How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 181

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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 (181)

Do you know?

I blinked my eyes and slowly turned my head.

“How does it feel to have newly arrived?”

A face obscured by light spoke to me.

I had just received baptism.

Until now, I had always turned back time before the baptism ceremony was completely finished, but this time I didn’t.

Ludovica only realized I was a baptized being after touching my blood.

‘She said it was 23 years ago.’

Luca’s baptism left mana in his body, so that makes sense, but that shouldn’t remain.

If traces remain in the mind or anywhere else, then does Pleroma’s baptism also leave traces?

Even if I turn back time, that wouldn’t disappear.

I slowly blinked my eyes.

‘No, it might be too early to be certain…’

Of course I was prepared.

The reason I pushed forward with this strategy despite its uncertainty was that even if traces remain, there’s no way for anyone to notice them. If someone could identify a Pleroma member just by checking their pulse once and drawing blood once, Pleroma couldn’t have achieved such great success.

And there’s one more thing.

What remains in the soul is different from my body becoming Pleroma-ized.

The latter is a problem of reality, but the former is purely a matter of my perceived identity, my concept of who I am as a person.

Problems of reality were cleanly solved by turning back time. In other words, I just needed my mental strength to endure. I thought this level wasn’t even close to being a problem, and I’m still confident now.

“Welcome to our world. Although you haven’t even come halfway, you’re still someone who has been promised rebirth, so I couldn’t help but greet you.”

“…”

“Still, doesn’t your body feel brand new? Try throwing a punch.”

I slowly looked down at my fist and lightly struck the floor.

No, that’s what I intended to do…

Crack—

“…”

An impossible fracture was felt along my hand.

I dropped the stone fragment caught in my hand and slowly raised it.

My body moved as if it were mine yet not mine.

“Still weak.”

Weak? Looking at this?

I tried to speak but no voice came out.

“You haven’t experienced your bones melting away and your mouth going completely dry. Even if Your Excellency tries to deceive, you cannot deceive my eyes.”

The deep voice carried warmth.

I narrowed my eyes and examined the old man’s face.

Though his hair had turned white, the dignity emanating from his expression and posture made him look younger than expected.

“It seems your rank is higher. Monsignor probably didn’t expect this either. You probably didn’t expect it either. This kind of initiation is a first for me too.”

“…”

“I mean, I didn’t know you could absorb an artifact’s mana into your core and attack the baptizer. Doesn’t that sound like a very strange case?”

He said that and pressed his wand against my chest area.

Then he burst into hearty laughter.

“Ah, that’s not what’s important, is it? Hahaha!”

What…

“You’re thinking about Ludovica, aren’t you?”

“…”

“Even though it’s just the beginning, she has become your creator, so according to natural order, you won’t be able to leave her side from now on.”

I didn’t even want to know what that meant.

Whatever it was, it would all disappear in time anyway.

I slowly raised my hand to my mouth. As I released mana, strength began returning to my throat.

Tap—

He stood up from his seat and slowly began walking.

“Before we begin, let’s take time to get to know each other.”

As he stood up, his voice echoed through this vast space.

Black shoes stopped right next to my head.

“I am Abraham. Some people call me Chairman.”

His transparent gray eyes were staring right through me.

“…Abraham.”

Don’t make me laugh.

I opened the status window.

Marco Schreiber

Affection 0 [Capturable (Stage 1/5)]

Title: Chairman

Stamina: +5.0 [+7.0]

Mental Power: -6.0 [+8.0]

Mana: +3.5

Skill: +3.0 [+8.0]

Impression: +7.0

Luck: -3.0 [+3.0]

Traits: —

‘-6.0, +8.0.’

I understood perfectly.

I closed the window and slowly opened my mouth.

For now, I had to continue acting.

“…Why am I here?”

“Ludovica Schneider Monsignor asked me to ease your confusion.”

So give me a revelation, is that it?

“There’s no need to be nervous. Now that I see you, you seem ready to move right away. This is the first time I’ve seen a case where someone maintained their true nature after being interrupted during baptism, but it’s better than I thought.”

He snapped his fingers.

“Shall we talk while walking?”

Whoooosh—

“…!”

The sound of wind struck my ears.

The slight drowsiness I had felt until just now was instantly washed away by the January winter wind. My body’s sensations also became familiar, similar to before the baptism.

I was now standing on the ground with both feet.

