How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 385

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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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“…”

 

My mind goes blank. A person. He wants to make a person. What did I just hear? So…

 

Helga Brandt looked at me with a trusting smile.

 

“I know it’s at a young age.”

 

“This is…”

 

I grabbed my forehead.

 

“It’s not just a matter of being young. You’re saying you want to give birth to a child with my magic power… no, make a person?”

 

“I’m just thinking I’d like to. You happen to be German, and your magic power and skills are the strongest among anyone I’ve met in my life, and your personality seems good too, aside from your kleptomania.”

 

“You’re excluding that?”

 

“I like your face too.”

 

I suppressed the urge to grab and shake him and opened my mouth. Make a person with my magic power? My resolve not to be surprised no matter what shocking thing he said crumbled in one blow. Moreover, he had no intention of backing down. I forced a smile and shook my head.

 

“If you look carefully, you’ll be able to meet many more faces you like.”

 

“No.”

 

“Yes…”

 

Of course not. You need my magic power.

 

After staring blankly down at the first floor for a while, I realized that Mecklenburg wasn’t on the ground floor and barely managed to open my mouth.

 

“That…”

 

“Yes.”

 

“The friend who came with me is also German. At the same time, he’s of South Slavic descent, so I think he’d be perfect for creating your successor.”

 

“What does that matter?”

 

Right, I tried to spout nonsense to somehow shake off any connection with me, and as expected, it was immediately blocked. I smiled soullessly and passionately argued with a confident voice.

 

“Yes, it doesn’t really matter. But I think Clemens Schmidt would suit you better. He has no kleptomania, plenty of magic power, and his personality… I don’t know about that, but his face should be to your liking too.”

 

Sorry, Albert. But no matter how I think about it, it doesn’t seem right. Let the Espers play among themselves. He’d accept it with much less resistance than me. Helga Brandt leaned his arms on the railing, rested his chin on his hand, and looked at me.

 

“You don’t have kleptomania. You said you came because you wanted to know me. Besides, you thought you had my tacit permission because of the letter.”

 

“That’s a separate matter from producing a successor. If I had to choose, I’d recommend Clemens Schmidt.”

 

I nodded satisfactorily without making eye contact. Actually, no matter what I did, I couldn’t make eye contact because no soul came forth. Helga Brandt moved closer to me and asked.

 

“What about you.”

 

There was a scent of violets. I glanced at his shirt collar and then shifted my gaze to his face.

 

“…”

 

“Not other people, what are your intentions?”

 

* * *

 

“Get up.”

 

I kicked Mecklenburg in the ribs as he lay collapsed somewhere on the stairs to wake him up. After casting a sound-blocking spell and hastily applying a concealment spell, Mecklenburg blinked his eyes, turned his body toward the ceiling, frowned, and covered his mouth.

 

“Uh, mmm… Urgh…!”

 

“What? Not only did you let that person follow me, but now you have a hangover too?”

 

I didn’t expect much about the part where I told him to hold them back anyway. When I smiled and grabbed his jacket to pull him up, Mecklenburg seemed to be suffocating and hit my hand while protesting.

 

“No, that’s not it. I, I usually don’t get drunk when I drink…!”

 

“I know. You drink well. This time they probably put sleeping pills in it.”

 

I only have memories of drinking with the 25-year-old Mecklenburg, not the 18-year-old, but the 18-year-old probably isn’t much different.

 

At the mention of sleeping pills, Mecklenburg opened his mouth. I hit his feet that still couldn’t properly touch the ground to make him stand straight, then brushed off his wrinkled clothes.

 

“So I came to wake you up personally. Grateful?”

 

“…Sorry. I wasn’t helpful.”

 

What’s this? I looked at him with a frown, then shrugged my shoulders.

 

“How did you end up drinking alcohol with sleeping pills?”

 

“…I don’t know. I was confused. Several people were talking to me at once. I had more than one or two things in my hands… Some people even put glasses directly to my mouth.”

 

“Just because they do that, you gulp down everything in your hands like this? You’re really dense.”

 

“…”

 

Mecklenburg flinched and frowned.

 

“…No one has ever given me drugged alcohol before, until now. Besides, this isn’t the Middle Ages, where would you find cases of people offering such drinks.”

 

Someone in Russia did such things well into the 20th century. But that wasn’t what was important right now. I looked at him seriously and opened my mouth.

 

“Albert.”

 

“What.”

 

“If someone asked you to make a child with them. What would you think?”

 

“…I’m a high school student? For granting magic power, it’s a bit…”

 

“Let’s say you’re an adult.”

