How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 390

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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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“Hmm.”

 

I touched my chin and temple once each, tilted my head, furrowed my brow, and nodded. Elias’s expression remained as resolute as someone announcing momentous news. I smiled and answered, then turned my head and asked.

 

“My head hurts. Where’s Fai?”

 

“Right here next to you~”

 

Narke pointed to one side of the desk. Fai was sleeping right next to my head. I pulled Fai over and held him in my hands, making a gesture that I was ready to listen again. Elias sighed at my reaction, then spoke with a face full of renewed determination.

 

“…Alright. It wasn’t something you could understand all at once. Now, let me tell you my train of thought.”

 

“Yes. Let’s hear it from the beginning.”

 

Honestly, I still didn’t grasp what it meant that Ismailov was Ishmael and Leviathan. The only reason I listened to his ‘nonsensical speculation’ was because he was the protagonist to me. He always solved cases in ways I never expected and thought in ways I never anticipated. His thinking, which would somehow find the right answer, was worth listening to at least once.

 

“Now, from here on, this is what I was thinking in the past. I think whoever named him likes Moby Dick. He was an avid reader. Do we need to find more evidence? Call me Ishmael, that first sentence! That one line is enough. The way Moby Dick’s author Herman Melville views Ishmael doesn’t seem so different from how Helga Brandt views Ishmael, as you mentioned, Luca.”

 

“If it’s just because they have the same name, then as I said yesterday, it would be because Helga Brandt, a Pleroma, empathized with Ishmael’s situation. Now the entire Pleroma organization would be like that. Of course, you’re saying that Helga Brandt searched through all the creative works featuring Ishmael, right?”

 

“That’s possible. But if I add my current perspective, conversely, she might not have read them yet.”

 

“…Alright. I need to clear some brain capacity before we start. How did you end up reading Moby Dick?”

 

“What else would I have to do? Nothing but reading newspapers and books. And there’s someone with the same name as me who appears briefly in it. I happened to open to a page where that character appeared and ended up reading it, but I kept thinking I wished this character would shut up every time he opened his mouth.”

 

The character Elias was referring to was Elijah. A figure with somewhat prophetic aspects, who kept making ominous sounds before the dangerous stage of the sea, so he would have thought it would be better if he kept his mouth shut.

 

“Getting back to the main point, it definitely seems like the Mikhail Ismailov we know is the biblical Ishmael and Moby Dick’s ‘Ishmael,’ but when I think about it carefully, this becomes a problem. If Pleroma read Moby Dick and used Moby Dick’s characters in creating Ismailov, they would absolutely never want Moby Dick’s ending to be realized! Everyone on the whaling ship dies! Except for Ishmael alone.”

 

“Maybe all of Pleroma empathized with Ishmael. Not just corresponding Ismailov to Ishmael.”

 

To summarize Moby Dick very briefly, it’s the story of Captain Ahab, who lost his leg to a whale long ago, being consumed by revenge and trying to catch the whale Moby Dick. In the end, he fails at the moment of trying to catch the whale, and everyone dies except the narrator Ishmael.

 

“Right. Or suppose Mikhail Ismailov is ‘Leviathan,’ that is, that white sperm whale Moby Dick. That might be fine too. After all, it’s a force of nature that makes one accept fate, which fits Mikhail Ismailov’s purpose of creation anyway. Then if there’s Leviathan, there should be Behemoth too, right? If the Messenger of the Covenant has the attributes of Leviathan, then we should have the attributes of Behemoth…”

 

“Just how far are you planning to connect things?”

 

This time it’s not Melville’s 【Moby Dick】 but Hobbes’s 【Leviathan】. So this is how Elias’s stream of consciousness always develops. Truly a stream of consciousness, nothing more, nothing less.

 

“I have to drag out everything I know! We’re chaos. And the Messenger of the Covenant is the path, key, or itself to a completely strong, sturdy, and indestructible world. So Leviathan, the Messenger of the Covenant, will crush us Behemoth like catching mice. This makes sense.”

 

“Why does it connect so one-dimensionally… Anyway, I can see that future of being crushed just by looking at the Gospel of John.”

 

“Right. We need to escape here before it becomes a burning locust field. Let’s go believe in Buddhism from now on.”

 

“…”

 

I grabbed my head. But the bigger problem was that Narke was grinning.

 

“Me too~”

 

“Where are you going?! Among the three of us, you’re the least suitable.”

 

“Think of religion as practice. Emptying your mind through practice isn’t bad either. When you truly approach the essence of religion, those essences have parts that resonate with each other.”

 

“…”

 

I can’t shake the thought that this guy is just saying random things as usual, and that guy seems to be saying random things because he’s tired from being tormented by church since childhood. The only certain thing was that the kids were very tired. Or maybe I’m just letting Narke’s words go in one ear and out the other because I’ve never practiced.

