How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 19

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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 Noble Family (19)

‘I really thought I was going to die.’

No matter how much I utilized evening and dawn hours, it was overwhelming. With half a day of training, I only gained 0.4 points, but after making the medicine, I only had 5 days left.

I barely managed to achieve the proposal with 9 hours remaining after missing classes three times.

Fortunately, the increase in strength and endurance was significant, so I could sometimes earn more than 0.4 points.

Ding―!

Congratulations!

‘Proposal 2: Achieve 0 points in ‘Physical Strength” Success!

‘Route 1 — 〈 Chapter 3 Special Reward 〉’ confirmed.

‘I wonder what will come out.’

Chapter 3 Special Reward

Is there a trait you want to have? We’ve prepared this for you!

‘Trait?’

Looking at that phrase, a memory flashed through my mind.

‘Don’t tell me this came out because I said I wanted the exchange student trait back then…’

I need to think carefully about my choices now.

I watched the pure white cluster of light appearing before my eyes.

The light began to take a definite form, becoming a pile of notes.

They looked like pages torn from a book and folded. On the milky white textured paper, tiny letters were written in black ink. Due to the flashing light, I couldn’t make out the contents.

‘Here… do I just unfold any of them?’

I squinted and put my hand into the pile of notes.

Before I could properly unfold the note, pure white letters appeared before my eyes.

Ding―!

Congratulations!

‘Charm’ trait has been added!

What?

I was so dumbfounded that I burst out laughing without realizing it.

Does charm put food on the table? A mage lives by magic, not by charm… Are you kidding me?

‘Bad luck.’

Having something is better than having nothing, but… do I really need such an item right now? No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t escape my skeptical thoughts.

I called up the charm trait with mixed feelings.

Charm Lv.1

― ‘I want to get close!’ Certain target’s favorability increases by 2 points

― ‘If you say so, it must be right.’ Persuasion power increases by 20%

― 2.0 points until next level

I take back what I said about kidding.

I was too narrow-minded. I shouldn’t have made hasty judgments based on the name alone.

Favorability, and 20% increase in persuasion power.

Favorability aside, the persuasion power item is quite appealing. It’s a trait worth investing in long-term.

‘Not bad.’

I dismissed the window with satisfaction.

* * *

“Narke! It’s the day Narke comes!”

Fai excitedly ran around on my shoulder, shouting.

The reason this guy is here is… because he found it amazing to meet someone he could talk to and kept warping to my room using divine power.

When I repeated taking him to the Administrative Office for the eighth time, the staff contacted Narke to explain the situation. Narke said it was fine to let Fai roam free as long as I was okay with it.

Since I had to be alone from midnight anyway, having one more animal around didn’t seem like it would make things too chaotic, so I accepted.

And… during our time together, I extracted a lot of information about Narke. I decided to make him an ally, but since we haven’t even had a proper conversation yet, I need to be cautious, so the more I know about the guy, the better.

I didn’t need to ask about Narke first.

Fai rattled off information about Narke on his own.

I muttered while recalling useless information like how Narke came from Theological School and doesn’t like eating noodles.

“That’s nice.”

“Lucas is happy too, right?”

“Yeah, that’s nice.”

Well, we should be somewhat close for it to be nice. But I played along for now.

“Narke will be happy to see us too~!”

“I see.”

I put the guy in a cage, told him not to follow, and headed to the classroom. The cage wouldn’t really work on someone who warps using divine power, but I at least kept up appearances.

I pulled open the slightly ajar classroom door.

Students were crowded in the back row, chatting noisily.

“Class 1 must be nervous.”

“We also sent a third-place student before the first-year finals and our average dropped. We’re in no position to say anything now.”

“They can’t remember stuff like that. Once midterms hit, they’ll just blindly say our class exchange student is showing off.”

“Let them talk. But we need to win first to have the right to complain…”

“Narke! Are you good at any sports? We have a competition before vacation.”

When someone interrupted and changed the topic, the student sitting in the middle smiled and answered.

“Well. I’m confident in most things involving balls.”

“Hey, we won. It’s over.”

“Why are you putting pressure on the kid as soon as he arrives?”

This school has exactly two classes per department.

If there were more, it might be different, but being divided into two created a subtle competitive dynamic between the classes. From the number of students selected for special classes and test scores like class averages to various competitions, there wasn’t a field they didn’t compare. Sometimes even professors encouraged competition, saying it helped improve achievement.

‘It can’t help but be intense.’

Even in high school where there were more class divisions, we used to argue jokingly, and sometimes seriously, about whether we were doing better or worse than other classes.

You could say the fanatical obsession with winning sports festival prizes during school days has simply shifted to grades and various competitions.

On top of that, since only the best students from across the nation are gathered here, students at this Location definitely tend to be more obsessed with grades than students at other schools.

Unfortunately, in our grade, except for the first exam after admission, Class 1’s grades have been slightly higher so far.

I distributed notes to the students sitting in a row next to my seat and sat down.

“Good work. Keep it up today too.”

“…Mmm…”

The students mumbled with their usual dying faces.

Then, I made eye contact with a student sitting in the corner of the back row. When Narke’s eyes met mine, he smiled and waved his hand.

The classroom became as quiet as if cold water had been poured over it.

They looked back and forth between Narke and me, then opened their mouths to say something to Narke.

Creak―

“Good morning, have a good day.”

