How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 231

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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 (231)

“….”

“Well, this should be enough for now.”

After muttering the alphabet once more, I now checked the back of the regular matches.

Unlike the white phosphorus match, the wooden part of the regular matches had nothing written on them.

“Haike. Can you tell who brought this here with your ability?”

Haike was still silent, his heart apparently racing from facing the white phosphorus match.

Though it catches fire just from brushing against something, it had been safely inside without catching fire until now, and since I soaked it in water, it should be safe now. More importantly, didn’t people decades ago carry these around in their pockets and bags?

‘Of course, it was crazy behavior.’

How did people in the old days live like that? Well, now is also the old days, but….

Also, since this is clearly a situation where I need to decode someone’s message, I fully understand why Haike is panicking.

“…Sorry. I don’t know. This has never happened before….”

Haike, who had been tracing the spot with the alphabet with his finger, belatedly muttered a response. His face had turned pale.

“You don’t know?”

“It feels like something has been erased. But I do know one thing. Even though there’s a post office stamp on it, this wasn’t delivered but was directly placed here by someone in this area. So, using a trained bird like an eagle or hawk.”

“Hmm.”

Right. There’s no way this would have gone through the post office. If it had been even slightly unlucky, it would have bumped into other match heads inside and caught fire, so there was no need to go through the post office and cause problems.

Haike moved half a step closer to me and spoke seriously.

“How about calling Narke to find out who brought this here?”

“We should try, but Narke’s accuracy drops if he doesn’t see the person’s face.”

Just like I need to look into someone’s eyes to open their status window, he also needs to look into someone’s eyes to use his insight ability smoothly. It’s better not to expect any meaningful information.

What I can simply figure out now is that, considering Haike’s future, whoever sent this is most likely a Pleroma werewolf.

Also….

‘Matches….’

Coincidentally, isn’t this the item I used last week?

Not for daily use, but when I set off the sprinkler to counter Pleroma’s nonsense.

And it was ‘me’ who used it.

Then this item that arrived so timely the day right after Haike and I had our exchange, though it came in Haike’s name, would be a message that applies to me as well. The moment a code was used, it became impossible to take only what’s visible at face value.

Whoever sent this would know about yesterday and this morning’s events.

‘Is it that stalker?’

Thinking about it again, if it had been before we met, that would be one thing, but now that we’ve become people who can meet anytime, the possibility of still sending messages through objects is small. The reason he had only been sending me notes until now was because he had no plans to meet me directly. Now that we’ve met and even exchanged rings, there’s no need to be so cautious.

Still, I’ll keep it in consideration.

A more accurate conclusion can be reached after I know what this alphabet means.

I put the matches I had soaked in water back into the matchbox and went outside.

Narke and Elias were still in the dormitory room with the lights off, not having left yet, as if they were waiting for me. I knocked on the door, entered, and spoke to Narke.

“Narke. Could you take a look at me?”

“Huh?”

Narke, who had been talking with Elias and turned to me with a smiling face, quickly read my thoughts.

“Ah, asking if something’s going to happen?”

“You’re quick.”

“We’re in sync~ I can’t see the distant future, but at least for today, it doesn’t seem like anything will happen.”

“Really? Thanks as always.”

“Don’t mention it~ Of course, that’s assuming you don’t make dangerous choices. You know it can change quickly depending on your decisions, right?”

“I know.”

“Ah, but what’s this about matches?”

It was an out-of-the-blue comment. He had definitely read that I was thinking about matches.

When I held out the matchbox I brought, Elias peered between Narke and me and asked.

“What is it?”

“Someone sent white phosphorus matches to Haike. They were buried among regular matches.”

“What?! Are there even places that sell those?”

“That’s what I’m saying. But the important thing isn’t that….”

“It’s a code.”

Narke said, looking at me without even opening the box yet.

“Right. Only those matches had alphabet letters written on them.”

“There must be more pairs. They wouldn’t have sent just this one.”

Narke looked over the wet box and handed it back to me.

Meaning there would be more objects with these alphabet letters written on them.

“Right. Since nothing can be figured out from just this one letter, that must be it. How did you know?”

“It doesn’t feel like something uniquely prepared. It feels like the other party is expecting something more beyond this.”

As expected, making judgments based only on objects is vague. However, the conclusion is worth remembering.

“Hahaha, it is rather ambiguous, isn’t it? It’s purely in the realm of intuition, after all.”

“No, thank you.”

“Thank me for what. This is our business too.”

Narke smiled and took my hand.

“Shall we go now? The protocol rehearsal will start soon.”