 

As I sat with a soulless expression, Elias put on a serious face again.

 

“Alright. This is what I thought. Mikhail Ismailov must be a being created as Leviathan. But then, is Pleroma the ship’s crew member ‘Ishmael’ from Moby Dick, as you said, Luca?”

 

Yes. That’s what I’ve been saying? If we ‘insist’ on fitting it into Moby Dick.

 

Thinking that way, Elias nodded too.

 

“Right. They would claim so! Moreover, the Book of Job in Moby Dick’s epilogue, ‘And I only am escaped alone to tell thee’—that seemed like a perfect spot for Pleroma to empathize with Moby Dick’s ‘Ishmael.'”

 

‘And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.’ This is a line from Job’s servant in Job 1:15 of the Bible, used in Moby Dick to announce that the protagonist Ishmael alone survived.

 

Meanwhile, Narke set down tea brewed with evening primrose in front of us. Elias smiled his thanks, then spoke seriously again.

 

“You know. Actually, those Pleroma would have wanted to say ‘Call me Job’ rather than ‘Call me Ishmael.’ But ‘Call me Job’ would be too Job-like. That would be too much like something Satan would say, too blatant. Crucially, it’s not refined at all.”

 

“That’s right.”

 

As Daniel said, Pleroma seeks suffering. Probably because they consider themselves suffering to be the very object of salvation. And when it comes to suffering in the Bible, Job is definitely the one.

 

“But Moby Dick’s Ishmael blatantly took on the qualities of both Jonah and Job, so I thought it would be perfect for Pleroma’s taste. They made Mikhail Ismailov represent Leviathan and imposed Ishmael and Job on themselves. This is the middle of my thought process.”

 

“Yes. I’ve been saying that’s right from the beginning. But how did you come to think that Mikhail Ismailov would also encompass Moby Dick’s ‘Ishmael’?”

 

“…Perfect timing. My train of thought is like this too. I speak to you with such confidence, but actually I thought I had once again spread my wings of useless imagination and gone too far. Actually, while the Bible was written over a thousand years ago, something like Moby Dick isn’t even that old and isn’t famous at all.”

 

I exchanged glances with Narke. At least he knows.

 

But drawing on all sorts of stored data to expand thinking, thinking flexibly and then leaving the original source to establish new hypotheses and countermeasures—that’s Elias’s strength. When he makes critical comments about himself, there’s no need for me to step forward and agree to break his thinking. In the end, Moby Dick won’t remain at the end of this conversation, but at least the thinking from a new perspective will remain.

 

“I thought I had just fitted everything together. You know what I asked you earlier. The question of ‘how do you think the simultaneous damage to Haike and Ismailov is not the product of a unique ability?’ Drunk on the sweet certainty that I had found a groundbreaking truth, I could have committed the error of being buried in delusions based on an American novel completely ignored by the public.”

 

“…”

 

See? Even without me saying anything, didn’t he dig himself into the ground? Calling it delusion—what about me, who sat down to listen to it? I knew he was more clear-headed than anyone, more rational than anyone, and merciless to himself, but hearing it like this made me a little worried. Whatever the case, he had always solved cases with these rambling thoughts, and no matter what words he used to contaminate his own thinking, I wanted to keep listening to his thoughts. I nodded and waited for his words.

 

“So I was afraid I might do that again, so I tried changing my thinking a bit. They might not be avid readers of Moby Dick, but instead we… we might be able to write our own Moby Dick. Having gotten hints from new ideas, couldn’t we make it so that the Ismailov whale can live freely without being caught by the Pleroma-Ahab whaling ship? Since there happen to be common parts, I thought Moby Dick would be perfect soil for developing our ideas.”

 

Narke was now massaging his ears. It was definitely noisy.

 

“They would absolutely never want Moby Dick’s ending to be executed if they were represented as ‘Captain Ahab’! And there, it felt like someone hit me on the head and passed by. I shouted about this hypothesis like this.”

 

Elias stopped talking and opened his eyes wide and opened his mouth. Narke watched his acting with a hollow laugh. Elias didn’t care and continued his acting, repeating ‘no.’

 

“Ah. Oh no. No. That’s not it… That wasn’t it. No!”

 

Scary. I made eye contact with Narke again and shrank back. Elias jumped up from his seat and shouted.

 

“How boring! I was a boring person. Symbols don’t correspond one-to-one. This works and that works too. I picked up and read a criticism magazine recently, and I’m someone who only uses criticism magazines as kindling, but you know what it said? Reading this passage opened my eyes.”

 

Elias placed both hands flat on the desk and looked at us alternately with sharp eyes. I wanted to say why sadly use criticism magazines as kindling for the critics, but it didn’t seem like the right time, and what did it say? I have no idea. He would have wanted this answer, and that’s all I can say right now. I just narrowed my eyes and gestured for him to speak. Elias slammed the desk and leaned forward. Then he whispered in a low voice.

