How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 326

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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 (326)

 

“…Treptower.”

 

Mecklenburg cleared his throat and quickly regained his composure. He still didn’t look particularly pleased, but I could properly feel his determination to take this seriously. He shook his head while looking over the status report I had thrust at him earlier.

 

“That makes sense, but there’s something that bothers me. Of course, you probably meant the Dahme River and Müggelsee together, but even so, it’s the same issue.”

 

‘Better than Erich Reichenau.’

 

The Dahme River refers to the river where Lange Lake is located. Earlier, I mentioned that Lange Lake and Müggelsee were southeast of Treptower Park. He understood that I had mentioned Treptower Park as a landmark for a regional cluster. That’s right. To be precise, to reach this conclusion, we need to consider everything starting from Treptower Park and encompassing the area below it.

 

Anyway, when dealing with Erich Reichenau, I felt he was someone who didn’t care much about strategy, but this one feels like he has quite good processing speed. The 5 minutes of acting like a fool paid off.

 

I watched as another minute was already passing and adjusted my gloves.

 

“For now, I’ll head there.”

 

“Didn’t I say there’s something that bothers me? Do you think they don’t know the premise we’ve established?”

 

I glanced at him briefly, then instead of answering that, I said what I had to say.

 

“Wittelsbach is probably at Treptower Park too. Since they left before us, they might have already been there and left. So let’s turn this disadvantage of starting a bit late into an advantage.”

 

He was about to say something, but there’s no need for his instructions now. I thought what he was thinking, and he probably thought what I was thinking. I had no intention of giving him a chance to speak. I stood in front of the map and gestured.

 

“Listen carefully one last time, Senior. I’ll tell you what we need to do.”

 

* * *

 

Do you think they don’t know the premise we’ve established?

 

Mecklenburg said that while Treptower Park was suspicious, there was something that bothered him about calling it the answer.

 

Good point. First, the ‘premise’ he’s referring to is the basis I used to dismiss Pfaueninsel as not being the answer.

 

Thinking from the beginning, it goes like this. If Pleroma had established a base at Pfaueninsel and was active enough there for us to find meaningful clues, then Jungfernsee-Tegeler See should not have been contaminated by 10 o’clock.

 

Then, though it’s a low possibility, we can consider this scenario. What if Pleroma actually installed a base there, but everyone going in and out was high-ranking—qualified—so they were prepared to endure temporary mental confusion, or they were using special defensive divine techniques? What if they had such countermeasures and deliberately contaminated the area to prevent us from approaching their stronghold? Doesn’t it look suspicious that the downstream of the river running through Berlin, and even the outskirts of Berlin, showed three-star extreme contamination? Haven’t we hastily excluded the place where their base is located, falling for their strategy?

 

We even need to consider that they can deploy spatial magic to avoid contamination, and while they can certainly deploy spatial magic to avoid poisoning, we must recognize that its limitations are clear. Wide-area magic that goes beyond a building or two cannot be executed by just anyone for long periods due to mana capacity and stability issues, so their spatial magic is created in the form of bases at key strongholds. We need to find the areas where that spatial magic is deployed.

 

‘Then shouldn’t we search the highly contaminated Pfaueninsel instead?’

 

Such a question might arise. It’s a valid question. However, we must return to the beginning and remember that Pfaueninsel had three-star contamination ‘even at 10 o’clock,’ and since no newspaper articles from earlier times were provided for confirmation, considering the test environment, we can see that situations before 10 o’clock should be excluded from judgment. Also, along with this, we can solve the problem by confirming the examiner’s requirements. The examiner said there are portals and prisoners. If they said ‘prisoners’ rather than rampagers, we can typically think of victims of the high-educated mage kidnapping incidents. Why would Pleroma kidnap those highly educated people in normal condition without exposing them to rampage drugs?

 

‘Because they need their brains right away. Even if they’re likely to be qualified, there’s no point in capturing them if they rampage and die.’

 

Now, there’s a fact we can naturally understand here.

 

The place where the portal that moved the prisoners was installed was at least clean at the time of the incident, or weakly contaminated—★☆☆—to a level where rampage through breathing alone would be difficult.

 

This is the premise Mecklenburg mentioned.

 

‘So why did I point to Treptower Park?’

 

I stopped thinking and looked around. The smell of grass in the park is nice. The Spree River right next to it is somewhat contaminated, but at least it couldn’t be seen as two-star contamination as shown in the 12 o’clock status report. If I had to judge, it would be about one star. For Pleroma to have swept through, the midday park was really peaceful.

 

At the same time… I think it’s natural to feel afraid standing in a grassy field in such a test situation. At least I do.

