”

“You knew my name.”

“Of course. We’re on the same team.”

Cheringen did the same thing, so everyone assumes I don’t know their names by default.

Actually, that’s correct.

“So, what’s going on?”

“It’s nothing much.”

‘I should be the one to judge whether it’s nothing much or not.’

I feel bad about judging him based on his surname alone, but knowing there’s Pleroma in his family, I can’t treat him the same as other students.

The moment I raised my guard and looked at him, I heard unexpected words.

“Want to go drinking together?”

“What?”

Since no one spoke after that, silence flowed for a moment.

I’m having my first conversation with this person right now.

More than anything, this 1st Class Student Ainsiedel himself didn’t seem particularly eager to drink with me either. He had the same expressionless face I saw during the day.

“…I’m abstaining from alcohol, so that won’t work. What’s this about all of a sudden? Did the other kids tell you to invite me too?”

“No. Let’s drink just the two of us.”

“….”

What did I do wrong?

Before I could ask why he was doing this, the 1st Class Student Ainsiedel quickly continued speaking.

“Too bad you’re abstaining from alcohol. Then do you have time now?”

“Well. I was about to go to sleep.”

“Hmm, it is pretty late. Then can you make time after training tomorrow?”

“All of a sudden?”

“Yes.”

No reason was given, and the 1st Class Student Ainsiedel’s face still contained no expression whatsoever.

‘…What is this.’

I thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Alright.”

Whatever it is, there’s no reason to refuse.

I need to find out why this character who was marked as impossible to capture approached me first, and what he’s trying to say.

The 1st Class Student Ainsiedel smiled faintly, said goodbye, and left.

I quickly closed the door and looked at my friends.

My friends also seemed dumbfounded by this sudden conversation.

Leo asked.

“What? Are you two close?”

“This is the first time we’ve ever talked.”

“This is your first conversation but he suddenly asks to drink alone together…?”

“That’s what I want to say.”

Come to think of it, they don’t sell alcohol on campus, so how was he planning to drink?

Then Elias muttered.

“…Was he the type to act like that? He’s so quiet I didn’t know.”

“Ah, you guys would have known him since the 3rd Education Institute.”

At Narke’s words, Leo shook his head.

“No. He didn’t come from the 3rd Education Institute.”

“Oh, really?”

“I didn’t even know there was a kid like that until this announcement. I looked into it and apparently he attended a local magic school and only came here for high school.”

‘…Hmm.’

It’s a situation with no information. No wonder they pressed against the wall as soon as I said Ainsiedel.

Elias was a 1st Class Student like Heike Einsiedel, but since he didn’t frequent the school often, it makes sense he wouldn’t know much.

Anyway, since I agreed to meet, I’ll try to extract some information then.

For now, I should check what’s going on with Elias’s team.

I held Fai in my hand and asked Elias, who had started watching.

“So, Elias. What happened today?”

* * *

Elias just grabbed my clothes and whined, but didn’t tell me what had happened and returned to his room.

‘Group projects are usually blood-draining affairs.’

Still, I need to hear what happened so I can help or something, but somehow he won’t tell me.

Sunday morning, the training time we had promised with our team ended.

As soon as training ended, Haike Ainsiedel approached.

“Shall we go?”

I nodded and walked alongside him, matching his pace.

During our walk around the school, neither of us spoke a word.

As I felt from his indifferent expression, the 1st Class Student Ainsiedel was terribly taciturn.

‘This won’t do.’

As soon as I thought that, the Antagonist led me to the campus cafe.

I glanced at the tea placed in front of us and asked him.

“So, what did you call me for?”

“There’s no particular reason.”

He gestured asking if I wanted sugar cubes, so I shook my head.

He put two lumps of sugar in his coffee and continued speaking.

“Since we’re on the same team, let’s do well together from now on.”

“Weren’t we already doing well?”

“That’s true.”

You think we were doing well but still called me out like this?

You can’t just beat around the bush.

“Speak comfortably, Haike.”

“No. Really, there’s no problem. It’s just strangely….”

Haike Ainsiedel said without blinking once.

“I got the feeling that I want to become friends with you.”

“….”

I smiled silently and stared intently at his face.

‘Strangely got that feeling’?

Is that something to hear from someone with -2* affection?

Of course, since I raised my charm stat, it’s 0* points now.