 

“‘Melville, who wrote Moby Dick, probably didn’t know what the white whale was either.'”

 

“Why wouldn’t he know what he wrote himself?”

 

“That’s why I usually use them as kindling. But that’s not what I want to say. This passage was really… kindling for knowledge.”

 

Elias took a breath and cleared his throat with a cough. Then he spread both hands and shouted in an oratorical voice.

 

“One being contains too much meaning. So it only leaves questions for third parties like that critic. People can’t imagine beyond their own scope, and if their limit is 50, they naturally think others can’t go beyond that either.”

 

“So?”

 

“And unfortunately, we’re people with a limit of 50. We’re people who think only the world we’ve perceived is reasonable, who think this much that we can naturally accept makes sense but anything beyond this doesn’t make sense. But no. Pleroma might have projected even the hypotheses we thought would be unreasonable onto Ismailov. Ismailov could be Moby Dick’s Ishmael while being Moby Dick’s Leviathan and simultaneously the Leviathan of biblical Job, and while being that, he could also be the Leviathan of biblical Isaiah, and in some ways, he might not be as much the Leviathan of biblical Isaiah.”

 

Ugh, Narke made that sound and touched his forehead, letting out a laugh. As if all strength had drained from his body, when he bent his upper body forward, the honorary cardinal’s stole draped over his shoulders rustled and flowed down onto the table. Elias continued speaking.

 

“Pleroma too might have taken on various symbols themselves. What mythology did Pleroma have in mind for the Messenger of the Covenant? Maybe those ‘Fausts’ want us to write our own Moby Dick using the material called Mikhail Ismailov. ‘As Cain killed Abel in the ring,’ we too have a stage set, so we write a new fight between Ahab and Moby Dick.”

 

‘In the ring.’ He quoted part of Moby Dick again. More than that, he said something quite shocking. I stroked my chin and translated his 4-dimensional story into 1-dimension.

 

“If Mikhail Ismailov is the crew member ‘Ishmael,’ then the side that embraces Mikhail Ismailov becomes Captain Ahab…”

 

“Pleroma made it look like Ismailov represents ‘Leviathan.’ They made his hair and eyes white for Ismailov’s divinity, manipulated his memories, and attached all sorts of myths. Didn’t they make it look like we should represent the God of Isaiah and punish Leviathan?”

 

Narke looked at Elias with no expression. He hadn’t been very interested in Elias’s claims from the beginning. Or maybe he didn’t want to listen.

 

“And, at the same time, Ismailov is Moby Dick’s Ishmael.”

 

“On what grounds?”

 

“That kid is now between groups claiming they must kill each other. Moby Dick’s Ishmael is subtly influenced by Ahab’s words that they must kill the white whale. This blank slate Ismailov is the same. If we just say ‘Pleroma bad’ a hundred times, that guy will completely become our ally and try to protect us.”

 

“…”

 

“But isn’t it strange? Pleroma sent Ismailov to our side knowing that was possible. Even if that kid has the ability to absorb abilities as you and Narke said, this is high-risk. If I were them, I would have had Ismailov accompany us to battle sites, completely defeat us one by one, and then have him take our abilities. Moreover, if they send him down like this, how would they know whether that stupid government would lock him in an underground prison forever or put you and Ismailov together?”

 

“Hmm.”

 

He hit the core. I had always wondered about that point. Elias continued speaking enthusiastically.

 

“They want us to make Ismailov completely our ally. They want us to become Ahab and slay Leviathan. Now there are three possibilities for Leviathan. First, Ismailov. Second, Pleroma. Third, a third entity.”

 

Although he’s using the Moby Dick analogy, the essence is ultimately a story that can be understood even without Moby Dick. Good. He was always skilled at this kind of thing—drawing on third-party materials to dig into the essence. So while everyone treated it as nonsense and he blamed himself for it, ultimately what he seeks is a new perspective.

 

I closed my eyes and slowly began to speak.

 

“Your words contain speculation that’s very hard to accept right now. Considering the second possibility, you just said ‘Pleroma wants us to use Ismailov to kill Pleroma.’ What would they gain from that?”

 

“Finding the real God.”

 

“…”

 

My heart almost dropped at those words.

 

The real Messenger of the Covenant—how does Elias know about that? But fortunately, from his following words, I could tell he didn’t know my situation.

 

“According to your speculation, Luca, Pleroma is waiting for Ismailov’s divinity to manifest. They want us to come kill Pleroma using Ismailov. They won’t die anyway even if we do that. It’s been prepared from the moment they blatantly sent Ismailov down to our side. Just like Moby Dick’s Leviathan can’t be pierced by a captain’s harpoon, Pleroma won’t die by our hands.”

