How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 154

—————
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 (154)

“Ah, Alps…”

“Huh?!”

Zugspitze.

It’s at the edge of the Alps mountain range.

“I’m not sure if we’ll be able to move around in this cold. Lucas, are you okay?”

Cheringen looked back at me and said.

Being the second-in-command of the team, he’s definitely looking out for me…

Though there’s no real need for that.

“I’m fine. You should worry about yourself first.”

“We need to finish this quickly. Guys, can you run in this condition?”

“Run? Our joints are freezing up?”

“We have to run.”

Cheringen answered firmly, but the team members’ faces were full of tension.

‘This is definitely disadvantageous.’

It’s an environment with many problems for utilizing unique abilities.

Philip groaned and then shouted angrily.

“No, where would there be a case of deploying like this? What reason would there be for someone to go berserk 3000m above ground! Is there even a way to get up here?”

There are no lifts and no tourist railways.

It’s a place where you can only climb up with your bare body.

Of course, people don’t usually go berserk in places like this…

But it’s not entirely impossible. This is a good experience to see how far the school goes for difficulty adjustment.

Philip shouted again.

“And if someone went berserk here, when deploying, they’d dress properly, not get warped defenseless like us!”

Philip’s Friend interjected at those words.

“Warped? We’re standing right here.”

“Of course that’s true! It’s virtual reality. But the professors copied that place and pasted it here, so how is it different from warping?”

“Enough.”

Cheringen raised his hand as if telling them to be quiet.

Everyone shut their mouths and looked at Cheringen. They didn’t have the energy to talk more anyway because of the cold.

“We need to find where the berserk person is right now. In this case, the fact that there are no tourists becomes somewhat of an advantage. Philip, it should be easier than downtown, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Florian, have you ever used your ability in sub-zero temperatures?”

“Of course… not really. But it’s not impossible. Just a bit lacking.”

“Good. I’m not completely unable to use mine either, but I should save it as a last resort. The situation with cold air at ground level doesn’t quite match what I usually experience.”

Cheringen’s lightning ability is extremely destructive and not beneficial to human life unless it’s for creating farmland, so it’s not suitable for rescue activities like this.

“Unique abilities are a problem, but the real issue is that our movement is restricted. All six teams before us had recommended processing times between 30 to 40 minutes. This field will probably be the same. But who can last 30 minutes here?”

“…”

“…Let’s finish quickly.”

Ain from Class 1 muttered.

Cheringen nodded.

“It would be good to finish within 20 minutes. To do that, we need to know what we should prioritize. As we saw earlier, if civilians appear, civilian care should be the priority. If ruins appear, we need to pay attention to that too, and if swamps and forests appear like Teams 3-4 received, we need to prevent Vitriol from seeping into the ground.”

“B-but there’s nothing here…”

“Right. There are no civilians here, no ruins, and it’s not structured for Vitriol to seep deep into the ground. So what element did the school give us as the biggest problem? What do we need to consider?”

No one opened their mouths.

They seemed to lack the energy to answer, and if civilian care or preventing secondary damage wasn’t the priority, they didn’t seem to know what the school wanted.

“Our lives.”

Cheringen nodded at my words.

“Right. The core of this field will be the rescuers’ lives.”

The core of Teams 1-2’s field was maintaining order, and the core of Teams 7-8’s field was minimizing environmental damage. Teams 3-4 were the same.

And finally, prioritizing the rescuers’ safety.

It’s perfectly suitable as the last topic the school would present.

This means one thing.

The school won’t give major deductions for property damage.

‘No.’

Rather, the moment we focus on property damage and environmental preservation, our team is at a disadvantage.

Damage or whatever, we need to use anything we can.

I swept the Floor with the tip of my boot.

The snow I was stepping on hardened due to my body weight, and my foot slipped.

‘Of all places, they drop us on a slope.’

To secure safety first, we need to get out of here.

There’s a plateau below the Peak.

There’s a subject like earth science here too, so I knew roughly what the terrain here was like.