Haike Ainsiedel

Affection 0* [Impossible to capture]

‘Still impossible to capture.’

Then, did he mistake his own thoughts because his affection rose when I leveled up my stats?

‘That can’t be. At 0 points, it’s not the level where you’d want to become friends.’

This is what I’ve felt watching students at school.

In the case of negative numbers, there’s definitely a level of ‘dislike’ emotion, and at 0 points, they just see you as air that doesn’t evoke any thoughts.

If there were negative emotions that interfered with team activities, it would be worth trying to clear up misunderstandings and build intimacy, but in a situation where that’s not the case, would there be a reason for him to want to become friends with air?

‘And usually when you want to become friends, you naturally try to create many points of contact, you don’t just blurt this out in words.’

Then Ainsiedel smiled and said.

“Was it too sudden? Sorry if I startled you.”

‘…This is something I was trying to figure out from my side only….’

I never thought I’d be in a position where the unconquerable target would be conquering me.

Let’s see how this plays out.

“Sure. It would be nice to become friends.”

The moment I answered lightly, Haike Einsiedel smiled and asked.

“That’s great. Lucas, would you like to have lunch together later?”

* * *

Lunch my ass, I was stuck with her until dinner.

I was only able to part ways with Haike Einsiedel after finishing training.

‘Still, I managed to extract quite a bit of information.’

Though I didn’t get to hear his real inner thoughts.

Of course, I never expected to learn that on the first day.

The Antagonist was currently born as the nephew of the Einsiedel family head, and was adopted into the direct line due to his high magical power.

So he would become the next head of the Einsiedel family.

‘Direct line, huh.’

Though he’s from a branch family by blood, the danger level is high as a result.

Of course, most who come to the Imperial 2nd Education Institute are from direct lines anyway.

And one more thing I found out.

‘He wants to become friends?’

I spent the entire day with him, but his favorability toward me didn’t increase by even a single point.

Especially since he was the one who said he wanted to become friends first and we spent time together, he should have given at least 1 point just from being satisfied with that time.

Even Philip gave me 2 points just from the persuasion trait.

I returned to my room.

My friends had all gathered in my room without even making plans.

Today too, Elias was crouched on my bed in despair, while Narke and Leo were watching Elias nervously before welcoming me.

Instead of greeting them, I immediately brought up what Leo and Narke would be curious about.

“You heard everything through the artifact, right? Nothing special happened. He says he wants to become friends with me.”

I said that, but it’s not exactly a situation where nothing happened.

But since I can’t tell them that he’s an unconquerable target who had negative favorability until recently, my friends will think it’s no big deal.

Then Leo shook his head suspiciously.

“He wants to become friends so he keeps you around all day? Of course you would accept all his requests to observe him, but who in the world would want to stay together from morning to night in the first place.”

Hmm, he caught on that this actually is something special.

He’s right.

Maybe because I couldn’t train with Leo today since I was with Haike Einsiedel, he’s become quite sharp.

Just as I was about to open my mouth to discuss more about Einsiedel, Elias muttered.

“Chewing power is tremendous strength.”

“Hm?”

“When I wake up in the morning, I can’t put strength in my hands, so my grip strength sucks. But since I can chew food normally, I think the only thing I can trust are my molars.”

At the continued molar comments from yesterday, Leo added expressionlessly.

“Really? I have stronger grip strength in the morning though.”

“How much strength do you use during the day? My stamina keeps getting worse because I’m doing politics while attending school.”

‘…?’

Leo, Narke and I made eye contact simultaneously.

Elias didn’t brush off the comment as a joke and responded seriously?

By now he should have reacted with something like ‘Yeah, sounds nice.’

Looking at his expression, Leo also seemed to sense the seriousness.

Regardless, Elias began entering his own world again.

“…If you’re unlucky enough to pick a bottle with tight pressure, you’ll just burn your palm trying to open the cap. I think about just breaking the bottle and drinking from that part, but in cases like this you can crush the cap with your teeth. Also, if you want to drink wine quickly but there’s no servant nearby and no opener, you can pull out the cork with your teeth.”

“Write a thesis.”

“You can open that with molars?”

That shouldn’t work, right? What kind of mouth does he have?

It’s amazing his molars haven’t fallen out.

More importantly, if he really can’t stand it, couldn’t he just open it with magic?