* * *

Even though it was almost 6 AM, the winter dawn was still dark.

Standing in front of the portal newly prepared by the Imperial Court for Penthalon, we looked at Leo, who was clapping his hands at the front to focus our attention.

“Now, we practiced once yesterday, so we can do well in today’s practice, right?”

“Right.”

Three days before the opening of Penthalon, that is, tomorrow morning there’s a French state visit schedule.

A state visit doesn’t mean only French imperial family members or the prime minister are coming, but also includes mage groups representing the French Empire’s Imperial Academy.

Among them, the only ones our Eschede is in charge of protocol for are limited to the Imperial Academy representative team. The day after tomorrow, similar types of mage groups from England, the Papal States, and other surrounding countries will come, and it’ll be the same then.

While I was lost in thought, Leo gestured at me and asked.

“Did you take your medicine?”

“Yeah.”

“If you think you’ll be disruptive, remove yourself.”

I roughly nodded to play along with Leo’s cold acting.

I heard the sound of someone swallowing behind me. Ulrike tapped my shoulder and whispered.

“…Medicine? Are you sick, Lucas?”

The medicine Leo mentioned was sympathetic nerve blockers, but I couldn’t tell Ulrike that.

I smiled and shook my head.

“No. I just drank some elixir in case I got tired from standing.”

“Ah, I see. We have to do this for two days, and thinking about that is already tiring. Why don’t we just do it all in one day.”

Ulrike whispered from behind.

It’s understandable he’d say that. Actually, all countries were supposed to come on Thursday, two days before the opening, but France alone announced they’d come on Wednesday.

‘Thanks to that, we’re having the event twice.’

Because France alone came a day early, both the protocol event and welcome banquet ended up being split over two days.

There was an opinion to hold the welcome banquet at least after all state guests arrived, but with Pleroma also going crazy, the majority opinion was not to create international disputes unnecessarily, so it was decided to split it over two days as originally planned.

Since historically the relationship with the French Empire hasn’t been very good, it’s right to hold the event twice rather than neglect guests the Imperial Court personally invited and let it become a diplomatic issue.

‘There was also the fact that their Imperial Court announced they were visiting a day early for Penthalon’s prestige, making it even more impossible to ignore.’

Cheringen, who was standing with Ulrike behind us, smiled and answered.

“At least we’re fortunate that what we’re in charge of at this event is easy work. Right?”

“That’s true.”

Right.

Though we’re their protocol handlers, as you can tell from being deployed so late, we just need to stand beside the academy representative team when they enter. They’re not even state guests, so the protocol event is held in a different place from the state guest welcome ceremony.

Thanks to that, once we finish the rehearsal the Imperial Court is holding until noon today, we can go out to handle rampage incidents without needing further preparation.

And so, 30 minutes past noon.

After finishing both our team rehearsal and the rehearsal prepared by the Imperial Court, we returned to the team meeting room and sat around the table like yesterday.

“Ugh….”

My friends took off their robes, hung them on chairs, and slumped down. Even though it was winter, it was quite hot from all the continuous rehearsing outside.

Elias, who had buried his face on the cold desk, muttered.

“Ah, times like this are perfect for having Adelbert around.”

I suppose it’s because Adelbert’s unique ability is creating wind.

Usually he doesn’t even like him that much, yet saying he’d be perfect and all—he must have used his cousin as a fan when it got hot before.

Normally Leo would have scolded him asking what the hell he was talking about or urged him to prepare for immediate deployment, but even Leo was too hot to say much and just sat at the table, so Elias immediately opened his mouth instead.

“Hey guys, if we get deployment calls today, we can keep going out continuously, right?”

“That’s right.”

At my answer, Elias jumped up, clapped his hands, and said.

“How about we challenge ourselves to solve twenty cases today?! Let’s break another new record?”

“Wow… Twenty cases?”

“Hahaha, we broke the record a few days ago and now you want to break the new record again? That sounds appealing.”

Even though Ulrike sighed realistically at Elias’s reckless words, Cheringen just laughed as if he found it interesting.

Surprisingly, the more I look at him, this guy seems unreliable too.

“If we take Brandenburg’s reports too, twenty cases would be possible, but it’s physically too much.”

“Right. Since we processed ten cases on the first day, our standards seem a bit skewed, but other teams are handling three or four reports per day.”

Leo and Ulrike gave realistic responses. Elias just passed over Ulrike’s side and looked at me and Leo as he spoke.

“Listen. The Imperial Court seems to be showing signs of upgrading the rampage levels we handle.”

“That’s right.”