 

“First, I’d have to see if that family has made magic contracts before. I can return what I’ve received. If not… it would be fine if I make one and the other party makes one too.”

 

“Oh, really? Albert, then try mixing half your magic power with that friend of yours who resembles me to make the strongest mage in the world. It really seems like it would be strong…”

 

“What?! No! How could such a horrible…?! No, no! He’s really a good friend but…! That’s separate!”

 

‘Look at him trying to cover up belatedly.’

 

Mecklenburg had a fit, then covered his mouth, then spread both hands as if incredulous, then grabbed his head. His expression is quite a sight.

 

I’d never had such a conversation with anyone, so I couldn’t get a feel for how to react, but now I understand 100%. Successor production is definitely business. But you don’t want to do business with a shitty bastard either. Especially from the position of having to raise that product until after adulthood.

 

From a human perspective, you shouldn’t think that love would be involved in successor production—even among the royal couples of humans where arranged marriages were 90%, wasn’t it rare for there to be love even if there was human affection between spouses?—but still, normally you wouldn’t share magic power with someone you don’t want to deal with humanly.

 

And in cases like Helga Brandt, where there’s no relationship between families but suddenly suggests producing a successor… it would be surprising even among Espers. I took a deep breath and said calmly.

 

“Alright, Albert. I have to make a child.”

 

“Ha! When did you pretend to be so immersed in studying… what?”

 

Mecklenburg’s widened eyes turned to me. His mouth gradually opened. A cold silence flows. Mecklenburg grabbed my shoulders as if to break them.

 

“…With whom?! When? Why?! What is this! Are you crazy?!”

 

He brought his face right up to mine and bared his teeth. I frowned, knocked his hands away, and wheedled.

 

“Be quiet. Just be a little quiet.”

 

“What kind of crazy talk is this. What are you going to do with that face? You misspoke. Right?”

 

Mecklenburg now even grabbed my collar and lowered his voice. I looked at his eyes that seemed to have turned more orange and shook my head.

 

“Unfortunately, it’s real.”

 

“Don’t lie.”

 

His voice was the coldest I’d ever heard from the 18-year-old Albert Mecklenburg.

 

“No matter how much you dislike me, there are words you can joke about and words you can’t. I’ve already seen at school how frivolous your words and actions are…!”

 

I hit his mouth and glared at him. Mecklenburg now realized he had misspoken and opened his mouth with an expression mixed with panic and regret. Fine, it was an evaluation I’d been accepting since I established the concept of Lucas Muller. I exhaled deeply and said.

 

“It’s real. I decided to make one with Helga Brandt. To be precise, he proposed it to me.”

 

“…”

 

Then, as reality began to set in, Mecklenburg let go of my collar with a soulless face. He looked at me with a blank face and whispered.

 

“You’re a high school student.”

 

“I know.”

 

“…Your genes spreading more in the world? That’s horrible.”

 

“What do you mean ‘your genes’? And is that important? Does this make sense?”

 

“Didn’t you agree to make one? What do you want me to do about it.”

 

Mecklenburg shot back instead. I shook my head firmly.

 

“No, I refused and recommended you instead. But it still turned out like this.”

 

“What did you recommend where?”

 

“The conclusion is that it can’t be said to be completely my will. Listen carefully. These people are Pleroma. Those heretics we saw before. Even the bastard who made you drink is part of their group. Why would these people need my magic power?”

 

“…”

 

“Is making a real successor truly their purpose? Huh? What do you think?”

 

Mecklenburg was silent. Then he shook his head.

 

“No. They must have ulterior motives.”

 

“Right. From what I can see, you also have excellent conditions aside from your personality, so when I said it would be better to use your magic power, but they refused, they must have business with me specifically. Or they judged my magic power to be stronger.”

 

“…”

 

At the words that my magic power was stronger, Mecklenburg pressed his lips tightly together. As I began to feel coldness in his eyes again, I stuck my hands in my pockets, leaned against the wall, and snickered. Ah, I don’t know. Let whatever happens happen.

 

“Do you want to make a child? Should I advertise that your magic power is greater than mine?”

 

“Are you sane?!”

 

“So you’re the one who needs to get your head straight. First of all, I’ve never been educated in this area. How do Espers make people?”

 

“…What would I know? But still… first you hire a lawyer and a cultivation doctor.”

 

“And then.”

