How to Survive as the Second Son of a Mage Family - Chapter 391

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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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“Wait, time out~”

 

Elias threw courtesy out the window, covering my mouth and turning his head toward me. I chuckled and asked.

 

“What is it.”

 

Snap―

 

Elias flicked his finger, casting a soundproofing spell around us.

 

“Now listen carefully! Just because you receive a blood transfusion doesn’t mean your soul gets transfused!”

 

I hadn’t heard Narke’s explanation about the relationship between soul, magic power, and body before leaving. Just listening to Elias’s long speech took up so much time that I couldn’t hear that explanation which required time. However, what Elias just said―receiving a blood transfusion doesn’t transfer the soul―was a statement within common sense that I could naturally think of without hearing Narke’s complex explanation. Just as drinking blood doesn’t mean drinking a soul. Setting aside my ability to open worlds by drinking blood, that is.

 

“That’s right.”

 

“But why did Luca use such a ‘metaphor’?!”

 

“I’m quite literary, Elias.”

 

“Aha~”

 

Elias clapped his hands then suddenly thrust his face forward. He grabbed my head and spoke urgently.

 

“That’s strange. A friend as unliterary as you using metaphors? You know something.”

 

“….”

 

Right. I know.

 

Isn’t this why I handed myself over to Helga Brandt to find this out?

 

When you were in Pleroma, you periodically received large amounts of blood injections. Is that correct?

 

There were many events before this question came out of my mouth. Receiving blood injections was what I experienced in the extra chapter, and it wasn’t an experiment customized for me. It was injected to test the hypothesis that Helga Brandt had established based on Ishmailov’s ability―creating a more complete messiah. Let me be clear here. It was an experiment of ‘injection,’ not ‘drinking.’

 

For me, this terrible experiment ended with the extra chapter, but not for Ishmailov. Since the blood transfusion experiment was truly something that happened in this world for him, his current state has changed according to Helga Brandt’s will.

 

If Helga Brandt’s hypothesis is correct, just as I open extra chapters through blood-sucking, Ishmailov can also partially include someone’s soul within himself from the blood he receives. I don’t know if talk about souls and such makes any sense, but there was no appropriate expression to materialize the hypothesis that came from Helga Brandt’s mental illness. This is an ability of a slightly different nature from Ishmailov copying Narke’s ability, and short-term ability copying seems to occur even without blood. The reason for this needs to be investigated in the future.

 

To summarize, though somewhat abstract, Ishmailov is someone who can both change his own essence and temporarily overlay new characteristics on the outer shell of his essence. I removed Elias’s hand and said.

 

“Right, it’s not a metaphor but fact, and it’s exactly as I said earlier. Ishmailov has the ability to absorb something like souls through blood, and Pleroma’s leadership knows this fact. The abilities that look like Ishmailov’s unique abilities to us are… presumably abilities he gained semi-permanently by absorbing parts of some being.”

 

Elias narrowed his eyes then asked carefully.

 

“Parts of a being… But at the Papal States… no, at Trier Cathedral, you said the ability contained in that holy relic would be ‘the ability to remotely attack cores.'”

 

‘Hmm.’

 

Suddenly bringing up the holy relic here… That’s so like Elias. I rolled my eyes briefly then pulled him closer.

 

“Let’s remember just one thing, Elias. What were you guys doing when I was engaged to the Archbishop?”

 

Elias reflexively glanced at my gloves then looked back at me.

 

“…We followed your instructions then. We were receiving help from Marian Baum.”

 

“No, how were you able to come to where I was? Was there no interference?”

 

“Ah… Now I know what you’re talking about! ‘That thing’ was outside the window. The atmosphere became gloomy because such a thing was wandering around in broad daylight.”

 

Then Leo tapped my shoulder and pressed.

 

“What are you two talking about for so long.”

 

I gave him a brief look then asked again.

 

“So, Elias. What happened next?”

 

“We had to try not to look out the window.”

 

“Right. That’s it. Why didn’t you just draw the curtains instead?”

 

When I tilted my head and smiled, Elias, who had widened his eyes, hit my back loudly.