“Before we can’t even touch 9th grade ones, shouldn’t we set new records that other teams can’t approach?”

“…”

“Really, let’s do twenty cases today? Well, it would be nice if we could do them all…”

Ulrike asked with a hollow laugh.

I thought it was a strange desire to win, but the corner of Leo’s mouth, who had been resting his chin with an expressionless face, slowly rose.

* * *

“Ah, that’s refreshing.”

Returning to the conference room of the Union building again, Cheringen stretched lightly.

The current time was 10 PM.

We set a new record of 23 cases today.

‘This actually worked…’

It’s absurd.

“Lucas, you have surprisingly good stamina.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You and I handled seven cases today and you don’t seem tired at all. You must have been training diligently.”

I deflected the answer with a laugh.

I didn’t do it diligently, but I did do it anyway.

The reason I’m less tired than before is probably because it was just yesterday dawn that I received Leo’s crazy attacks without rest after returning from the Archbishop.

My stamina value increased by 0.1 points immediately from that one training session. This is a value that would normally take over a week of training to obtain.

Anyway, though we are tired, our exhaustion seems to have different standards from others’ exhaustion.

Elias’s groaning voice came through the artifact.

[Narke and I did ten cases and I’m dying, guys…]

[You suggested doing 20 cases and now you’re going to act like this?]

[Hahaha, don’t fight~ It seems like the new record won’t be broken for the next six months, Elias, are you satisfied?]

[Of course!]

I listened to the conversation between Elias, Leo, and Narke as I opened the conference room door. As soon as I opened it, I could see Elias grinning with sparkling eyes.

As expected, these guys were quite energetic too.

“We’ll be in tomorrow’s newspaper.”

“The Professor already contacted us.”

Leo held out a letter.

[What on earth is happening there?]

The Professor’s letter was intense from the first sentence.

It was a letter sent when we solved the 15th reported case, and from beginning to end it was the same content as above.

Elias said with a laugh.

“Tomorrow we’ll do 30 cases…”

“Say something that makes sense. From tomorrow we have to welcome the Academy representative team, so there’s no time.”

Leo cut off Elias’s words.

The students who seemed happy about setting a new record also sighed with relief at those words.

Still—even though he keeps throwing out absurd numbers—it’s comforting that Elias focuses on handling rampage reports without going somewhere to dig up new incidents.

Thus, that day’s schedule ended with ceremonial rehearsals and handling twenty-three rampage reports.

What does it mean that it ended with that?

Surprisingly, the stalker didn’t show his face last night either.

‘Ah, these bastards.’

The next day, wearing ceremonial dress and coming to the cadet dormitory, I fell into thought while looking at my friends busily preparing.

It’s not that I’m waiting for that stalker, but if he doesn’t come looking for me for two whole days, I can’t avoid reasonable suspicion.

He’s definitely preparing something very grand. The dioceses are probably fighting fiercely over plans regarding Penthalon, or he’s in the middle of setting up the foundation to execute the plan.

Although security has been strengthened to the point where all active mage teams from the Royal Mage Union have been deployed to Penthalon, those guys are probably planning something that will surpass that security.

‘It would be nice to have more clues about those alphabets yesterday.’

Won’t they give me more?

Then, Leo knocked on his friends’ room doors and raised his voice.

“Let’s go, guys. We need to gather in the waiting room.”

“Lucas.”

As soon as I knocked on the door, Haike’s room door swung open.

Leaving Leo with wide eyes behind, Haike held out a water bottle to me. Inside the glass bottle filled with water was another white phosphorus match.

“…”

Yesterday, I submitted the match to the police as evidence and reported it. As expected, when magic is involved, police and everything else seem powerless. Didn’t the same thing happen again like this?

Haike spoke in a quickened voice.

“Again.”

“This time it’s A.”

The letter written on the cut surface was the alphabet A.

‘A and T.’

I can’t tell anything from this yet, but if those guys are going to cause trouble someday anyway, it’s better that they give clues that can help interpret something like this.

The fact that clues are accumulating is positive in its own way.

I locked the bottle cap and said.

“Let’s send this to the police too for now, and we’ll go to the Imperial Palace. It would be better to wait until we can figure out something.”

“…Right.”

Haike nodded with a determined face.

* * *

Just before 9 AM.

We were positioned at the Imperial Court’s VIP-exclusive portal.

Leo, as captain, stood on the blue carpet facing where the portal was, and the remaining six of us stood in a line, three on each side of the carpet.

Since where we stood wasn’t the state guest exclusive portal, there was no honor guard here. Instead, lower nobles and junkers from the Empire working in the government filled those positions.