The street I slowly looked up to confirm was dark and gloomy.

“This is Primrose Pass as you perceived it. I heard you really enjoy playing around like this?”

Though I thought I was alone, the sound of a cane gradually approached from behind.

“Well, I don’t have such memories~?”

I answered with a faint smile.

Having to act as Jeremaiah even to this guy… it felt like my stomach was twisting slightly, and it was a strange feeling in many ways, but it couldn’t be helped.

“But this place you created looks exactly like the first winter after all humanity disappeared from the capital.”

“You’re quite sentimental.”

“Living without sentiment is getting boring too.”

He threw out a playful remark.

I smiled and looked at his profile.

‘This is the one I was trying to meet.’

A tall, well-built elderly gentleman. Expensive clothing and neat accessories, dignified speech.

Completely removed from the typical image of a criminal.

“I heard you want to do business here. Is that right?”

“That’s right. You… you said you were the chairman earlier. Are you the chairman of Primrose Pass?”

“Haha, I do oversee the business here. But it’s nothing so grand to call it that.”

“That’s impressive~ Do you have any hobbies in entertainment? Since we’ve met like this, it’s fate…”

I leaned toward his ear.

“Could you introduce me to the places you enjoy most here, teacher?”

“…”

“From what you’re wearing, you seem to have similar tastes to me, so maybe our preferences in that area match too.”

He smiled silently.

Even I thought I’d asked a frivolous question to someone much older.

I did it on purpose, so I wasn’t bothered.

Only my mind suffered from having to come up with lines with not-so-good intentions in one second and deliver them with emotion.

I shrugged my shoulders and whistled.

Jeremaiah should act this way. At least for now.

The chairman smiled and said.

“Aren’t you ashamed in front of Lady Ludovica?”

Is she the only one?

I just feel fortunate that no one knows I’m acting like this.

Not to mention Leo, I can clearly see Elias making a big fuss and pestering me to say the same thing in front of him. Narke wouldn’t be much different, just wouldn’t say it out loud.

Thinking that far, my expression gradually hardened.

‘When I return…’

When I go back and meet my friends, I’ll have to ask Narke to check if any traces of Pleroma’s baptism remain on me.

It was the best decision, so I don’t regret the choice, but it wasn’t something I particularly wanted to face.

“From what I can see, you being a Buddhist doesn’t seem to be a problem at all. What do you think of Primrose Pass’s business?”

What do I think of Primrose Pass’s business?

Do I need to say it? It’s something I need to destroy. I need to eliminate it all so it can never surface again.

Thinking that, I suppressed my disgust and muttered.

“I don’t know? Light and salt?”

“Everything that happens in Primrose Pass is testing the lowest line of humanity.”

“…”

Silence flowed.

After a while, I raised my head to look at him.

“…?”

I’m so dumbfounded that I’m speechless.

That’s what I should be saying.

Is this something that should come from the mouth of Primrose Pass’s leader?

“Did I hear correctly?”

“At least I think so. I don’t like buying and selling sex, luring children from the slums to tie them down here, or buying and selling the right to beat people and harvest their organs.”

“Haha, I didn’t expect you to think that way? Please forget what I said earlier.”

“You seem surprised that I, who makes money through illegal acts, would say such things.”

“…”

I felt the wind tousling my hair and muttered.

“Why are you telling me this?”

He’s not attempting this conversation out of boredom.

I looked into his transparent gray eyes.

Most likely this is related to his ability.

For instance…

‘He needs to know the target’s way of thinking to give revelations.’

Or he needs to get the target’s consent, that is, permission through persuasion.

So I should consider the possibility that these are empty words.

But as soon as I thought that, I heard absurd words.

“You seem to find my words hard to believe. A manager needs the insight to know what kind of interaction my business will have with the society I live in.”

“And so?”

“Let me say it again. I don’t think prostitution is right. I think it’s a challenge to human intelligence. In the logic of market economy, how much of ourselves can humans give up… I’m not simply talking about the body. What I’m talking about is precisely the lowest line of humanity.”

“…”

“In other words, if sexual relations and all the bizarre acts that come with them can be bought and sold with money, then paying money to beat people wouldn’t be a big problem either, would it? It’s a kind of instinct, mutual interests are guaranteed, and it’s beneficial to someone’s mental health, so if monetary transactions are impossible and it shouldn’t develop into an industry, what’s the reason?”

