How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 197

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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 (197)

‘Hah…’

This damn school. It never fails to disappoint me.

They scattered all the teammates who had been coordinating for the past two weeks, and now they want us to take the exam with people we’ve never even trained with for a single day.

But they planned this from the beginning. That’s certain.

‘…It was a situation where they couldn’t control the difficulty.’

I thought the school would prepare something since it seemed questionable whether they could distinguish qualified candidates at this rate… but I’m genuinely surprised now that this situation has actually come to pass.

[Lucas Ascanien / Oswald Schmidt / Elias Hohenzollern / …]

At the next name written, I let out a sigh of relief.

‘Thank goodness.’

If I had to face Narke and Leo alone, it would have been insane difficulty, but with a skilled person like Elias by my side, things are different.

This is a game worth playing.

Then the other students’ names were written in golden letters floating in midair.

‘The other two are ordinary.’

Just as I was about to look away thinking that, an unbelievable name was written.

[…/ Julia Zehringen]

“Huh?”

Cheringen is on the same team too?

My eyes met with Cheringen who was standing far away.

But the joy of having two strong teammates quickly faded.

I quickly turned my head to check the Team 1 roster again.

‘…As expected.’

Ulrike Kleist. The undisputed number one of Class 1 is on Team 1.

Except for the magic potion experiment competition, I had no particular connection with her, and since I was only focused on Leo and Narke, I hadn’t paid much attention to her.

‘Now I can see the school’s intention somewhat.’

The announcement ended quickly. Even though there were only 24 students in this vast space, increasingly shocked murmurs began to fill the area.

“Are they really changing the team members?!”

“They’re proceeding like this? Why?”

[This third selection exam will proceed based on the teams announced just now. You may be confused due to differences from the previously announced teammates, but our school completed the exam design a month ago and designed it so that if you students trained faithfully according to the announcements, there would be no hindrance to the exam. This exam reflects unexpected situations that occur in actual field conditions, and was designed to assess the ability to effectively demonstrate one’s skills even in unforeseen teammate changes and to coordinate the balance between the team and oneself.]

“What the hell does this mean?”

“Still, to tell us this on the day of…!”

Sounds of disbelief could be heard from everywhere.

I feel the same way.

They made us form teams and train our bones off for two weeks, and now they’re reorganizing the teams?

It’s absurd.

But if we’re being honest, dropping us in the Alps is even more absurd.

‘As expected, they don’t do just one thing.’

More importantly, there’s something else to focus on.

Unlike the second exam, they announced the design intention first.

This means they predicted that many students wouldn’t be able to implement the results even if they knew the design intention.

‘Is the difficulty higher than I thought? Or…’

Is there something more.

I stroked my chin and fell into thought.

[This concludes the team composition announcement, and we will now announce the exam procedure. Students, please move to your designated team positions.]

“Hey, hey! Team 4! Gather up!”

“Shouldn’t we protest? How can they announce this on the day of the exam!”

“I think they did this on purpose, so protesting probably won’t change anything…”

“No, are they really crazy…”

The 24 students who had been standing in order of arrival began moving in unison.

Haike Einsiedel, rarely showing signs of confusion, looked at me before heading to her newly assigned team position.

Narke, who had been beside me, placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Lucas. We…”

“…”

“Became enemies overnight~ haha.”

“You didn’t know about this?”

“Nope.”

Come to think of it, he didn’t know what was coming during the magic potion experiment competition either.

It seems like he tries not to use his power for things he has to handle with his own abilities.

“I enjoyed being on the same team with you for the past two weeks, Lucas, but it’s unfortunate how this turned out…”

A callused, pure white hand was thrust in front of me. Narke smiled mischievously for some reason.

“Let’s do our best with fresh hearts.”

“Even a handshake? Even if there’s score comparison, it’s still a game we each play individually.”

“Haha, let’s do our best~ And you can tell your teammates about my ability. Since it’s an unavoidable situation, I won’t say anything if you mention it.”

“Hmm, suddenly?”

Narke didn’t answer and just smiled.

I lightly shook his hand and moved to Team 3’s position.

I understand why Narke is acting like that.

Having a score competition means we’ll both receive the same field, and Narke’s insight power works on me even when we’re not in the same place… so now that we’re competing teams, Narke can read my strategy.

‘Of course, even if he reads my thoughts… from outside the exam hall, it would look like Narke’s side is just following me a bit late. It would be much more effective for him to move with his own brain in that time.’

I might be overinterpreting this. Narke might have just offered a handshake meaning let’s do well.

When I stood in our team’s line, I saw Cheringen waving at me with a smile.

“We’re on the same team, Lucas. I was hoping we’d be on the same team again this time, and I’m surprised it came true like this~”

“Right. Since we work well together, this worked out well.”

“What about me, Luca~?”

Elias, who had been jumping around asserting his presence as soon as he saw me, suddenly interjected before Cheringen.

“You’re good too. But you’ve never trained with me even once.”

“Ahhh… That’s unfortunate. But I’ve always wanted to work with you~?”

Anyway, the result is that we’ve never coordinated even once.

As if he knew what I was thinking, Elias put his arm around my shoulder and smiled.