 

“Ah~ Really! Luca!”

 

“Why…! That hurts.”

 

“You’re the one with a headache. Would it kill you to say it all at once?”

 

“Because we always have to be careful of everything, even if we don’t meet that opponent again. This applies the same way when we return to Trier. You understand?”

 

Crash―!

 

Elias and I simultaneously squinted our eyes. Leo overlaid his blue magic power on our soundproofing spell, breaking it, then asked in a soulless voice.

 

“Are you guys playing around? Did you come here to chat?”

 

“Thanks for considering it playing around. Let’s begin.”

 

I gestured to Leo who was blocking my way. When he stepped aside, Ishmailov’s face became visible again. I spoke to him as he kept his head down.

 

“Yuri Alekseyev, do you have no intention of answering?”

 

“….”

 

“Let’s hear about what happened there. The sooner you speak, the better.”

 

“Are you angry?”

 

A flat, empty voice. Is he going to talk about biting necks again? Mikhail Ishmailov was the same as a few days ago this time too.

 

This time of silently staring only at him feels like an eternity. The wariness, disillusionment, and extreme contempt that my friends feel touches my skin. Ulrike seemed to have developed antipathy toward Ishmailov due to the Haike incident, continuously looking at him with sharp eyes then repeatedly pressing her forehead.

 

“….”

 

“I remember what I did. I want to apologize.”

 

Still, there were no highs and lows in that voice, no pauses. This is exactly how a machine would speak. However, I take back saying it’s the same as a few days ago.

 

The six friends surrounding us could never know that in the past, I became friends with this person and saw with my own eyes the color he was born with. I received his help and heard his native language that he shouted vigorously, making his vocal cords and body resonate, and together we were hit by snow falling from the sky. I wasn’t hurt by the stone-like snowballs that roughly pushed my back along with slurs. For me, who wasn’t young enough to be hurt by the slurs children throw, that time couldn’t even carry the weight of a tightly packed snowball and only rested lightly on the edge of memory. But for 8-year-old Yuri Alekseyev, who was protecting a foreign orphan he had recently met from longtime hometown friends, the weight of that day was certainly not the same as mine.

 

The repeated apologies, brief apologies containing only necessary words, somehow didn’t seem like they were uttered as learned. It was enough to confuse not only me but other friends as well. Mikhail Ishmailov might have recovered a part of Yuri Alekseyev, a very small fragment, while staying with us. While feeling hope about that, what I couldn’t bear was first, the fact that Elias’s prophecy was holding me back, and second, that traces of Yuri Alekseyev remained in the brief sounds Mikhail Ishmailov uttered. It felt like that voice was torn into two and merging in my head. I kept my gaze on his face, nervous about whether I would face traces of Yuri Alekseyev again in his face, yet unable to find anywhere else to look.

 

However, even with his hair turned white and his eyes becoming paler than the sky, he still had Yuri Alekseyev’s face, and when I tried to find differences from Yuri Alekseyev out of a desire not to believe reality, all that remained for me was the fact that the round cheeks that had been reddened with innocence back then were now sunken and had turned pale without any trace of warmth.

 

As if proving that his bold ambition of being able to become anything wasn’t a lie, he really became anything. In his future, filled with countless people, only becoming me would remain. He became a fake Envoy of the Covenant prepared for the real Envoy of the Covenant. How can I prevent him from becoming me… Things like holy relics retreat to one side of my consciousness for a moment. How can I go against their prophecy? Blood-made ink was sticking thickly under my feet, holding onto my legs. I opened my mouth while feeling an illusion that would never disappear.

 

“I’m not angry with you. That’s fortunate. I know how to get angry so perfectly that I can even deceive myself, but I don’t know how to truly get angry.”

 

“….”

 

Wrong. Now this was something that only applied to me for a certain period. I didn’t get angry when Robert Mueller stabbed my stomach. But it was different when my irreplaceable friend cast covenant magic saying he would give me his life, and it was different when Pleroma put Haike in a state where I couldn’t be sure whether she was dead or still alive. Like clothes getting wet in drizzle, many things that made me up had changed.

