How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 155

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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 (155)

Of course, no matter how extreme it is, Team 5 has now achieved the same balance as other teams.

‘That side was way too easy.’

They just had to run hard and then launch the victims from the flat plateau.

Rather, they should have two victims attached to them.

But Team 6?

Team 6 continues to be at a disadvantage.

Of course, score adjustments will be made, but the test takers themselves must be very flustered.

Team 5 was confused for a moment, but quickly regained their composure.

[Daniel needs to keep using fire right now.]

[So you’re saying we should handle two 5th-grade ones in one place?]

[That won’t work. Are we trying to die? 5th-grade ones are difficult even in the field, and you want us to attack two at the same time?]

‘That’s right.’

Leo stroked his chin and focused on their conversation.

But the conversation wasn’t long.

The sphere that had spotted people was descending from the peak to the plateau at a crazy speed.

The 5th Team Leader shouted loudly.

[Four, split into two! Daniel and I will handle it and join up!]

“Oh.”

“Wow~ Amazing situational judgment. They’re not shaken at all even with that charging at them.”

“They need to do that quickly, otherwise the vitriol will splatter on all the surrounding trees.”

“Team 6 just climbed up there now. The difference is severe just from not getting one unique ability, right?”

“Oh my, so simple~”

Elias muttered beside him. He seemed displeased that the students were praising Team 5.

A student sitting next to Leo asked Elias.

“Hey, do you have a better method?”

“I do. Just throw that thing to another peak~”

“Would that work?”

“….”

Anyway, at this rate, Lucas’s team would have difficulty scoring higher.

From what they’d shown so far, Team 5 was equal to or better than Team 6, never falling behind. It was thanks to their unique ability, but that was also part of their skill.

Then, the 5th Team Leader let out a scream.

[Aaaaah!]

“…?!”

“Wow, that startled me.”

The 5th Team Leader almost rolled down the slope.

Since he didn’t completely fall or get injured, he’d receive some point deductions but wouldn’t be eliminated.

Elias giggled and pointed.

“Hey, look at that. They’re being pushed back. They should have split into threes. Why split into two and four when their skills are just so-so? Are they stupid?”

‘That’s right, but splitting into threes would also be problematic.’

Three people handling victims that six were dealing with?

That’s difficult.

Anyway, since Team 5 made some mistakes, Team 6 now had a chance to catch up.

But….

‘What exactly are they hoping for here.’

I’m asking the school.

No matter how much this test aims to preserve one’s life, it’s getting increasingly messy. In terms of question design completion, this test is the worst among the four.

If they simply wanted to see magical skills that emerge when pushed to the extreme, there surely would have been much better methods than this.

I’m starting to think whether we really needed to choose this place.

“Ah, they all grouped together?”

Thinking they had to settle this with magical power somehow, Team 5 had already grouped all six together to deal with the victims.

Kwaaaaang—!

[Aaah!]

[Don’t let your guard down! There’s one more left!]

The Team 5 students barely managed to launch one sphere.

But having consumed much stamina running and climbing to the plateau, they looked very lacking in strength.

“What is the school thinking? They’re going hard because it’s the last one.”

“The kids are going to die….”

“Uh, uh!”

“Hey, what are we really supposed to do~ Since it’s the last one and they’ve seen everything from other teams in front, are they being the harshest?”

Elias shook his head with a laugh, like watching someone else’s house burn.

Team 6 had also climbed up to the plateau now. Team 6 was also bewildered like Team 5 earlier.

[Why are there really two of theeeem!]

[Do you have energy to scream?]

Lucas on screen spoke to Philip in an unimpressed voice.

‘Hmm…. It would have been good to get a preview of Lucas’s situational judgment beforehand.’

Recent ones, that is.

Even if they’re different teams, not even trying to show me their skills is honestly quite absurd.

Of course, I know that hiding the team’s real strategist is exactly Julia’s strategy.

I think it’s a somewhat excessive strategy, but if it’s a habit, it can’t be helped.

Someone educated to become a king would inevitably be skilled at disguising their most important cards to look unimportant.

‘…Wait.’

Most important?

“No way….”

“What, why?”

Leo shook his head at Elias’s question.

In this test, hiding skills isn’t that important, yet he’s instructing Lucas to hide all calculations to an excessive degree?

I’ve known Julia for a long time, and we’ve been close due to our similar circumstances.

If it’s Julia’s personality that I’ve known….

‘He might not be planning to end it as just a partner for this test.’

Perhaps he’s also marked Lucas as his political companion.

So he wants to minimize situations where his skills are revealed.