“I’ll coordinate well with you. You can look forward to it.”

“Sure.”

As if he expected me to show a skeptical reaction, Elias widened his eyes before grinning. Then he turned around to look at the students lined up in Team 3 and shouted.

“Now, who’s our Team 3 ace~? We need to strategize now!”

“There are three of them, is it okay to call them that? It’s you, Lucas, and Julia. What are you asking?”

Oswald answered with a face that said he couldn’t believe he had to hear such an absurd question.

He was a friend who had been on the same team until the third training, and on the first day of training when we shared unique abilities, he had mentioned having good sense of smell.

And his ability was really useful.

During every training session, he found the locations of hidden enemies and tracked down our team members who had disappeared without a trace. Also, thanks to his sense of smell, we could utilize the terrain features of each field more abundantly.

I said to Oswald.

“At least I’m glad you came with me.”

“Isn’t that what I should be saying? Wow, I almost screamed when my name came up after yours. Hey, I’m saved, damn it…”

“Yeah, that’s fortunate.”

I cut him off as soon as the profanity came out and looked around at the students.

First, Julia came from the original Team 1, Oswald and I from the original Team 2, Elias from the original Team 3. Also, Florian Osterhagen and Auguste Rosenheim came from Team 4.

The only student I have no information about is Auguste Rosenheim, but he’s also among the top performers in practical skills in our department.

The team luck isn’t bad.

Then Cheringen, who had been looking around, looked at us and said.

“Lucas, Elias. You know that Team 1 over there also has the exact same partners from the second exam, right.”

I know.

Narke and Leo. These two moved together on the same team during the second exam too.

Like Cheringen and me.

“I think the school is….”

“It seems they’re planning to pit Team 1 against each other.”

Auguste Rosenheim, who had been frozen alone for some reason, suddenly spoke up.

The other students nodded their heads.

Everyone knew which Team 1 he was referring to.

The school had arranged a competition between students who would likely enter the official Team 1 selected through today’s exam, those who would likely secure the final 1st through 6th places.

They had clearly created a situation to easily compare each person’s abilities and assign scores.

‘…We’ve become the school’s close evaluation targets.’

A strange tension rose. Not just me, but Julia was also wearing an ambiguous smile, seeming to feel the same sentiment.

I spoke to the students from our team gathered around.

“Although we’ve been on different teams, each of us has trained our best on our respective teams, so don’t be nervous. Focus on adjusting your pace to others’ movements as you’ve practiced, and you’ll do well. Let’s do our best.”

“Good. Anyway, only the team members have changed, and this much shouldn’t be too impossible to handle!”

“Right. Let’s do our best.”

The team members agreed one by one.

At least this team had gathered friends with quick situational judgment. Instead of panicking, they were uniting, which was satisfying.

[We will now introduce the exam procedure.]

As the announcement sounded again, the students’ voices gradually quieted down.

[The exam will proceed in the order of Teams 1-3, then Teams 2-4. Team 1 and Team 3, and Team 2 and Team 4 will each take their exams in the same field….]

Of course they’d take it in the same field like the second round. That would make it easier to distinguish superiority through scores.

[This time, both teams will be deployed together in one field.]

“…?!”

“Huh?”

“Professor, what are you saying right now?”

The surroundings became noisy again.

My eyes met with Cheringen and Elias.

One field?

So they’re saying they’ll throw us into the same space and make the two teams encounter each other?

That was the only possibility the professor’s words could indicate.

[The exam method is as follows. The two teams must recognize each other as enemies and find and rescue one victim caught up in a rampage scene. The team that rescues the victim first will receive 1 bonus point for all team members.]

“What? What about the rampage perpetrator?”

“This wasn’t this kind of exam.”

Outcries that this was irrelevant could be heard from various places.

No, it’s not entirely irrelevant.

Instead, it’s more of a problem like ‘They’re making us do this too?’

“….”

This wasn’t victim and secondary damage handling, but closer to Pleroma elimination activities. Though packaged as rescue activities, the essence was an order to recognize the opposing team as Pleroma and eliminate them for obstructing rescue activities.

At this point, what Narke said earlier flashed through my mind.

‘…She said we became enemies overnight.’

It’s true. We became not simple score competitors, but enemies to be eliminated within one field.

‘She used her ability here….’

I let out a hollow laugh and looked toward Team 1’s position. When our eyes met, Narke smiled brightly.

Anyway, now there was a problem.

Thanks to training with me every single day for two weeks, Narke knew all my attack and defense patterns, as well as strategic patterns.

Leo goes without saying. All of my magic was achieved because of Leo.

‘Hmm….’

Two of the three powerful enemies on the opposing team knew everything about me inside and out. This couldn’t help but be a problematic situation.

Then, Leo, who had been standing among the students with a troubled expression, raised his hand, looked toward the professor who would be in the broadcasting room, cast amplification magic, and said.

“Professor. There are many opinions that informing us of changes on the day of the exam is unreasonable treatment.”

‘The kids must have pressured him.’

He’s not the type to make such objections.

Elias was artificially covering his mouth and laughing, apparently thinking the same thing.