I asked the Students to see if there was something I didn’t know.

“Guys, does anyone know about the environment here? Philip, you don’t seem to have slept during science class, so tell me everything you know.”

“Here? Glaciers, avalanches, limestone, lead, zinc, karst. And ice age, Mesozoic era. That’s all I know.”

“Haha… Weren’t you the one sleeping during science class?”

Cheringen laughed and scolded him.

Considering he’s a student at Imperial 2nd Education Institute, he really doesn’t seem to know much.

He knows even less than me…

Anyway, I understand since he’s not in the mental state to form sentences.

“It’s already been over a minute. Let’s start.”

Cheringen clapped once and spoke in a weighty tone.

Philip crouched down and began concentrating his senses.

“…Above.”

“Above?”

“Something seems to be rolling around near the Peak? It’s really far away.”

“…”

Cheringen nodded and looked at us, gesturing with his head.

He said it’s ‘rolling around.’

In other teams’ tests, the sphere wasn’t floating in the air either. It seemed to consider that actual berserk people have limbs and run around on legs.

Anyway…

Philip’s Friend, who understood the meaning, grabbed his head.

“We have to climb the Alps in this weather?!”

“Yeah. We need to go up to the plateau 300m below the Peak. Does anyone know the warp coordinates for the plateau?”

“…”

“Of course not.”

“I-if we adjust the coordinates one space at a time from here…”

“No.”

I shook my head at Melvin’s words.

We don’t know where we might fall.

“Then, Philip. There are tons of peaks around this plateau, so which one has the berserk person?”

“Um, it’s too far so I’m not sure about that.”

“…”

“Sorry. But humanly speaking, it should be a bit far.”

Philip apologized while reading the mood.

It wasn’t really something to apologize for.

The problem is that if we don’t even know which direction it’s in, we don’t have time for a strategy meeting right now.

I made eye contact with everyone.

Cheringen smiled and shouted.

“Run, guys.”

* * *

“Zugspitze? Wow….”

Hollow laughter burst out from the students sitting in the gymnasium watching the broadcast.

“Can those guys even run around when they’re freezing? It’s probably around minus 15 degrees there right now.”

“There’s a kid in Team 5 who uses fire as his unique ability.”

“Really?! That’s way too disadvantageous for Team 6?”

“They have Julia and Ascanien too. What’s wrong with being a little disadvantaged.”

“No, but what about the impact if they slip and roll down? Even if they don’t actually die, still, it’ll haunt their dreams.”

“For them, surviving comes first, you know.”

The student giggled.

Leo listened to their conversation while focusing his gaze on the broadcast screen.

That student probably threw that out half-jokingly, but that’s probably the real intention behind the question.

‘In some ways it’s easy, in some ways it’s difficult.’

It’s too easy for Team 5 with the fire ability user, and too difficult for Team 6.

But if Julia uses lightning to set trees on fire and everyone carries torches around, things might change.

Of course, that’s worlds apart from a fire ability user. A fire ability user can use their whole body as a heater, so just having them walk around nearby makes things much better. On the other hand, torches are a hindrance just to carry around.

Then, Elias quietly moved seats and squeezed into Team 1’s waiting area.

“Hey~ Let’s see how Luca does.”

At those words, the student sitting next to Leo asked with a laugh.

“Luca? You visit Ascanien pretty often.”

“It’s interesting~ But more than that, the Alps. Leo, you should have gone there. Right?”

“Ah, that’s right! It’s Bavaria.”

Leo shook his head at the students’ words.

“I wonder. Anyway, if it’s a natural field, it’s good for me to utilize my unique ability.”

The school is preventing the use of unique abilities.

Of course, Leo himself can use his ability anywhere with just a handful of dirt, but even so, the train station is more disadvantageous for deploying unique abilities than a natural field.

To be precise, even if he deployed his unique ability, he was given a field where he couldn’t fully utilize and reveal its value.

“According to my research, Philip is the only person who can use his ability usefully in any field.”