I sat next to the guy and asked calmly.

“So, Elias. Why do you keep talking about molars?”

“I want to bite everything to pieces! Aaaahhh!”

“….”

“Ah, so that’s why until now~”

Narke clapped as if she had gathered one more piece of data about Elias.

Leo finally understood the situation and made a disgusted expression.

“Geez…. It’s about your team members, right? What are they really like? Do they all get annoyed with you?”

“No.”

“Do they keep making you angry? Like, not answering when you talk to them?”

If it were that level, Elias would probably grab them by the collar to get an answer.

“No….”

Elias made a groaning sound, then suddenly raised his head with blazing eyes.

“Just let even one Class 1 student join Team 1. Team 1 should be filled with exactly six Class 2 people only.”

“I’d also like Team 1 to have only six Class 2 people~”

Narke agreed.

Since Narke is closer to Class 2 students, she would naturally think that way.

Elias gritted his teeth and said.

“No, let me correct that. Team 2 and Team 3 should all be Class 2 as well. Not even one person should come from Class 1.”

“You’re having a really hard time.”

Does it make sense for none of the 18 people to be from Class 1?

I don’t know what those bastards did to Elias that he can’t even respond and just curses them.

At that moment, Elias banged his head against my back.

“…Can I even pass….”

I couldn’t answer that question.

Narke and Leo also kept their mouths shut.

If Elias thinks he’ll fail himself, what level are we talking about here?

At this point, aren’t the Class 1 students committing suicide?

Leo opened his mouth.

“Tomorrow is joint training day, but your team is the only one that didn’t submit a participation application.”

“Didn’t submit it? I figured as much.”

Elias let out a powerless laugh.

“They can’t submit it. I don’t understand these guys’ way of thinking either. What exactly are they planning to do….”

Elias trudged up and put on the shoes he had left at the entrance. He said in a dispirited voice.

“I’m going back to my room to sleep now.”

“….”

Narke looked worriedly at where Elias had disappeared.

Leo looked unexpectedly upset. He said firmly.

“I’m going to make that team participate tomorrow too.”

“You said they didn’t submit an application, is that possible?”

“The student council has the training ground ledger. And this training is something the school actively encourages. There’s plenty of grounds to pressure Team 8. So….”

Leo continued coldly.

“I need to watch and see how they do it. I need to confirm what Team 8 bastards are doing to make Elias act like that.”

“You’re not just going to confirm, right?”

At my question mixed with laughter, Leo turned to look at me.

Understanding my meaning, he quickly smiled.

* * *

Joint training is conducted in two stages.

In the first stage, each team’s training is conducted publicly.

And in the second stage, team members are swapped with each other.

It was truly an activity that was all about checking other teams’ abilities.

The next day, Elias with the Team 8 students was surprisingly fine.

It seemed like he only acted weak in front of us.

At that moment, the 1st Class Student serving as Team 8’s captain drew lots to determine the order and sighed. Now that I looked, that 1st Class Student acting as captain was one of the 1st Class Students who had participated in the Potion Competition together.

“Ah, we’re going first.”

He looked around at his team students and whispered quietly.

“Guys, please just follow instructions this time…”

No matter how quietly he spoke, the place was quiet so it could be heard clearly.

Everyone seemed too busy being wary of other teams to have leisure for chatting.

“Okay.”

“…”

Only Elias answered calmly, while the rest of the students except him didn’t respond.

“…Hmm~”

Narke let out an awkward laugh, perhaps sensing the strange atmosphere.

Already there’s a bit of tension showing.

It seems that captain can’t lead his team members.

Team 8 entered the Exam Hall, and soon the Mimesis start sound could be heard.

[3, 2, 1. Beginning.]

This time, like a real exam, other teams designate the field and set time limits.

The field given by the team that took the role of examiner for Team 8 was a Forest.

[…A rampage report has been received at coordinates 98:121:452. Citizens are requested to quickly maintain order and move to an Open Area or Evacuation Facility where black smoke is not visible.]

The guidance voice connected to Team 8’s captain’s artifact was heard directly outside.

‘Since it’s just the beginning now… I’ll have to wait a bit until those 1st Class guys cause problems.’

The moment I crossed my arms and sat comfortably looking at the broadcast screen, flustered questions burst out from various places.

“Why are they acting like that?”

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