 

“It would have been nice to have detection dogs here. No matter how I think about it, the stronghold we need to search is too wide.”

 

I spoke to Mecklenburg through the artifact and turned my head. From beyond the artifact, sounds of something being struck hard continued, and more vivid wind sounds were coming from around me.

 

The smell of earth suddenly hit me.

 

Crash—!

 

Before the grass could rush at me, I cast a barrier on the ground surface and kicked off the earth to retreat. The sky-blue mana that tried to grab my arm split at the tip of the sword I swung.

 

No matter where I looked, I couldn’t see anyone, but it was clear whose doing this was. I let out a hollow laugh and called him.

 

“Leo.”

 

* * *

 

3 minutes ago.

 

“Treptower? Why?”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

Questioning words poured out from the mages sitting around Narke and Elias. Everyone was watching the Mimesis broadcast.

 

“Wow. Now both of them have pointed to Treptower Park.”

 

Elias muttered expressionlessly. Narke, who was sitting beside him with soundproofing magic, smiled.

 

[Let’s go quickly. Senior should know why I pointed to Treptower Park.]

 

In the Mimesis broadcast screen, Lucas was rapidly speaking while tapping the map. Since time was of the essence, he was speaking so fast it was really hard to understand, which made Narke burst into light laughter. Anyway, the data Lucas was pointing to was this:

 

[Treptower Park Temporary Closure]

 

[10 o’clock] Berlin Spree River ★★★, Berlin Havel River Southwest ★☆☆, Jungfernsee-Tegeler See ★★★, Lange Lake-Müggelsee ☆☆☆, Tegeler See ☆☆☆.

 

[12 o’clock] Berlin Spree River ★★☆, Berlin Havel River Southwest ★★☆, Jungfernsee-Tegeler See ★★★, Lange Lake-Müggelsee ★★★, Tegeler See ★☆☆.

 

Narke stared at the screen and said.

 

“There were about fifty items on the list, but they mostly picked rivers~”

 

Though it’s natural since more than thirty of the fifty are located in Greater Berlin. Before Berlin’s expansion, contamination measurement points were concentrated in the central 6 districts that had been Berlin from the beginning, and the points become fewer toward the outskirts closer to Brandenburg. Particularly, those points marked as Lange Lake-Müggelsee and Tegeler See are the only places measured in southeastern and northwestern Berlin respectively.

 

The reason Lucas and Leo simultaneously pointed to Treptower Park in this situation must be because of Lange Lake-Müggelsee, whose contamination level sharply increased from 0/3 to 3/3.

 

“They’re trying to point out that the Lange Lake-Müggelsee readings are strange.”

 

“That’s right.”

 

Elias briefly answered Narke’s muttering and concentrated.

 

But then, why did they choose Treptower instead of Lange Lake-Müggelsee? Even from their current seats, they could hear senior mages expressing doubts about this. Narke had such doubts for a moment too, but could quickly follow her friends’ thought process.

 

First, looking at how they didn’t lump together hundreds of kilometers of the Spree River but separated Lange Lake-Müggelsee and others, we can see that the contamination level of Berlin Spree River written here is the contamination level measured in Mitte district, Berlin’s center. The contamination of Mitte-Spree River decreased by one level in 2 hours. The contaminated water from Mitte-Spree River flowed out to Havel River Southwest and Tegeler See, and was pushed by the clean water from Lange Lake-Müggelsee.

 

Then suddenly, Lange Lake-Müggelsee received concentrated attacks from Pleroma. Lange Lake-Müggelsee has the lowest population density in Berlin. What reason would there be to spray chemicals in the place with the lowest population density? To contaminate the river from upstream? Then they should have contaminated Lange Lake-Müggelsee first instead of contaminating the Spree at Unter den Linden earlier.

 

‘So, the conclusion would be this~’

 

Pleroma aimed for a diversion.

 

Lucas and Leo were convinced that the contamination change in Lange Lake-Müggelsee was a smokescreen and tried to find Pleroma’s real base. The result was Treptower Park.

 

“Both are intense. Right now the Treptower Park contamination announcement hasn’t even come out.”

 

Elias muttered beside her.

 

The contamination level of Treptower Park hadn’t been announced yet. Even though contamination status announcements were being made, since machines weren’t measuring and sending to headquarters, it was impossible to put all spaces’ contamination levels in the newspaper. In other words, they were in a situation where they had to deduce only from the given materials.