 

“Interesting.”

 

That was Narke’s comment. Encouraged by that agreement, Elias nodded.

 

“And according to Moby Dick’s plot, ‘we’ would all die and only the Messenger of the Covenant with manifested divinity—that Ismailov who’s now in prison—would remain. The Leviathans would instead punish us with the force of nature and ultimately be saved without losing anything. On the other hand, if we interpret Leviathan based on the Bible, Ismailov isn’t the real Leviathan, and there’s a real Leviathan in this world that will go to the next world by the Lord’s hand. Think of that critic’s words. The comment that it contains too much meaning, so ultimately even Melville probably didn’t know what he was writing on manuscript paper. We need to interpret it multi-layered.”

 

“…”

 

My head hurts. Elias doesn’t know that the real Messenger of the Covenant that Pleroma thinks of is me, and all the analogies he’s giving now are aimed at me and painfully pierce my heart. His current reasoning is the same as saying I shouldn’t oppose Pleroma. In that process, I’d become aware of some damned divinity that may or may not exist and blow all those on the whaling ship into the sea.

 

Would it be better to dismiss Elias’s words as mere fantasy now? But Moby Dick was just a framework for building clay from the beginning, and now that the reasoning piled thickly enough on top to make the framework unrecognizable has perfectly taken shape, even if we melted that framework, the outer appearance would clearly remain unchanged. Didn’t I already know anyway? What’s really important isn’t Moby Dick but Elias’s hypotheses and reasoning hidden within the analogy. Even without applying the analogy, his reasoning has many valid aspects when viewed based on circumstances.

 

So, to excessively condense his long speech, he’s saying that Pleroma’s leadership could all die because of the Messenger of the Covenant. But even that is part of Pleroma leadership’s plan.

 

‘…So it’s just Revelation, then.’

 

Whatever Moby Dick or anything else, stories of the ‘leave a few and kill everyone else’ type naturally lead thinking in that direction. Right now we’re standing in the middle of the Pleroma Revelation, and its protagonist is actually me. In the end, all of Elias’s prophetic warnings were warnings I should heed and act against. But ridiculously, like Moby Dick’s Elijah, what if everything he’s lectured about being careful of until now becomes reality?

 

“…”

 

Having gone full circle looking for how to deal with the Messenger of the Covenant, only to be told I am the Messenger of the Covenant, I can’t shake the thought that I might be on the not-yet-dry ink of Oedipus Rex.

 

Then Narke’s hand landed on my shoulder.

 

* * *

 

“You have exactly one hour. We’ll come in every 10 minutes to check if it’s safe, so you must allow us entry.”

 

The temporary guard of the prison holding Ismailov—a Royal Mage—reluctantly granted our almost demanding request and left the room. Actually, when dealing with a first-class dangerous person, there must always be external surveillance. But we were parties to the incident, there were six of us, and we persistently persuaded them using the fact that we were fellow Royal Mages. Actually, it would be normal not to be persuaded, but because we pestered them for so long, they threatened that we’d have to handle the aftermath if problems arose and then withdrew.

 

First, I sat in front of the large protective glass and looked at the restrained Ishmailov beyond the glass wall. He saw me but said nothing. He simply lowered his eyes downward.

 

“Yuri Alekseyev.”

 

“…”

 

At least to the person who had his name stolen instead of me, I didn’t want to call him by the name those who tormented him his entire life had given him. He showed no reaction. As always. I snapped my fingers to draw his gaze to me, then smiled.

 

“From now on, I will call you this. I think it suits you better than your current name.”

 

“…”

 

Ulrike, who didn’t understand what was happening, looked back and forth between me and Ishmailov with fearful eyes. I smiled at him too, then returned to an expressionless face.

 

“When you were in Pleroma, you must have received periodic injections of large amounts of blood. Is that correct?”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“…”

 

He’s probably apologizing for biting my neck right now. But that’s fine. What’s important now is that incident, and I came here to resolve that incident while simultaneously proving the Papacy’s question about ‘what ability entered the castle’ and my answer to it perfectly, but now isn’t the time to receive apologies about it.

 

“Whose blood did you receive transfusions of?”

 

“…”

 

A gaze that seemed to ask why that mattered now pierced me. It was Leo’s gaze, as expected. I ignored that look and opened my mouth.

 

“You probably don’t know anything if I ask like this. They wouldn’t have told you whose blood it was when injecting it. So let’s go through this step by step. Each time you received blood injections, the ‘something’ that entered you must have been different.”

 

Now not just Leo but everyone had subtle expressions. That’s understandable. Injecting blood into veins doesn’t give you sensations of something other than magic power. But Ishmailov would have been different.

 

“Please explain one by one what kind of feelings you received. I need to know whose souls entered you.”

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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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