“That guy uses his perception ability well for his level.”

“And Julia’s ability is difficult to utilize in any way. The nature of the ability itself is very destructive and aggressive, so it’s not suitable for rescue operations.”

“Right. It might be different on a battlefield.”

It’s definitely completely disadvantageous for Team 6, which is Lucas’s team.

Then, surprised voices came from other students.

“Huh?”

“What?! Is this allowed?”

What is it.

Leo looked at both screens.

Team 6 hadn’t even reached the plateau yet, so their screen was still the same, but Team 5 was different. It showed Team 5 running quickly and arriving at the plateau and their field of vision. Of course, up to that point wasn’t strange. Since the team with the fire ability user was much more advantaged, it was natural that their progress would be faster.

But this current scene wasn’t a problem with the participants.

It was a problem with the question.

“…!”

Leo, who checked the screen, unconsciously held his breath.

* * *

Philip’s reports kept getting cut off.

Cheringen, who was running at the front, shouted.

“Philip, keep checking!”

“Huff…. The wind… over there, over there. This time it’s to the left!”

The kid is so frozen he can’t even speak properly.

The Antagonist is now following the flow of the wind to guess where the plateau is.

‘I’m curious what Team 5 is doing right now.’

Our team students are already completely frozen. I put barriers around the students on all sides, but that wasn’t enough. Everyone’s lips are turning purple.

I couldn’t even put a barrier on Philip since he needs to feel the texture of the wind.

It’s to the point where I wonder if we’ll freeze to death at this rate.

‘Insane difficulty….’

Who goes to Zugspitze without equipment.

Of course, thanks to being dropped like this, I could intuitively grasp what the school wanted. As I thought earlier, the school is asking how we’ll survive when pushed to the extreme.

At least everyone has good athletic ability so they’re not slipping.

“Aaah!”

‘Just as I thought that, someone slips.’

Philip’s Friend almost slipped, and unconsciously used his unique ability, as dying grass from somewhere rushed over and grabbed his leg.

It’s ridiculous that I’m using my unique ability so passively like this.

If I had gotten a forest, I’d be subduing the victim with this by now, but the school’s intention to somehow prevent proper utilization of unique abilities is truly admirable.

‘Come to think of it, there’s one guy in Team 5 who uses fire.’

That’s a bit concerning.

In all the previous fields, the school assigned disadvantageous fields to each ability user to prevent them from utilizing their unique abilities.

What does this mean.

Team 5 should think carefully.

Having fire ability in the Alps is not their good fortune.

It means there are problems significant enough to offset that advantage even with the fire ability.

‘Thinking this far….’

They wouldn’t have failed to do so.

However, the problem is that no matter how much you understand with your head, the side that thinks they’ve gained the upper hand tends to become complacent.

There’s a high possibility they’ll move according to inertia rather than thinking deeply.

‘Maybe it’s actually fortunate that ability user isn’t on our team.’

While thinking that, Cheringen asked Philip.

“How much is left?”

“It’s almost there now. But, guys.”

Philip’s face turned pale.

“The sounds are overlapping.”

“What? Isn’t it animal sounds?”

“No, this… the feeling of it touching the air is exactly like Vitriol. You know what I mean? The reflected waves are different.”

At those words, Philip’s Friend approached as if frustrated.

“No, speak precisely. So what you’re saying now is….”

Then, Cheringen, who had put magic into his legs and rushed up, called us with a hollow laugh.

[Guys. You need to come quickly.]

“Why?”

[There are two rampagers.]

* * *

[Hey, what? There are two rampagers?]

The team leader’s voice flowed from Team 5’s broadcast screen.

Now the students in the gymnasium were silently watching only the movements of Team 5 and Team 6.

This was the first field to set up two rampagers.

‘One to the east, and one to the northeast. They’re on different peaks of all places.’

Isn’t the school demanding too extreme a level of difficulty.

Leo unconsciously held his breath and stared at the screen.

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