Perfectly timed for the VIP visit schedule, today was a clear day with neither rain nor snow.

Beep—

The moment the minute hand of the distant clock tower pointed to 9 o’clock, a notification came through the artifact that the state guest welcome ceremony had ended.

Now it was time for the Royal Academy’s mage representative team to enter first through the VIP portal on this side.

I could see Imperial Newspaper journalists filming our side.

—”I’m really excited.”

Narke, who was standing next to me, suddenly used divine power to speak to me.

I just smiled with my eyes and looked ahead.

It’s worth being excited about.

The French Empire’s Royal Academy representative team is in a similar position to our Eschede team.

They’re also composed of student mages like us. Of course, since academy doesn’t necessarily mean high school, their age range is quite diverse.

The Royal Academy is an institution similar to our Royal Mage Union, where young mages between their teens and forties belong.

The difference is that the French Empire’s Royal Academy is closer to an academic institution for mages, as you can tell from the name.

On the other hand, our Royal Mage Union has more military and political tendencies.

‘Anyway, they must have brought only those who are quite skilled at magic.’

I’m looking forward to it too.

From what I heard, unlike us who were originally one team, they’re a temporary representative team formed by selecting two or three from each educational level.

Just then, the magical power of the massive portal door began to shine brightly.

When two guards stood in front of the portal and opened the door, we could see the Royal Academy delegation walking straight toward us from inside.

The sound of fireworks and applause could be heard from front and back.

The delegation leader appeared to be around forty by new humanity standards. He seemed almost thirty years older than our team captain. Seeing this made one thought even stronger.

‘I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to assign VIP protocol duties to new recruits instead of experienced veterans.’

While the Imperial Court trusts and fully supports Eschede more than any other Royal Mage team—though we can’t feel it, this has been advertised both domestically and internationally—and since foreign people know this, plus our team has several heirs from ruling families of the allied nations that make up the German Empire, there shouldn’t be major diplomatic problems, but internally it’s a different story. This also seems likely to be the Crown Prince’s doing.

Anyway, Leo was performing his captain duties excellently. Leo approached the delegation leader who came out first, showing a trustworthy smile as he greeted him.

“Welcome to the Empire, Your Excellency Mathieu Aubigny. It is truly an honor to meet the Royal Academy mages of the French Empire at this first international harmony venue prepared by our Empire.”

“Thank you sincerely for the warm reception. It is truly an honor to be here today.”

‘Hmm, going smoothly.’

Now we just need to stand to the side appropriately and then walk out, and our morning schedule will be finished.

Leo continued speaking while maintaining his smile.

“The visit of the French Empire’s Royal Academy representative team is sending a message of international camaraderie and unity to our Empire and Penthalon participating nations. On behalf of the Royal Mage Union, I express our gratitude to Your Excellency and the delegation members for gracing the first Penthalon.”

At those words, the captain smiled and shook his head.

“As people of the same continent who have shared history for a long time, we cannot turn away from a nation’s crisis. I sincerely hope that the German Empire can successfully start and conclude this international competition, leaving a good precedent for the entire world.”

“…?”

At the bewildering words, I slightly raised my eyebrows then corrected my expression.

Looking at the faces of the opposing delegation members, they all seemed calm. Only our side’s people were flustered.

‘Look at these guys.’

What they’re calling a crisis is obvious.

Our Empire is where Pleroma first emerged. While Pleroma is gradually expanding its influence across the entire continent, the fact remains that its birthplace and main area of activity is the German Empire.

So right now the opposing side just told us ‘how could we turn away when you’re trying so hard to somehow renew your national image.’ They’re acting almost like people who came to provide aid when they’re just tourists.

Leo also seemed momentarily speechless and didn’t respond. However, the silence was brief. Leo answered as naturally as flowing water.

“Our Empire is making every effort for this Penthalon. Our Royal Mage Union hopes to successfully form bonds with the French Empire’s Royal Academy through this competition.”

“….”

He also subtly dissed the opponent. There was no way not to notice.

Of course, since the opponent showed a patronizing attitude and acted rudely from the start, this level of response was necessary.

Those representative teams seem to think they came to solve the Pleroma problem, which is our country’s chronic issue.

‘I guess that’s how they were taught in France.’

What interesting guys.

Not that it’s any of my business though.

But it didn’t take long to realize that it was my business.

“You must be Vice-Captain Lucas Ascanien of Eschede.”

That day at noon.

The moment I entered the banquet hall prepared for the welcome celebration, the delegation leader I had seen earlier spoke in fluent German and extended his hand.

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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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