 

This was something I was saying to my friends. The pressure of normalcy is heavier than expected, and others want others to express emotions appropriate for being enemies. I know that the range my friends here can understand me is different from my previous surroundings, but no, rather because I trust my friends, I wanted to prevent arguments from breaking out in front of Ishmailov through these words. Ulrike was about to say something to me but turned her head away.

 

I interlaced my fingers and said.

 

“…I didn’t expect someone like you, who hasn’t even received Pleroma’s baptism, to act like that, and I’m still amazed, but let’s cover it up. You would have wanted to live. The problem is that Pleroma, who raised you, said you’d be contaminated if you drink blood, but drinking my blood… I’m concerned that you might be completely, irreversibly contaminated. How is it.”

 

“This isn’t the time for jokes, Lucas.”

 

Leo, who knew better than anyone that it wasn’t a joke, blocked the question without even looking at me. I looked only at Ishmailov and spoke directly.

 

“Please speak honestly.”

 

Now I know what that contamination means. His body is a vessel prepared for me, not a body prepared to contain something else. The blood he should drink is only mine. This is called completion, not contamination.

 

Unfortunately, the blood-sucking until I died ended in an attempt, but the mere fact that it ended in an attempt shows that Pleroma’s plan wasn’t complete with just this. Regarding subsequent hypotheses, didn’t Elias already present a plausible hypothesis?

 

A clear voice rang through the silence.

 

“It was good.”

 

“….”

 

My friends’ faces crumpled simultaneously. The impression after drinking blood was good? For them, this reaction is no different from the essence of Pleroma. Leo seems displeased that someone drank his friend’s blood and said it was good, but other friends are focusing on Ishmailov’s Pleroma-like nature. The underside of my tongue dried roughly. I slowly closed and opened my eyes repeatedly while pressing my lips tightly.

 

‘…Whatever, are you a child?’

 

Answering with good or bad. No, sometimes children know how to express their ‘goodness’ in more diverse ways. Yuri Alekseyev was that kind of person. I smiled and asked.

 

“What was.”

 

“….”

 

“The taste? Or the sensation of extinguished life force filling up again? Finding out who I am?”

 

Ishmailov’s irises still had the divine power we had overlaid, giving off a pale blue light. He quietly looked into my eyes with those eyes then answered softly.

 

“Everything.”

 

“….”

 

“I felt alive for the first time.”

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

Leo’s cool retort can be heard.

 

Feeling alive. In the end, it was confirmed. At that answer, I snapped my fingers and, contrary to the light gesture, answered in a voice that sank heavily without any lightness.

 

“That’s probably because you and I are destined.”

 

In the sense that I should have been you. In the sense that you are a vessel prepared for me and I am the contents prepared for Pleroma.

 

Let’s think about one of Elias’s hypotheses again. He said it might be ‘Pleroma’s plan to raise Ishmailov as a perfect ally against Pleroma, which made Yuri Alekseyev into the current Mikhail Ishmailov.’

 

Pleroma had enough reason to plan like that. We’re on the side of justice, and anyone would feel the will to improve seeing Ishmailov, who obviously didn’t grow up normally. That we would recruit Ishmailov to our side―without this hypothesis, there was no explanation for why they sent Ishmailov to our side. Unless there are other special reasons. One thing is certain: if Elias’s hypothesis is true, it means even our restoring Ishmailov to Yuri Alekseyev is impossible. Problems either way, problems both ways. So I had to find a way to go against fate now. It was no different from such a demand.

 

You and I are destined―Cheringen tilted his head at those words. Elias also furrowed his brow. I tapped other fingers with my interlaced fingers and asked.

 

“How was the taste?”

 

“It doesn’t seem like something I should express.”

 

“The model answer would be salty and fishy… I suppose. Taste is settled. Then did you see something?”

 

“You can become anything. You can become countless people and then become countless people again.”

 

“….”

 

I, who never thought about wanting to become anything, hearing these words from a child who thought about wanting to become anything―it’s not funny.

 

Anyway, fine. I answered briefly.