 

“Calculate what magical power to mix and how much for optimal results. The cultivation specialist will help, but since they can’t be punished if the results are poor, you as the decision-maker need to stay alert and calculate properly. And you’ll need to spend months negotiating to write contracts and extract blood and magical power. It won’t be easy since you’ll need to extract a tremendous amount.”

 

“What I want to know is, how do you extract magical power? Just like this, swoosh?”

 

When I stretched my arm forward as if casting magic, Mecklenburg frowned.

 

“If you do it like that, it’s too diluted. It’ll all scatter into the air within minutes, so how would that work?”

 

“So how do you do it then? Like cutting the flesh and inserting an artifact then removing it…”

 

“There should be something like a box that fits on your arm. It has compartments, and you should think of it as a tool designed to collect magical power from outside and store it in a vacuum state. Some people even make those containers human-sized and get inside, but I’ve only read about that in books so I don’t know.”

 

“Then if you extract magical power with one arm, what about the magical power escaping through the other arm and legs?”

 

“That’s why some people make coffins and get inside them. If you don’t want to do that, you can wear restraints.”

 

They call them restraints, but aren’t they just shackles? For now, I nodded. At least it’s not a human activity, which is fortunate.

 

‘Simple and good.’

 

Though looking at Mecklenburg’s expression, it doesn’t seem very easy. Mecklenburg moistened his lips with his tongue and asked in a tense voice.

 

“So. What will you do now? Are you really going to put your magical power into Helga Brandt’s successor?”

 

I shrugged and prepared to leave the extra chapter. There were things I needed to prepare outside. Then I asked one last question.

 

“That alcohol you drank earlier, do you remember what you drank? Who exactly offered it to you?”

 

* * *

 

Clatter—

 

“You’re awake.”

 

About an hour had passed since that absurd moment. Inside the extra chapter, that is. I glanced at Mecklenburg sitting on the sofa and looked down at Helga Brandt who had opened his eyes on the bed. Then I loudly closed the documents I had been reading. Unable to grasp the situation, Helga Brandt frowned.

 

“…?”

 

“Ah, you suddenly collapsed while drinking wine. I didn’t know where to take you, so I hurriedly brought you here.”

 

I sat beside him and spoke with a worried expression. Helga Brandt’s lips stiffened for a moment then relaxed.

 

“I see. I must have drunk too much. Thank you for bringing me here.”

 

“Not at all.”

 

Mecklenburg tried to sigh at our conversation but held it back. I tried not to look in his direction and smiled. Helga Brandt still had a vaguely distrustful expression as he nodded and asked.

 

“But at the end, I…”

 

“Yes, you said you wanted to create a successor with my magical power. I said that was fine. If you’re really talking about the very end, you said you had prepared your heart and asked where you should go now.”

 

It remained unchanged that I had to handle everything swiftly before he changed the location of his study. Only now what and how I would handle it was up to me. I asked with a slightly hesitant face.

 

“First we’ll need to extract magical power, right? How do we do that? Do you know the method?”

 

“…You want to do it now?”

 

“You said you needed my magical power. I have to return to Germany in a week, so wouldn’t it be better to finish it properly when we do it?”

 

I tilted my head while looking at his face.

 

“Or do we need to go somewhere else instead of here?”

 

“That would be right. This is a workplace, not a place for extracting magical power.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“Let’s go. I have a place I’ve prepared.”

 

“You’re well-prepared.”

 

“I prepared it for the day I would meet the mage of destiny.”

 

“That’s the first time I’ve heard such an expression…”

 

“Mages who’ve reached the age to create successors use it often. At least in Russia.”

 

I nodded then smiled and leaned back.

 

“Your preparedness is good, but let’s extract it here. If not here, I won’t do it.”

 

“…”

 

“I have things I want to ask you too.”

 

Helga Brandt looked at me silently then approached the desk. He pulled out a sheet of paper and pushed it toward me.

 

“Fine, you’re accommodating me so this much is fair. First, could Mr. Clemens Schmidt please leave? Let’s start by writing a contract.”

 

“Ah, wait a moment. Since this is my first time with such activities, I definitely want to extract it where that friend is present.”

 

I pointed at Mecklenburg. Then Helga Brandt asked with an uncomprehending face.

 

“Usually people want to be alone. You want to show others your magical power extraction?”

 

“Why not? Mages shoot magical power into the air every day.”

 

“This will be an incomparably more difficult process than that.”

 

Helga Brandt said firmly.

 

Well now, that makes me want to change my decision already. He turned his head and spoke in a cold tone.

 

“Above all, I don’t want to let others into the place where magical power is extracted.”