He probably thinks that if skills are revealed frequently, there won’t be just one or two people approaching Lucas.

‘From my perspective, Julia is in that situation right now.’

Without even knowing what kind of reputation Lucas has built so far, he finds possibilities with amazing accuracy. I want to applaud his insight.

Leo crossed his arms and leaned back against the backrest.

‘…If I had been just a few months later, it would have been a disaster.’

No matter how much the Grand Duchy of Baden wants to pull him in, he already belongs to Bavaria.

At least one identity does.

Although we didn’t become friends for political reasons, if I judge politically, I also find it regrettable to lose such a mage.

If Julia comes out like this, I need to be wary.

Having the common point of being educated to become a ruler, I know. That guy won’t easily let go of something he’s decided to grab.

[Don’t attack. Don’t use magic and wait. They probably sensed our movement anyway, so they’ll come down soon.]

Julia’s voice could be heard.

[Let’s finish quickly. It would be better to divide the personnel with me taking one side and Lucas taking the other.]

The Team 6 students shown on screen had faces like corpses, unlike Team 5.

“Ugh…. Aren’t they going to freeze to death?”]

“But they’re also going the same way as Team 5.”

“There’s no other method.”

Leo let the students’ words go in one ear and out the other as he fell into thought.

‘Now it’s about time to step forward.’

[No.]

Just then, Lucas opened his mouth.

A faint smile flickered across Julia’s face.

* * *

“No.”

I expelled the cold air filling my lungs as I spoke.

Now my ears and nose tip feel like they’re about to fall off.

“Gather them in one place.”

“If we gather them in one place, we might get wiped out, Lucas. Wouldn’t it be better to split the team to minimize damage?”

“Please.”

“….”

Cheringen smiled with satisfaction.

‘That bastard…’

He had no intention of refusing anyway.

I don’t have the strength to speak at length either.

He must have been suspicious of Team 5’s unique abilities too.

The school doesn’t want us to simply handle things with brute force.

When pushed to extreme situations, how well can you utilize background knowledge, how much wit can you display. Isn’t that what they’re trying to assess?

Otherwise, it would be too questionable for a problem issued by the Imperial 2nd Education Institute.

So we need to utilize the environment given to us more actively.

Cheringen returned to a serious expression and asked.

“What should I do?”

“Philip will stay here. Divide the remaining four including you into pairs, and drive those rampagers coming down from both sides of the peak to one location.”

A blizzard was starting to blow, but I could clearly see the black smoke descending from far away.

“Good. Melvin, follow me. Haike and Florian, go to that peak over there.”

Cheringen said that and began running into the distance.

“Hey… Hey, Lucas! What are you thinking?!”

Philip, left alone, spoke while trembling with his face already turned purple.

I rubbed magic together several times around me to generate heat.

“No time. There’s no time, but…”

Since we’re going to score points anyway, it would be nice to secure points for all team members.

Since I’m the original initiator, there’s no chance my points will be deducted.

So it’s worth letting the professors know that all team members remember their academic knowledge.

That would also be the team score.

“Philip. You said you’ve looked for water veins before, right? Then that means you can grasp the underground composition with your ability?”

“Y-Yes!”

“Then use your ability on the ground here!”

“What?! Where are there water veins here?! Everything’s just frozen!”

“You said it with your own mouth earlier! Limestone, karst. Don’t you get it? Did you sleep during science class?”

At those words, Philip’s friend muttered through the artifact.

[He said one thing wrong and now he’s getting beaten up multiple times…]

“Karst…?!”

[Ah.]

Cheringen’s brief word was heard from far away.

He seemed to have understood my intention.

Melvin also gasped and shouted excitedly.

[Do, doline! That’s what he means, Philip! The textbook said this plateau is karst terrain. And if not that, there are caves below, limestone caves too, right? I think Lucas means to find either one…!]

Doline.

A representative natural formation that appears in karst terrain.

I memorized it tediously both in the 21st century and here.

So, you can think of it as a type of sinkhole.

Indeed, unlike what Philip had pointed out, Melvin didn’t sleep during science class.

‘Actually, I was trying to find an underground cavity of appropriate size rather than a doline.’

Anyway, since the sphere is rolling down from above, whether it’s a depression in the ground or an underground cavity hidden by shallow ground, we can pick either.

Because there’s only one method I’ll use.

“Philip.”

“Y-Yes, tell me!”

He answered with a voice full of determination.

“Find it. So we can tie their feet and handle them all at once.”

* * *

[If we do it wrong, it might collapse, so get to a safe position. Let’s finish this completely within the next minute.]