“Good morning.”

Students quickly returned to their seats and greeted the Professor who came in for morning assembly. The Professor announced today’s schedule and brought up Narke.

“Today is the exchange student’s first day of school. Since you’ll be studying together for a year, let’s have a self-introduction.”

The students’ gazes focused on Narke again. Narke smiled and stood up.

“Hello, I’m Narke Farnese who will be joining you from this semester. Please take care of me.”

“You consistently received good grades at your previous school. I hope you’ll have good results here too.”

“Yes, thank you.”

After morning assembly and the first class ended, Narke approached me.

“Lucas.”

Narke whispered.

“I got the message. Sorry for leaving him with you. Did Fai bother you a lot?”

“No, it was fine.”

“Thanks for looking after him. If it’s okay…”

“Narke.”

A student carefully called out to Narke from outside the classroom door.

Narke went out of the classroom, and not long after, returned with a smile and raised an eyebrow. I asked about the meaning of that subtle gesture.

“What?”

“There’s a rumor going around that you’re a Pleroma, so be careful.”

How kind of him.

I let out a slight laugh.

“What did you answer?”

“I said I don’t think so.”

“….”

Such intriguingly interesting answers keep coming out.

I thought for a moment, then asked.

“Could we talk for a bit after dinner later?”

* * *

“Lucas.”

Narke opened the door to the dormitory lounge and entered.

I picked up the cage containing Fai and placed it on the table.

“I brought Fai.”

“Narke!”

“Thanks. Have you been well?”

“It was fun!”

Narke didn’t answer further and just smiled.

I set tea in front of Narke and sat down.

“Here.”

“I’ll enjoy it. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Did you get a tour of the school?”

“Yeah, the class president helped me. They said I can use the personal training ground starting today. I’m going later, want to come?”

I need to talk to Leo about Narke, so I can’t.

I lightly shook my head and changed the subject.

“No. By the way… I have something I’m curious about.”

“What is it?”

“What kind of animal is this?”

“Oh, Fai? It’s a baby rabbit.”

A rabbit?

I looked at Fai, unable to hide my shock.

“…You’re a rabbit?”

“Strictly speaking, it’s different from a regular rabbit. It looks like a mouse, right?”

“Yeah.”

It looks more like a hamster than a mouse though.

“That’s probably why. The color and size are perfect. But anyway… don’t you have something else to talk about?”

“Right.”

I took a sip of tea and spoke.

“First… I think I should tell you this first. I can hear what it says.”

“Huh? Cough…!”

Narke turned his head and coughed. With a face that showed whether he was laughing or flustered, Narke coughed heavily then looked at me and asked back.

“What?”

I guess even insight couldn’t know something like this.

Well, if a level 2 ability could know everything, then everything in the world would be under his control.

“Really… no, you really can hear it. I knew you used divine power, but I didn’t know it was strong enough to work on Fai.”

He must have just used insight to confirm that.

Also… long-distance communication with Fai seems impossible. If it were possible, Fai would have already blabbed to Narke about being able to talk with me.

I extracted various pieces of information from Narke’s words and imprinted them in my mind.

Fai, who had been on Narke’s shoulder, jumped down to the table.

“Now there are two people I can talk to~! I wish more people could hear me!”

“No. Then the Church Authority won’t leave you alone.”

Narke stroked Fai’s head and smiled. Then he looked straight at me again and asked.

“You have other questions too, right?”

As expected, it’s nice when conversations move quickly.

“Right, I’m curious about many things regarding you. This might be sudden, but these are important matters to me. Can you answer my questions truthfully?”

“Sure, you even saved Fai, so that much is fine.”

I nodded and continued speaking.

“What was your basis for thinking that others shouldn’t know I use magic?”

“That story from that day. Well, I felt it through intuition… can you accept that? It’s hard to explain.”

Intuition.

Insight could also be judged that way when you think about it. It’s not different from the information that was in the status window.

I nodded.

“Why do you think I’m not a Pleroma?”

“Ah, that’s definitely not true. First of all, you’ve never died.”

This point… most people think that way, so it’s not a particularly special claim.

People believe I’m someone with Pleroma characteristics rather than a Pleroma who was a corpse that came back to life. Since there are those who follow Pleroma’s will even without dying, they can think that way.

Narke gazed into the distance, lost in thought.

“The rumors about you were exactly… that you drank animal blood at age four, and killed a servant at age five, if I remember correctly. There are also rumors that you steal mana from people nearby.”

“You know well.”

“Your story is a hot topic even in the Papal States.”

Narke drank his tea and spent a while choosing his words, then looked straight at me.

“You’ve never voluntarily drunk blood. You’ve never committed murder either. If you ask for evidence for this too, my intuition is all I have. But this is the truth. You know it now too, don’t you?”

“Now?”

“Because until recently, you probably believed those false rumors to be true too.”

“….”

The corners of my mouth naturally rose.

Well, that would be the case. It was before the possession.

A strange light flickered in Narke’s golden eyes.

Narke clasped his hands together and asked me.

“Adrian Ascanien is no ordinary person, is he?”

“….”

“To pin his own murder on his younger brother, it’s impossible with a sane mind.”

Adrian Ascanien is… my older brother’s name.

I answered while maintaining my smile.

“Right.”

The more we talk, the more certain I feel.

I absolutely must make this person an ally.

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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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