 

First, as of the current time of 12:30, all of Berlin was completely empty, but considering around 10 o’clock before that happened, the situation was this. Pfaueninsel in southwestern Berlin and Unter den Linden in central Berlin’s Mitte district were intensively attacked by Pleroma, and then all of Greater Berlin, which comprises half of Berlin’s population, was contaminated. In such a situation, checking the article [Treptower Park Temporary Closure] from that time, we can sufficiently guess why they chose Treptower Park. Unlike the article titles for Unter den Linden or Spree River that blatantly advertised ‘contaminated,’ Treptower Park’s article title only said ‘temporarily closed,’ and according to the actual article content, Treptower didn’t receive concentrated attacks like Unter den Linden. However, this place had considerably high risk of receiving chemical bombardment at any time as a large park adjacent to Greater Berlin, and it was problematic that it was near the properly contaminated Greater Berlin and was a good place for citizens to evacuate from Greater Berlin. The government closed the park to prevent citizens from making wrong judgments and evacuating to dangerous places when they needed to leave Berlin immediately.

 

However, anyway, it’s true that Treptower Park borders the Spree River, and according to investigation results, the Spree River boasts considerable contamination levels. Looking at these numbers, from Pleroma’s perspective holding prisoners, there’s no reason to move to Treptower Park.

 

But don’t we know where that Spree River contamination was measured?

 

The Spree River contamination was measured in Mitte, and geographically, the Spree River on Treptower’s side is located upstream from Mitte’s Spree River. Therefore, we can guess that the three stars of Berlin Spree River entirely resulted from the chemical bombardment incident in the Mitte Unter den Linden area. The basis for this lies in the 0-star reading of Lange Lake-Müggelsee, which is located upstream of Treptower’s Spree River.

 

In short, Treptower is a representative place that has the advantage of being substantially less contaminated while being avoided on paper for bordering the Spree River. It’s a good place where we can immediately exploit numerical loopholes.

 

‘Besides, now it will really be contaminated because of the water coming down from Lange Lake-Müggelsee…’

 

From Pleroma’s perspective, Treptower is the optimal place to buy time until the Royal Mages enter.

 

Elias, who had been watching the two friends with a bored expression while resting his chin on his hand, chuckled and said.

 

“Well, Treptower Park aside. But don’t both of them feel like they’re being somewhat ambiguous? Same with splitting up one team member each.”

 

“Probably…”

 

Narke burst into light laughter and continued…

 

“If they finish here, wouldn’t 7 minutes be too long? Like Leo said earlier.”

 

“Wow.”

 

Elias, who had been nodding at Narke’s words, suddenly raised his eyebrows. Familiar signs began to appear on the screen broadcasting Treptower Park.

 

“The two have encountered each other.”

 

* * *

 

Crash—!

 

I ran like crazy while cutting down the plant stems rushing toward me. I wanted to laugh but had to try to suppress it.

 

Anyway, returning to the main point. Could Pleroma really not have known that so many mages could suspect Treptower Park?

 

What Mecklenburg said earlier wasn’t fundamentally different from this either. Saying ‘there’s something that bothers me’ was asking if Pleroma were fools. Could Pleroma really not know about such a predictable matter—I don’t know what Leo and the 91st representative mage concluded, but I expect they chose Treptower Park like me.

 

It’s not exactly simple work since we have to go around hitting most of the suspicious ground from Treptower to the lake front, but it’s not work that deserves 7 whole minutes, is it? With the range of magic that two Royal Mages use, we can easily find the problematic parts.

 

Swish—

 

“…!”

 

I almost got attacked while concentrating on my thoughts. I changed direction to avoid the plant stem that blew off my hat and shouted.

 

“If you’re going to fight, come out and fight!”

 

Right now I feel like I’m fighting against Mother Nature itself. All the grass around me is rushing toward me.

 

‘Damn it.’

 

This won’t work. If I keep running like hell, the remaining 5 minutes, no 4 minutes… maybe even 3 minutes will all pass. I need to negotiate with Leo.

 

[Peace I leave with you.]

 

I swung my sword to change it into a staff and struck it down.

 

[My peace I give to you. What I give to you is not as the world gives!]

 

Crash—!

 

Even before the brief light and noise faded, I felt something striking down at me. It was obvious who had rushed in front of me. A familiar voice was heard.

 

“Why did you come so late?”

 

I pulled my neck back and barely looked down at his hand grabbing my collar, then smiled.

 

“Do I have to go around looking for you?”

 

“That’s not what I meant.”

 

Leo tilted his head with a completely unaffected expression.

 

“If it were you, you would have gone to the most suspicious area first… so why did you only now come to this low-probability place?”

 

“…”

 

He’s quick to catch on.

 

I smiled and swatted his hand away. Suspicion was fine, but from my perspective, this was just the beginning.

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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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