 

“That’s not true.”

 

I got an answer on the second try. I needed to find out how much he could learn about a person through their blood.

 

In my case, it was the Extra Chapter, and even if not drinking blood directly, more broadly it extended to the Labyrinth. In his case, does it manifest through vision? It’s truly an ability befitting Pleroma’s messiah and Envoy of the Covenant. Now that I know that’s me, I can’t use that analogy anymore though. Then Ishmailov suddenly spoke up.

 

“For some reason, I feel like I’ve sensed you before.”

 

Hmm. Me, you mean…

 

He knows nothing right now, but because he knows nothing, it’s helpful.

 

“I see. When?”

 

“Every moment. In every moment I breathe and speak.”

 

“It must be a mistake. Now I’d like you to tell me about your experiences one by one like this.”

 

I opened my notebook and uncapped my pen. Meanwhile, a Royal Mage opened the door, looked around at us with a tense face, then left.

 

“A sad person once came to me. And someone who bore all the greed of the world also came to me.”

 

I can see my friends holding their foreheads at that way of speaking. What did they expect? Since no one says whose blood it is when giving transfusions, we have to rely entirely on what Ishmailov saw to make inferences.

 

“More specifically.”

 

“I felt like they deliberately tested me. The sad person had everything taken away and had nothing left but blood. The greedy person thought to make a name for themselves through me. Someone with nothing also came to me. I resonated with that person.”

 

I listened quietly to his dry, continuing words, then asked softly about one particular thing he let slip.

 

“Is that last person you?”

 

“No. And someone who was obsessed with one particular thing also came to me. Someone who devoted their life to song, and a Pastor who spent their whole life holding funerals on battlefields also came to me. I don’t know if they remain within me or not.”

 

“…”

 

My friends’ anxious gazes turn toward me. Ishmailov’s testimony was like the narration of a fairy tale that could be either comedy or tragedy at best, and like a madman at worst. Everyone clearly thought so. But for me, it was sufficiently helpful. I scribbled his testimony on the rough paper and said calmly.

 

“Good. Let’s go through them one by one in detail.”

 

* * *

 

“You look deep in thought, since earlier.”

 

“…”

 

The person who took my hand at the Warp Point was Narke again this time. He stood with his white hair fluttering in the wind. His smiling face against the early-risen moon looked tired somehow.

 

It was amusing that he, who had come here with just one snap of his fingers, looked more tired than me, who had just warped twice—I had returned to Trier via the Hospital in Bavaria. Of course, he had also been in the same place with Ishmailov until just now, so I could understand. I answered his smile with a smile and asked.

 

“Didn’t you read it?”

 

“I keep telling you, if you don’t want me to, I won’t read it. Though it would be different if someone were in danger.”

 

How kind of him to tell me even that. I silently let go of his hand and walked. Narke’s voice came from behind me.

 

“You look tired. Should I run you a bath?”

 

“Later. And I’ll handle that myself.”

 

“…”

 

When there was no answer, I turned back to see him just looking at me. I pulled Narke, who was standing behind me with a faint smile, to match my pace. Narke followed beside me and asked.

 

“Lucas. Will you deal with the Castle first, or Ishmailov first?”

 

“Can we separate the two? It all connects to Haike losing consciousness anyway.”

 

I took a deep breath and asked.

 

“What do you think we should do?”

 

“…”

 

There was no answer. Puzzled, I turned to see Narke had stopped with a stiff face, staring somewhere. Someone was walking toward us, attended by the local priests. That person, who looked like a foreign Nobleman, saw Narke and smiled while removing his hat.

 

“It’s been a long time, Your Excellency Farnese.”

 

“…”

 

“Why are you silent when we meet after so long? Not being able to see Your Excellency, these past six months have been truly difficult.”

 

The man who had been chattering familiarly as if he’d known him for a long time turned toward me instead of the unresponsive Narke. Then he grinned and extended his hand to me.

 

“Pleased to meet you for the first time. I’m Simon Sabelli. I’m the aide to His Excellency Honorary Cardinal Farnese.”

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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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