I had to suppress a hollow laugh that was about to come out.

The person saying this now is none other than the supreme authority of Primrose Pass.

“Then going further, can’t death be bought and sold? Similarly, is there a special reason why that is okay but this isn’t?”

He continued speaking while matching my pace.

“There’s no need to discuss supply and demand issues. There are plenty of poor humans in the slums who want to pay for their family’s hospital bills, so let’s not consider whether suppliers exist. If adequate compensation is given, there are people willing to die and surprisingly many people who want to kill others. How far can humans fall if they pay money? For this reason, my business, which always opens the door to ethical problems, has reasons to be controversial.”

“Has reasons to be controversial… I’m curious about the intention behind this too.”

“You’re probably curious how I’m saying things that would ruin my business? Because being controversial doesn’t immediately mean the end of prostitution. Prostitution has been considered sinful since Old Testament times, but humanity has never parted with it.”

“…”

“But in this era that has reached the most brilliant time in human history, in this era where the population reaches 100 million and many have completed higher education, if we’re all regressing to before the Old Testament, what would that mean?”

I answered simply without making any expression.

“Since it wouldn’t show such patterns in just one field, we’d need to reconsider the Empire’s development potential and investment value. But it wouldn’t have much relation to your business, chairman, which would be difficult to expand into a global enterprise.”

“We seem to get along well. I was about to say that if you have a businessman’s spirit, you’d easily understand what process I went through to reach this conclusion, but to make such an accurate statement.”

“I just answered to match your way of thinking, chairman. Are you satisfied?”

“…Good. That was an answer worth having a conversation about.”

The chairman ended the conversation with a laugh.

The road seemed endless no matter how much we walked.

After a while, he opened his mouth again.

“Do you like stories about humans and new humans?”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Hundreds of years ago, this continent captured and burned to death humans suspected of using magic. It’s a good example showing how magic was perceived at that time.”

“Yes.”

“But how is magic perceived now? Why is what was sinful then sacred now?”

“Well~ Because there are more mages?”

I answered lightly.

Jeremaiah shouldn’t give proper answers to his questions. If I must answer, I should finish with just a word or two.

“No. It became that way when nobles began to possess magic.”

Undesirable, but not wrong.

No, it’s not just that level – it’s the correct answer.

“There’s another story. Why did Martin Luther’s religious reformation succeed? Conversely, why couldn’t Hus and Wycliffe, who made similar claims before Luther, achieve such historical accomplishments?”

“Precedents accumulated and it exploded during Luther’s time.”

It’s a story from the era before magic, a time shared between the world I lived in and this world.

Since I learned this content in the 21st century too, I know two or three of the most plausible answers, but I answered as carelessly as possible this time too.

What’s important isn’t what I say, but what he says.

Since my prediction about the chairman’s ideology was wrong – I never thought I’d see a pimp criticizing prostitution – I need to reassess.

“Luther received support from nobles. Meanwhile, Hus and Wycliffe did not. You’d think Luther, being a reformer, would have been on the side of the weak? He turned away from peasants and fiercely criticized Jews.”

“…”

“What does this tell us? The strong have the ability to elevate their beliefs and values to social justice. The weak masses play the role of receiving the justice led by the strong, but cannot create justice.”

“Haha…”

I knew this would happen.

One’s true nature cannot be hidden.

Or maybe he has no intention of hiding it.

“This suggests much about the nature of new humans and humans. Do you know that bourgeois political participation has increased recently?”

“Recently? It seems like it’s been over a century.”

“Right. You know that commoners have been constantly striving to pull down nobles and participate in politics. But the bourgeoisie shouldn’t rule the world and humans shouldn’t be given complete suffrage. You’d agree since you’re also a new human, right?”

“Hmm, no. What’s your basis?”

“We cannot stand by and watch politics by fools. The masses will elect clowns as kings, not leaders. We, the ruling class who have governed humanity for thousands of years, can distinguish between leaders and clowns, but the Old Humanity, who have been nothing but commoners for thousands of years, lack that ability.”

“….”

I stroked my chin and fell into thought.

Setting aside the fact that as someone who had lived as Old Humanity for over 20 years, this statement made my stomach churn.

‘This is unexpected.’

While religion does need some political elements to establish a religious order, if he held such extreme political ideologies, that changed things. Worth remembering.