Cheringen burst into laughter without realizing it.

“We’re about to freeze to death and they’re talking about textbooks… They’re really something…”

Florian, running behind, muttered incredulously.

It hurts my pride to think the same as Florian, but I agree.

Cheringen smiled with satisfaction as he charged toward the rampage.

Everyone thinks the team leader should handle all strategies inside and outside the field, but that’s wrong. My role is to lay the groundwork so that the right person for each field can fully display their abilities.

‘Well, personally I had the desire to handle internal field strategy too…’

I’m glad I didn’t.

It couldn’t be more successful than this.

If I had my way, I’d want to study tactics with Lucas 24 hours a day right now, forget the exam.

“Lucas.”

[Yeah?]

“You’re the best.”

[….]

After a while, Lucas burst into faint laughter and said.

[The results aren’t out yet, isn’t it too early.]

That might be true, but this must be the correct answer.

‘The exam was designed to interfere with unique ability usage, so there’s no way they’d give Team 5 an advantage now.’

It means there’s another solution the school wants, unrelated to unique abilities.

Right now, because of the blizzard, everything is white so we can’t easily see where the sinkholes are, but if we blow it away with magic, we can secure visibility temporarily.

So even without Philip’s unique ability, we can sufficiently utilize the natural environment.

I wonder if Team 5 moved the same way.

“Lucas, keep sending signals when you find the location. I’ll adjust the speed.”

[Alright.]

Crash―!

The sound of stones breaking came from far away.

It seemed they found a place with an underground cavity rather than a doline and broke it.

Cheringen squinted his eyes.

‘The sound of mud falling is getting closer.’

Now there’s a rampage in front.

He shouted to Florian behind him.

“I’m going to change direction soon. Make it chase me!”

“Got it!”

Crash!

Cheringen deflected the attack flying at him and turned around. Familiar red magic power shone through the blizzard from far away.

‘At that distance…’

Position-wise, Haike and Melvin will arrive first. Though it’ll only be about 2-3 seconds.

“Haike, pass through your position as is. Philip, lay a barrier on the ground only until the team members arrive, then remove it immediately. Don’t lay it again.”

[What! I’m tone-deaf!]

[Got it.]

Following Philip’s panic, Haike’s calm voice could be heard.

He was a friend who hadn’t come out of the 3rd Education Institute and had no expression, making it difficult to gauge his intentions, but his skills were trustworthy nonetheless.

[Julia, don’t take too long.]

“I know.”

Cheringen smiled and channeled mana into his legs.

[If you remain in me and my words remain in you.]

Lucas’s voice came through the artifact. The moment he felt a chill rising from below in front, Cheringen twisted his body.

Kwang―!

The massive black mass that was changing direction was pushed and slammed into the barrier.

Lucas lowered his wand that had been pointing toward the sky and transformed it into a staff. Fiery mana wrapped around the staff.

[Ask whatever you wish.]

Kwaaaaang―! Pueok―

Cheringen unconsciously squinted his eyes.

Along with the explosive sound, there was the sound of mud chunks spreading.

“….”

The students looked down at the motionless sphere, then looked at each other.

Gradually, one or two students began to burst into laughter.

Beep―

[23 minutes 35 seconds.]

[Test concluded.]

* * *

[Test concluded.]

The team that had been falling behind now finished the test before Team 5.

The gymnasium became quiet in an instant.

“…Doline?”

“What are these guys…?”

The silence was broken and hollow laughter erupted from various places.

It wasn’t in a negative sense. They just never expected to hear a concept written in textbooks here.

“….”

Leo’s lips twisted upward.

Even approaching it with the simple mindset of ‘let’s dig the ground and make a trap’ would earn the same positive points. This kind of efficiency is what the professors want anyway.

But more importantly, they actively utilized the environment they were in.

The voices of First Education Institute professors who came to watch from above could be faintly heard.

“Ah, yes. This is how they should approach it~ It was worth creating this problem.”

“….”

A university professor made the test?

No wonder….

Anyway, finishing quickly doesn’t necessarily mean a higher ranking.

Team 5 is still dealing with the rampage, but they won’t automatically fall in ranking just because they finished late.

The definitive results won’t be known until we see them….

‘The problem isn’t that Team 5 is falling behind right now.’

The moment he raised his head toward his teammates, Elias put his arm on Leo’s shoulder.

“Didn’t your team reserve first place? You were completely strong candidates for first.”

“…Never happened.”

“What do you mean never? There was a lot of talk from the start.”

Elias grinned and spoke at a volume only Leo could hear.

“How does it feel to fall behind?”

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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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