 

“Actually, that friend has anxiety issues. Look at him. That sour expression. He’s acting like that because we’re talking about leaving him behind.”

 

“…”

 

Mecklenburg showed a forced smile with an expression that wanted to object. I continued speaking while looking at Helga Brandt’s disapproving expression.

 

“This is just my personal thought, but what if the three of us created a person with equal ratios? That friend’s magical power is tremendous too.”

 

“…”

 

Helga Brandt looked back and forth between us with an incredulous expression then let out a long breath. He pushed forward a fountain pen and simple agreement again. He didn’t answer either the request to keep Mecklenburg here or the request to extract Mecklenburg’s magical power together, but I could clearly tell he had compromised one step on the former request. I shook my head while taking out my pen from inside my jacket.

 

“I understand we shouldn’t write such a personal contract but should get government permission.”

 

“You can get permission after preparing everything.”

 

Oh my, of course you would. I hid those words behind a smile and opened my pen cap.

 

“Since it’s informal anyway, I just need to sign on this page, right?”

 

“Yes.”

 

After answering simply, Helga Brandt, who had disappeared somewhere, returned to the room and opened another door attached to the room. It was a room with a table and sofa. We—including Mecklenburg—went in there and sat down.

 

Helga Brandt disappeared again then returned carrying a forearm-sized box that Mecklenburg had mentioned, and placed four restraints on the table. One would be for the other hand, and the other two would be for the ankles. The remaining one for the neck? Whatever it was, the numbers didn’t match. I narrowed my eyes then asked.

 

“There’s none for you. Only I should extract?”

 

“For now, yes.”

 

I looked down then smiled and looked at him again.

 

“If you don’t do it too, I don’t want to do it. As I said, it was a difficult decision for me, and I’m still hesitating.”

 

“…”

 

Helga Brandt showed a polite smile then disappeared somewhere again. He brought his share of artifacts, put them on in order, then plopped down in the opposite seat. I pointed to the seat next to him and asked.

 

“May I move next to you?”

 

“Please do.”

 

Mecklenburg looked at me with an expression of seeing all sorts of nonsense, but I ignored that look. I shook the box artifact with my right arm inserted and asked.

 

“What do I do now?”

 

“Try releasing magical power once.”

 

When I released magical power with half-doubt, from then on I felt like all the magical power in my arm was being sucked out even though I wasn’t using magic.

 

“…Oh.”

 

It’s not very difficult yet? Though this is just the beginning.

 

‘Of course… I should be careful.’

 

I fully understood that this machine would be very incompatible with me.

 

Mecklenburg was now looking back and forth between us two with a tense face. At his age, he never would have thought he’d directly witness the magical power extraction process for successor creation, so it was natural.

 

For some reason, an awkward atmosphere continued for a while. Maybe I was the one who created such an atmosphere. When no one spoke for 5 minutes, Helga Brandt finally snapped his fingers to cast a sound-blocking spell and asked.

 

“Actually, I didn’t think you would prepare your heart this quickly.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Really. What were you thinking to give permission this fast? I’m grateful, of course.”

 

Helga Brandt spoke with a playful smile.

 

Right, now you’re suspicious of that. Of course I would be suspicious too if I were you. Now it was time to get into more serious talk.

 

“It seemed like you liked me more than I thought.”

 

Helga Brandt looked at me silently. I recited exactly what was written on the memo.

 

“_De l’éducation, and 1.Mose 4,4.”

 

“…”

 

“You wrote that, didn’t you? I only saw it briefly, but it was unique so it stuck in my memory.”

 

“Yes. So what about it?”

 

“Isn’t that my name?”

 

A spine-chilling silence flows. I turned my gaze toward Helga Brandt, who was looking at me again without blinking once.

 

“The word that goes before De l’éducation is Émile, right? Rousseau’s work. And 1.Mose is Genesis, and Abel appears in Genesis chapter 4, verse 4.”

 

Though I wonder why he chose chapter 4, verse 4 instead of chapter 4, verse 2 where Abel is first mentioned, the fact that the code “_De l’éducation, and 1.Mose 4,4” matches the pseudonym used here doesn’t change.

 

I smiled gently and tilted my head slightly toward Helga Brandt.

 

“It’s just surprising that you’re interested enough in me to make a password out of my name.”

 

He glanced sideways at my restraints, then slipped his hand inside his jacket. Good, I already know very well what’s in there from experiencing it several times. I smiled and firmly grabbed his hand.

 

“That won’t do.”

 

“….”

 

“Now let’s have a proper conversation.”

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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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