“I guarantee it. If kings and nobles don’t keep them in check, the commoners will stage coups and commit unprecedented massacres. They lack the ability to become leaders. Instead of taking up pens and giving speeches to become leaders, they’ll take up guns, Old Humanity’s greatest achievement.”

“….”

“Why must they resort to guns? Because they lack the ability to persuade the masses using intelligence, humanity’s privilege. Instead, they can only stimulate base instincts to gain support triggered by madness.”

Instead of answering, I merely smiled.

Realizing I didn’t agree with his argument, he smiled and added:

“Let me make a prophecy. The moment the monarchy falls and Old Humanity seizes power, all Jewish lineages on this continent will be exterminated. Foreigners and heretics—what better targets? They even look different. They can maintain the identity of a single religious cultural sphere while stimulating nationalism to unite the people.”

I didn’t respond.

This mystical spectacle created by the overlap of his insight and misguided ideology was simply wondrous.

Could this man also be from another world….

‘No.’

Though it was reasonable suspicion, that couldn’t be it. This was a hypothesis that could be sufficiently established with this world’s circumstances.

The Chairman looked at me quietly, then tilted his head as if finding it ambiguous.

“What do you think the weak are, Mr. Jeremaiah?”

“….”

“The 98 million commoners born into families without money or honor appear weak in our eyes. But because of their numbers, we call them the masses.”

“What’s your reason for telling me this?”

He ignored my words and continued speaking.

“Individuals may be smart, but groups are not. The more people there are, the stupider humans become, because there are others to think instead of me. When there are kind others who chew and spit out food to put it in my mouth, why would I digest and ruminate with my own strength? Superficially plausible tin-can logic spreads like wildfire to become the group’s opinion, and the group’s opinion becomes the opinion of individuals who lack the power to think. So Old Humanity’s downfall will be having too large a population.”

“….”

“Wise and rational change lies only in the hands of us New Humanity, but we need to consider that their numbers are overwhelming. When groups realize they are weak, they won’t leave their characteristic demagogic nature alone. Do you know the best way to prevent that?”

I felt the flow of air and silently concentrated mana in my core.

“It’s making them unaware that they lack power. Theatrical devices are needed. The most commonly used device is internal division, mainly utilized in colonial rule. And….”

At that moment, the world I was standing in became blurred white.

[There’s more. Even if they have the ability to walk on water, they can never rise to positions like ours, and must live in positions of weakness for generations of descendants….]

Kwaaaaang—!

“…!”

I gritted my teeth at the intense pain that struck my solar plexus.

The space magic the Chairman had created shattered, and I was lying in the space where I had first awakened.

The Chairman’s shoe pressed down on my solar plexus. Because he had struck with his heel, it felt like my ribs would break.

“This kind of activity covers it up. You won’t be able to use magic in my building, so don’t make useless attempts.”

Vitriol circled above my core.

When I bit my lip to suppress a scream, he pressed down on my stomach harder.

“Even if I don’t know how the world works, if I can gain pleasure by overwhelming the strong in the micro world, would macroscopic flows matter? Selling Old Humanity the right to handle a few New Humanity as they please…. I personally don’t agree ethically, but like the Old Humanity prostitution business, I think it’s a decent plan. Do you agree?”

“No way.”

I exhaled rapidly and shook the Antagonist off me.

He stepped back to avoid my fist and said:

“No matter how much we talk, it seems difficult to find common ground with you. You won’t give me an opening.”

‘Difficult to find common ground.’

Thanks for the information.

Earlier, I thought he wouldn’t be having this conversation with me without meaning.

If the purpose was simply to justify logic, this long conversation would be a waste of time.

But if the purpose was different?

Drawing out agreement to create an ‘opening’—that would be the condition for giving revelations to a person’s brain.

He continued in a gentle voice:

“Come to think of it, you said earlier that you’d never be separated from His Excellency. Sorry for being so definitive. You probably won’t be able to meet your Excellency. Well, that doesn’t matter, does it?”

I just looked up at him silently.

He pulled out a ticket from his pocket and showed it to me.

It was the New York performance hall admission ticket I had put in my clothes for Jeremaiah’s act.

When he shook the paper three times, the ticket disappeared without a trace, and a metal ID appeared.

I slowly raised the corners of my mouth.

He was looking down at me with a similar expression.

“Bavarian Government Investigation Bureau Detective Division 1, J.H…..”

“….”

“You must have come all this way looking for me.”

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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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