[Our school has never delivered advance notice about exam procedures. However, judging that students have sufficient basis and motivation to misunderstand that it would proceed in the same manner as the second exam, we will provide one hour of strategy planning time for this exam. Also, we have prepared training footage from the First Education Institute Student Military Corps that was conducted identically to this exam, so students from each team please move to the situation room on the 2nd floor immediately.]

“….”

“You prepared this in advance?”

Right. You really prepared it.

I saw your skill in naturally moving to the next stage.

As it ended, students shouted with bewildered faces.

“No, Professor…!”

“You said we just had to do what was stored in Mimesis…!”

The school would probably counter like this.

The field you’ll be deployed to now also runs on Mimesis, so it’s not cheating.

We should have learned during the Alps incident not to expect common sense from them.

I spoke to the stunned Team 3 students.

“Very confusing, right?”

“Uh….”

“Should I just go ask if they could please just change the team members?”

“Would that work?”

The students muttered among themselves.

They were half out of their minds. Well, it was no ordinary request to take an exam with team members they’d never trained with in a format they’d never trained for.

I looked at the dazed students and said.

“At times like this, we need to stay sharp. We’ve come this far, so we can’t be pushed back without even demonstrating our skills. Right?”

“….”

“Right. And….”

Auguste Rosenheim, who had been the only one staying quiet, spoke with a serious expression.

“I desperately need that 1 bonus point. You guys who will make Team 1 might not know, but… the score gap between ranks corresponding to Team 2 and Team 3 was fierce last time too. If six people from other teams each get 1 point and I don’t get it here, I might end up falling to Team 3.”

“…Me too. I can’t be eliminated here.”

Florian, who had been standing with a dark expression, agreed.

He had risen largely due to team luck in the second round, so he had reason to worry about elimination.

“Right. It’s settled then.”

I looked around at the students and said.

“Team 1 is no easy opponent. It might be very confusing, but let’s set other emotions aside for now and focus on our goal.”

“Right.”

The students answered with faces that looked more alert than before.

I smiled once to lighten the mood and gestured toward the stairs leading to the situation room.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

[Found it. Block Team B’s entry.]

One First Education Institute mage in the footage placed his hand on a building and said that.

The team members, who had been concentrating on the footage without taking a breath, finally paused the video and shook their heads.

“Wow, do we have to find the victim ourselves too?”

“We’d have to. In actual situations, most of the time we don’t know.”

The exam was nothing special.

The two teams starting from opposite points had to find several victims within the area and warp them to the rescue location.

They were called victims, but they were essentially no different from game objects. In the end, if it seemed like the opponent would find a victim, we had to interfere with them. It was definitely a game where our team would be seen as Pleroma from the opponent’s perspective, and vice versa.

I thought this while leaning back in my chair.

Then, I saw Julia sitting next to me take out bandages and wrap them around her wand and hand. Watching this, I asked.

“This was in the medical kit, right?”

There’s a medical kit distributed at the start of each exam session.

It’s implemented within Mimesis, and if used here, it can be used as-is in Mimesis too.

It’s given to use when you get injured inside and it interferes with your activities…

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“I guess it’s okay to wrap it around the wand?”

“Yeah, it seems the usage doesn’t matter~ I’ve been training with it connected to my hand since the 3rd training, and it was good. Lucas, should I wrap it for you too?”

“No, it’s fine. I just prefer holding it normally.”

Our team students watched the video one more time, then turned it off when there were 30 minutes left for strategy planning.

“Now I understand the test format well. We need to find the victim’s location first, but the opposing team will attack us… so setting up a strategy against the opposing team is the priority.”

“Right.”

I looked around at the students and said.

“First, Team 1 has Leonard Wittelsbach and Narke Farnese. These two will handle everything from strategy to action. Just like they did in the 2nd round.”

“That’s right. Among them, Leonard Wittelsbach is especially skilled at strategy. He’s the target we need to mark first.”

I nodded at Cheringen’s words.

Elias spoke with a rare expression completely devoid of any smile.

“Right. We need to take out the strategist first.”

That’s correct.

When the commander disappears, everyone tends to become a disorganized mob and scatter, so it’s definitely the best method.

The problem is that he’s the strongest in many ways, making it difficult to do so.

I raised my head to check my teammates’ faces.

Among the five, Elias’s expression was particularly unpleasant.

I know why. Because I’m having the exact same worry as him.

“Guys. There’s something you need to know.”

When I spoke with a serious face, all the students’ gazes focused on me.

I looked around at the students and said.

“The most crucial problem in this test is something else. This time, we need to focus on Narke Farnese.”

* * *

“We mark Lucas Ascanien as soon as we start.”

Leo said as he put down the bulletin board on the desk.

“You know this well. Let me emphasize once more. Lucas Ascanien is Team 3’s brain and the center of everything.”

Team 1 members nodded with serious faces.

They had already established their strategy once, and now only 10 minutes remained until the test started.

Leo reached out his hand to Narke and said.

“Once we go in, Narke will use his ability right away. He’ll immediately relay to you what Lucas Ascanien is thinking…”

Leo looked at the students with sharp eyes and said.

“Block it accordingly.”

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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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